Love my family and my faith .. love being creative ... love the beach and sand between my toes ... love to read ... love where we live on the South Coast of New South Wales .... love exploring the great outdoors .... travel and tropical islands .....
Here is something else I have been working on lately and finally finally finished! I have made four altar cloths to take on our mission trip to the Solomon Islands. They will be presented to village churches over there and I'm sure I will have some photos of that when I return.
I have really stepped outside my "comfort zone" with these as this is not what I normally stitch and am certainly no expert in church linen - however, I am happy with the end result and will see how they are received over there!
Here are some of my Needlework ladies with the little friendship cushions they have made for me to take to the Solomon Islands this week! I asked for them to make me 100 to take, but I now have about 165 and more to come, so I am thrilled with their response. I know the ladies in the Solomons will be thrilled to receive such lovely gifts! Thanks ladies!
Here Lisa and Shirley are busily setting up the stall for "Steph's Patchwork & Fabric" shop from Moruya. This is my "local" patchwork shop and my favourite local place to shop for all my stitching and patchwork supplies!
And this beautiful book and quilt were to be found on Steph's stall - the book is full of lovely projects and it just might find its way onto my bookshelf shortly!
Emma from "Country Inspirations" had a lovely stall too with this gorgeous wire basket full of snowmen and Christmas goodies! Is Christmas really that close??
And a little bit more food - the choice in the middle of the table whilst the ladies were stitching was a choice between marshmallows and/or grapes! Healthy or sweet??? All in all, we had a great day!
Lunch at our Stitching on the Bay day was beautiful frittatas with salad - all plated up here on the table and ready to eat! Yum!
And following lunch we enjoyed lovely little cups of fresh fruit salad! I had to post pictures of food so Sylvia could see what we ate! We missed you today Sylvia!
Lyn and Ros had these beautiful matching lanyards to hold their scissors close and handy! They were really gorgeous and very practical - well done ladies!
And here are Sheila and Ann enjoying a quiet moment together - which is what it is all about! Friendships, food and a little bit of stitching!
We have enjoyed a lovely day of embroidery and friendship at "Stitching on the Bay". All the ladies seem to have enjoyed themselves - so I thought I would share a few photos with you! And as usual, it was more about the food that the stitching!! This was the sumptuous morning tea which Maree had made for us to share. How delicious! We had scones, little apple tarts and lemon slice - delicious - thanks Maree!
The scene before the ladies arrived this morning and as the shops were setting up for the day. We had Stephs Patchwork (Lisa and Stephanie) with us from Moruya and Country Inspirations (Emma) from Canberra. A wonderful assortment of things for us all to buy!
And here are some of the ladies hard at work - Shirley, Jenny, Dzingtra, Tricia and Mary Rose! Apparently lots of chatting went on at this table!
And these ladies certainly look to be hard at work don't they? Paula from "Sew Much Time Sew Little Fabric" (in red) managed to sneak down from hospital to spend the day with us! She is one of the new Gumnuts bloggers - check out the button on the left hand side of my site for more information about them!
We have made some lovely bags lately with our Needlework ladies and here are some which the ladies had finished and showed us this week. This brightly coloured bag was made by Jenny for a gift!
And here is Tricia's version of the same bag in lovely pastel colours!
And this is a fabulous idea of Margaret's - the $1.00 bag! She has used the green Woolworths or Coles bags and covered them and lined them with fabric! They look great and she will be very smart in the supermarket!
I spotted Margaret with this lovely green toned bag which she had bought to keep her bits and pieces in as she crocheted around the outside of this face flannel. It's all very green, especially with the green rubbish basket for threads and cuttings in the photo! Well done ladies - these all look great!
Here is a collage of some more of the projects we will be working on this weekend at Stitching on the Bay. This one might help some of you who are coming choose your colours and fabrics you wish to work with! We are looking forward to a great day of friendship and stitching!
We have the Stitching on the Bay day here on Saturday and here are some of the projects we are doing! A bit of canvas work, a cross stitch biscornu and a little felt strawberry and Clover cutter cover! We are looking forward to a fabulous day of stitching with all the ladies!
This beautiful cushion on display at the Glenharrow Stitch In said it all! It had been beautifully stitched by Rosalie Quinlan and sat upon a chair. We certainly had a peaceful and enjoyable day stitching with all those ladies!
This is another beautiful stitchery along the same lines as the one above. All of the work of Rosalie Quinlan and Leanne Beasley was displayed around the beautiful interior of Glenharrow and it was very inspiring to sit and sew in such delightful surroundings!
I loved this little framed piece by Leanne Beasley - the stitchery was gorgeous and the frame had been painted a dusky pink to match - very cute!
And I think this cushion was on the table for sale and someone whipped it up pretty quickly! The ladies had some of their samples for earlier projects available for sale on the day and I was very lucky to take home a beautiful bag which I will show in a later post!
