Christmas Decorating

 Yesterday we decided to set up our christmas tree, its always fun getting the christmas box out. Looking at all our ornaments and remembering when the boys were little and the ornaments they made at school. When our boys had their first christmas we bought them their own ornament, I have other beautiful decorations I have received as gifts and in swaps  over the years.

 I hung up my one of my christmas quilts in the hall way, its quite festive now with a few knicks knacks here and there.

 During the week I received my secret santa gifts from Chooky blues christmas swap, Look at the sweet tag. My gifts have come all the way from Norway.

 Laila from Jacobs quilt blog sent my gifts.

Thankyou so much Laila, look at my cute owl ornament, and its made from tilda fabrics, my absolute favourites. The rest are safe under the tree now until Christmas day.

Have you started your Christmas decorating yet?

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by.

Its all about RED

 I love this time of year, each day gets just that little bit warmer and Christmas is just around the corner. My boys are winding down for the end of another school year, the eldest has finished already so he is hoping to pick up a few extra shifts at his part time job to fill in the holidays.
I have been doing quite a bit of sewing, most of it for christmas gifts and swaps so I can't share much  just yet. I have finished 2 beautiful ornaments that are designed by marg Lowe, the buttons are beautiful and really make the design,

 This one is my favourite.

 I have a new candle holder that I got from Coles Supermarket, it looks pretty at night when its all lit up.

 I have my red Greengate dishes on display for the festive season.

 And I finally finished my Nat Bird Tis the season quilt. Its hanging up in the lounge.

 I love this little quilt,

 Will you forgive me if I share just a few more garden pics. I hope youre not bored with them yet.

 My sweet peas look so pretty, so many colours and the smell is divine.

My new garden area is doing so well, all the seeds are growing well and the area is filling up nicely, I can't wait for the big display of Zinnias, gladioli and cosmos. Its going to look amazing.


Have a wonderful week, hope you find some sewing time. Are you thinking about Christmas yet?

Sunday sewing

 Another week has come and gone. Christmas will be here before we know it so I thought I should make some new Christmas pretties to decorate my house for the festive season. Yesterday my lovely friend Katharine and I headed off to George Town to visit Patchworks plus, its a beautiful quilt shop owned by my friend Sarah. I'm sure you have heard of it. I shop there alot.  We went there for a sewing day. I bought this beautiful kit by Anni Downs.

 Its a lovely wall hanging size and uses Anni's christmas fabrics, I was up early this morning getting the applique ready so tonight when I sit in front of the tv to watch the new series of Doc Martin  ( I love that show ) I can do my stitching,

 Of course that kit wasn't all I bought, I have a brand new fat quarter bundle and layer cake of Feed Company by Sweetwater. I love the colours in this range. Not sure what to make but I'll think of something. I love the text prints.

 A little while ago I became friends with a lovely lady from the blog Why I like to Garden. Her name is Bobbie Lynnand she makes the most beautuful cards. We did a little swap with each other and these are a few of the things Bobbie Lynn sent to me. Do you like my new cup. It even comes with a matching box. I LOVE it alot.

 Such a pretty assortment of hand made cards, they are all so lovely.

 This bird cage one is my favourite, I have it on display in my sewing room.
Thanks so much Bobbie Lynn,

 My garden is still looking lovely with all my roses in flower, this one is just stunning. The colours are so soft and the shape is just like a delicate tea cup. Not much of scent but I don't care as the rose is prefect just the way it is.

So thats my weekend news, I hope you are having a lovely Sunday and you are getting some sewing time. Have a great day and thanks for visiting my little blog.

My new designs for Christmas

 As most of my friends and followers know... I LOVE stitchery, alot of my designs have stitchery in them somewhere, it may be the  main feature or I'll pop a few in here and there just to make it a little more special.

 This project is my newest design for christmas and its just been featured in the latest Patchwork and stitching magazine. A sweet little christmas elf pillow. I really like the rectangle cushions just for a change, You can have them on a bed or a chair.

