Favourite Things Friday

I used to live in a quite hilly area.  There weren't any bike or footpaths in my old neighbourhood and the speed limit on the busy road was 80kmph (50mph).


One of the many benefits of my new neighbourhood is it's much more pedestrian and bike friendly, there are footpaths and bike paths to ride on, roads with speed limits of 50kmph,  and no steep hills to climb. 

So I just had to buy myself something fun.

I love it.  I love the colour, it makes it go faster and makes me look cooler!  BP and I ride around the neighbourhood when she is here on the weekends.  It's so much fun and it's great exercise.

I had to have a bike with a basket. I haven't used it yet, but it looks cute, eventually I'll make a fabric lining for it.

I'm linking up with Shay for Favourite Things Friday.

Favourite Things Friday

 I love living a few minutes from this view.  It used to take me 20+ minutes to drive to it. Now it's just around the corner.

Linking with Mrs P at Quilting In My Pyjamas/

Favourite Things Friday

It's been quite a long time since I last joined in on FTF, and I'm determined to be a better friend and blogger this year.  My favourite thing this week is a new toy.

It's called a Seam-fix and it's the next best thing to a seam ripper, in fact I might even go so far as to say it's better than a seam ripper.  It fixes all the mess that the seam ripper makes.  No more little pieces of thread that you have to pick out of your project one by one when you have had to unpick a seam. Now I just run this little baby across the seam where the threads are lying and it pulls them out of the seam and into neat little piles that are a lot easier to pick up. It even comes with it's own seam ripper/unpicker. Best toy ever, until the next one, lol.

Now all we have to wait for, is my time management skills to improve. At the current time I think a kindergarten child or even Bailey the slothful cat, could manage time better than me. Hopefully in the not too distant future, I'll finally get down and jiggy with my sewing machine, and odds are, I'll need this baby within the first couple of hours of sewing.

Mosey on over to Mrs P at Quilting In My Pyjamas and see what she has scored.  I wonder if Shay will notice it missing after I've visited her. Note to self, take a mahoosive suitcase.

Favourite Things Friday

After a long break from FTF I'm back, and late, but better late than never.

This week it's the fun photos that you can take on the iPad using the different effects that are available.

I would show you lots of BP but she will kill me so instead here's one of Karma.

Handsome devil isn't he.

Linking to Mrs P at Quilting in My Pyjamas, check out everyone's favourites this week.

Favourite Things Friday

My favourite this week, my baby, aka Bitchypoo, is home for the weekend. It's nice to have her home for a couple of days.

The following photos are Bitchypoo chosen and approved.

Linking to Shay for FTF -  notwithstanding  In the great words of Sergeant Shultz in Hogan's Heroes.  "I know nothing." That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Favourite Things Friday

In this case it's Favourite Things Saturday, because I'm a day late, although it's still Friday in some parts of the world!
Linking up with Shay at Quilting In My Pyjamas.

As you know I love going to Brisbane. It's my favourite thing to do most weeks. I love walking along the river, even though you are in the city, it's so peaceful and the water and the breeze are so calming. You can hear the city sounds in the distance but they don't intrude. I love looking at the city buildings, but where I'm standing I'm surrounded by greenery.


The river is muddy after all the rain, this was taken this week at the Cliffs Cafe at Kangaroo Point. A very nice spot to have a coffee and look at the view.




These were taken a couple of weeks ago.

Favourite Things Friday

I love finding parcels in my letter box or PO Box, and today I wasn't disappointed. I found two parcels that I wasn't expecting.
Ooh the excitement.

The first was from Tanya, a fellow Queenslander. It was the mini quilt she made for me for the Name Game Swap. Wow, I hadn't even started sewing mine together for my partner. Tanya was so quick.

How happy and cheerful is this?  I love the bright colours, the applique, the letters, and Tanya has used buttons for the dot's on the i's and on the question marks too, very clever.

Lovely quilting. You can see some better close ups on Tanya's flickr account. The lighting wasn't the best here today.

Thank you so much Tanya.



The second parcel contained these.

