Flowers for You

Hello there

I don't think I've shown a pic of Flowers For You, which I'm stitching for a friend's birthday, well, a belated birthday present now :) 

I love the colours in this design, I love everything about a Blackbird Design pattern!

I picked up a few of my favourite magazines on Saturday, waiting on my bedside cabinet for some night time reading this week.

See you soon x

Love Finish

Hello there

How's your weekend going? It's a gorgeous autumn day here and I've just come inside from pottering around in the vegetable garden and greenhouse. DH and I have our first seedlings growing in there - cabbage, broccoli, lettuce and cauliflower, I can't believe how fast they came up and they are just shooting away!

Last night we celebrated one of our close friend's 40th birthday so we had a wonderful time catching up with old friends, some of them from early high school days, lots of fun!

A little finish to share today, the Love Virtue by Little House Needleworks. This stitched up very quickly over a couple of evenings

Love by Little House Needleworks, Virtue #2

stitched with recommended threads, 30ct WDW Cocoa Linen

Last Sunday spur of the moment we jumped in the car and headed to Hastings for lunch and a bit of shopping, about 30 minutes north of here. It had been raining all weekend so it was good to get out and about for a few hours.

Hannah by the water fountain in the centre of town.

Can you believe our little Miss H is going to be 5 early next month?!

See you soon xx

Christmas Garden Update

Hello there,

look what has seen the light of day out of the depths of my stitching basket! Why yes, it's BD's Christmas Garden.  I have been stitching on this the past few evenings and now one quarter of the design is finished.

 I don't think I've shared a pic of my Floss keeper before, one of the lovely designs from Country Stitches. I couldn't resist purchasing one a few months back when there was restock on the website.

Today I'm writing this post on my new computer! My other one had been playing up for months and it was getting old and really slow. Lucky I had everything backed up before it decided to completely crash on me!

Looks like we're in a wet weekend here so perfect for a bit of stitching once all my jobs are done for the day.

See you soon x

Mrs Claus' Cookie Shop

Hello there!

A big thanks for all the birthday messages last week - so nice to hear from you :)

I finished up Part 4 of Santa's Village over the weekend, bit of a wonky photo there!

I'm going to sew on all the buttons once the whole series is stitched, I can't believe Part 5 is now out, it's on its way from the US.

I also finished up a couple of ornaments over the weekend but will save sharing photos of them until I have them made up.

So now it's back to working on a friend's birthday gift and then maybe make some progress on BD's Christmas Garden, which I haven't put a single stitch into for months.

See you soon x

Birthday Treats

Hello there

On Tuesday I celebrated my birthday and had the most loveliest day.  It's not quite an "0" birthday, but not far off now!

These are the gorgeous flowers DH gave me, and they smelled so fragrant

Hannah painted and decorated a canvas for me - we were chatting about what my favourite colours were over the weekend so now I know why!

DH & Hannah also gave me these two new cooking books, which I'd been wishing for :)

Now for some crafty gifts. From Kath, she always totally spoils me - some gorgeous Lynette Anderson fabric and two charts from my favourite designers. Isn't the little mousie so cute!

A little stitchery purse made out of the same fabrics as my new bag.  That was some sneaky stitching going on Kath!! lol.

And a little Blackbird Designs pin pillow

From one of my work friends:

and also from another work friend - these tea towels are just too gorgeous to use. I love how one has got a pavlova recipe printed on it.

We celebrated my birthday by having dinner at home on Tuesday night.

Some of the lovely dessert we had, delicious brownie made by Kath

This creation is a Cadbury Mint Bubbly chocolate cheesecake, oh my, it was divine :)

It's been a gorgeous autumn day here today. My favourite time of the year - the days may start off a little bit chilly but we are left with a stunning day, not a cloud in the sky and the sun still has a bit of warmth in it.

See you soon x

Autumn

Hi friends

Just down the street from where Hannah goes to daycare, is the park area where I used to spend many a happy time as a child, playing with my cousins. My grandparents' house backed onto this area so I have lots of memories of spending hours and hours there, gathering up acorns and leaves for our pretend "acorn wars" games during autumn, and sliding down the grass hills on pieces of cardboard during summer :)

After picking Hannah up one day last week, she asked if she could have a play there, as she'd spotted the huge piles of leaves building up. Oh what fun she had!

See you soon x

My Weekend Project and Stitching with the Girls

Hello friends,

The weather here over the weekend was just perfect for lots of crafting.  It has cooled down quite considerably in the last few days, and we had some squally rain showers. On Sunday the clocks went back for the end of Daylight Savings.  Winter is on it's way.

I spent a few hours at my sewing machine making up my latest project, the bag from Natalie Bird's Red Home book. I'd finished the stitchery part over Easter so it was just a matter of cutting out the fabrics and getting it underway!

Close up of the stitchery

the back

I'm totally thrilled with how its turned out. The fabrics I've used are Independence Trail from Moda, and the stitchery was done with DMC 347. I have a little bit of fabric left over so I might make a stitcher's wallet to go inside. I've already loaded it up with all my redwork patterns and books!

I had a wonderful Saturday afternoon, spending time with my stitching buddies at Kath's house - it's been quite a few months since the last time we were able to meet up. We had planned to get together a few weeks back but the hot weather put us off!

Here's Kath

And Janet, getting her first ever design stitched on linen underway

Lisa, who was stitching on a pretty cottage design

All the yummy treats! We always have a table filled with lots of snacks :)

My progress on Santa's Village part 4

And the star of the afternoon, Mr Zeus, showing off his special tricks so he can have his favourite treats :)

Thanks for stopping by x

Ornament Stitching

Hi friends

Many thanks for the wonderful comments left on my last few posts, and a big welcome to my new followers, it's lovely to have you here.

I finished making up these two ornaments recently for the annual ornament collection for family and friends 

Do you hear by Shepherds Bush, JCS 2012

stitched with recommended threads, 32ct linen

Christmas Robin by Soed Idee

freebie found here

stitched with own choice DMC threads, misc linen

I was so happy to have these charts arrive in the mail earlier in the week - guess what I'll be stitching on tonight!

Happy stitching x

An Easter Exchange

Hello friends

Every year for quite a few years now, Kath and I have exchanged a stitched gift at Easter time. Kath popped around home on Monday afternoon, for a catch up, and a few glasses of bubbles :) 

This is the gorgeous little pillow Kath gave me - isn't the fabric sweet!

This is the little pillow I made for Kath

part of  Duo de Printemps by Tralala

stitched with recommended threads, white belfast

See you soon x

A Wonderful Easter

 Hello friends

I hope you have had a happy Easter break with family and friends, and of course, can't forget the chocolate!!

We've just had a lovely four days, mostly around home hanging out, and enjoying the great weather. My cousin Donna stayed for a few days, Glenn cooked a delicious barbeque dinner on Friday night for us and spent most of the weekend in the garden or finishing off some little projects he's had on the go. Hannah spent lots of time with her cousins, had lots of fun at an Easter egg hunt and we finished the break with a family lunch yesterday :)

Nearly finished my stitchery piece for the bag I'm making

Some of my favourite magazines were read

Glenn's latest finish, a breads/cheeses/dip board - he's made two of these for us

If you look to your right you should see my new button for Instagram so feel free to follow my instagram here

See you soon xx