A Christmas Challenge

I joined Di's Christmas in August Challenge :) It is to finish three Christmas projects, and on Friday night I finished the first one. It is a Christmas quilt that I started 2 years ago. When I got Nina I went crazy quilting it with gold thread, and finally finished off the binding with a pretty stitch. Here it is blowing in the wind:

I put the binding on backwards so that instead of handstitching it, I could use a decorative stitch. I have to say that working with gold thread is a nightmare. It took a while to do the binding - the thread broke every few inches. Still, it is done now :) Here is a closer look at the quilting and binding:



I'm happy with the quilting, but it is not as nice as what Cheryl did on my log cabin:


A little closer:


One day, my dream is to have a long arm quilting machine.. hee heee! For now, I am very happy with Nina :)

So, back to my Christmas challenge. I joined it because I wanted to get a few things done for myself for Christmas, and I am usually too busy doing things for others, so I decided this was a good idea. My plans are to make myself a Christmas apron for my second project, and for the third one, well... maybe a basket like Cheryl gave us the stitchery patterns for, or.. some potholders, .... or some coasters like Alice made, or.... some cushion covers, or.. or,... or.....!!!! I'm sure I'll think of something :)

It's here!!! It's here!!!

My special parcel has arrived:


It is from Cheryl at Willowberry Designs. She asked for quilt tops for the bushfire victims, and I had one that was needing to be finished badly. So I sent it up. Cheryl added the backing, binding, and of course did all the beautiful quilting!! It is sooooo pretty!!!! No, don't worry, I am not keeping it :) I will finish handsewing the binding and then in three weeks time it has an appointment with a lady who lost EVERYTHING to the fires in Whittlesea.

But wait, there's more! Cheryl so sweetly included three pincushions for Africa (and they came just in time - the stall is on Sunday). I'm going to give them to my friend tomorrow to put on the table. AND she gave me a pattern!!! For me!!! Looooook:


I will take some better close up photos, but I was running out of light and wanted to get this post up today. THANK YOU THANK YOU CHERYL!!!!

Sooooooo cute!!!!

Went to visit some friends today who have the cutest lambs I have ever seen!!!



They look like goats or miniture Friesian cows, don't they? I want one!!!!

Saturday Summary

I was going to get a lot done this weekend.... ha! I thought I'd try to catch up on some of my boms, but.... life gets in the way sometimes. Somehow I never really got going. Poor hubby had to go in to work, major problems. We went and got pizza to bring him and one of his workmates for dinner, dropped by a friend on the way home, and then he got back around 10pm. He then worked till midnight, slept for two hours, and worked again from 2am till 9am..... I slept fitfully, feeling sorry for him...! He's fast asleep now.

So, what did I manage to do yesterday? I made a dent in the ironing pile.. that has to count for something, right? I ironed some stitcheries that I finished a few weeks ago so that I could take photos for you all to see. These are from Nice People Nice Things.

Friends and Home, both very nice :)

I really should get started with getting the borders on and working out the "quilt as you go" method. These are the fabrics that I chose to do this quilt with:


Aren't they yummy?! And they are just sitting there in a tub patiently waiting to be used. Maybe I will take them to Perth and try to work on them there....

I traced the rest of Veranda Views, and made a start on one of them. I also fiddled around with a pencil and made a little design for something I am making for myself:


Oh yes, I finished "Believe" on Friday.


Must trace "Delight" before the next one comes out in a few days!

So what shall I do today? I really want to take a few more photos in daylight hours of the cookbook chooks for the tutorial. And.... well, there must be some sewing project I could work on??? I need to do a little bit of school planning, but mostly I am organized there.

I am going to get off the computer and do something :) Hope you are all having a good weekend!

Tissues for Africa

That's what I was working on the past few days - covers for travel tissues :) I remember in high school we had a Japanese student join us for a few years, and she had these cute little covers for her tissues. Of course a search on the internet now and there are quite some tutorials to do these. I based my covers on this tutorial. They were really quick and easy to make. The main problem I had was finding travel tissues that had the opening on the side - most of them have them at the end of the packet these days.

On the weekend we drove to the inlaws to pick up our dog who had been in sheep training with Grandpa. Grandpa decided she had too much energy and he had too little, so we got her back :) On the way we stopped in Horsham for a break and I ducked into one of those cheap shops. After a bit of searching I managed to find the right tissues! I was quite pleased :) If you look very very carefully, you can see Jules the sheep dog (and a few chookies) in the photo behind the tissue covers! And.. see the drops of rain? It has turned grey and wintery outside... the perfect weather to sit next to the fire and hand sew the binding on a quilt....

Plodding along...

Finally did a little bit of sewing after dinner. I put the binding on my little blue quilt and worked on some more things for the craft table:


Elizabeth helped me with these, and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to show you a picture of the finished product :)

Only 5 more weeks till we go to Perth to visit Alice! Yes we are counting down and planning what we will be doing - lots of sewing of course. In the meantime I want to get a lot of school done before we go, which means I should really ignore Nina for a while..... I will, after I finish these last things for the church stall. I will, I really will.....!

Oh, and I am working on the cookbook chook tutorial. I just need to take a few more photos, so stay tuned..... until then, happy sewing :)

Chooks for Africa

No, not real ones, but Cookbook Chooks :) They are little chookies filled with wheat that keep your cookbook open at the right place :)



(You can't see it, but there is a recipe for chicken salad behind the chooky....)


I made a basket full - 14 little chookies to go on the craft table. They were quite addictive once I started!


Now here are some of our real chooks. Freckles and a few of her chicks:




Our Silky rooster Snowy died, and we finally got him replaced. He has the original name of Snowy the Second:


Snowy II is better looking than Snowy I, and he crows better too. Hopefully he will do his job so that we can have little Silky chicks soon :)

Now what shall I work on ......?