Flower post card

 

I did this postcard on Sunday.  It was lovely to get into the sanctuary of my sewing room and leave the rest of the house out of my mind.


Firstly I picked out some scrap fabrics and fused them to a piece of sturdy fabric (I used a denim scrap).
 Then I free sewed wiggly lines all over that and then fused the flower applique onto this.
Then the fun started and I dropped the feed dogs (left the ordinary foot on the machine) and added some texture to the petals and stamen area in embroidery threads.

To give the stamen more texture I picked up some of the yellow bits with a lazy daisy stitch and also hand embroidered a little chain stitch around the large leaf area.


It was so much fun to make and I have another one ready to go as soon as I can sneak off again.

When Size Does Matter

We had half the new renovation tiled when we decided to knock down walls.  This meant we had to order some more tiles or use carpet as before.  Fortunately, the supplier had some more of the same tiles.  They were a different batch so he advised us there may be a slight colour difference, but mixed in with the left overs from the first lot it would not be noticeable.  


Sounds just fine and dandy huh?  Well the tiler arrived this morning to finish it all off so we can get our living area back to normal (??) by Easter.  Now if you purchased a 450mm x 450mm tile you would expect it to measure 450mm right?  Nuh,  they were smaller than the other batch by about 4mm !!@@@??@??!!! (Replace with expletives.)

So people, if you are buying tiles just keep this in mind.  What to do?  We cannot lay them the same as the other area as it flows through and the line would be all out.  We can't have a big wide ugly grout either.  Soooooo, we have got around it by separating the two areas with a feature tile and laying the new tiles on the 45 deg. angle. Off tile shopping again on Monday. Whew!  Well of course this can't be done til next week now as the tiler has other jobs to go to.  It could still be done by Easter though,  fingers crossed! 


 Our living room.  Come on....you must feel a bit sorry for me!

Catch up

I have been very neglectful of my blog lately.  Since visiting my friend Shirley back a couple of months ago, I have been mad for embroidery.
I am working feverishly on my crazy blocks now to reach my goal and have them completed in 2010.  Shirley has introduced me to a group called 'Stitchin Fingers' run by Sharon B from 'Pintangle" fame, and I have loved looking over the site and chatting with embroiderers from all over the world.

It does eat into your embroidery/quilting time though.  Work on my hand quilting of KFC quilt has had to cease for the moment due to the renovations.  Yesterday we had a fine mist of gyprock powder through the house, so I can't bring my quilt out of hiding to quilt. 
It is coming along well though, and will look fabulous when finished.

Well, got the gyprock dust cleaned up when along came the tiler and decided to grind some concrete.  I can't describe it.

All I will say is, if you are going to do a reno - MOVE OUT.



Here is a photo of my friend Pam's Dragonfly quilt.  She has made this for a special gift for someone and it is her own design.  Love her background fabric and she has done lots of handquilting on it.


 A close up of her gorgeous dragonfly.


As I write this I am hoeing into a 'Lemon Myrtle & Macadamia' yoghurt.  It is the bestest most divinest yoghurt ever.  It is made by a local company called Queensland Yoghurt Company and states
" Gourmet Yoghurt".  Not wrong!  I had to stop myself from eating the whole 500g tub.  They have other yummy flavours such as coffee & walnut, mango and passionfruit, Rhubarb, apple and cinnamon and many more.  Going to roll into bed now.

Around the House

 

Don't know what this rose is but the scent is divine.  As this one is nearly finished flowering, there are two more buds on the same stem waiting to bloom.  Time to stop..... smell the roses.
 
There is not much a girl can do when the house is all topsy turvey, but since my kitchen is almost put together again, I can cook.  These are a favourite of ours and we call them Goodie Goodie Jam Drops.  
 
If you have an abundance of fresh mint as we do, why not make your own mint sauce?  We had roast lamb last night and it was made all the more delicious with this mint sauce.

