I feel like I've been juggling too many things not entirely successfully this week, but I have nudged a few projects forwards and had some very happy crafty moments.

Thanks to an unexpected bit of decent light one morning I managed to take a whole bunch of step photos for different makes, including those masks which are destined to eventually be freebies for my newsletter subscribers (I'm trying to get ahead of myself with my free patterns so I'm not constantly scurrying around trying to catch up!).

I also managed to take the final photos for my greenfinches pattern so I could get that DONE and in my shops. I've added these birds to my pile of "things to take new photos of in the spring when the light comes back" because even on a sunny day the light isn't perfect at the moment... but it still feels great to have my second bird pattern launched.

I'd hoped to have a new flower pattern ready to launch this week, too, but the greenfinches were closer to the finish line so I worked on them first then ran out of hours. I'm hoping to have the flowers ready next week, but we shall see what happens. You've gotta go with the flow sometimes!

I've been working on Christmas projects, too. These cute embroidery patterns will be included with the tutorials for these felt ornaments when they're retired from my blog and start their new life in my shops. I'm really pleased with how they stitched up, quick and easy but super cute.

I've mostly finished sewing the sample version of my winter candle design - doesn't it look fab in felt?!

I also had a brilliant OH MY GOD THAT IS SUCH A GOOD IDEA WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF IT BEFORE moment this week.

When I launched my new Fabulous Flowers pattern I joked that this was a truly terrible time to be launching floral designs, because I should be focusing on Christmas things, right? Well, one of my lovely followers commented that the big pink flower I'd stitched looked a bit like a poinsettia and something went PING in my brain and I realised that this pattern would make PERFECT POINSETTIAS.

I dropped everything and went to stitch a sample immediately and I am so ridiculously pleased with how it turned out. I basically want to invent a time machine so I can whisper this idea in my ear back in the days when I used to make felt brooches to sell because OH MY GOSH I think these would sell like hot cakes, I just adore them.

Obviously I'm now working on a small update to my Fabulous Flowers tutorial so it includes how to make these poinsettias, and will email the extra file to anyone who's bought the original tutorial. If you want to make poinsettias in the meantime, just buy the main tutorial then message me and I'll send you a quick how-to :)

In other crafty news: I've been thinking about my old bird designs a lot this month.

The first felt bird I designed was a robin, which was swiftly followed by a bluetit (because I love bluetits). It's fun looking back at these old sketches and seeing how the designs developed from a page of doodles done during my then-day-job!

I sketched lots more British garden birds (a greenfinch, a bullfinch, a coal tit, a tree sparrow, a chaffinch, a greenfinch, and a great tit) and cut out the felt pieces on the last day of my Crafting 365 challenge (doing something crafty and sharing a photo of it every day for a year) in September 2008.

But two of those birds never got stitched...

... until now! I'm not sure exactly what's put me off finishing them for so long, but all of a sudden this week I could wait no longer. So I dug out the little felt pieces I've had tucked in a box for ELEVEN WHOLE YEARS and made a start on finally sewing them.

The tree sparrow is going to look cute, I think, but not particularly like a tree sparrow as the colours just aren't right. I'm going to finish up this little guy as he is then revisit this pattern with an eye to making it a bit more accurate for the final version (he obviously deserves to be a pattern asap after spending so long unfinished!).

I'm much happier with how the great tit is looking. He just needs an eye and a beak and he'll be good to go. Hopefully I can find a bit of time to get him and the tree sparrow finished next week so I can share pics with you guys!