School 2015

It is Back to School day for these two gorgeous boys - off to their new school only 5 mins away instead of the 35 minutes of last year.  Have a wonderful year Kai and Charlie.  You look awesome in your new uniforms.

They are in the same classroom this year, a Year 2er and a Year 3er.  They are growing up so quickly.  The school is brand new and small at this stage, in a beautiful setting on the outskirts of town.  Below is the whole school as enrolled on day 1.

Grandie No 6 started pre prep today.  These little ones grow up so quickly.  Enjoy, Harry.

Grandie no 5, Sammy will be starting school in Year 1 tomorrow at his new school back in Sydney.

One way to celebrate on Australia Day

Faeries in my Garden start their much awaited for sale on Australia Day and continue it for a week. On arrival the bolts of fabric sat invitingly waiting for the keen customers to come and claim them. Within an hour those tables were looking very depleted.

  

It is such a beautiful shop, well worth checking out if you are visiting the Brisbane area. 

embroidery finished.

My embroidery from a few weeks ago - this has been coloured using watercolour pencils, and I had started embroidering it.

The completed embroidery.  I like how the colouring has given depth to the embroidery.  I enjoyed stitching this.  Now I need to decide how I am going to use it.

And progress...

Sashings are on, now on to the borders.

This is the Girls Own Stitch Club quilt from Red Brolly last year.  I enjoyed doing these stitcheries, and love the look with the Tilda sashings.

So that was my FNSI and Saturday Stitching.

You can go see what everyone else snacked on worked on for their FNSI by visiting here.  Thank you for another wonderful stitching night, Wendy.

Preparing...

It is that time again  -  time to go visit Wendy here, and sign in for tonight's FNSI.  Check out her yummy, super simple recipe while you are there.  Maybe you will have time to make some before your stitching.  I dont have any puff pastry sheets, so cant make that one for tonight, which means I had better go find an equally yummy and easy recipe to make.  Something warming I think.

I have been cutting strips, and now am about to trim blocks to size, ready to start sashings.  Progress photos to come.

Enjoy your night, whether you are stitching along or doing something else.

You need to be comfortable

 

Just like the Grandies are.

 

Of course the tongue helps a lot.

Kai has stitched a house and a tree.  Next is a frog.

Charlie wanted to stitch ducks.  One is almost finished.

They will be back next week to continue with their stitching.

FNwF stitching

I joined in with Cheryll and at least 50 others for FNwF last night.  While watching tennis I was able to do some embroidery on my  "Girls Own Stitch Club" blocks from Bronwyn Hayes - her free BOM on her blog last year.  

Now I have almost finished the embroideries I am keen to get on to assembling the quilt.  

Go here to check out what other stitchy friends have been doing for FNwF.  So much to see, so give yourself plenty of time - and a cuppa.

I Was There.....

Even if I didnt  RSVP on my blog, I did link on Wendy's blog, and I did turn up.

I hope you all had a fun night on Friday and managed to get some stitching done - or maybe you had some yummy energy boosting snacks to enjoy.  I cant remember that I had any of the said snacks handy, but my stitching did come out.  And some of it needs to come out in another way - I was stitching in a place where the light was not so good, and I have very crooked back stitch.  Maybe instead of redoing it though, I could hang it towards the back of the Christmas tree - Sound like a plan????

This is a little kit/pattern I bought while on the Quilters Trail last week.  It looked like a simple no stress project that could be achieved quickly.  Just the thing for last Friday night.  It is "Christmas Maidens 1" from Petals and Patches.

 Hmmm.  It is the top left one that is not so good.  Looks ok in this photo so no need to look any closer.

They are fun to stitch, and take only a short time.

To check out those yummy treats and snacks  great projects everyone worked on, go and see Wendy's post here.  It was lovely to join in with you all.

The boys are counting down.  3 sleeps till their Mum is home again.  I hope I havent spoilt them TOOOOO much, but we have had a fun (exhausting) week so far.

Experiments with colouring and shading

While doing the stitching on my watercolour pencil shaded embroidery (previous post) I got to thinking of the other mediums/methods I have used for shading or colouring fabrics.

 The one above uses inktense pencils and water soluble pastels  to colour the leaves and flowers.  It is heavily coloured.  I have used fabric medium to seal it, some of it full strength, but then I started to mix it with equal amounts of water, as the fabric medium tended to make the fabric quite hard and sticky.

 The girls have been coloured using folk art paints, watered down with half water and half fabric medium.  I love the colours and the soft effect of this.

 The rose on this postcard is shaded with water colour pencils and diluted fabric medium. I have used stem stitch to outline it.  The pencil has been applied much darker than the piece I am working on now.

For this "Hugs and Kisses" design I have  coloured the dress and shoes using inktense pencils, but keeping a much lighter/softer effect than on the flowers above, and using fabric medium with water to seal it.

I have found them all to be interesting to do, and for the most part have been pleased with the result.

FNwF stitching

At our Hand sewing class at Sew This and That for the past couple of months we have been experimenting with water colour pencil outlining and shading of an embroidery design.  My FNwF project this month was to commence the embroidery outline of the design.

The shading is very subtle, though I may go over some of it if it needs to be more pronounced.

I haven't decided what I will do with my finished design - when it is eventually finished.  I have a lot of flowers and leaves to do in the meantime.

You can go over here to check out what everyone else has been up to for this month's FNwF.  Oops, and just as well I went over as I realised I had not linked up.  All done now. Thank you once again Cheryll for linking us up for a cyber stitching night.