Stitching, a bike....and little boys

As you can see from my sidebar, I have joined Chooky's Stitch-a-long again this year and the projects are all smaller ones instead of a quilt. I am happy about that as I have too many large quilts to complete this year.  This little thread catcher was the project for January and it was so quick and easy. I did mine using squares of French general and some other reds. It is a project from the Red Home book.

 I have also been working on the pin cushion in the book for classes in Term 1. It has lovely little 1/2" hexagons on it. They are quite small but were OK to do with the glue pen.

 Here is the side with the appliqued house all quilted.

 This is the side with the words.

 Here it is finished! It is so cute and little.

 I have also been busy and quilted and bound this lovely, Anni Downs' hanging from the Homespun earlier in the year. It is ready for next Christmas!

 I popped into social stitching for just a few minutes yesterday and Doreen had this wonderful quilt to show the ladies. It is made from cotton shirting fabric and looks great. Doreen made 2 of these for her twin sons for Christmas.

 I also received my Christmas present in the post yesterday! I know it is a bike and means I will need to ride it. But it is so cute and just my size and very "girly" and I feel quite inspired to ride it!

 These little fellows were the reason I didn't get to stitching. They just popped in for a little visit. They are nearly 6 months old!

Happy New Year

How amazing to think that another year has flown but and here we are in 2013. Happy New Year everyone. We headed out and watched the 9pm fireworks and then saw the New year in at a gathering at the home of some friends. Hubby used his new camera to take a few good shots.

The new year certainly makes you think about the year just past. 2012 has been a great year for us. Luckily we have been in good health and have been able to go away and enjoy many good times. Of course the highlight of our year was the birth of little Sam and little Ben. We are so enjoying being grandparents to these little fellows. Can't believe that they were so small in hospital and now.....

 they are laughing and rolling and are such special little fellows.

The rest of the year was good too. There were some very special family days, Avril and Tim's wedding, Ma's birthday and then Ma and Pa's 60th wedding anniversary.

We were also so lucky to get to go on 2 wonderful holidays. The first was the cruise with Ma and Pa and Jeni and Paul early in the year. That was such good fun and it was so lovely that Pa was able to come and enjoy himself.

We also enjoyed our wonderful holiday to San Francisco and cruising all the way home. It was great fun and especially meeting our dinner buddies, Jenny and Jim and Jennifer and Gary.

It was wonderful too to share in Ash and Tim's wedding in December. What a beautiful wedding.

As always, stitching was very important. Fiona and I enjoyed running our stitching days and the "Stitching in the Hills" retreat was great fun. We also enjoyed Urban stitching in Melbourne and going to the craft show in Sydney too. 

I imagine 2013 will be a bit similar! I hope so anyway. I do wish everyone a very happy New Year and hope that this year is a year of health and happiness with lots of good times (especially stitching ones!).

Holiday stitching and Toulouse-Lautrec

Just before Christmas we headed to the National gallery to see the Toulouse-Lautrec exhibition. It was well worth the visit.

 It is lovely to have a few lazy days after Christmas at home to catch up on a bit of stitching. I made up Fiona's shoe bag ready for the Summer day at Hobbysew in February. We are doing four projects that day including a canvas work, the little stitched purse and the Noah's Ark stamped cushion. Had to get this bag ready to put in the shop!

 I also decided that I would try and finish an old UFO! Would be lovely to do one per week but I am not making any promises! This lovely little felted wool bag was started over a year ago at the Jukejema stitching weekend. It is an Anni Downs pattern!

 Once that was done, I decided to work on a few recent projects. This one from the Homespun magazine needed borders and now needs quilting.

 In classes in Term 1, we are going to do some of the lovely projects in Red Home by Natalie Bird. It is a gorgeous book and I have been so looking forward to sewing some of them. I have started the pin cushion.

 Here are the hexagons all sewn together for one of the sides.

I also stitched the bag stitchery and the little bird over Christmas. They are now ready to sew to make the bag and the little zippered purse.

Christmas celebrations

We had our family celebration on Sunday afternoon and evening. It was so special to have our little Benny and Sammy here for their first Christmas.

 These little chaps are looking at the football!

 It was a bit busy with babies and cooking so I didn't take lots of photos. I am hoping Lyndal may have some better ones to share with you when she and Nick get back from Melbourne.

 Present time was lovely even if the boys didn't have a clue what was happening. Here is little Sammy with his stocking.

Here are the stockings. Sammy's was already made but needed his name added.

 Benny's had to be made completely. Didn't get the names stitching until 11pm on Saturday night!

On Christmas day we headed to Sydney to see Ma and Pa and the little boys and their parents came too. We had a nice time visiting Ma and Pa and then headed off to Paul and Jeni's to have dinner with some of the family and some of Jeni's family too. 

It was a pretty busy day and these little fellows and their Mummy and Daddy drove home again that same night. It was easier as the boys slept the whole way. 

Christmas is here

Christmas is almost here but we have been celebrating already. On Saturday afternoon we had afternoon tea with Janelle and Richard and their family. It was lovely to chat and enjoy the children and to be together. 

 The stars of the show were, of course, the little people. Here is little Benny.

 Little Sammy playing on the floor.

 Little Lois, who is quite a big girl now compared to the boys, had a lovely time too.

 Here are the Lamonts all together. Lois's little sister will be here in just a few weeks.

 Lyndal took most of these pictures with her new Christmas present.