All sorts of things

Hi friends,
Another week’s flown by and we’re right in the middle of winter here in NZ. At this rate, spring will be sneaking up on us before we know it!

I finished this fun project, Spring Quaker by Primrose Cottage Stitches during my holiday break. I used DMC threads and the fabric is an ice blue Lugana that I've had in my stash for a very long time. I think this will be made into a little thread bag, when I eventually get to my sewing machine!

I visited my local sewing shop the other day and found some new Lynette Anderson Christmas fabrics had come in.

I also got some supplies to make a new stitching folder or bag, and a handful of needed DMCs.

Andrea, the owner, gave me this very cute Tula Pink bag, 

Can you believe Diesel is now three years old!  He's just such a joy, loves his food, walks along the river tracks, a good snuggle, and lately, enjoying laying in front of a roaring fire. 

I've been enjoying some baking and meal prep lately.  These scones are so easy to make, and go well with a bowl of soup on a winter's day.  

One of our favourite's for lunches, VJ Cook's Banana and choc chip slice, a good way to use up bananas. Minus the choc chips the other day as we'd run out!

I've been reading a lot lately, and this is my latest read.  Steffanie Holmes is a NZ author and was a local girl during her high school years, a few years behind me at college. This is the first of her books I've read. 

Lastly for today, a few photos of our beautiful girl from the evening of her school ball.  Hannah looked stunning and she had a fabulous evening with her friends. 

Her shoes for the night were actually my wedding shoes - I knew I'd kept them for a reason, ha ha.  

Have a happy week, see you soon with some of the Jolly July stitching I've finished xx

This & That

Nearly half way through August means that Spring is now just around the corner. Although we've had some cold days, our winter here in my part of the world actually hasn't been too wet and miserable like previous years. We've had lots of winter sunshine, which is why I think a lot of the spring bulbs in the garden have been out for a few weeks already. I look forward to the freesias and irises popping up, some of my favourite flowers.

Last week, whilst in Hastings for a work job, my coworkers and I found time to stop by our favourite fabric shop, Dellbrook Quilt Company. It's been quite some time since my last visit so I did a good stock up of some lovely fabrics. I just love visiting this shop, I easily spend hours browsing all the gorgeous fabrics and sewing accessories.

There was a stop by Spotlight too - for a few more bits and bobs!

We are lucky to have an abundance of lemons and oranges at the moment, our orange tree is absolutely loaded this year.  I've been wanting to try a microwave lemon butter recipe for ages and found this one very easy to make. Yum!

I also used this recipe to make one of our favourite cakes, Orange Lightening cake. You put a whole orange in the food processor and blitz it, it smells divine!

I started a new shawl project during knitting group earlier in the week, the Pebble Beach Shawl by Curious Handmade.  This gorgeous yarn is Smashed Gemstones by Catrien of Yarnfloozy.

I also finally finished this little handmade Ouch Pouch too, I'd started it ages ago.  This will go into the gift box for a friend.

See you soon xx

Special Gifts - Received and Given

I had intended the share these photos of the lovely craft gifts I received for Christmas and also, a couple of stitched finishes before my holidays ended so back tracking a bit today.

From me to me!!! A few charts from my wish list and another Stitch Dot to add to the collection :

Goodies from wonderful friends :

For Kath, I stitched this lovely friendship design by Plum Street Samplers :

Another Plum Street Samplers design stitched for my friend Elizabeth and made into a project bag - I nearly kept this myself!!

See you soon xx

Pineberry Lane, new fabric and latest reads

This little design by Pineberry Lane was quick stitch one night last week.  I have stitched this design before with red thread and this time I went with DMC 501 on natural belfast linen.

This ornament will be soon making it's way to Australia as it's for a friend's little grand daughter.

On my travels earlier in the month I picked up some new Christmas fabrics and I already have plans for these!

The fabrics were purchased at Spotlight and Cottage Flair. The whimsical Alice in Wonderland will make a great knitting project bag.

A couple of newly released books arrived in at my local library and both of these I enjoyed.

Read any good books lately? 

See you soon xx

A Midwinter Day Out

It's been awhile since the ladies from my work had a day out together so while the men went on a different trip out for the day, us ladies decided to go and visit a few of our favourite shops in Taradale and Hastings.

First stop was the Silky Oak Chocolate Company, which is just out of Taradale. We all stocked up on our favourite salad dressing which can only be bought from the little shop there, Passion fruit Dressing.

Then it was onto the main street of Taradale for a visit to JJ's Crafts - I forgot to take a pic there but if you are ever in Taradale, it's a great shop to check out with a lovely selection of craft fabrics, threads, knitting supplies, beads and much more.

Making our way back to Hastings, our stop before lunch was to Delbrook - this is fabric heaven!

We chose to have lunch at the Mega Mitre 10 Cafe.

It was delicious and great coffee too.

After visiting a few other shops on our list, our final stop of the day before heading home was to Spotlight to pick up a bargin or two.

It's been sometime since I went fabric shopping so I had lots of fun picking put fabrics for finishing projects, for backings for Christmas ornaments and just because, lol.  I also picked up a few trims, rusty bells and threads.

 I thought the Ouch pouch kit would be great to make up for a gift for a friend.

Can you tell I like red???? 

A great day out, lots of fun with my work friends, and now we're looking forward to our next day out together, in late August, to KAN in Napier, the annual knitting market. I'll need to save my $$$!

See you soon xxxx

Before the Long Weekend

The long Easter weekend is almost here and this year we don't have any visitors coming to stay or set plans, maybe a dinner catch up with our family one evening. We do have some more home renovations to work on including Glenn starting on our laundry redo - pics to come! 

As always, I've got lots of crafting planned and I had thought about starting some new projects but instead I'll work on a few works in progress from my stitching basket.

This week I've so enjoyed making these easy knitted cotton dishcloths  - they knit up very quickly. The pattern is Gramma's Dishcloth.

More knitted hand warmers for a dear friend - Hi Wendy :)

Last weekend the biannual Wine Country Quilts Exhibition was held locally so my friend Rose and I popped along for a lookie. I didn't get any photos of the amazing quilts myself but you can see some of them here.

I did purchase some pretty fabric though, and easily could have spent lots of money on fabric but was very restrained, lol.

Most of these will be for project bags, don't you just love the bunnies and unicorns??

This week I had a work trip for the day to Palmerston North. It was a very warm day and we got to enjoy the Manawatu scenery on the drive there and back.

A visit to the library during my lunch break yesterday and the following books were waiting for me:

Which one to start first?

Happy Easter! See you soon xx