This month I watched the BBC’s Imagine interview with Judith Kerr, the author of the Tiger who came tea.   I found it inspirational that at 90 she still runs up her staircase to her office eager to work.  The one part that has stuck in my mind is when she was describing how her father, Alfred Kerr, dealt with having to flee Germany and his family becoming refugees.

“He was looking at things all the time and if you do that,  you don’t despair, he would think yes! This is bad, but its interesting…….If you make things, I think you do, because there is this awful thing in one that thinks this may come in useful one day.”

It seems to perfectly describe how I think during the day, whether I be walking to walk, sitting on the train or wandering around shops.  There always  seems so much I want to create but never enough time to transfer the idea to reality.  My iphone is full of photos of things that have grabbed my attention, this month I have seen white lampshades with hand drawn boats, a beautiful fabric shop in Cambridge called “Angel and Blume” and a paper chandelier in Anthropologie, to name a few.

This Christmas I wanted to send personal homemade Christmas cards to my friends and family.  My initial idea was to make a Christmas decoration and have a pouch on the back to contain a written message.  However, due to all the different shapes it would of been a bit of a pain and I am not sure there would be enough room on some for even an abbreviated Merry Xmas!  I therefore settled for threading the decoration though a plain gold card, meaning it could be displayed as itself or the receiver could put the decoration wherever takes their fancy.

In total I made 21 decorations consisting of 17 different designs, each with my initials “i h” displayed on the back.  I have made them for my closest family and my dearest friends.  Making something for someone is my way of showing them how much they mean to me but also to express my thanks to them, for believing in me and for being there in my moments of despair.  I hope they enjoy them as much as I have loved designing and sewing them.

Merry Christmas to one and all!