Christmas Eve 24

The storm of yesterday, has past here to a beautiful sunny day.  I am watching carols from Kings & I would like to wish you and your families a very happy Christmas.
I have sent out a newsletter with a small free little embellishment workshop, which I hope that newsletter subscribers will enjoy making after Christmas.

I am very fortunate to be spending Christmas with all my family, except my brother.  It is my grandsons first Christmas & although he wont remember it, we certainly will, I guess I will probably cry when I see him with us all & offer a prayer of thanks.
No stitching has taken place today I am still resting my back as I desperately want to dance around with him tomorrow, being my usual silly nana self.

I leave you this night, not with a textile piece but the Michelangelo from the Ashmolean museum that moved me to tears.  To me the spirit of Christmas
God bless you xx

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 - 1564)
The Holy Family with St John the Baptist
A66c; brush and brown wash on panel; 62 x 49.5 cm
Prov: Royal Collection, Naples; William Young Ottley; Sir Thomas Lawrence
Presented by a Body of Subscribers, 1846; WA1846.309
Lloyd 1977, pp. 115-9
The panel reflects an unfinished design by Michelangelo perhaps c.1540. While it could be a copy or variant of a lost design, the unusual qualities of A66c suggest an attribution to his hand. The poplar panel does not have the initial preparation of gesso that would be normal in planning a painting. The subject may be The Return of the Holy Family from Egypt: Michelangelo was interested in such apocryphal religious subjects.