Lovely weekend in Bundanoon

Last weekend, after just 2 nights in my own bed, we headed to Bundanoon for a family get together. We headed up in Saturday morning as we went to see an Agatha Christie play in Canberra. It was well done and quite a new experience. This gorgeous house was where we were were staying in Bundanoon.

 Ma and Pa and all their children and wives and husbands stayed overnight.

 On Saturday, some of the grandchildren and great grandchildren came to visit. It was fun to have lots of the family together like this.

 Here are the great grandies that managed to come....Braxton, Joshua, Phoebe, Sophie, Lois and Noah.

 Little Joshua turned one this week so we celebrated a little with him on Saturday

His Aunty Sarah made him a gorgeous birthday cake.

 Little Sammy and Benny didn't come last weekend but it was lovely today as they came over for brunch. We will miss them very much as we are heading off overseas on Monday. (Again!!!! I know, I am a bit spoilt!)

The bags are almost packed again. I hope I will be able to post while I am away. Best get some more stitching packed and do the last bit of ironing!

Shopping in NZ and Hobart and stitching...

We had so many opportunities to shop....at the ports and on the ship. It was great fun stocking up on kits and patterns. These kits came from The Quilted Crow.

 These kits and bits and pieces were from the ship classes and from some of the shops along the way.

 Judy Newman gave me a lesson in hand piecing so just had to have 2 of her gorgeous patterns.

 Here are a few of the patterns bought at Rotorua and at the Quilted Crow and some cross stitch designs from the needlework shop in Sandy Bay. The shop had some great specials.

I also stocked up on some woven wool felt, wool felt, some paper piecing shapes, some scissors and a few other useful notions.

 It was lovely to get Gail Pan's latest book and another Yoko Saito book for my collection.

 I also bought a crochet pattern and a few bits of wool along the way.

These gorgeous French buttons came from The Ribbon Rose in Wellington.

One of my class ladies, Cathy, gave me this lovely bag for being her tutor. How very kind.

I did manage to stitch some of my projects in my spare time on the cruise. So good to have this town hall all appliqued and stitched.

I stitched this little stitchery for the bag in Natalie Bird's latest book, In the Garden.

I have also stitched the last block of Chateau Hexagon.

Here is my little Japanese pencil case all stitched and quilted

I bought these little fluffy sheep for the little men and they really liked them. I didn't buy many other souvenirs but these little notebooks and sticky notes were good to buy with my leftover NZ cash.

                                         
Here are the little men with their sheep (Baas). It was so special to see them again and to see how much they had changed even in 2 weeks!

Hobart and cruising home

We had the best weather in Hobart which was our last Port of Call on our stitching cruise. Those in the know suggested we head to Daci and Daci Bakers for morning tea and it was really good! Even with all the food on the ship, this was a great place for morning tea and lunch. We headed there first and then met again for lunch. It was lovely to catch up with Helen Stubbings there as well. 

 Helen gave Fiona and I a lift to the Quilted Crow shop and it was amazing. The shop, run by Deirdre and Leonie, is in a gorgeous old church and there was so much to tempt us. Lots of beautiful displays of fabric, woven wool felt, patterns and even giftware

 Here we are with Deirdre and Leonie.

 We then headed back to town for lunch at Daci and Daci and then walked to Salamanca and enjoyed browsing the lovely shops.

 After that we walked back to the ship and enjoyed the lovely views.

 The last days on board were a chance to relax and stitch. We did have a show and tell night where each tutor talked about their projects and the students showed what they had been making during the cruise. It was nice for us to see what others were working on. These are Judy's gorgeous, mostly hand pieced quilts. They are so beautiful.

 Here is Fiona showing her projects.

 These are some of Wendy's students' beautiful scarves.

 And to finish off, here is just another beautiful dessert!

The Sounds, classes and desserts

The next day we had a misty day sailing through the fjords. The scenery was spectacular. I have seen it before in sunshine so it was quite lovely to see it all misty and mysterious.

 Here is Fiona teaching her class. These ladies were doing the canvas work.

 These are some of my lovely students. We had a very relaxing time stitching and chatting.

 Alison came along on the second day and had added sequins and beads to her cushion. Looks wonderful!

 One of Fiona's ladies finished her lid for her sewing box. It was beautifully done.

 My last day of classes didn't go ahead so I helped Kim teach her class in the conference centre. I was so glad she was able to come to the class (she had been really sea sick) as the methods and equipment for this project was way out of my comfort zone. I had never even heard about special Angelina fibres you iron to make shiny fabric and hadn't ever used shiva sticks (oil paint in a crayon kind of stick). The ladies had a lovely time playing with these different mediums as well as paint and pencils to colour in.

 We didn't make it to many of the performances on board but made sure we went to the ice skating show. It was amazing!

 Must just finish off this post with 2 more of the delicious desserts!