Put 2 tablespoons of sugar in the bottom of a saucepan and pour over this 2 tablespoons of boiling water.  Bring back to the boil on the stove, and boil for a minute.  (Not too long or you will have toffee!!)

Take off the stove and add 2 tablespoons of mint sliced up finely (or not) and 2 tablespoons of vinegar.  I used red wine vinegar.  Belissimo. 

Here is our gorgeous grand baby, Lilian, 'helping' us in the garden on the weekend.  She sat for about 40 minutes digging in the dirt.  She just loves being outside and if my DH even looks like stepping outside without her she carries on a treat.

Crazy Blocks - Roses by another name

Here are just some of the roses I have done on my Crazy blocks from my Crazy quilt, "My life so far"

 

Can you tell I am mad for roses?  My favourite is blue moon, but alas mine died, so will have to replace it one day.  

I have done a whole block dedicated to roses.  I will put a picture up soon of that one.  I love doing the bullion stitch and was shown a wonderful way of doing it at a workshop put on by my quilt group and taught by a lady called Cathy Sotiriou.

Also shown here is a chain stitch rose, cast on stitch rose (blue moon) and silk ribbon (woven ribbon rose).

It seems there are so many different stitches around to do roses and I look forward to experimenting with some more.

Check out the little bees, they were done in the bullion workshop with Cathy also.

In God's Playground

(Saturday) 
 It was such a beautiful autumn morning today.  There is so much to do in our garden right now, so I got out into God's playground and it did my soul a whole heap of good.  Seeing as the house in such a state right now, it was nice to get out into the garden and lose myself for a couple of hours.


As my friends know, I have to be a little bit careful not to overdo it, or my fibromyalgia will strike me down.
 

I took a few photos of my miniature roses.  I lost one of my pink ones during the dry spell, but since the recent rains many plants in the garden that I had given up for dead have sprung back to life.

This pink miniature above is in topiary form and is giving a lovely display.  I will take a full photo in better light.  The sunlight was just too powerful this morning.

 





This orange one was all but dead and is struggling along with a few little flowers to please me.




















I brought some roses inside to brighten up the space.

I also planted some basil and parsely seedlings.  It is probably the wrong time of year, but hoping to get some use out of them before our first frost hits.

Chaos Central

 
BEFORE

 One Reno has led to another - now we are knocking down walls.

AFTER




















Thought I would add some prettiness.  Some more roses from my garden.

 This one, as you can see, is the most beautiful deep peach colour, and it has a beautiful fragrance.  It grows very bushy and flowers in clusters (usually).  During the dry weather none of my roses were flowering at all!!

This one is very fragrant and grows in clusters also.  It is lovely when all the flower heads are budding and in full flower to cut and fill a vase.
Tomorrow morning, (Sat) I am going to spend the morning pampering them and giving them some tender loving care for their reward.


As you can imagine my creative life is virtually at a standstill while I cope with the mess and chaos around me.  Thank goodness on Thursdays I meet with my sewing friends and get a little more work done on my CQ blocks.  It is the only creative outlet I have at present.

Cookery on a Rainy Day

 

Coconut Fancies
Can anyone tell me how to successfully type around pictures in blogger?  It is driving me nuts!!   I eventually do it with a lot of fiddling about.

We have had the most beautiful steady rain.  What better pursuit on a rainy weekend than some home cookery.  The coconut fancies are from this book by Lady Flo Bjelke-Petersen.  Flo was married to a former Premier of Queensland, Joh and she was once a Senator.  Don't know about her politics, but her recipes are simple, good old fashioned food.

 We had a whole stack of cherry tomatoes which we were never going to eat, so we made some tomato relish from Flo's book as well.
It is delicious with cold meat on sandwiches and with cheese.

  Some of the cherry tomatoes never went really red, so we think they may have been a different type.  Thus, the relish isn't red but a sort of orange colour.  Makes no difference to the taste.  Yum.


  

Tomato Relish