....and a happy New Year!!

Well, another year over and a new one to look forward to. What a wonderful Christmas we had. Lots of family gatherings.

Christmas breakfast out on the front verandah. On Christmas Eve, we went to the six o'clock mass at the kids' school then came home and had cold chicken, prawns, ham and all the salads. It was such a lovely lead-in to the main day.

Christmas lunch, a beautiful roast meal with all the trimmings. About half the presents had been opened by this time so we needed to boost our energy levels to be able to get back into it!

Mum loved her quilt, even though I had to do the yank-back because the binding and label wasn't done. I'll pick it up today and finish it for her. I'm really pleased with the way it turned out.

Four generations.

I was absolutely delighted to unwrap this excellent ruler holder. Darling son made it for me and it is just perfect. I've loaded up all my rulers, ready to go! I had floated it as a suggestion earlier this year, but didn't get much of a response so presumed it was a non-starter. I don't know why. Every time I ask him to build me something, he always does and does a marvellous job.

Ready for action! These things shoot foam bullets and for a tiny while, it was decided that a lot of fun could be had, firing at me.  I told the four of them that I would beat them all around the ears till they bled I gently discouraged that plan and they took themselves off down to the pool area.

The day after Boxing Day, still recovering!

Then my brother, his wife and two little daughters came over for yet more food for a BBQ on Friday night. They had come down from Townsville to see us all for Christmas. We have had the most wonderful family time over the past few days. Now time to clean up the mess, put everything away and start the new year.

SBS is under way! I finished Cross and Crown this morning. I wish I had used a different fabric for the small points though. They're not showing up very well and the ones in the top don't have any of the pink in them but it was all too much mucking around, so this block is also as done as it's going to be!

Christmas time, misteltoe and wine.........

Another really busy week and a couple of goodies ready to wrap.

Gay Paree apron for beautiful daughter. Each year, we try to outdo each other with a Desperate Housewives pack.  This year, Angie's pack will be this apron, some crocheted dishcloths, rubber gloves with fake fur pure maribou trim, Bella champagne and Lindt chocolates. I will pack it all into a Coles cooler bag.

Another apron, this time for darling son who has built an amazing bar on his deck. It's not very clear, but I have embroidered the Cheers logo in black at the top of the apron, which is just made out of white cotton. With it goes two black hand towels, Cocktail Parties for Dummies and a half dozen bottles of what I truly hope is cordial to put in champagne.

We took Mum and gorgeous grandbaby up to Yandina to the Ginger Factory. What a great day we had.

We visited Santa and pondered the difficulties of getting around the world on nought but reindeer power

and had the best train ride! Hannes is looking a tad more manic than usual, due to having eaten some of a lolly pop which was bigger than his head.

Good news! A giant Christmas parcel arrived at the front door and I told Hannes he could open the bag. 'But what if there's a present for me in there?' he wanted to know in typical male fashion. Told him he needn't worry but as he was unpacking the goodies and putting them under the tree, he spotted a tag with his name on it!  He was ecstatic! Inside was a present from Yinda! A Christmas badge making kit so of course, we had to get to work on it right away.

Ooooh! The concentration required!

In the same parcel was a gift to Suby from Merc. Hannes was delighted about that too but Bill the Builder was off in the Suby so we had to wait for another day. Finally!! Suby is decked out in his Christmas clobber!

And the end of an era. Graduating from kindy. No more babies. Only school children now.  How quickly this year has gone by. In nearly every photo I have of the milestones in Hannes' life, Angela is also in the frame taking the same photo.

There's been lots of sleepovers, lots of visits, lots of shopping, absolutely no lots of housework so I am totally freaking shattered am feeling a wee bit weary. Hang the misteltoe. Gimme the wine. I might wander off for a good stiff drink cooling beverage and put my feet up before making the final decision on whether or not to quilt a quilt for Mum for Christmas. I hope everyone's Christmas preparations are tootling along beautifully! I love Christmas.

At this time of the year.........

things start getting busier and slowing down. How can that be? I think that by this time in the year, everyone is starting to feel a wee bit tired and in need of a good break. I have had some happy days and some a little bit sad. All my babies are growing up and next year will see the littlest guy going to Prep. My happy days have been having all the grandbabies have a sleepover and put up the tree and decorations.

