Oh No...

A busy day at work with a late finish, young Beck's had sent me a text to say "can you help me with my homework", yes I reply, am leaving work soon...

I get home to find, Beck's has had a project for TWO weeks, and was due today!! First I had heard of it... she had a reprieve as long as it was finished for her to hand in tomorrow morning...

This is how I looked on the outside...

This is how I felt on the inside...

So a pile of magazines for the young Miss to get cutting out pictures, while I started to get dinner ready to find some of the ingredients were no longer in the cupboard, so more instructions to Beck's to keep busy and write some notes, while I zip to the local supermarket....

...so dinner was had, Shortland Street watched, and by 8.30pm she had finished a poster covering her 'chosen career' for hairdressing, with some quick research done on the internet... a pretty speedy result, though was a good reminder to her to let us know when she has big projects so we can remind (nag) her to spend some time working on them and how stressful it is to leave it to the very last minute...

So now the girls are tucked into bed, the kettle has just finished boiling, and now its time to relax and do a little stitching I think...

Hope you all had a lovely Monday :)

Hugs J x

Chilly wet day ...

Has been a very dark grey day with so much rain today. Perfect for stitching - though to be honest haven't done a great deal of stitching today...

Headed into Wellington to pick up a purchase from Trademe (NZ online auction), a mini-system, that we have brought for Kaitlyn's 14th Birthday in a few weeks... it is a year old and like brand new though less than half the price of a new one. We gave it to her this afternoon - and all we hear is 'doof doof' sound of bass through the walls - she's smiling like a cheshire cat ...

Then I stopped in at my girlfriends who lives way up on the top and beyond of Belmont Hills - driving through the fog with water pouring down the road in little rivers was a freaky experience. Karen had made delicious spicy kumara soup (I've got to get the recipe off her) and homemade crunchy bread for lunch, her fire was roaring, the wind outside howling around the house and once the belly's were full and content - out came the needles and some stitching - I can't show you the block yet that I'm working on as its for a secret "0" birthday for one of our stitching group.

Though here is a pic of two of the block samples I made for our club's July BOM - I've named them swirling stars, though through Quilted Cache they are called Hexed Stars.

As I've mentioned in a past post - I've fairly new to paper piecing and I have to say am becoming rather addicted to it ... it takes me awhile to get sorted with the first two pieces of fabric to make sure I've got them the right way round when you press out to place the third piece down so a bit of reverse stitching was happening... however still good fun.

Well the rain is still pouring, I'd better get a move on as have to fix Kaitlyn's school skirt and get a little more stitching done on the secret birthday block...

Have a fantastic week and keep warm.

Hugs Jxox

I want to thank ...

Exciting, today I was delighted to be awarded the Arte Y Pico award from Lisa and Sarah, A Spoonful of Sugar, they are a very creative and inspirational mother and daughter duo - so please take the time to stop by their blog. Thank you so much, this was a lovely award to receive when the day had been rather challenging from a work perspective...


Now I have the pleasure to pass on the award to fellow bloggers that inspire me, and provide me a lift when I read their blog. So, drum roll please ... I present the awards to:

Nicola's Daisies

Manx Girl

Happy in Quilting

Rachael Rabbit

Prairie Mouse

Now here are the rules for the winners and if you already have the award just accept and that's all you have to do is:

1. Pick 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that presented her/him with the award.
4.The award winner and one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5. To show these rules.

--oOo--

Tonight I have been working on the BOM's for July to take to our quilt club meeting tomorrow - they are called Hexed Stars and are fom http://www.quilterscache.com/ - I have recently only started paper piecing and can see how it can become addictive (like all other forms of quilting) these blocks are quick and fun to make ! Will post pic's tomorrow...

Am off to make a fresh cuppa, before I settle back to the sewing machine...

Hugs Jx

Inspiration...

After taking hubby to the doctors to have the surgery staples removed from his knee we detoured to the local bookshop to purchase some light reading... him a classic bike mag, and for myself a Australian Country Thread's Stitchery magazine Vol 8 No 6 (some gorgeous stitchery patterns in here to tempt the creative inspiration...).

Under the 'Words of Wisdom' section was a lovely poem that a reader sent in, the writer of the poem is unknown. I thought I would share it with you as the words are lovely...

Our Family

Is like a patchwork quilt

With kindness gently sewn

Each piece is an original

With beauty of its own

With threads of warmth and happiness

It's tightly stitched together

To last in love, throughout the years...