One of my lovely stitching ladies is Paula Storm from "Sew Much Time, So Little Fabric" and she has just started "Among the Gum Trees" - with a group of Australian designers who want to share with you!Here is their logo! You might like to have a look at their blog - it's very interesting and they have some great giveaways!
Here is a little bit of her story on her blog -
In a (gum) nut-shell, this it’s what we’re all about:
We are a group of Australian designers who love to share, so we will regularly offer FREE designs for you to use for your personal use. Aren't we nice :)
Among the Gum Trees is the brainchild of Jenny of ELEFANTZ, who has brought together nine established and emerging designers to offer something new and exciting to the world - their own original designs – free of charge!
Free of charge?! Are we mad?! Well, no we’re not insane, but we do affectionately refer to each other as “the nutters”, and we look forward to sharing our designs, our news, and our ‘nutty’ journey with you through the gum trees!
These are a couple of glimpses around the lovely B & B we stayed in recently in Emerald in Victoria. It was called Timbertop Lodge and it was lovely, although a bit chilly. Lovely slow combustion fire going each night to keep us warm! Here is a lovely painted and embroidered picture which was on the wall which took my fancy! I love incorporating the painting and embroidery mediums together!
On another little table was this beautiful stained glass lampshade! Very striking!
On another wall were these three lovely Barb Smith (Woodcutters Daughter) ladies - beautifully painted also!
And to greet us, although a little blurry in the photo, were freshly picked beautifully scented roses!
Some more lovely scenes from our Stitching on the Lake Day in Canberra last weekend! And here is a small piece of the Hobbysew stand which we had visit for the day. Lots of beautiful fabrics and things to tempt the ladies!
And Emma from Country Inspirations had a beautifully decorated Christmas Tree with some lovely decorations - and the gorgeous "Be Attitudes" Quilt by Nancy Halvorsen of Art to Heart in the background was behind the Hobbysew stand.
It is always nice to see what the ladies have done with some of our designs from previous Stitching Days and here is a variation on the painted heart with embroidery which we worked on earlier this year - made into a biscornu - it looks great!
And another lovely stitching bag (I am such a bag lady!!) using such glorious colours! Pretty sure this pattern is a Bareroots pattern (Sylvia will correct me if I am wrong with that!). It has been stitched so beautifully and was just outstanding sitting in the middle of the table!
Here is Jenny's beautiful version of our applique and embroidered bag which we made a couple of weeks ago! Lovely colours Jenny and beautifully made!
I am heading off to the Solomon Islands shortly on a mission trip with our Church and my Needlework Ladies have very kindly stitched me lots of little gift cushions to take with me - how gorgeous are they all? Well done ladies and thanks so much - I know your efforts will be greatly appreciated in the Solomons!
A close up of a couple of the little cushions - this message says it all!
I have lots of photos I took whilst in Melbourne and thought some of these were just too gorgeous to go unseen - everywhere we turned there was a little stitchery or quilt hidden in a little nook at Glenharrow Gardens. These were just gorgeous against the rustic wooden walls!
Potted cyclamens and a lovely stitchery by Leanne Beasley with a lovely old oil lamp in the background were on the table to greet us as we arrived!
Leanne Beasley's little collection of pincushions and table cloths were just delightful and very colourful! Love the ric rac braid around the pincushions!
And this lovely sewing caddy by Rosalie Quinlan tickled my fancy - it was so lovely to see lots of the girls projects all made up - very inspiring! I'm ready to book again for next year now!
I thought I would share with you some of the delicious treats we came across in the past week away! This first display of cakes and tarts is in a beautiful little cafe in Prahran in Melbourne which we visited for lunch! No cakes for us though - just a delicious vegetable and lentil soup to warm us up in the freezing temperatures!
And next after the soup came my delicious skim cappucino! I think the other customers thought we were mad taking pictures of the food!
At the Glenharrow Stitch In we were absolutely indulged throughout the day - here was a small part of the morning tea! Can you believe this fantastic creation?
And lunch at Glenharrow was to die for! Beautiful platters of meats and salads and lovely cheeses and olives etc. Just beautiful - as were the pots of cyclamens flowering around the rooms! You can now guess why I might be dieting this week!!
On Friday morning before we left Melbourne, we managed to fit a quick hour at Mrs Martins Quilt Shop in Monbulk in the Dandenongs! Wow - what a find! Karen was so welcoming and very generous with her time in chatting and sharing with us both. We could have stayed for hours - unfortunately we had a plane to catch though! This was the sight that welcomed us as we walked through the door of her beautiful shop!
And here is Karen's version of Leanne Beasley's Butterfly Quilt - how gorgeous are her colours! Just loved it!
Karen had beautiful little sewing bits and pieces all around her shop and I couldn't resist taking a picture of this beautiful old Singer Sewing Machine - I have my grandmother's old Singer treddle sewing machine and it so precious!
And here is a another beautiful corner of Mrs Martins Quilt Shop! Everywhere we turned there were more lovely designs, fabrics and kits to inspire! Thanks so much Karen for your hospitality and kindness, and if any of you are ever in the area, do visit - you will not be disappointed!