 To make it even more exciting for me, my design is on the front cover. Now thats a very big honour and one I'm so proud of.

 The photography always looks amazing.  Its always a happy day at my house when I find a magazine in my mail box. Do you like it? I sure hope so.

 Also this is finally happening, My very own patterns now for people to buy.  ( I hope ) I'm slowly working my way to get more ready so I'll post on here when they are done.

I've been working on how to sell my patterns and my best idea so far is to make a page here on my blog, list all my patterns and go from there.  I can do PDF patterns which I can email and paper patterns.
Stay tuned for more news on that as it happens.

Its a glorious Spring day in Tassie so I should go outside and enjoy some sunshine.

Have a wonderful day.

Friday Night with friends.....

 I love weekends, don't you? Especially when you work during the week, the weekend is for relaxing, catching up on your jobs and of course sewing. Last night I had big plans for Friday night with friends but I was just too tired to sew on my machine so I sat in the lounge  and sewed the binding down on my Fat quarter shop BOM,

 I was thrilled to get this done as I'm not a big fan of binding. People say its the best part  of making a quilt but for me its not. I like to move onto something new.

 Anyway its all done and I love it. I have thought about making a label and doing it in stitchery, so I'll have to work on that idea.

 Remember seeing this quilt last week in my post, well its finally  alldone. Its so big I  had to take it outside to  measure my borders, then make my backing and make sure that it was big enough. I used all my stash fabrics for this beauty and I absolutely love it. It was a pleasure to work on each block, I'm not sure how many half square triangles i made but there are quite a few.

 Now what do you think of my backing? Pretty impressive eh!!  This took me 3 hours to piece, I already had the blocks which I found in my cupboard and forgot I even had.  So I cut up my bigger pieces of fabric and made them  all fit together.

 That was such a good use of the fabrics I had left because now I have no bigger pieces at all and plenty of room in the cupboard for new fabrics.  Its already now to be quilted by the lovely Sarah. At 95 inches square its bound to take her a little while.

 I still have a few pretty flowers in my garden, here are some californian poppies, I love these bright flowers, they self seed and pop up anywhere.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, Thankyou to Cheryll for hosting last nights sewing  evening,  If you would like to see what everyone  else up  to, click here.

Happy sewing and thankyou for visiting.

Halloween, Roses & Sewing

 I know Halloween isn't for every one  but we like it, I think because its something a little different. When we were in America last year is was approaching halloween so the shops were bursting with goodies to buy. I bought these 2 cute ceramic pumpkins. You put a tea light candle in them and the look so nice all lit up.

 I set up a little display in the hallway and put all my halloween things on the side board, I made a fun patchwork cushion.

 My friend Cathy made me this sweet pumpkin pillow, It goes so well with all my other things.

 I also made a paper halloween bunting, this was fun to make. I like paper craft.

 Spring is now in full swing and my garden is looking so pretty, all the roses are in flower. My husband picked these and made a little posy for me for our 20th Wedding anniversary. Last weekend we went to Hobart to celebrate and we had a lovely time. we left the boys home for the first time EVER. I was a bit nervous once it got dark  but I knew they would be fine. Our eldest son is 18 so he cooked dinner and made sure the other 2 boys were ok.  So we survived our first night away  home and now I look foreward to doing it more often,

 I have been doing lots of sewing, working on a few magazine projects and some christmas gifts and today I want to get this quilt finished, just 2 borders to put on and it will be done. Its a bit quilt, approx 90 inches square. I am joining all my left over fabrics together to make a pieced backing. Its a good way to use it up.

 Yesterday I couldn't decide on my borders, I don't have enough fabric to make the borders all the same so I thought a scrappy one would look good. In the end i cut up all my reds and joined them to make the borders, it looks great. I'll share more as soon as i have it together.

I'm so happy its a long weekend, I have so much I want to do. Baking, sewing and gardening.
Enjoy your weekend, I hope you find some sewing time.