FNSI - The Friday afternoon version

As I hoped, I did get a few stitches in on Friday afternoon for Friday Night Sew In...... on my Christmas Garden project.  I haven't worked on this in several months, so there isn't much change to see, but surely a few stitches is better than none!

If you joined in FNSI, I hope you had a lovely evening stitching too.................

Till next time ...........Nicky

(Semi)Normal transmission resumes

Oh boy, it's been so long since I did this that the whole blogger thing seems unfamiliar to me.......

It feels great to be back though, and I know I've missed reading everyone's news and happenings!

Things are good here, my Dad is recovering from surgery and looking forward to a smooth journey ahead now.      These kinds of bumps in the road are what makes me appreciate my family and also our wonderful friends even more, we simply couldn't get there without them.  I have had lots of 'checking in on you' emails and messages, so thanks for thinking of us!!

You'd think that in a 2 and a half month break from blogging I'd have lots of stitching to share but sorry that is not the case at all.  Very little stitching happened here, it's not through a lack of wanting to, but it just hasn't happened.    We did have a week in April in beautiful Noosa in Queensland, Australia, and what a fantastic place.  Noosa can be as busy or relaxing as you want it to be........ we fitted in some horse riding, kayaking, shopping, lots of swimming, and a whole lot of reading and relaxing!  I also managed to squeeze in a trip to The Patchwork Angel in Forest Glen, what a wonderful shop, I had a good old discussion with my credit card there, but of course I won in the end... lol ..... and some lovely goodies came home with me.

I believe it is Friday Night Sew In tonight, sadly for my sewing, we won't be home tonight, but I might try and sneak in a couple of hours stitching this afternoon instead.  I have a sick girl home from school today with a nasty head cold, so the perfect reason for a day indoors for me too!

If you're joining FNSI this month I hope you have an enjoyable evening stitching tonight, and I will catch up with you all again soon.

Take care ............. Nicky

PS: I've just had a look back to February on my blog and realise I didn't share a pic of Janis' finished Stitching Round the Block piece, so here it is...... Janis stitched Round 1, Raewyn stitched Round 2, Janis stitched Round 3(she and Leanne each did their own round threes) and I stitched Round 4 for Janis ...finally!!!  Thanks to Helen of Hugs and Kisses for a great round robin pattern and to Janis, Raewyn and Leanne for putting up with me!

So long for a while .......

Congratulations Christine, you were the name drawn out of the 'hat' for your January 10th comment, in my little bag giveaway.  Christine, if you could send me your address and I will get it in the mail to you later in the week.  I really hope you will enjoy this bag as much as I enjoyed making it! Thanks also to all the others who entered too, I wish I had a few more to give away.  I also need to clarify for those who asked what the pattern was.  I thought it was called In an Afternoon bag - but I see it is called Naomi's Little Carry Bag from Rosalie Quinlans 'In an Afternoon' range of patterns, so sorry for any confusion.

Life has been turned on its head in my little world today, and I'm going to take a blogging break for a time, hopefully not too long.  I will try and keep up with some blog reading when I am able, but till I am back again, I wish you all good things.  Thanks for visiting me here, I do appreciate that you come here by choice and am grateful for your friendship.  I do owe e-mails to a few people from the last few days, I'll do my best to get there soon.

So till next time............ happy stitching and much love........... Nicky

One of these is not like the other .......

.......... can you work it out?  You can't?  Well the difference is that one of them is mine and the other one might be coming your way soon!  When I began to make the first one back at the start of January, all the measurements were for half width strips, and as I was working with full width cuts of fabric it was just as easy to cut enough for two. This is also where I confess that I was too lazy to hand quilt the strips in the second one and machined them instead  So if you've commented on my blog this year already, each comment will  be one chance in the draw.  If you don't usually comment, feel free to go for it, leave a comment on this post to throw your name in the hat, I'm happy to post anywhere(if you don't want to be entered from any previous comments I guess you should say so here on this post too!!)  I'd appreciate if you didn't advertise this too far and wide, I'd love it to go to someone who visited 'just because' not someone who came only because they heard there was a giveaway.  I'll draw a winner this Sunday night the 26th NZ time.

I also have a couple of parcels of IOU stitching from last year ready to send off to their patient recipients, and it feels so good to have that done.  I am a hopeless slacker with the attention span of a gnat, and I must apologise to those people who have been waiting a very long time for me to get my act together.  You know who you are - and I will share some pics here when the parcels are received!

