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.

Learning Blackwork

This is my first foray into blackwork   blue work??


Well the technique is blackwork, and thank you to my ever patient tutor, Shirley from “Stitches and Life”.  I have just started on a sampler piece and trying different variations. Decided to do it in blue as some years ago Shirley started me on drawn thread work and the edging on this piece of lugano is all I ended up doing!!  Typical!  The Blackwork is very addictive and very fun.  Thank you for starting me off, Shirley (and feeding and coffeeing me).
                                         
Miniature pink rose on my dressing table                                            Peach rose in hand made pottery by my
                                                                                                       Aunty – Heather Russell
.If only you could smell these roses – deeevine.

Almost Summer

This is a lovely time of year in the garden here.
    
Our scraggy old cactus didn’t disappoint and there were a couple of flowers left when we got home. They only last 24 hours.  Typical of most cacti  the flower is stunning.

The star jasmine was in full bloom too.
For me, it is wise to get out in the garden early in the morning or after sun down in the evening.  Usually, at this time of the evening is when I am preparing dinner, so I have pledged to get out there for an hour early in the morning each day – well those days when I am not going out socializing.
This morning I was a little late getting into it due to the fact that our beloved Bella had to have her annual haircut.  Poor Bella is about 12 years old now and her back legs are a bit dicky with arthritis.  A bit of a handful to get in and out of the car.  She wasn’t too keen on going in for her salon treatment either.  Kept heading for the front door of the place!
                             
Bella ‘before’                                                                    Bella ‘after’ – with little green ribbons in her hair.
My friend, Shirley, is back from her little sojourn ‘down at the farm’ and she brought me back some floral gifts.  Thank you Shirley – she knows how much I love flowers.  She also gave me some cuttings to put in our garden.
                   
Agapanthus & November Lily                              Yellow roses and daisies – apricot ones are from my garden.

Back from Outback

We went back o’ Bourke - and beyond -  where the crows fly backwards!!  The weather treated us very kindly and there was only one day where it reached about 40 deg. and that was in the Strzelecki Desert – so to be expected!

(Mr Virgo in the Strzelecki Desert – very, very hot day)

Lake Eyre was an amazing, awesome sight.  We did a short plane flight over, and the lake showed us all of it’s different faces.  It has about 30% water in it right now and that is fast evaporating.  It will, without rain in the catchment areas, become once again a salt pan. 

(Different views of Lake Eyre – taken from the aeroplane window – and, yes, the water is really pink/purple in places.)

(This is the very small aircraft we went over the lake in – Yikes!)

We camped in our tent for 12 nights, and I can tell you it was sheer bliss to get back into our own bed on Monday night  having had a long hot shower.  Even so, it was so much fun being out there and experiencing nature close up.  Too close up one night when our campsite became an attraction to hoards of desert mice.  EEK, I have a phobia of mice and rats, so you can imagine what sort of night I had in the tent.  Poor Mr Virgo was awakened every so often and at every slight noise to check the tent for mice. We had curry and rice for dinner and some of the rice had spilt onto the ground.  This is what attracted them.  Funny now looking back, and I am wondering what other campers (in caravans) were thinking when I was shrieking.

(Me – feet up on chair – terrified look on face – and oblivious to the mouse right under me, thankfully)

 

(Flowers in the desert and outback – if you recognize any as weeds – sorry, weeds can have nice flowers too!)

Inspiration from nature was abounding. The desert has come to life with all sorts of plant life, especially after rains earlier in the year.  The lake’s unique landscape and colours was also a great source of inspiration.  I just want to find some time now to do an art quilt or two!!