Dresdens and a new treasure…

I’m not sure where the summer holidays vanished to…they have disappeared really fast!Today is the first day of school for Miss Olivia and the boys and I are slowly easing ourselves back into our home schooling routine… We are familiarising ourselves with the work we have ahead of us and designing title pages and such(fun stuff) I have three teenagers home schooling and each one of them is doing something different this year… so if things get a little quiet around here you’ll know why!

Over the past week I have been working on the Dresden plate quilt and I have finished sewing all 12 of them so now I am all ready for the next step… And as I mentioned in my last post I have a new treasure…

Claire generously gave me this gorgeous mirror… and it’s just perfect here… I can see my hutch from the kitchen now and it makes the room feel much bigger…

Well my lunch break is over now, so I better go get my teacher hat back on…

Michelle

Wishing Well Flowers…

There’s this cute little florist shop in town called 'Wishing Well Flowers' owned by the lovely and charming Katherine… she has just shifted into a new premises and it is gorgeous! There are lot’s of goodies here besides all the beautiful flowers and bouquets…

Please excuse the horrible photo’s (sorry Katherine) I was taking photo’s on my phone and it didn’t like the fluorescent lights!

If you are ever visiting Hawera make sure you drop in and say Hi… it is my favourite little shop in town!

And I have shamelessly stolen some of her ideas… which I will share in a future post…as well as my latest treasure… thanks Claire ;O)

Michelle

FNSI Results…

Last night I managed to chain piece all those little dresden pieces and now they look like this…

Now all I need to do is turn them and give them a press… I think it’s going to take a while ;O) And I finished the machine quilting on this quilt… but I want to do a little bit of hand quilting on it before I call it finished…

Better get back to those Dresdens…

Michelle

FNSI

I am joining in on the FNSI tonight… this is what I plan to work on…

I want to finish the machine quilting on this quilt… And I hope to turn these sweet little piles(240 pieces) into cute little Dresden plates…

As you can see on my sidebar I decided to join in on the Scrappy plate quilt along over at Bunny Hill Designs. I spent about an hour last night cutting them out and will chain piece as many as I can tonight…

Michelle

The Repurpose Challenge…

Yesterday was our first get together at Nancy’s for the ‘Kindred Heart Stitchers’ and this month’s challenge was ‘to repurpose something’ and Wow did we do well… even if I do say so myself… Just look at it all…

I repurposed the doily bunting and the embroidery hoop, they were gifts to Michelle as it is her birthday this month… the embroidery hoop has little pockets to store bits in for her sewing room… I also repurposed the blackboard it originally had an ugly picture on it but on a trip to the Warehouse a few months ago I bought some chalkboard adhesive 3 sheets for 99c(thanks to Michelle for telling me about it!) Now I can use it to write a special quote on it :O)

Michelle made this gorgeous candle holder…

And Nancy repurposed some wire coat hangers into a bird feeder…

Nancy is Claire's Mum and isn’t this a great idea… I have plans to make one too! The feeder is an Op shop find… she also made one for Michelle for her birthday..

 

This is one of Claires repurposed projects it was originally part of a two tiered basket that broke… turned upside and put on a plate…it now becomes a cloche, how easy is that!

She also made bunting by threading ribbon through old postcards, if you look close enough you can see it in the first photo.

Nicky made this pretty note board from an old wire cooling tray…

A great idea to display precious mementoes'! And a three tiered cup cake holder that you can just see in the photo. There were many other projects too that I didn’t get a photo of(maybe Michelle did?)

It is always fun to see what we come up with… next months challenge is something for ‘Valentines Day’. 

Nicky had a brilliant idea… each of us had to write down five things we wanted to have finished before January 2013 and then they were sealed away in an envelope which we will open again next year!

Nancy also showed us her notebooks, she is a list writer like me… but her notebooks are fabulous…kind of like a scrapbook they hold all sorts of things… a bucket list for the year… books she wants to read/has read… memories… photo’s… fabrics scraps from a project… magazine clippings… recipes…etc… it has inspired me to start one too!

And this is a photo of Claire’s oldest  UFO that has come out of hiding…Lol She thinks she started it 16 years ago…

This might just be the year it gets finished! How old is your oldest UFO?

My Mum has a project which isn’t quite finished… I will show you photo’s as soon as she does!  (Sew how is it going Mum, finished yet?)