I'm in love. I have always loved these from afar and was hoping to find some to add to my stash, but never had any luck. I jumped up and down and may have squealed a tiny bit when I opened the package.  Susan from Canadian Abroad very kindly sent me these when I sent her the H R  and bird fabrics. I'm so lucky. Now I have to think of the perfect project for them. In the meantime, you may find me stroking them and drooling.

Susan also sent me a needle case.  I think she must have been reading my mind, as I have been thinking that I really need one and was going to get around to making one, one  day, ahem, cough cough.  It's not a surprise is it that I hadn't made it yet, procrastinating once again.

So today's favourite is my fabulous surprise packages.  Join in with Shay and see lots of other favourites this week.

Favourite Things Friday

I have a favourite place this week, it's my local quilting store. Cooroy Drapery. It's a lovely store and the owner, Margaret, is always happy and smiling and so helpful. She has a great name too!

If I need any sewing supplies I always pop in there first, hoping that she carries what I want, and most of the time I find exactly what I'm looking for. It's like an Aladdin's Cave in there. Zips, buttons, thread, yarn, crochet hooks, patterns, ribbons, fabric, etc.
It saves me having to drive a 100km round trip to Spotlight, and I much prefer having a nice chat with Margaret or her staff than going to Spotlight, a huge impersonal store and usually finding that they don't quite have what I want.

Today I was able to buy some zips, some Gutermann thread that matched perfectly with my fabric for raw edge applique, paper pieces for triangles that I want to try, and some pre-made binding.

I love that there is a good old fashioned store like this with great service only 10 minutes away.

Image borrowed from Cooroy Drapery

Linking up with Shay who has outed me this week!  Sad to say my reputation is sullied for all time.  I really thought I had got away with  convinced assured everyone I am a quiet, well behaved innocent angel.

Favourite Things Friday

It's Friday and that can mean only one thing, Favourite Things Friday.

Yay. It's back!

For the first FTF for 2012, it has to be about the summer fruit that is in season now. One of my favourites at the moment, cherries. I love fresh cherries, not so much canned, or cherry flavoured things, but lovely fresh, dark, glistening, plump, juicy cherries, mmmmmmmmmmm. They are really hard to find during the rest of the year, but at the moment the local cherries are at their best. I can't get enough of them.

Image borrowed from here 

They are multi purpose too, when you find two attached together you can make earrings out of them. There's not many fruit that can do that!

Pop on over to Shay's new pad, (she's been redecorating over the Christmas break), and see lots more favourites for the first week of 2012.

Favourite Things Friday

It's late Friday evening here, and I've just finished making something with the help of BP, so this is my final favourite for 2011.
I decided at about 5.30 this evening that I'd attempt to make something for my father for Christmas.
After finding this tutorial at Ayumi's blog and seeing this idea on Oh Fransson! I thought I would make dad a First Aid bag.

The front

I combined the two ideas and came up with this.

AND woo hoo I actually used some of my scraps. Some of them are from charm squares I acquired about 10 years ago. I knew I'd use them for something..........eventually!! Some of the red squares are from scraps Melissa at Clothwork kindly sent me earlier in the year.

The back

The lining, hmm, just noticed a thread on the red casing.

I love it, I hope he'll love it too. He loves bushwalking, birdwatching and the great outdoors. All it needs now is some cord to finish the drawstring closure. That will have to wait until tomorrow.

BP helped me choose the fabrics, piece the back and sewed the lining for me. I love that she wanted to help and enjoyed it. She's even started sewing up some blocks left over from her Paradise quilt to make a small quilt.

So this week, my favourite is sewing with BP and starting and finishing something that I'm really pleased with, in a couple of hours.

Linking with Shay for the final FTF for 2011. I love FTF's and have really enjoyed reading everyone's posts each week. Thanks so much Shay, looking forward to next year's.

Favourite Things Friday

This week my favourite thing is being in the city and enjoying all the things that this brings that I have no hope what so ever of having at home.

