Happy Easter

Easter fun

Charlie, Kai and their cousin Sammy checking out the goodies in their Easter baskets.

Yum - a Humpty with M & Ms inside.

Sammy couldnt get the wrapping off quickly enough.  He had a few unwrapped and partly eaten eggs left in his basket.

No Pa, it is my chocolate.

“Legally Blonde” and Birthday Love Stash–no connection between the two though !!!

Legally Blonde was an amazing show, and a wonderful evening out with the girls.. 

 

Pink cocktails at intermission.   They tasted sweet and fruity.  I was driver so just had a sip – a good move as we were stopped for a breathalyzer test on the way home.

It was lovely being out with our two daughters – dont get to do that very often these days.  Arent they gorgeous. They also had four of their friends along, and it was an amazing night of fun and laughter.

A stop at a tapas bar afterwards.  I was so hungry (no time for dinner before the show as we were organising babysitting,and settling the 4 children – and making ourselves look glamorous)  So no waiting to take photos of our food.

Meanwhile 4 of the Grandies had an opportunity to play together.

I have also added another couple of items to my Birthday Love Stash box, organised by Wendy so we will always be organised ahead of time with our birthday gifts – well that is the plan anyway.

Another project pouch – I made another couple of these as birthday gifts, but gave them away before I thought of taking a photo.  The second item is a strawberry scissorkeep , the pattern being from Red Brolly “Girls Own Stitching  Club”

March Christmas item

It is that time  again, the 25th is time to show our Christmas item.

This month I have made the second Santa sack for my Grandie boys.  I was really pleased to find another snowflake fabric while in Adelaide, so the two sacks will be similar apart from the colour.

 Here are the 2 of them together.  I think they will hold plenty of goodies.

I am thinking I will make a Christmas tag with their names on - maybe

 next month.  They can then be attached to the drawstring so there will be no confusion over who owns which bag of goodies.

You can visit Narelle at Pins and Whiskers to see what other people have made for their Christmas item this month.  Thank you Narelle.

FNSI and Rainbow for Dainere

FNSI almost slipped by without notice - but thanks to reading some blogs last night I realised in time - even if a bit later in the evening than I would have liked. Thank you to Heidi for organising us to stitch together once again.

 My sewing consisted of

 a cushion for Harry - he likes trucks, tractors etc, like most young boys do.

 Also the cushion on the left.  This was made from leftover fabrics from the cushions I made for Kerryn for Christmas.  That meant some more bits have gone from my stash.  I enjoy making cushions so it was a good evening of stitching.

I also finished my Rainbow of Hope to send to Dainere.  If you havent heard about the Rainbow of Hope project organised by Helen of Hugs and Kisses to help the fundraising efforts of Dainere for funding research into brain tumours, go here and read it, and also check out Dainere's blog.  What  inspiring people.  The link to the pattern for the rainbow is on Helen's blog, and is very quick to make.  I did mine on quilting fabric, but it can also be stitched on felt.

Tonight I am going with my 2 daughters and some of their friends to see

 at the Lyric Theatre, Brisbane.  Should be a great night.

FNSI already???

Wow, that came around so quickly this month - I almost missed it.  Will be back tomorrow to show what I have been doing.

Re-designing.

I have now finished piecing the top of my curved paper pieced wall hanging.
Here is the wallhanging made by the class teacher.

The quilt top here is draped over the rolls of wadding in the shop so it isnt hanging straight, but you can get the idea.  

Below is how I have pieced mine together.  I had joined one block as above and I felt it was too "confusing".  I am much happier with how it is now.  If I hadnt done this in the class I probably would have used much different fabrics and it wouldnt be so "wow". I wasnt sure that I would be able to work out an alternative block arrangement - so pleased it worked out.

It is ready to sandwich and quilt - next thing is working out how I will quilt it.

'Bye to Adelaide, and a great week at home

And so our time in Adelaide came to an end, but not without some sad farewells.  After all it is going to be a year before we will be back together for another fun time in Melbourne.

We took the opportunity for some last minute photos.

 The lovely people I was lucky enough to share a cabin with - Deb, De, me and our gorgeous cabin Mum, Christine.

 Some last minute fun - Christine and Narelle.

Bye Teresa, see you on the plane tonight.

Thanks to Joy taking this photo on Teresa's camera, a gorgeous sunset as we flew away from South Australia.


Wendy came to Brisbane with her son for an appointment on Wednesday, I caught up with her,  as well as Maureen and Susan.

