Habits & Goals

No resolutions this year but there are some goals-
Goals – not necessarily all this year!
1…… Finish at least a couple of UFO’s
2……Take a Learn to Draw Class
3……Get all my TAST stitches done
4……Let go of the fear and let the creative side take over
and some Bad Habits that need to be broken-
There is one bad habit I have conquered last year.  Since I was a small girl I have always chewed my fingernails.  I know, yuk, yuk yuk!  Gross!  As a child I was very shy and very self conscious about my very thick glasses.  Of course it didn’t help that I was teased mercilessly by the other kids at school. This made me very nervy and I just chewed and chewed. Fifty odd (very odd) years later on our Western trip last year, I found that my fingernails grew because I wasn’t chewing!!  You are always dirty when you’re camping out in the bush, so even I couldn’t bring myself to chew.  So….. haven’t chewed since.  HURRAY!
1……Stop starting new projects before finishing old
2……Stop hoarding and buying art stuff that goes into the cupboard to just dream about
3……Stop getting on this bloody computer so often and make some limits.
Well, there you have it, I have exposed publicly.

My friend, Marleen, gave me this journal for Christmas.  Inside it has a type of recycled paper and some of the pages in the back are graph paper.  This should be really handy for doing some designing.  I love it!
So, I am designating this book to creative ideas.  Thank you, Marleen.

One of my loopy sister in laws (sorry Cath, but you know you are :  -)) has a beautiful Australian chocolate mist cat called Levi.  In amongst all her old clothing was this very 80’s, very ugly denim skirt.  I suggested we cut it up and make a little snuggle rug for Levi.  Something he can scratch the billyo out of if he likes!  It is backed with the black velvety ‘stuff’ you see here in the windows of the front.  Cathy loved it hope Levi does too!

Here is Cathy aboard her partner’s boat back in November.  Love ya Cath!

A really random photo, but this is the plum pudding I made for Christmas and it was my best ever!!
Forgot to take an after cooking photo but it was quite spectacular!
Also made a new dessert which everyone agrees will become a family tradition.
It is from the pre Christmas edition of “Delicious” magazine. Cold Rice Pudding with Hot Cherry Sauce.  Out of this wooooorld.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!!!!

Lots of Stuff–Post Christmas

This is a real catch up post!  It is lovely to be spending some time just relaxing at home over the Christmas New Year break.  The best part is catching up on some stitching and watching a few movies while doing it
Christmas Day Snaps.

Rebecca (Lilian’s mummy)  ( L ) & Bonnie                  Santa’s gorgeous helper – Bonnie

All the girls on Christmas Day ( L – R) Rebecca, Gabrielle, my sister, Lyndelle, Bonnie, Angela and Moi.

Lyndelle in her sexy apron and with son, Nicholas.
It was a lovely day with heaps of scrumptious food.
My dear friend Shirley gave me this embroidery book – I am so lucky!  It has a lot of unusual stitches in it which I am keen to try.  Thank you, my friend.
                 
Marleen had gifted me and Joan one of these very cute aprons each.  Thank you Marleen – it was very handy indeed.
            
Cute!

I made Marleen and Joan one of these pencil rolls each.  The pattern was from ‘You Go Girl’ – HERE- and was very easy to put together with easy to understand instructions. 

And I made them each a little owl too such as I had received earlier from Vicki at the retreat.
Finally, I have done some more TAST stitching.
This one is Week 21 – Butterfly Chain.  I have called this little one ‘Butterfly Love’ and designed it when we were out in the outback in August.  This stitch was very interesting and I like it done in the chain like I have used around the hearts.  I have worked it on duponi silk.

Yesterday I watched movies and stitched Week 22 – Knotted Cretan Stitch.  This one is called ‘Fish Skeleton’ and evolved from just ‘freestyling’  with the stitch.  On the border I have done it in a very controlled manner in a knotted open cretan and I love the texture this stitch creates.

The background is hand painted (by me) in acrylic paint mixed with textile medium and then rubbed with a copper coloured shiva stik over a textured surface. 
All the TAST stitches for 2012 may be viewed HERE and in the comments sections of each stitch you can view what other people have done over the year.  There are some very creative ideas for using all the various stitches.
Thank you to Sharon Boggon from “Pintangle” for organizing the TAST challenge. 
Now to get on with the next 24 stitches  I AM HALFWAY THERE!!!!!

Gifts Given And Received

Before I go on about gifts I have been given and gifts I have been giving, I have a special photo to share.

Shirley and I met our online friend, Linda from Billabongs 2 Bling at the Bush Christmas a week or so ago.
It was lovely to catch up with Linda and finally get to meet her.  Bush Christmas is when the bush crafters come to town and sell their wares.  It was really beautiful with lots of delicious things to look at.

I don’t think I have ever shown this piece of loveliness before.  It was a special gift from Shirley some years ago, and it hangs from the knob of my little sewing table in the lounge room for all to admire.

I made this sewing dilly bag for a friend who has left Toowoomba to go and live on Flinders Island, Tasmania.
She has always admired my dilly bag like this, so now she has her very own.  I think it is a pattern from ‘Country Pieces’.  It is a pattern I have had for many, many years.
There are some other things I have been making which can’t be shown here just yet.  I have very much enjoyed working on some collage cards which I will show in the next week or so.

