A little bit of Loxton

On the weekend I had 3 lovely days in



I had a great time with Gail, Leanne, Rosalie & Viv and lots of old friends from last year....... a big thank you to Trish for hosting the weekend and feeding us.



On Friday we made one of Rosalie's dolls.......Rosalie was a great help and stuffed and painted shoes & faces for us here she is with Tiff - Trish's daughter who had the day off school to stitch with us we were sure she learnt more with us than she would have at school........that may not have been a good thing.



Meredith waiting for her shoes to dry.



On Saturday we were to make a quilt with Leanne....here is Julie cutting out her vines.



and Leanne helping Anne .....she used the raw edge applique technique to make a wall hanging.



we also had show and tell....this is Gail's lovely Christmas quilt.



and Viv's Christmas table runner......



Rosalie bought lots of copies of "The Gift".....it had been a long day ......Viv is taking a quick nap in the back round LOL.



I was up early and had a walk .......it was cold.



some of the locals.



Megan had to cut down on her talking....... she had 2 dolls to make for her girls



On Sunday our group was glad we had Gail and Viv for stitcheries we weren't capable of doing much else...............Here's Annie making out she is working hard



Look I've done this many rows....



Gail & Dawn



It wouldn't be a trip away with out Mel.....here he is over seeing Danielle and Julie



Just checking out Georgette and Megan.... sorry girls not a great snap...



Just having some fun with the lollies in the corner....believe me the lollies were far to close and yummy



and finally I found him chatting up this rather lovely doll....I don't know where this was heading.....



So in all it was a wonderful weekend full of friends, stitching, chatting and eating....... catching up with other bloggers...Lorraine-Dawn-Amanda.

Flickr stuff

Number 79 is the number that came from here so Judith if you could send me your snail mail address I will post a pattern off to you. Thanks to everybody who sent kind comments.

This was fun have a try.

Found here on Flickr.

The concept:
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name

My Answers:
1.Leanne 2.Chicken Caesar salad 3.Moonta High School 4.Green 5.Rob Thomas 6.Pepsi Max 7.Alaska 8. Cheese cake 9.Wildlife photographer 10.Family 11.Crazy 12. The Stitching Room

Flickr photos:
1. Leanne 02, 2. Chicken a la San Diego snow, 3. Moonta Bay sunset ..., 4. ♫ YO Yo yo, there's no place like a green penthouse... so i told the genie i wanted to be well hung. ^o^ ♫ nah... wildlife from singapore♫, 5. Rob Thomas Up Close, 6. Pepsi Max Big One taking the turnaround - Blackpool Pleasure Beach, 7. lake beside the road to McCarthy, Alaska, 8. Chocolate Cheese Cake, 9. Flamingo, 10. Raccoon Family, 11. ~I'm Crazy For Loving You~, 12. Stitch in the Living Room

Winter madness

This is what happens when the family is at home all day on a wet, cold, miserable wintery day.
We have 2 Jack Russells who are very spoilt they love nothing better than to sit with you on the lounge, mid afternoon as boredom set in this is what happened.
Remember my thread holder another use for it has been found.



Turn it upside down and it becomes a crown for a dog or if you prefer just a hat.



Molly just wanted to help Sean on the lap top if there were more dog blogs she might give it a go on her own....



Please note no dogs were forced to participate in these photos.



PS ....I am not a lover of winter all I want to do is sit and wish it was warmer......... bloglines is building up...creativity is waning...thank you for all the lovely comments on my bag I am trying to catch up on comments so please forgive me if I am a bit slow.

With a little bit of encouragement

Lorraine has been encouraging me to write a pattern for a bag that I have made more times than I care to think. I have made them as gifts........ I have a couple of these bags with stitcheries on the side, all the girls at work have one. I have always just made it from a hodge podge of notes. I decided that I would give it a go and have found it very challenging. Lucas & I have had fun making a cover I have learnt a little about Adobe so in all it has been a learning curve. I am dyslexic so I have always found it easier to make things than write how to make them.





I have put instructions for 2 bags in the pattern the second bag is quilted, I have done some free motion quilting on mine.





This is what happened to the appliqué I did recently......it ended up in another bag.



This is what Lucas came up with as a cover.



I don't profess to be a designer but I thought I would offer a copy of the pattern as a give away. Just leave a comment and I will pull a name out of the hat next Tuesday.

Waiting for the sun

Look what the postman left for me on Monday..........Royal Mail.......no it wasn't from Liz but someone very talented.
I had to wait until today so that I could take some photos........ another reason I hate winter.



I had been expecting this parcel as Lucy had emailed me.
There where lots of little parcels.



I was very lucky as I had won one of Lucy's give aways she had added a few extra bits, along with my quilt.



I am now the proud owner of a Lucy Locket original wallet.

Lucy had emailed me a couple of times apologizing for not having finished my quilt by the due date. I was not concerned as she was under immense pressure she had agreed to swap mini quilts with 1/2 the world.
She also said she was worried about the design.

She needn't have been...... look at the lovely quilt I received. Several times when I had posted pictures of Aussie birds Lucy had commented how amazing it would be to have such bright colourful birds in the trees of your garden. My reply to that was "yes they are bright and colourful but they are raucous and noisy"
Some of my most pleasant memories of my time spent living in England was the lovely bird songs. Tony's uncle had a bird table in his garden and I loved to sit and listen to the birds.
I told Lucy this story.
This was the inspiration for my quilt and I just LOVE IT.






Unbeknown to Lucy I inherited my love of birds from my dear dad who is no longer with us. He would spend hours when he was old and frail feeding the doves, look at the lovely dove on the top of the bird feeder. Now when I hang this in "My stitching room" I will not only think of Lucy but my dear old dad who I miss very much.



So thank you Lucy I love my mini quilt very much.

PIF gifts

I have been up since 4.30am Gemma & Sean flew to Queensland for a lovely 11 day holiday, as I drove home I wished I had been going also as it was so cold and wet.
I can show you what I made as my PIF gifts now that they have arrived safe and sound. I had an unusual PIF this time. Levin who left the first comment was also the winner of my 100th post give away so I will make her something a bit different she most probably is thinking she will never receive it but I have finally made up my mind on what to make..... so Levin you only have to be patient a little longer.
After sending serveral emails to the second commenter for an address and getting no response I decided she had changed her mind and didn't want to play along. Way down the list Born to Read and Knit had thought it such a good idea she started her own so I thought she was a good recipient so she became the 2nd person.
The third person was Sorrow and she perhaps didn't need to pass it forward as she does it all the time. She has an etsy shop and proceeds from that go to different charities. She does the most amazing pottery and paintings have a look at what her daughter has on her bedroom wall.
This is what I sent them....... I know I have made this before but this one was made for posting unlike the one I made myself which was framed.

Photo swap

On Sunday evening in the middle of cooking tea I rushed out the door to snap these.
It was a really eerie light ...amazing colours.

How about joining me in this photo swap it opened today and ends on the 7th...... photos have to be sent by the 31/7/08 you can join here the theme is "in motion" it looks like fun.