Stitch, knit and eat

Santa is stitched

 and made up, on the 25hpi I use he is pretty small for a tree decoration, I have not added the hanging thread as yet, I have to decide how I will use him. The large blocks of colour made him boring to stitch, and doing white on white at this size almost did my eyes in. 

A tip leave a thin panel along one boarder, so when you glue him together, he will fit better, 

mine was very fiddly, I used Fray Check, Gold-Zack to ensure he stays neat. 

He would be better stitched on 14 or 18 hpi.

 I have been knitting, I wanted six more Christmas puddings for the tree, I love making these, they are so quick and look fun. I have finished knitting the other two, 

I now need to cut the holly leaves from felt and add red beads. 

 I have made some shortbread using gluten free flour, Fliss was so very pleased when she came home, I am finding it easy to cater for her, and on the plus, these tasted good enough for hubby and I to share, three bits left for after tea tonight.

My last harvest of the last sweet pepper, the plant was very kind to us this year.

 My friend went for a long walk and picked loads of blackberries, these were for us, I now have three lots in the freezer, I love gifts like these.

I have been reviewing September, my lowspend/ nospend was not perfect, but we saved over half our normal food spend and our freezer food is much lower, I was naughty a couple of times, but neither spends were impulse. It did highlight to use how we pop to our local Co-op and pick up nice snacks, using our 10% discount as the reason to get them. I am not going to do Stoptober, I don't think it will work for us, our kitchen here is small and we do not have a huge store cupboard, so we could not store bulk food. But I will carry on with the values from last month.
Not done much in the garden, busy week here, but we had a bit of rain last night and the warm weather is allowing the flowers to stay longer.
I am stitching a few Christmas quickies, some for me some to pass on, I have seen some lovely designs in the net, and I am asking for help in identifying the piece below,  I found it on Pintrest from a site in Russia, I have asked the author where the design can be found but I can not get an answer from her. This is so not me but I love it.