After some tense moments lively discussion, a spot was decided on for the tree. Then after much mucking around and threats of tears and tantrums sorting out of boxes, the final decisons were made on the decorations and lights. So many special things to put on my tree. Handmade and store bought decorations from dear Lynda, a special bauble I bought from the most amazing Christmas shop in New York, some bows my beautiful daughter made for me when I had my first Christmas home alone and put the decorations up by myself, bawling, chugging wine and howling along to 'I'll be home for Christmas'. A music box ornament that Hanney bought for me last year "because it looked like Gramma" though I'm not sure what part of Santa patting a lamb looked like me and I don't want to think about it;  a string of leather reindeers that Holly bought for me in Canada "because Grandma loves cats" which makes absolutely no sense to me; the most amazing little house from Las Vegas that Jack bought for me "because Grandma likes weird stuff" what makes him say that?? So after much oohing and aahing, we finally had the tree!  Taa daaah!!

My happy and sad day was when I went to Hanney's kindy concert to see the little ones do the nativity play. Happy, because they were all so beautiful and innocent and keen to get it right. Sad, because it is just a fact of life that they are growing up and things will change - for them and for me.

Hannes was Joseph, although he told me he was Joseph and Mary so I was waiting to see how that panned out.

Here, Mary tells Joseph 'we gunna haff a baaaby' to which Joseph replies 'um, well, OK'. Fairly brought the house down. Joseph tells Mary that they have to go to Bethlehem to pay Joseph's taxes. Mary says they'll take the donkey, to which Joseph replies ' yes, well, that's probly a good idea, Mary'. House came down again. The good news is, they got to Bethlehem!

When they woke up, guess what?? They had a baby! Surprise!!!

On Wednesday, 12th of the 12th 2012, we had our anniversary. Here I am, looking totally shattered after three full days of little guys. Everyone said the world was going to end. That's what Mum said 42 years ago. But it didn't and we went out to dinner at the Courthouse Restaurant in Cleveland. Bill the Builder had the Oysters Kilpatrick. If you go to that restaurant, do not have the Oysters Kilpatrick. They were minute oysters that were overloaded with finely ground bacon I think and wildly overcooked. When Bill the Builder questioned the quality, he was informed that was how they got them. Clearly, the restaurant does not make its own Oysters Kilpatrick but buys them in, ready made. Poor form.

Our household is very big on trying to keep calm and usually failing dismally keeping calm so when I saw this little stitchery on Bronwyn Hayes blog, I just had to stitch it out as a mug mat for darling daughter, after I saw this perfect coffee cup! I am going to fill the cup with homemade Russian caramel that I saw just today on the Down to Earth forum. It is a recipe that my mother made for many years until our dentist bills got too high.

Here are some of my snazzy dishcloths that are going as stocking fillers, along with some hand made soap. I've given some of these to Mum and darling daughter already and they love them. I keep the ones that are dodgy don't turn out so well for myself, and I'm thinking that green number in the background is a contender!

Moist Orange Cake that I make just about every second week and Christmas cake is finally in the oven.  Smells absolutely divine so clearly the extra extra long soaking did no harm. And what is a blog post without the latest roses?  The pink ones and some of the white ones are from my bushes and the red one and the rest of the white ones are from SIL.

Did I mention that I love Christmas??

Happy birthday.....

Yesterday, my baby turned 37! Yeeks! We celebrated with home made pizzas and lots of lounging around. What a great day!

I bought him a sweet little bonsai for his front verandah

and a good time was had by all.

The other good news is that I have finally finished the quilt I made for my gorgeous DIL. I took this photo of it while it was hanging on the line (the quilt hanger had gone to work) so it looks a lot dodgier than it is (I swear!!)

I did the quilting while I was in Kingaroy and am really chuffed with it.

Close up

and closer up.....photos are not great. It's quite overcast today, but you get the general idea. I took a photo of the back so you could be totally amazed and impressed with my quilting, but it didn't turn out.

This was a new sashing design I tried and I was really pleased with it. I did the roses in all the corner stones and leaves in between. Now I need to get going on quilting the tops I've made for Mum and my baby son for Christmas.....oh yes.....and finish the Irish Chain for niece Lily.....oh.....and Teddy Tea Party for niece Charlotte.  Heaps of time. There's lots of sleeps till Christmas......isn't there??

Honey....I'm home

Blimey! Is it really so long since I last posted??  Life and all its complications got in the road of my stitching and I lost my mojo! But Lynda was right all the time. My mojo was sitting on Marion's back verandah all the time!

My gorgeous daughter shouted me three fabulous days at one of my favouritest places in the whole world (or any other big place). The Quilters Rest at Kingaroy, run by the wonderful Marion and Alan. Ang decided I needed a break away. I don't think it was because I was sitting on the floor in the corner of the lounge, drooling and jabbering, but I could be wrong. So I set sail on Friday afternoon, armed with a heap of stuff and a vat of wine and after a lovely drive up, arrived in time to have a cup of coffee and the best banana cake I've ever eaten. There were five other ladies already there and had been partying since the day before.  I finally quilted Little Chicken Feather for my beautiful grandson and finished the binding on Sunday.  Here 'tis.....

