A Special Gift & Christmas Scenes

   It was nice to catch up with my friend Shirley yesterday before we head off to the beach for a summer holiday. 
Imagine how thrilled I was when I received a piece of Shirley’s exquisite embroidery for Christmas.  I have been totally rapt in this piece since she first began designing and stitching it as part of Sharon Boggon’s ‘Sumptuous Stitches’ course.  Sooooo, to actually own it is a real thrill indeed.
                  
Shirley has crafted the embroidery into a book cover.  (A sketchbook which will be handy for my upcoming TAST designs!!)  Not only has she done this amazing embroidery but the fabric is hand dyed by her, the cord is hand dyed by her and some of the beads she has also made.  She is one creative lady. 

BEAUTIFUL !
Now I am going to show you some of Shirley’s handmade Christmas decorations.

Could these please be bequeathed to me Shirley???   Aren’t they beautiful too?
When we were in Brisbane on the weekend our daughter took us to see this house in her suburb which has a Christmas Light show in the evenings.  It was spectacular.  I only have a small camera, so the photos are pretty ordinary.  The light show included music – magical.


It had an Australian theme, There is a cockatoo, koala, kangaroo and emu.  Can you spot them?  Santa made an appearance in the front window but I couldn’t capture him on camera.

As promised, I am showing some pictures of Robyn’s Christmas trimmings from our get together last Thursday.

We had really funky serviettes from Kaffe Fassett fabric and they even had a buttonhole in them. Thanks to Frances for these.

Yvonne, Robyn H and Carmel (with KF serviette attached!)

Beautiful Table setting

Table Centre – Glass tree with mini ornaments.

Monsieur Robynne with her Secret Santa gift – perfect – a silver glass Christmas Tree.

Nativity Scenes
It gives Robyn and her husband, Alan, much pleasure decorating their home for Christmas and it gives everyone who visits (especially the Grandchildren) much pleasure too.
Thank you to all my wonderful blogging friends who visit this blog and I wish you all a very happy and peaceful Christmas, all the best for the New Year and happy holidays.

xxx
Di.

Gifts from Friends

In the past couple of weeks I have been blessed with many gifts from my friends.

Marleen gave me this very cute fabric basket with some goodies in it. Yum.

Joan gave me this gorgeous Royal Albert ornament.  Very nice.

Yvonne surprised me with this zentangle needlecase. We had done some tangling together at the retreat and she has taken to it like a duck to water.  The fabric is very appropriate.   Love it!
After quite a wait,  a wonderful parcel arrived from my dear friend Judy (Michigan USA).  Judy has a lovely blog at CJ Stitching and Blooms.
It arrived in this very bright package – Australia Post can you please do some of these?

Thank you for the goodies you sent me Judy, very thoughtful.  Can’t wait to try out these Pilot erasable gel pens she has sent me – I have never seen them before!
Today, Joan gave me this sweet wall hanging and I hung it from the only place I could find, the Air Conditioning controls.  We haven’t put many hooks back into the wall since we painted and renovated  waaaaay back. 

Love the sentiment expressed in this!
Then.. today at my quilt cottage group Christmas break up I received this Royal Albert Santa.  (I feel a collection coming on).  Too cute eh?


The cottage group gathered in Robyn’s home.
L – R (Back) Yvonne, Dawn, Joan, Pam, Me, Robyn H, Robyn Ginn, (Front) Sue, Kerrie, Carmel and Frances.
Robyn’s house was beautifully decorated which I will show in the next post.
Thank you my dear friends.

Gifts

One of the gifts I cherish the most is the wonderful friends I have in my life, most of whom I have met through patchwork and quilting.
For my three amigos this year I made them each a Christmas Recipe folder which is a pattern from Fiona at “Designs by Fee”.  Thank you for sharing this pattern with us, Fiona.



Here they are all wrapped up.  I made the tags from some collaged fabric pieces and painted the luggage tags in watercolours.  I have now given all the girls their recipe folders and they loved them.
 
This is my dear friend, Marleen.  She dresses her house up for Christmas with all her Christmas quilts and nick nacks. It looks a treat.

It inspired me to come home and decorate a little more.  I ended up putting every single decoration I own (which isn’t many really) on our tree and around the house.

Our Tree.
Next time….. gifts received!!

3 Years Old already

Our little cherub, granddaughter , Lilian,  turned 3 today.
She is a delight and probably one of the best things that has ever happened to us!

Mummy gave her this doll’s house which she played with almost all day and Nana and Grandad (us) gave her the tea set.  We had to have many ‘cups of tea’.

She really enjoyed her rainbow cake which her Mummy made for her.  It was nearly as big as her!!  She loves rainbows!!  ( and birds and monkeys)
She had a lovely day.

TAST–Take a Stitch Tuesday

I have bitten the bullet and decided to participate in Sharon Boggon’s TAST 2012.
Sharon’s blog is Pintangle and you can read all about TAST 2012 at
http://www.pintangle.com/community-challenges/2011/12/1/take-a-stitch-tuesday-2012-challenge-information-page.html?lastPage=true&postSubmitted=true
At least I have my friend, Shirley, to help motivate me.  It should be a lot of fun and last year I was amazed at how the participants came up with different ideas for the stitches Sharon gave them each Tuesday.
I embroidery.