In My Garden, block 2 done and Tis the season

I have been slowly needleturning the little bugs, sun and trees on block 2 of In my Garden. It was lovely to have time to finally and carefully cut the pieces and make up block 2. Block 3 is now waiting to be started! I so love the colours that Anni has chosen for this quilt and am so inspired after seeing the "real" one in Bathurst.

I am also up to date with the "Tis the Season" Stitch-a-long. Here are blocks 4 and 5.

The Folk Festival and some stitching progress

I attempted to take a couple of photos of some of the acts at the folk festival. There are so many talented musicians who play at these events. I really enjoyed my Saturday at the festival.

I have been stitching too and enjoyed having a bit more time over the weekend to work on my many BOMs. This is block 1 of Christmas Fun by Lynette Anderson. The gingerbread man at the back looks like a ghost! Might have to colour him in! The little patchwork blocks at the top at only 3" square!!

I have finally made the patchwork blocks to go at the top of the second block of Scandinavian Christmas. This is another quilt I am making that is designed by Lynette. I do put the machining off though the patchwork blocks really add to the design!

Here are blocks 1 and 2 stitched together.

Happy Easter and Anzac Day and a few more pictures of The Home patch

I hope you have all had a very happy Easter and that you haven't eaten too many chocolate eggs and have had time to remember and ponder the true meaning of Easter too. Here in Australia, today is Anzac day and it is a day when we remember those who have fought for our country over the years. Many are attending services and marching in remembrance today.
We have had a quiet easter and the kids are coming tonight to have dinner and we will share a few easter eggs then. I had a great day enjoying the folk festival yesterday and saw some  wonderful acts. There are so many talented musicians out there.
I'll just leave you with a few more pictures of our wonderful visit to The Home Patch. Some lovely braids.

Lots of gorgeous fabrics.

A lovely needlebook that I am looking forward to stitching.

We also enjoyed seeing the autumn colour in Bathurst...

and at lunch in Cowra.

The Home Patch

Fiona and I had the best time visiting Bathurst and especially visiting The Home Patch. Anni Downs is one of my favourite designers and it was wonderful to visit her shop and to catch up with her as well. We did enjoy afternoon tea, dinner and morning tea in Bathurst but our main reason for coming was to come here!

The shop is in an old stable building and it is so inspiring. There are so many beautiful fabrics, patterns and lots of samples.

Here we are with Anni. I borrowed Fiona's photo as mine was a bit fuzzy.

One of the loveliest things was to see this wonderful quilt in real life. I am up to block 2 (with block 3already here too) and it is a BOM we are getting from the Home Patch called "In my garden". 

Here are some closeups of the blocks.

The Home Patch has beautiful woven wool felt and Anni has made this delightful purse using the felted fabric. Sadly they were out of kits but will have some in a few weeks.

Thanks to my lovely stitching friends, I had a gift voucher to spend and it was such fun spending it. Thanks girls.

A little stitching and some lovely show and tell

I have been busy over the last few days working on my Stitching day projects just like Fiona. Her canvas work looks beautiful. Here is a little snippet of one of my projects.

I went to a lovely stitching evening at Adrienne's on Friday. She brought out the most amazing box of finished or almost finished projects. Here is a lovely purse she is making that just needs a handle.

Some amazing cross stitch.

She has also been adding to her Christmas decorations. Here is a Santa and a Reindeer from a pattern by Vivien Robinson.

Adrienne also increased the size of these embroidered bears we did years ago which meant she had to do so many more stitches! Lovely work, Adrienne.

Lastly, though there were more things in the magic box, a very special Christmas stitchery.

Finally...some stitching and painting

We have had a busy time lately with parties and weddings and weekends away. It has been fun but has made it hard to get lots done at home. This week has been a little quieter and I managed to get the paints out to paint our special button for the stitching days. The stitching days will soon be here and I need to get stitching and get to writing the notes. The first day on the 14th is full and there are just a few places left on the 21st. 

 Here is a little secret glimpse of a bit of stitching on felt.

 As we have been in the car a lot lately, I just had to get a bit of stitching prepared and have managed to stitch the second block of "My Town", the Post Office.

I am also very please to show you my finished "Gardener's Journal" quilt! It is bound and the label is stitched on! 

Beautiful wedding

We had a wonderful time celebrating Sarah and Kevin's wedding on Sunday. The church was a lovely old one in Newtown.

Sarah looked gorgeous and Kevin looked very handsome.

Gorgeous bridesmaids.

My beautiful girls with their Pa.

Ma and Pa after the wedding.

Sarah is very artistic and had wonderful ideas for the wedding decorations. They were so lovely. This is the Table board.

Here is the beautiful cake.

Each table centre was just so beautiful. Note the pencils so we could do the wordsearch and the cloze passage! Sarah is a primary school teacher.

It was a large wedding party. Here they all are including the 13 month page boy who was so very cute.

It was such a lovely time and both Kevin and Sarah seemed to enjoy every minute. It was so special to share this day with them.

Sydney

We headed to Sydney this weekend to attend a family wedding and went up early and headed into town. I have decided the only real benefit to turning such an old age is the Seniors card as I went on the train for $2.50 and could have gone to Manly too! We had a wander in Hyde Park and then enjoyed lunch at a cafe.

We also wandered through the Strand Arcade. It is such a lovely arcade.

There were starry patchwork blocks everywhere.

And some lovely windows.

I especially liked the Easter windows in the chocolate shops. Yum!

The city was busy with buskers and beautiful street art.

Our reason for being there was to go to see Jersey Boys. It was wonderful! We had seats in the second row from the front which were fantastic.