Stitching ...

I have managed to do a little stitching in between wedding festivities and trips to the coast. I have finished January's blocks for the SKOW Stitch-a-long. which is exciting. If only I could keep up with Fiona !

 I have appliqued the parts of block 7 of In my Garden. Need to force myself into the sewing room to sew it together.

 Woo hoo! The fourth border has been added to the Christmas Fun BOM. Now to get to the quilting.

 Most things have been set aside to work on some secret stitching and note writing for the stitching days Fiona and I are running in March and April.

Best get back to it!
Just a reminder to my class ladies that we start this coming Wednesday, 1 February. Looking forward to catching up with everyone.

Lucy and Peter's wedding

We went to Lucy and Peter's wedding on Friday morning in the courtyard of Canberra Baptist Church at Kingston.  The weather was so perfect for an outdoor wedding. It was a very special celebration. 

The service was followed by morning tea which included these lovely cakes!

Australia Day

We had the loveliest Australia day yesterday celebrating with Fiona and David on the beautiful South Coast. I am reading Anh Do's wonderful book, The Happiest Refugee, at the moment and there is often mention made of what a wonderful country this is. As a fellow migrant, I wholeheartedly agree. We headed to the coast on Wednesday and it was lovely to share yesterday with such dear friends. 

 We had a lovely walk on the beach.

 Fiona made the whole day so special with lamingtons. Aussie serviettes and delicious prawns for lunch.

 We even met little Nala! She is terribly cute (even for a non pet person like me!)

 Fiona and I hadn't been able to catch up around Christmas so it was lovely to exchange our gifts. Fiona had made me this gorgeous Christmas hanging with Happy Stitching on it. So appropriate!

 Fiona also bought me this delightful pattern by Lynette Anderson for some gorgeous stitched slippers. Must find time to make them!

We also had some time to organise our stitching days that are coming up soon and had a lovely afternoon of stitching too.

A little stitching

Just a quick post before I head to work this morning. I have been stitching and here is a little progress! Chooky reminded us about keeping up on the Stitchalong blog and I thought I had better get started on this month's blocks as the month is almost over!

 I have been doing some secret stitching on a little canvas work.

 There are now 3 sides on the Christmas Fun quilt.

Stitching....

Finally....a day at home to try and catch up on some projects and to do a bit of 'dreaded' housework. I did just the bare necessities and then started to get a little organised on some of my projects. I prepared the applique shapes for the last parts of block 7 of In my Garden. 

 I have been continuing to stitch this third long border of the Vignette quilt. I can see the end in sight now! I daren't try and time how long these take! Last evening, I stitched all evening and really only completed about 3 of the larger flowers!!!! I haven't even started the centre blocks.

 I also did some cutting today ready for the outer borders of Christmas Fun. The sewing room was a little dark for photos!

Sometimes you  think you will achieve so much when you have a day at home! Still, it really doesn't matter if you don't get all your list completed. It is sometimes nice to just take your time and do things at a more leisurely pace!

Summer stitching day

We had a lovely day on Monday at the Summer stitching day. It was great to catch up with the ladies and to share a day of stitching. We also enjoyed the morning tea!

 I forgot about photos till it was almost time to head home. Lynne had almost finished her little doll's embroidery.

 Karen had fused and prepared the cushion.

These were the projects that they were working on. Looking forward to another of these days in February.

Busy times

It seems like ages since I have blogged! I have had a very busy time. Ma and Pa headed home on Monday, I worked on Tuesday and Wednesday was stitching and lunch and then I put away all the Christmas decorations! It took quite a while and I was very tired when it was all over.

 On Thursday, I headed to Sydney to stay with Ma and Pa and to catch up with my brother and to finally sort out my Mum's photos. They had been stored for years and it was really time to go through them and share them. There were some wonderful old photos amongst them as well as my own childhood ones. I have been enjoying looking at them and hope to scan them and also make an album of Mum and Dad's lives too.

 Here I am with Mum on the ship heading to Australia! See, I liked cruising even when I was little!

 I haven't had a lot of stitching time but have started a little secret stitching for the stitching days coming up in March and April.

 Before I headed to Sydney, I managed to finish this block of Scandinavian Christmas.

Ma and Pa in Canberra

It was so nice to be able to have Ma and Pa visiting this weekend. Pa hadn't been well enough to visit for a while but he has improved and it has been great to see him feeling better and able to do more. They head home today but we have had a very nice time with them. They came down especially to see our kids' houses as they hadn't ever seen them. Ma enjoyed a couple of swims in the pool too.

 Yesterday, Ma and I went to the Renaissance exhibition at the National Gallery. It was very interesting and it is amazing to think the paintings has been done over 400 to 500 years ago. The colours were so bright on many of them.

 We just had to have coffee and cake here and I took the posters as photography wasn't allowed in the exhibition.

 On the way to the coffee shop we saw these amazing angels/space men hanging!

 Last week, I was motivated to start the next block of Scandinavian Christmas. Here is Santa almost appliqued.

 I have started the embroidery. I thought I would be almost finished then bit there is a fair bit of work on the borders!

My Town progress

I forgot to show you this block of My Town. It is a bother when you take on too many BOMs to keep up and even to work out where you are up to! I finished stitching this block after Christmas and it just needs to be coloured. I am not sure about the colouring so may leave it like this for now.

Sadly there are lots of household chores on my list today so best get going so I can have time to stitch.

Still stitching...

I have still been stitching but on my works in progress. I went to work after 2 weeks off and it was nice to catch up with our friendly customers at Hobbysew. I was tired though as the day had been busy. Not much energy to stitch last night. I don't think I have shown you my Vignette progress for a while. I have been plodding along and have finished the side blocks, 5 and 9. I am now stitching the other side! So many lovely flowers!

 I have pieced Christmas fun and hope to get motivated to add the borders over the next few days.

 Mostly I have been working on keeping up with the Some Kind of Wonderful Stitch-a-long. I have even been adding the long borders! I must admit this is a lovely project to work on.