Well I better head off and get a load of washing done and spend a little bit of time with my family the last three days  have been very busy and I feel like I haven’t seen them all for a while…

Enjoy your weekend…

Blessings

Michelle

Exhausted…

I have spent the day cleaning out the car shed, which also doubles as the laundry, and Stefan’s workshop, there is also a corner where our horsey daughter stores all her horsey gear, it is where the motocross bikes are kept, you will also find a few painting projects I should be working on, there is fishing gear and farm jackets/clothes etc I think you get the idea… it was a bit of a chaos in there but now…I can freely walk from one side of the shed to the other without tripping over anything ;O) Why didn’t I do this sooner it is wonderful… I do wonder how long it will last though…

I have been going through my UFO’s trying to pick one out for Friday… The Kindred Hearts Stitchers are getting together and we have to bring one project along that we want to finish this year… I think I need to print this sign off and put it above my sewing desk I am feeling more than a little overwhelmed with all the projects I found… needless to say I have found one I am determined to finish it is a BOM by Monica Poole called Precious Pieces… I have decided though instead of doing all 12 blocks I am just going to make 9… there is a lot of work in each block… some are pieced and some are applique…

So far I have only finished the 1st one and the 2nd and 3rd I have started…

I have also been busy with the Schnibbles quilt… and I’m pleased to say the top is finished and I hope to start quilting it next week…photo’s to come…  Yesterday was such an icky day, I practiced a little free motion quilting and then decided to quilt this UFO…

I plan to stitch in the ditch in all the seams… and then maybe hand quilt some circles.

Well that is what is happening in my little corner of the world today… hope all is going well in yours…

Michelle

One UFO down…

And many more to go! I actually finished this wall hanging the other day but am only just getting around to posting about it…

I ended up using some blueberry crumb cake charm squares for it instead of the original fabric I had chosen…

And I’m sew pleased I did…

The Kindred Heart Stitchers are meeting on Friday this week…we have to take along a project we want to finish this year… and help to hold each other accountable and get it done! Right now though I am off to sew a little more on this schnibbles quilt…

Michelle

Just random idea I thought I would share…

I was just over visiting Peg who was wondering whether to finish a project because the dye in her threads ran when she washed it and left a mark behind… Well I suggested she might be able to tea stain it… but with a small difference… because her threads are red I thought maybe she could use a herbal tea to get a red tint! Then I thought there might be others out there that might benefit from this idea too!

Hope this helps Peg…

Michelle

Quilt-a-longs…

In my travels(visiting blogs) I have come across sew many  Quilt-a-longs I want to take part in… there is just too many to choose from… I would like to join in making these cute little Dresden's…

from Bunny Hill Designs 

And Jenny from Elefantz has an adorable stitchery quilt(this one is on my list for sure!)

What about one to use up some of those scraps… you can visit Jodi here…

Or build some houses from scrap… there is a free pattern over here, thanks for sharing this one Maria :O) Check out her blog to see what Maria is up to!

And what about that Farmers Wife Quilt-along  I’m already doing!

Lara shared this one on her blog this morning… I think maybe this is the one for me;O)

But if you want to learn some new embroidery stitches head on over to Sharon's and join in the Take a stitch Tuesdays. Thanks to Lis for sharing this one.

This one looks fun too though…Michelle May from The Raspberry Rabbits is hosting a quilt-a-long using felt applique… Hmmm…. decisions decisions…

I am sure there are many more out there… have you joined up for any? If so which ones?

Michelle

A New Year…

And a clean slate…

Every time I start a new journal or note book  I get a little excited by a fresh new page! Growing up I remember the joy of new school books…I always used my very bestest writing, but as the year progressed my writing would reflect my different moods, times when I was so excited about what I was writing it got quite messy(like my crafting corner;o)… sometimes when I was bored there wouldn’t be much to read, just a lot of doodling… sometimes it was just down right messy cos I just couldn’t be bothered! I wonder what this year has install…

I have been taking a wee blogging break… I have been enjoying the slower pace this time of year affords… I hope everyone of you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!Everyone was well and truly spoilt in our house!  I bought Stefan(DH) a new bass amp and we bought the kids a new piano/keyboard… we got rid of our old piano when we shifted here(18 months ago) as it had borer and the C key wouldn’t work! Hence there has been lot’s of jamming sessions around here… They want a set a drums now!

The kids also got one other pressie each(from us)… the horsey girl got new jumps(made by Stefan), the surfie boy got new riding gear for his dirt bike… the Jester got a compound bow… and Lolly got a new tent and a rip stik… So maybe you are wondering what I got…

Horsey girl and the Jester gave me these gorgeous Pip Studio cup and saucers… aren’t they beautiful! Surfie boy gave me a homemade voucher…for 1 hours help in the garden! I love it… very thoughtful! And Lolly got me some Flora tea, you can go here to have a look… I haven’t used it yet but I will! And she bought me my favourite gourmet Jelly beans! Stefan bought me a lovely new juicer that takes pride of place in my kitchen…

Told you we were spoilt!

I have been slowly updating my blog and have finally started adding recipes to the Recipe Page at the top of my blog so don’t forget to check that out if you are interested… Right back to enjoying that slower pace for a few more days… I’ll be back soon to show you what I have been up to…

Blessings

Michelle

PS A big ‘Welcome’ to my new followers, you have been noticed!