Things like home delivery of dinner to the door instead of having to drive 20 mins to get take away and driving 20 mins back home and by the time I'm home the meal is not as good as it could have been. This week we had Italian, yum, we could have had Indian, Mexican, or pretty much what ever we felt like.

I love that the local pub is only 1 block away and it's a really really good pub. It means that I can have a drink or two or three with friends and walk home instead of only having one because I have to drive home.

I can go for walks along the river on a dedicated walking path instead of walking along the side of the road, no footpath and cars and trucks whizzing past at 80kms an hour.

Image from australiaguide.com.au

I can walk a couple of mins and buy a coffee, instead of making it myself or driving 5kms to the nearest coffee shop.

I can catch a ferry to the city or to lots of other places, how cool is that? I love catching the ferry.

Image from tripadvisor.com

I can catch a taxi and it only costs a few dollars instead of driving into the city and paying an outrageous $40 for an hour park.

My friends can come and visit me, I'm much closer to them when I'm there and they don't need to pack to stay the night, they can pop in and visit for a few hours.

I can sit at night and look at the city lights instead of staring out into pitch black darkness.  I can't see the stars but it's a really nice change.

Image from brisbaneseo.com

I may live in paradise but to me having all these things at my doorstep that I haven't had for almost 13 years is my current idea of paradise.

I'm going to be torn when I have to make the decision of where I'm going to live. You can take the girl out of the city but you can't take the city out of the girl.


Mosey on over to Shay's for all the Friday Favourites this week.

Favourite Things Friday

As Friday rolls around again, I'm madly trying to catch up with my life. Today on more than one occasion I thought it was Tuesday.

As it's summer now and we are often sitting outdoors in the evening, I sometimes have to burn mosquito coils to keep the mosquitoes at bay.  We don't have many here but still I'd rather be safe than sorry.
I have a couple of these beautiful clay mosquito coil holders that I bought here on the Sunshine Coast, which are originally from Thailand.

They certainly look better than this.

Image from Shutterstock

I'm not sure which is worse, a bite from a mosquito and risking a number of mosquito born diseases or inhaling the toxic smoke from the mosquito coils. Fortunately we don't have to use them that often and we try to make sure the smoke is not wafting towards our faces. At least they look very pretty sitting on my verandah.

Hop on over to Mrs P's to check out all the other favourites this week.

Hope there's an enjoyable weekend ahead for everyone, and not too much stress in the lead up to Christmas.

Favourite Things Friday

Sometimes a change of scenery is just what you I need.











Linking up with Shay for Favourite Things Friday.

Favourite Things Friday

This is kind of a surprise favourite this week. I went into my local phone shop to sort out my home phone/broadband bundle and walked out with a brand spanking new iPhone 4S, woo hoo, I'm excited.

Not for free, so don't get too excited for me, well you can get excited if you want to because I'm excited, really excited.

I'm a bit of a techno gadget lover. My phone for the last couple of years has been the Android HTC Desire, an ok phone but as all our computers are Macs it won't synchronise with them. PC is a dirty word or should I say dirty letters in this household. I have been waiting to replace my phone with a new iPhone so that I can sync phone, iPad and computers. I thought I'd have to wait for all the hype to die off before I would be able to get my hands on one, but as luck would have it, the store had received a batch of shiny new, right off the ship/plane iPhone 4S that morning and I ran jumped over little old ladies to get my hands on one.
So this week my favourite is my new baby. I haven't named it yet.

It's nice and bright and shiny white. I'm in love!

Favourite Things Friday

It's spring here in Oz and while the northern hemisphere is enjoying beautiful autumn/fall leaves, we are starting to see lots of flowers starting to bloom.
One of my favourite trees is the Jacaranda. I absolutely love the colour of the flowers and they look spectacular against the blue sky. When the flowers start dropping they leave a beautiful purple carpet on the ground. I was in Brisbane today and noticed the Jacarandas are starting to bloom. It's early days yet, another week or two until they are in full bloom.

Not the best photos, hopefully I'll be able to take some better ones in a week or two. Like the one below.

This photo taken from here

Linking up with Shay at Quilting In My Pyjamas.