A Couple of Things

Hello friends,  it's a lovely sunny and warm autumn day here today and I'm enjoying a day off from work to spend with Hannah, it's the school holidays here. We've been into town this morning for Hannah to have an hair cut, post some mail and visit the sewing shop, and then her choice for lunch, sushi of course!

A couple of things to share this afternoon, another new project bag has been finished. This is quite a lot larger than the other ones I've previously made and I quilted the pink fabric.

My sewing shop has a lovely range of knitting cotton in at the moment so I've been having fun making some dish cloths. The pattern I'm using can be found here:

Mama's Easy Crochet dishcloth

My friend Clare gave me this lovely project bag for my birthday

I'm not sure what I've let myself in for, but I couldn't resist signing up for a Block of the Month kit, the new quilt by Natalie Bird featured in the Homespun magazine, it's so lovely and the fabrics are gorgeous.

 Isn't it just so sweet? I'm sure it's going to be lots of fun once I've figured out what to do! Ha ha. I think I'll start with the easy bit first, the stitchery pieces.

See you soon x

Red Work

Last Friday afternoon was the first time in about ten weeks I was able to do some stitching with two of my friends and what fun it was, to have a chit chat while we did some crafting. I pulled out some red work to work on, one friend was making birthday cards and my other friend was getting some Christmas crafts underway. How I missed these get togethers over the past few months.

I really enjoyed stitching on the red work project, I haven't done any red work for ages. I'm using DMC 321 and the pattern is by Natalie Bird from the Birdhouse Designs. The fabric was pre printed so no tracing out involved :)

See you soon x

The Carolers

I recently finished another red work stitchery  - this is the Carolers, designed by Natalie Bird of the Birdhouse Patchwork Designs.

All ready for the pressie box.

See you soon x

A little bit of finishing

It's been quite awhile since I made any time to sit down and do some "finishing" of any of my stitched projects. I think I've been a bit caught up with my sock knitting addiction, ha ha.

Well, I'm going to try and remedy that over the next few weeks.

These two sweet finishes were the first on my To Finish list:

Lizzie Kate Celebrate with Charm Basket Flip It

Natalie Bird, Birdhouse Designs, Deck the Halls stitchery

See you soon xx

Redwork Finishes

Over the last few weeks I've been stitching on a few Christmas red work stitchery projects, which will go into the pressie box once finished.

I just love the wall hanging series by Natalie Bird, Birdhouse Designs, and have stitched several of these now.

I stitched this design using one of my favourite DMC reds, 321.

And this one I think the thread I used was Red Carnation, a Cottage Garden thread.

See you soon xx

Our Easter & Easter Exchange with a friend

I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend, we thoroughly enjoyed our four day break. The weather was perfect, sunny and warm, and we gardened, ate lots of yummy food, caught up with family and friends, had a few sleep ins and just enjoyed having some time hanging out at home.

I made a couple of Easter treats for our family get togethers, Marshmellow Easter Egg Fudge Brownie, recipe found here, and Bunny Bait, this was a real hit with the kids and adults alike.

Every year for quite some time now, my dear friend Kath and I have exchanged a little stitched gift at Easter.  Kath gave me these lovely chocolate goodies and a cute Lizzie Kate chickie pillow.

And this is what I gave Kath:

This is a Natalie Bird stitchery and I used a Cottage Garden thread called Petunia (I think, lol) for the stitching.

Have a great week x

Stitching with Friends and a Birthday Gift

Once a month I spend an afternoon catching up with my lovely stitching friends. Last year we only managed to get together a handful of times but so far this year we're sticking to the monthly routine.

It's such an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday afternoon - stitching (some of us do!), laughing, snacking and cuppas, and plenty of chit chat about what is happening in our daily lives.

So a round up from Saturday's session: my stitching project, another in the Country Cottage Needleworks ornament series, don't you just love the spotty fabric :)

The lovely Kath :)

Kath was stitching on a Cats Whiskers design using a very pretty thread.

One of Kath's neat project bags.

 The rest of the happy bunch, Janet, Clare and Wendy.

Wendy is going great on her kitty cats cross stitch, we give her lots of encouragement with all those colour changes.

This is Clare's little stitching project - from the Stoney Creek magazine.

 Janet's stitching accessories - handbags and shoes of course!

 Janet is making great progress on her Leanne Beasley stitching box embroidery.

Dear Wendy, the birthday girl, who celebrated her birthday on Sunday and she's started a new job this week.

Yay, welcome to the project bag club Wendy - Kath made this one for Wendy.



And my gift for Wendy was a little "door hanger" using a stitchery by Natalie Bird.

I chose some cute Lynette Anderson fabric to finish it and added a little gathered frill (idea from here)

Another brilliant afternoon with the ladies. Friends, food, and stitching together, makes for a happy time don't you think?

See you soon xx

Red Wednesday

I'm back to stitching on redwork projects on a Wednesday evening, getting ready for Christmas, only 15 weeks to go, ha ha! Being a pre-printed design it's so easy to pick up and put down. I've chosen DMC 815 thread this time.

Lately

As always, come the middle of the year I start to think about some Christmas projects, my favourite kind of designs. Here's a couple of things I've been working on lately:

 Month 4 of the Cottage Garden Threads club arrived recently, including a lovely stitchery design by Rosalie Quinlan.

Have a lovely weekend xx

True Friends Bag

Hello there,

Hannah and I have spent a couple of hours this afternoon at the local park, with some good friends and their children for a pre Christmas catch up and picnic afternoon tea, a fun way to spend an afternoon. No mess to clean up either!

I was sorting through some photos earlier and realised that I hadn't posted any photos of the bag I've made for a friend's Xmas pressie - she is a fellow stitcher and addicted to all crafty things too, lol.  

This is a bag pattern I've made before, and it comes together quite quickly, once you've worked out your colour combinations.

Orange/red has become one of my favourite colours this summer so I'm hoping my friend will like these colours together too.

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