Best wishes

Best wishes to all my blog friends and thank you for a wonderful blogging year 2024.

I wish you all a happy, healthy and successful New Year.

May you have friends. May they stay healthy.

Hug from Viola

 Tomorrow the last door opens...

my Advent calendar.

Since we spent our summer vacation in the south of England this year, I was particularly pleased about the Advent calendar with English tea from Dorset... I enjoyed every cup - and there is only one left... for tomorrow :-) Christmas Eve. Tomorrow the Christmas tree will be lit up in the living room and the Stollen will be cut in the afternoon, there will be potato salad with various sausages, the family will be united when the Christ Child comes.

The Holy Night 

CORREGGIO 1528/30

I always enjoy walking through the State Art Collections and at Christmas time my heart and soul are especially open.

View of RAFFAEL The Sistine Madonna 1512/13

It is so wonderful, the Christmas season... there was the theater 

"The Snow Queen"  

Semperoper "The Love for the Three Oranges"

Christmas market and Christmas parties

AND lots of handicrafts... 

Do you know bobbin lace making?

here the craft of bobbin lace making in the Folk Art Museum....

I bought three of these beautiful Christmas angels - AND and fold paper stars again... it's really fun.

...and this star is particularly beautiful.

Merry Christmas to you and your loved ones and family. 

Viola

And I love it...

Dresden Striezelmarkt

It's raining all day today, it's supposed to snow after the 2nd Advent, but we also had sun and I immediately took advantage of the sun to photograph the quilt.

Now it's finished, my very first large quilt, 135 x 225 cm. 

When I started, I had the absolute idea of ​​quilting it myself, until I realized that such a large blanket wouldn't fit under my sewing machine... and I was lucky, there has been a quilt and patchwork shop in Dresden since the summer of 2024 and Anke does it with a lot of passion and joy and quilted the blanket for me on her longarm quilting machine...

And above all, I thought that sewing by hand would tire me out in boredom, but no... actually it's like a meditation, doing stitch by stitch in the same way... it was fun, also because I listened to podcasts while doing it. .. and especially because you dear ones in the sewing community helped me so kindly... thank you very much. I'm now sewing the binding with a short, very thin needle and it's wonderful. There's still a blanket ready... but in Advent... I don't think so... the Christmas markets, Christmas parties, drinking coffee - you know?

I also sewed fondation paper piercing and drew this pattern... there are so many ideas on the net and you can easily draw it yourself. I think I will also sew small houses and huts.

three parts for one star

This sewn star is worked with a ruler and rotary cutter... I found the instructions online under "Beautiful Stars" with Nähnika in German.

I made a little doily out of it... of course it also looks great as a block... YES :-))

And this one is particularly fun... you can find it, for example, under "Easy no sew Fabric Stars!"

And... yes :-)) Christmas market, shining stars, Christmas singing,   

mulled wine and co... 

I love it.

The Plaumentoffel has been available at the Dresden Striezelmarkt since 1801.

 

I wish you all a nice Advent season.

Happy hugs from Viola

Striezelmarkt

The Striezelmarkt in Dresden opens today at 4 p.m. It has been held since 1434. 

The name comes from the Dresdner Stollen, the traditional Christmas kake. And there are a lot of other Christmas markets waiting... I'm really looking forward to them. I'm not going today... but it won't be long :-)))

I took the photos a few days ago. On the one hand I visited the art exhibition and on the other hand the open studio day of the Dresden artists and I took a few photos.

View from the Striezelmarkt to the castle, on the right is the Culture Palace, inaugurated in 1969, which is home to the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.

The castle also houses the copper engraving cabinet. There I discovered this engraving that was made after Raphael's 1483-1520 "Sistine Madonna" in 1809, which can be seen in the Dresden Zwinger.

But my walk through the city takes me further to the Elbe and across the Brühlische Terrasse, where the Albertinum and the art academy are located.

We look at the end of the princely procession - 102 meters long, consisting of 23,000 tiles made of Meissen porcelain - which ends with Prince George, who later became king. King George only reigned for two years, his son Friedrich August III followed him to the throne in 1904. In contrast to his father, he was very popular... he abdicated in 1918. He was the last king of Saxony.

I'm sewing my binding - it's almost eight meters to sew - and two needles have already broken. Dear sewing community, what kind of sewing needle do you use?

Otherwise there are nice walks... the snow has disappeared... I'll show you Christmas sewing in the next post.

Happy end of November to all of you. On Sunday :-) we traditionally hang up the Advent star on the 1st of Advent. Wonderful.

Hug from Viola