Our family is forever

I also thought how true this poem is for the friendships we have with our girl-friends and quilting-friends...

Happy Stitching
Hugs J xox

A good weekend for sewing...

Have had lots of time catching up on some sewing this weekend... that was after I had to wake up Licorice - he was in such a deep sleep I felt a real meany... however I needed the chair and cushions so I could get to work...

First up are some blankets that I am making out of material that Aunty Witch gave to me... I am making these into children's blankets to give to a lady at work who is collecting them on behalf of a kiwi midwife who volunteers in Afganistan. There is evidently a huge shortage of blankets for the newborns and young children, along with baby hats etc... The midwife is collecting from crafty people all around New Zealand with the aim to fill a container and have it shipped in October. They do not want quilts as we know them, preferring something that is not too flash (so no arguments are created in the camps), hard wearing and warm... The polar fleece I edged and blanket stitched by hand. The two blue blankets are quite thick t-shirt/polo shirt material and I have used a large zig-zag stitch on the edge and a red felt heart cut then blanket stitched (on my machine) to add a bit of zing...



Then last night I couldn't resist any longer... I just had to start working on Leanne Beasley's Butterfly Garden BOM - I am getting the BOM pattern from a lovely quilt shop in Dunedin, NZ - The Stitchery, and I've given you a sneak peak of these fabric's before ...



What do you think of the colour combination now its together?? I have yet to be brave enough to attempt the hand applique (never done this before) - so have been focussing on the handstitching...

Will add another photo once I've completed the stitching... Colours haven't shown up the best - aargh - sorry about that :(

Today was spent working on the BOM to take to quilt club - I'm on our committee again this year (Capital Quilters Inc) and will be looking after the raffles and BOM's - for the month of June the BOM is Michigan Block - great one for using your scraps - and as I haven't done much paper-piecing was a lovely simple and fast one to tackle - here is my block to take to club...



Yvonne at Sawmillers Quiltery provides such a great service - I email her my request for the fat quarter packs that I would like made up for our Club raffles. Yvonne selects and packages them ready for me to pick up for Club day - fantastic... As I only have a short lunch break this then gives me lots of time to zoom in and have a quick chat, find out what lovely new fabric's and quilters goodies have arrived into her shop - and give her assistant Barney a quick tickle under his chin...

I recently joined RachaelRabbits "cupcake and tea swap" - got a lovely email from Rachael letting me know who my swap partner is to be - won't give too much away yet - however this lady lives in the USA - my mind is awhirl thinking of designs for my cupcake that will have a little kiwiana flavour to them... the goodies are to be posted by 25th July - so not to much time for procrastination... this is the first time I've been involved in a swap and I must say it feels all tingly exciting.

Hubby Chris is into his second week stretched out on the couch - boredom is seeping in and TV isn't holding its appeal. However the staples from all the surgery get removed on Wednesday, then he's back for a checkup with the specialist on Friday - so hopefully from there he will be allowed to move around a bit more...

Have a lovely week, look foward to chatting with you again soon.
Hugs J xoxo

A quiet day ...

Chris is back home and settled on the couch, he has two weeks of pretty much bed/couch rest and then he has the 'staples' removed from the wounds on the 25th June then back to the specialist on the 27th June to be assessed to see if okay to start physio and re-learning to bend the knee.

Beck's is having great fun trying out the crutches around the house and to see if she can get up and down the stairs. "Hide the tv remote" has become a very frustrating game for Chris, much to Beck's delight LOL.

Got all the cleaning, changing of bed linen etc done this afternoon - as plan to sit and stitch tomorrow - even thinking about starting another UFO - as mentioned before have received my first BOM pattern for Butterfly Garden so am itching to get this started - which means putting 'swirling leaves' to one side (mind I do need to find some chocolate coloured batik to use for a wide border, before I can make any more progress on this - well it sounds like a good excuse!).

Was thinking what pictures to place in this post - decided against any photo's of husband's new scars... so have come up with these past crafty bits I've made... first up are some scarves that I felted - the black one is alpaca wool, the white are ...? I've forgotten though so soft... the threads and colours were felted into the wool at the same time, then I stitched down some loose bits, and added some beading... lots of fun and extremely theraputic in the squishing and thumping stage of the felting process.

Here is a stitchery that I did for my hairdresser's shop - her shop is all decked out in black, silver and teal - I ended up making her another one for the other pillar in her shop - though forgot to take a photo - doh !

