Feathered

 Oh wow, how time is literally flying by at the moment... feathers and all!

I'm still madly stitching feathers for the upcoming Feather Your Nest Exhibition at Gleaners Inc, but I've set a few aside to make the very first teeny tiny batch of Embroidered Feather Brooches.

I tested out the first prototype sample a couple of weeks ago and I've been wearing it ever since.

Here's Frances modelling to give you an idea of the size... these one's are in my shop.

I'm sending my poor little sewing machine off to the Day Spa thisafternoon. I'll miss her while she's gone. Thank goodness I have a spare machine, just in case of a sewing emergency.

Ode to Houdini

A while back, there was a One-Legged Chicken and a Runaway Dog featuring over at Myrtle and Eunice....

It reminded me so much of my little puppy dog Houdini (not his real name).

Over the years, I've lost count of the number of times Houdini Dog has escaped and run away due to the *PO gene that he inherited from his daddy dog Riley.

On one of his most memorable escapes, he made his way to my mum's house, enticed her dog out onto the street, and then ended up in the dog catchers van. There was a huge fee to bail them both out of the dog pound, and then a council fine for me in the mail two weeks later for having a 'dog at large' (he's so scary that he might just lick you to death)!.

When I opened the parcel that arrived yesterday, I was thrilled to receive the beautiful piece of fabric. It took me a minute to realise that there was something actually wrapped in the fabric.

Tania, you've outdone yourself, it's brilliant and I love it!



*Piss Off

A Very Merry Christmas to me - part 2

More goodies just for me!

I bought myself this super sweet embroidery kit from the very lovely Magdalena from The Craft Revival.
I'm taking it along on my mini beach holiday (it's too short to take the machine). I've had a little mini sneak peek inside - it has absolutely everything I need, even a sewing needle!

I also picked up a sweet little Polly Pratt mini needle book from Anna - also a perfect holiday size!

On Sunday, we went into Ballarat to have a browse around at some of the vintage / secondhand shops.

I found this lovely vintage dress. I'm not quite sure whether this colour suits my skin tone, but I'm going to try it with a red slip underneath and just see.

I also found this gorgeous rose embroidery which has the ugliest plastic frame I ever did see.....

.... and to think that someone actually chose to have it professionally framed with that (quite a long time ago according to the old six digit phone number)!

A Good Friday

First stop - taking the nephews to Widow Twankeys for chocolate milkshakes and lollies

Followed by cups of tea and chocolate teddy bear biccies on the verandah, while they played at the park across the road.... and teaching my sister some embroidery stitches.

The perfectly relaxing Good Friday....

A thankyou and a giveaway

I want to begin this post by saying a great big huge monstorous thankyou to each and every person who has lovingly packaged something up and popped it in the mail to me. It's just amazing to open the letterbox and find a pretty little package instead of a bill!


This lovely package of tea towels arrived yesterday from Katie from May the Cloth be with You. The citrus one is my favourite.... it'll make a fabulously bright apron. Thankyou Katie!

It's about time that I shared the love, so I'm going to start having regular giveaways.... things that I've found, or things that I've made. They'll just be randomly listed whenever I get around to it.


The first giveaway is this lovely little box that I found at the oppy yesterday. It looked old, and that was enough to trigger my intrigue...... so I opened it up and found:

This little vintage doilie embroidery set.

It has the original instructions, the little doilie which has been premarked, and also some emboidery threads which I'm sure are not actually original, but I'm sure anyone who loves embroidery will have some thread in their stash to use.

All you need to do is to leave a comment by Sunday night at about 7 PM Melbourne time and I will draw a random winner.

Good Luck and May the Cloth be with You!

Lighting up my night

Lastnight was another fun night at Brown Owls....and my last one for the year.... Boo Hoo!

We made these sweet tea light candle holders....

We very nearly had an entire table full of bloggers.... Liesl, Cindy, Lara, Steph, Hollie, Myself, and Kerry (who will remain blogless)! It was lovely to finally meet Liesl in person.

Gemma drew my name out of the magic prize barrel and I won one of Kirsty's fabulous swizzle stick rings....

....and this is Kerry modelling her fabulouso chain stitch embroidery!

Looking forward to next year.

It's going to be a long hot weekend.

It's going to be a hot one again this weekend so I think I might just take it easy, hang out and get some little projects finished. If it gets too hot, I'm going to have to go and jump in the pool!

I've nearly finished everything for the CD swap (but I can't post any more photos yet - I don't want to ruin the suprise). I've also finally finished my name embroidery for my Brown Owls uniform. I'm extremely slow at embroidery but it's actually been really enjoyable because I can sit on the couch and stitch away while I'm watching telly (I finished it off tonight while I was watching The Biggest Loser). It's a welcome change from listening to the whirring from the sewing machine, but it now means that my sewing mess has entered yet another room of the house! Maybe this means that I can go shopping for more storage items.

I've been doing a little Etsy shopping this week. I saw this lovely necklace on Kirsty's blog and I've been keeping an eye on the Chocolate and Steel blog and etsy shop ever since. So I bought a lovely little pendant and necklace for myself. I can't wait until it arrives in the mail!

Brown Owls & Pay It Forward Winners!

I had a fantastic time at Brown Owls lastnight. It was so nice to meet some lovely crafty ladies and some fellow bloggers. It was actually quite funny to meet someone and use their real name instead of their blog name.

Thanks to all the girls for helping out us novice embroiderers and organising such a wonderful first meeting. Hopefully I won't be quite as shy and nervous next time.

As you can see from the progress made above over 3 hours, I'm not going to win any speed embroidery championships, but I'm hoping to have my name finished (and maybe even sewn onto a shirt) by the next meeting.

I forgot to post my Pay It Forward winners yesterday. The rules were:

The first three people to comment on this post will receive a gift from me, sometime within the next 365 days. Who knows when it will turn up, or what it will be, but rest assured, it will arrive. All you have to do is promise to make the same declaration on your blog, and send out gifts to three of your lovely readers. Easy Peasy.
If you miss out on being one of the first three, leave a comment anyway because I will draw a random name also. The winner will be drawn next Monday (25th).

So here are the winners:

Sewfunky

Nicola

Melissa Haworth

Leigh

Zoesquid

I changed the rules because I received 5 comments so I'm going to send a gift to everyone sometime in the next 365 days. I will email all the winners this week to get snail mail addresses.

There won't be much craftiness in my house this week as the kitchen floors are being sanded and re-varnished so everything that previously lived in the kitchen is now residing all over the house. There are piles and piles of things with nowhere to put them. At least I now have an embroidery project that I can finish while sitting on the couch watching trashy tv!