Leaving you with this photo of the beautiful landscape of Middle Lagoon on the Western Australia Dampier Peninsular.  Middle Lagoon has many different aspects to it – such an amazing place to visit.

Retreat & Quilt Show

After a bit of a hiccup I made it to our annual retreat for Toowoomba Quilters Club. 

Me, Vicky and Marleen.
It starts on the Friday afternoon around 4.30 but yours truly was in bed all day Friday after just recovering from a vomiting bug during Thursday night, quickly followed up by a migraine.  Yukko.
Not to be beaten, I thought I would get up really early Saturday morning and head out to the retreat.  it was not to be.  Still had the migraine at 5.00am so went back to bed and nursed it til around 9.00.  Then I was well enough to go – can’t keep a determined quilter down!!
Alas, the sewing planned did not get done, but I did do a little bit of wool embroidery and a little bit of zentangle to keep my mind off the fact that I was still nauseous and unwell.
At retreat we had a Christmas swap at Saturday lunch and I was lucky enough to win these very cute owls made by Vicki W.  They kept going missing over the next 24 hours and I would find them scattered randomly about the room. 

Aren’t they just sooooo cute.  Mamma and her three babies.
On Wednesday our quilt group took a bus down to Brisbane to Quilt and Craft Show.  It was a hoot (sorry for the pun).
It was one of the best organized trips I have ever been on with our quilt club.  Organized by the beautiful Ineke, we had a pit stop at Goodna where we had a lovely cup of tea/coffee and cake and bikkies and then on to the show.  Our tickets and other information was already attended to and we walked straight in and spent a wonderful day exploring the show.Here are just some of the goodies I bought.

Some arty farty stuff – coloured lutradur, batik fabric I had to have, colourful sari silk stirps and a rubbing plate.  Some washi tape which I don’t know what for, some daisy braid, angelina fibres (also bought a copper shade) and a micron pen for zentangle.
There was a bit more too, and I spent waaaaay too much but had a lovely day.  It was good to catch up with some friends at the show who aren’t in the group, and I even caught up with Mary, a crafting friend, from Rainbow Beach.
The winning quilts at the Queensland Quilt show can be seen here.
Blogger –  The verification on blogger these days is a pest.  It is hard for people to read and deters people from commenting, so I turned it off.  Alas, now I am being bombarded with spam and silly anonymous emails so I will have to  put it back on, sorry.  Just wish blogger would make the verification process easier.

Learning from Friends

It has been a week of learning and doing.  Finally a little craft time.
Firstly there was my TAST project to do.  After a couple of days pondering and tweaking the design I have come up with ‘The Look’ (named by Shirley because she thought it looked a bit like an eye)

I was having a devil of a time trying to keep those french knots in a straight line and under my control.  So, I turned to the ‘master of french knots’, aka Shirley, and she put me on the straight (sorry about the pun) and narrow.  Then, most of them went straight and I learned the correct way.  It made me really confident about the stitch and I ended up quite enjoying them.  Also enjoyed doing the beading and learnt a few tricks of the trade from a video I recently purchased called “Bead it like you mean it” by Lyric Kinard
Here is the journal entry for french knots where you will see I had other ideas too.

Teresa over on All things Vintage was very supportive when I couldn’t quite ‘get’ a pattern I was trying to make.
It was Isabella’s journal from Faeries in my Garden and for the life of me I could not understand what to do.  I knew Teresa had made this one so I contacted her being too embarrassed to contact the people from Faeries and looking like  too much of a dumb cluck.  In the end, it was all too much and like the song goes, I did it my way.  It is okay and I know the birthday girl recipient is going to love it anyway, cause I made it for her.

Anneliese from Stitching Lady has inspired me to try my hand at stamping and colouring my backgrounds.  I have done a little bit of this but may now start doing a few of my TAST samples on my ‘new fabric’.  The kitchen table was turned into an art space yesterday and I painted some backgrounds.  Now to embellish, stamp etc.

Kitchen table after lunch.

Some pretty washing.

The formy thingy I bought at a craft show and have just remembered after reading Anneliese’s blog.
You heat this up, not too hot, press it onto something textured and then stamp with it.  When you done with that stamping, you reheat it back to plain ready to do a different one.  Brilliant.  Can’t wait to try it out.
Thank you Anneliese for your inspirational work, and thank you to my friends for helping me out.
Drop into Pintangle and see what others did for the french knot (Week 16 of TAST).

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 to Treasure

Does everyone love ‘Willow Tree” as much as I do?
Shirley, being the sweet and thoughtful friend she is, gave my husband and I these two beautiful figurines as a gift for helping her through her recent illness.  Thank you Shirley.  We really treasure them.

Grandma with baby                       Grandpa with baby

(She knows how much we love our little grand daughter, Lilian.)

Then, Shirley spotted this one she thought I might like, so I purchased it as well to add to the collection.

Grandma with baby and quilt.
Well, I am off to Melbourne on Wednesday to go to the Australian Quilt Convention.  Finally today I found some shoes I will be able to walk and stand in all day (I hope).  It is so difficult finding shoes for small, wide feet.  It is a family ‘thing’ and the bane of my life.  Shoes are never comfortable!! 
While in Melbourne we are going to the museum to see the Tutankhamen exhibition and we are also taking in a show, “Dr Zhivago”.at Her Majesty’s Theatre. No doubt there will be shopping too.   It is going to be so much fun.