 It looks like there was a huge crowd of us for coffee - not so, we were left alone by the staff, and this is the accumulation of cups from throughout the afternoon.  There were some more down the other end of the table.  I cant even say the staff were too busy to clear the table - they just didnt !

A little bit of sewing has been achieved this week.  First, my pincushion from the Stitch-a-long. This is from the Some Kind of Wonderful book by Anni Downs.  It was a fun one to make.

 I am now working on  this UFO.  This is from some years ago, and I wasnt happy with how the blocks were supposed to be arranged, so I have pulled apart the blocks that had been sewn together, finished piecing the other ones and rearranged them.  It looks much better now and I am happy to finish it off.

The Grandies are getting into the mood for Easter.  Kai and Charlie made rabbit masks with their Mum this week, and wanted photos taken.  Kai's abundant fur seems to be falling off - some repair needed I think.

Adelaide Stitching Day

 Goody bags with these gorgeous contents -the pattern for each of the 6 projects, charm pack, our special mug rug, and some other goodies - as well as that we were each given a bottle of South Australian wine.

    

 Beautiful projects - Fee's project bag, Joy's sewing machine mat and machine needle wallet, Dawn's table runners, Judy's treasure boxes, Vicki's washing day wallhanging, and below is Wendy's cushion and caddy.

Goodies to  keep us going through such a hard fun stitching day.

Teresa checking out Kerri's table runner.  

 De is stitching up a storm.

 Narelle - our resident entertainer, the Nutters, and a special bear.

Friday in Adelaide

How can you ever put into words and pictures what a wonderful weekend we had in Adelaide.  The whole weekend was amazing, due in large part to the wonderful organisation by Dawn.  Nothing was overlooked in the planning, and the Adelaide girls who stepped in to be cabin mums/drivers/helpers/friends were a blessing to Dawn and to every one of us there.  Nothing was too much trouble for them.  Thank you every one of you.

   

These four  "nutters" are such gorgeous and generous girls and I am privileged to have them as friends.

We enjoyed renewing friendships with those who had been in Hobart for our Lets Get Stitched retreat there in 2012.  We made friends with those who were on their first time at Lets Get Stitched this year.  We visited new shops and businesses, explored Hahndorf, which I was pleased to see still had the gorgeous character I remember from being there over 30 years ago.

First stop on Friday was Hetties Patch.  It has a beautiful range of fabrics and other fun items to look at (and buy).  The staff there probably thought a whirlwind had gone through the shop after we left.  There was so much retail therapy going on.

We also visited Cotton Stitches which was a beautiful store also, and another store which I dont know the name of, but which had an overwhelming range of fabrics.  I was too busy shopping to take photos in those stores.
I was very pleased with my additions to my stash.

I bought some coordinating fat quarters, some yardage (the green for a quilt binding, the snowflakes for another Santa Sack), a  Vintage Modern jelly roll - I have been admiring Vintage Modern  for a long time so gave in to temptation, as it was a good price, including a 10% discount, and also some small items for the birthday stash.

On Friday night we had a pizza and games night.  The pizzas were delicious, a flavour to suit every palate.  This was followed by delicious trifle.

As far as the games were concerned - as Teresa said, "what happens in Adelaide stays in Adelaide".  All we can say is that we laughed, talked, played and had so much fun on the night.

We had a small amount of show and tell - here is Lucky with a beautiful quilt.

It was such a wonderful day and night to start off our retreat.

Adelaide - here we come

Well almost.  Tomorrow morning to be  exact.

A few of us Queenslanders are heading off tomorrow for "Lets Get Stitched", with Joy, Vicki, Fee and Dawn.  This year we are going to Adelaide where Dawn has organised a wonderful four days of activities, bus trip, sewing day, and lots of other activities.  It will be so good to meet up with friends from other states as well as make new friends.

I have been pushing myself to finish the quilt for Caring with Quilts, organised by Chookyblue.  It ended up being bigger than I had expected it to be.  I did it by the quilt as you go method as I realised it was going to be rather heavy to try to quilt in one piece.  But that meant lots of hand stitching so it took longer.  However it is done now.

 I should have removed my quilt from under it to show it properly but it gives the idea.

These sampler blocks were made in 2006, .  I had to make an extra 2 blocks to finish it off.

I also finished off the tag made from the stitcher's alphabet designs from Michelle.  The designs are so beautiful - I want to do more!!!  Next week when I have time to take photos I will show what it is attached to.  Of course there will also be photos of our weekend.

      

But right now I need to finish organising my stitching projects for while I am away.