I did sign up for Friday Night Sew In last week and managed to get a little done on Christmas Garden, as well as the final stitches in one of the above-mentioned IOU projects.  I just didn't get back here on Saturday to share as I was supposed to.....   :-(

Well I hope your week is off to a great start....... till next time........Nicky

Sunday in Summer

We had a fantastic day boating yesterday in beautiful Central Otago.  It was cloudy at times, but very warm and we made the most of the time spent on the water.

Our Kelly loved being on the boat, she wanted to sit up front and help navigate!  Guess it felt like riding with us on the motorbike at home for her......... 

Below is the view we had of the Clyde Dam from Lake Dunstan, the storage reservoir lake behind the dam.  I remember as a child how controversial this whole 'Think Big' project was in New Zealand in the late seventies and early 80's, and it divided communities and indeed still does today as there are more dam projects mooted periodically for the Clutha River.  Many of New Zealand's lakes and rivers support hydroelectric power stations and the Clyde Dam is one of the more recently built ones(finally commissioned in 1992).

And the view of the dam from the lookout on the bottom side ..........

... and looking down the Clutha River from the lookout towards Alexandra at the foot of the hills in the distance.  Alexandra regularly records the highest daily temperature in NZ in the summer and also the coldest daily temps in the winter - Central Otago is the home of seasonal extremes in weather!

On the way home this is a shot looking down on the Clutha from the road high above..........

I hope you enjoyed a little trip on the Clutha, stitching will likely make a return on my next post  :-)

Till next time.................Nicky

PS: There is a little surprise coming soon, following on from my last post, watch this space.

Saturday in the sewing room

Hello there, how is your Saturday going?  I have had a great day in my sewing room, preparing a few blocks for some works in progress and finishing up a couple of things.  Firstly here is the bag I started early in January.  I'm really pleased with this, it's a nice little size, and I am really loving these Nicey Jane fabrics.  This was my first experience with ruffles and the result is not too bad!

In an Afternoon Bag designed by Rosalie Quinlan 
using Nicey Jane fabrics by Heather Bailey

This little flanged pillow is a Lizzie Kate freebie, the fabric I've finished it with looks red here, but is actually a very dark pink with cream spots.  

Friendship Grows, Freebie by Lizzie Kate
Stitched on Cream linen with Weeks Dye Works threads

This little lavender pillow is not todays work, but was my only January OPAM finish, and also my first Sew It's Finished finish for the year.  My list of works in progress at the start of the year was fairly large(a little understatement maybe) and I'm endeavouring to work on it with all the Sew It's Finished girls again in 2012. I think this was started about 6 years ago, and it only needed the opening closed, took about 4 minutes max!!  There really is something wrong with me!  But - it is done now..........

Lavender Pillow from Country Threads Magazine(can't find my copy to get designers name, sorry)

It's a long weekend here in NZ, where we are celebrating out national day, Waitangi Day on Monday.  Tomorrow we are heading to Central Otago for a little jetboating, and guess who's coming with us?  I'm sure  you can get proper pet lifejackets, but we were just trying this old one on Kelly for size this afternoon ......

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend whatever it is you are doing ............... Nicky

Stitching update

Hello again, it's been nearly two weeks(again) between posts but rest assured I haven't been sitting idle all that time..... here is some stitching I've been working on at nights while watching cricket and tennis, loving the Aussie Open, some great games and very entertaining.  I just wish we weren't 2 hours ahead of Melbourne as it was after 3am when I dragged myself off to bed last night!  (I have to confess there may have been some dozing in the chair at times though.)


But anyway, back to that stitching, this chart and fabric are a late Christmas gift to myself ........ I've made a small start, because of course starting is what I do best........lol.  This is Christmas Garden by Blackbird Designs, I think I am going to omit the wording at the bottom, and make it more of a family sampler than an exclusively Christmas piece.

Below is Secret Egg Hunt by The Trilogy, not much to go on this little one, just waiting on a couple of thread colours to arrive in the mail and I'll be done!

I have also started stitching those hexie flowers down on Janis' Stitching Round the Block, not as difficult as I imagined, the seam allowances stayed nicely creased under and I just used some tiny drops of Roxanne's glue to hold them in place while I stitched............ 4 done, 4 to go!

I think I mentioned a couple posts back that I had done a little Butterfly Garden stitching at Christmas time and here are 5 more little miniblocks done. .................... check out Fiona and her Butterfly Garden stitching, she is on fire, so is Josie, she is now working on her final block.   Oops I've just remembered I still need to get pics of my Gardener's Journal top now that the borders are on - next time!

Tonight I'm going to stitch while watching some more tennis ............. hope you're getting some stitching time today too............. till next time ..................... Nicky