I also quilted another quilt for my gorgeous daughter-in-law (still to finish binding, so photo to come) for her birthday next month. Was really chuffed with the quilting. I used the new Pfaff 18" quilting machine and I must say, the big throat area really made the job quick. The quilt above is 65" x 72" and it was done in about three hours (allowing for regular injections of red wine). I just did a loose meander on this one. I do love doing feathers though and learned the fast and easy way (which I am heavily into) from this book.

As I was getting ready to pack up and come home on the Monday, I received the dreadful news that the river was up over the guide rails and I would not be able to leave that day. You can imagine how I felt about having to stay longer but I put on a brave face and proceeded to make two long strips of this...

which will be teamed with this.....

to make this.

I bought all the fabric as listed for the pictured quilt and am marginally disappointed that the fabric is quite a bit brighter than shown in the magazine. However, I still like it and will be making it while my embroidery machine chugs along on some Sue Box embroideries. I am making a quilt for my newest niece, Lily and have done these so far...

The pink and cream 9 patches are not as dark as they appear in this photo so I am going to redo them, probably whack a pale green border around this lot and then maybe slip into a 2 1/2" square frenzy to make it bigger......or not. I also prepped three applique blocks of Teddlywinks Tea Party for my other niece, Charlotte, and have started on those as well. So it is all systems 'go' in this neck of the woods and today is cold, wet and dark........perfect for stitching!

A Christmas Finish.....

Yeeha! Magoo might not qualify for a mini-gift but he certainly qualifies for Early Bird Christmas Crafting because he is a Christmas present for The Sweet One. It is a Melly and Me pattern that I bought ages ago a little while back and was going to make him for last Christmas. It was a total pain in the butt a tad cumbersome to blanket stitch his eyes on, after the head was attached and stuffed. If I made him again, I would put the eyes on first. Here is Magoo, relaxing in the garden. One of his friends drives around in a little black Merc but Magoo figures he might as well become used to an uncomfortable life. I am really chuffed to get this done and feel quite motivated for keep going on my Christmas craft.

What a busy weekend! I also got the Diamond Friendship block for Sylvia's Bridal Sampler done. It is block N-10 in the quilt and after the nightmare of New Mexico, it was very encouraging to be able to do this block. Clearly my pressing skills are a tad minimal but we can do that later. Just wondering whether I should make another 'announcement' to Lynda, since she has also done her block. Hmm...methinks I will leave it for a bit. I know she is madly packing for the road trip.

Tadaaah! Here is the beginnings of my second funny hat excellent beanie! I decided not to put the pom pom on the navy beanie but will definitely putting one on this. I am really enjoying the knitting, something I never thought I'd say. So that was how I spent my weekend and most of today.

I guess I better get out of my jammies now and do a quick whip around before Bill the Builder descends on me! Time flies when you've having fun!

It's been a while......

After much nagging from someone who shall remain nameless (but whose initials are Lynda), I am back in blogland! I have found so many new blogs and I get such pleasure from reading them, that I've been shamed into resurrecting my own blog.

It has been a busy few months - some birthdays, a trip to the USA, a scrapbook retreat, a Christmas, a road trip down south, some more birthdays, a quilt retreat and another scrapbook retreat.

I am now unemployed and only just starting to get used to that and enjoy it properly. It is a learned skill, just as being employed is a learned skill. I thought I'd have a lot more time for quilting, sewing, reading and the other good things in life but it seems like I have less! Note to self - get a grip and get organized!

I embroidered a set of 7 "Days of the Week" tea towels for Angela's birthday (yes, she did want them!) and they turned out really well. Bought cotton/linen blend towels from here which were just a treat to embroider. Service was amazing and the towels arrived the next day! Then I used designs from Embroidery Library. They turned out beautifully and Ang was delighted. The last scrapbook retreat was also part of her gift.

Our trip to the States was just fabulous! San Francisco, New York, Boston, Washington, Los Angeles and heaps of other places because Bill the Builder is obsessed about car hire and we always do a lot of driving around.  This results in nasty slurs against my navigational abilities, even though we had the trusty Tom Tom on board. We were driving from Washington back to New York, hopefully via Philidelphia but ended up alarmingly close to Canada!! MUCH abuse as we got further and further away from New York!

Oooops! Turned out I had left the "no toll roads" option on and all roads from Washington to New York must have been tolls! We chose "no tolls" so that we could see something of the countryside. It was a fabulous holiday and we are thinking of going again around the same time this year.

Bill the Builder says I have to get a job if I want to go anywhere, but I think..................naaah!