The All Blacks have just finished their game against England... I'm not a rugby fanatic - though I am so looking forward to the AB's playing against Aussie - and I've so got my money on Robbie Dean's and the aussie team winning - what a hoot that would be and a wet fish slap to our NZRFU !

Righto - off to do some more blog surfing and perhaps get a little bit of stitching done tonight - so can show you what I've been working on tomorrow...

Hugs J xoxo

Just a quickee...

Has been a long day, had to get Chris to the hospital for check-in for 6.45am - eek. Lovely neighbour up the road picked up the girls to take them to school for me. Chris went down to theatre at 10.00am and into surgery at 10.30am - his operation finished at 1.30pm (3 hours of deep sleep) and he spent and hour in recovery, finally coming back up to his room at 2.30pm. He was high as a kite on pain med's and was funny as a fit, cracking jokes with the nurses then nodding off to sleep with a gentle snore, then waking all of a sudden, starts talking and then falls back to sleep. Op was only meant to take 2 hours, though the surgeon found more damage than first thought so lots more work was done on his knee...

Spent the day waiting, stitching and reading, went for a walk to buy some lunch then sat in the hospital grounds in the sun... even found a lovely little jewellery shop and brought the girls a lovely metal bookmark each with a lovely sparkly jandel on one (for Becks) and a sparkly ladybird on the other (for Kait)... retail therapy is always so good for the soul LOL

I came home from the hospital by late afternoon and said to the girls just need a wee sleep on the couch for an hour then will get us some tea... we all ended up having a kip on the couches, before we roused ourselves to get organised and have tea. Now just waiting for the washing machine to finish another load then will head off to bed.

Taking the girls to school in the morning, then heading back to see how the boy's got on through the night, hopefully he will be allowed home tomorrow afternoon...

Chat with you soon, hugs J x

Was thinking what to write...

...and then I remembered that I was so keen to get my new fabrics washed, dried and ironed that I had forgotten to take a photo of them all... so I've quickly laid them out to show you the most recent purchases - a few when I start thinking about it...

First off there were the purchases from CherryPie... loved the angel fabric, the blue squares couldn't resist, the red-brown squares were also too much temptation and then the buttons - so cute and perfect for a stitchery, quilt or even some scrapbooking ...LOL

The butterfly fabric (below) I brought from Sawmillers Quiltery, the DMC threads are for another project that I had brought from Thimbles and Threads, though when I placed the fat quarter next to it I thought...hmmm this will be a good addition to the project !! Now I also brought from Yvonne a "Ruby Beholder" - do you know what they are?? Well I think you should visit Yvonne's site to ask her.... very cool tool to add to your quilting bits and bobs :) I'll add a photo in a later post...

Then the Keepsake Quilting package arrived... ooh I'd been waiting for this - the two fabric ranges are to be used for the Butterfly Garden quilt (from Leanne Beasley's patterns), I am awaiting the BOM patterns to arrived from Jen at The Stitchery, which is a lovely quilt shop in Dunedin which I was lucky enough to visit earlier in the year...

Sorry the photo's aren't that great really, now that I've loaded them - my camera isn't too good with the flash and taking photo's inside...

So that's all the quilting goodies for the moment.

Husband finally has a date with the surgeon for his knee operation - its next Wednesday - crickey - we have to be at the hospital for 6.45am - is going to be a long day - so have arranged for the neighbour up the road to make sure the girls are ready for school and to drive them there for me... Chris will overnight at the hospital - ah bliss I can hog all the blankets and read all night with the big light on :) Poor boy though has had a tooth pulled today as was giving him lots of grief and now has a mouth of stitches that don't get removed until next Tuesday - there's a saying that things come in three's ... positive thoughts, postive thoughts...

Did some secret shopping today for the girls - Beck's birthday in a couple of weeks and then Kait's a month later - can't write what I've brought them as the sneaky things read my blog from time to time...

We are going to Laser Strike on Sunday with a couple of Beck's friends - she wanted to go before Chris has his op (as he'll be out of action for 6-8 weeks) - so that she can shoot him up with the laser gun - I'm playing too - will be a bit of a hoot running around a blacked out room trying to get each other out... have no idea what it will be like though the kids can't wait - have a feeling its going to be 4 kids against 2 slow coach parents...

Hope you are all keeping warm, it is so chilly now and the days are so grey, have brought quite a few merino tops through cheap means, they are so lovely and warm to wear to work and so less bulky than a jumper... anyway am rambling away so must be time to sign off and get a cuppa.

Nite to all. Hugs J xox