"I bought a couple of bargins"

On friday i went to spotlight for a browse as i had no teenagers with me to winge and moan about how long i was taking to look at stuff.  I found these items in the bargin bins piled up .  This was a spool or thread stand for emboidering on the machine to hold your spools  when using a few colours at one time.   was   $59.00...i got it for   $2.00  !!!  I just had to take it home lol !  Then i dug a bit deeper  and found this... A mat to put on the floor to help stop the machine pedal from walking across the floor when you sew....only  $1.00  !!  was worth                    $ 16.00   ....so I got 3 of those. Some to take to work and 1 for at home.  And then i found a hard mat to place under the overlocker and you attach the bag to collect all the trimming as you overlock  instead of them falling over the floor...only  $ 5.00..was $ 21.00   . I only spent $10.00 altogether .

ripple tea cozy cover

ripple tea cozy cover
Originally uploaded by susanriddell33

here is the pic of my '1st' Ripple Tea Cozy", it's a bit big for my pot as it is a tall type of teapot, so i might have another try and do it a bit smaller and find a fatter pot so it fits better!.
I might try a 'ripple cushion next'.....

"Look at this mother of a cheesecake"

Well last weekend my son had a shop bought cheesecake for his friends birthday and thought it was just wonderful, and asked if  i knew how to make a cheesecake.....i made the biggest cheesecake he had ever seen !  His eyes were  bigger than his belly  lol !
It is a lemon or pineapple flavour, whichever you prefer. as from the pics you can see it is a really good deep cake and really yummy!!  we had cheesecake for dessert for the rest of the week!   And this weekend i am making a pineapple one,  (just for a change)  lol !   last week's was lemon flavor.
It has a bottomless tin and to get it out you press on a bowl underneath and hope  it slides out and doesn't crack and fall apart. The base is gingernuts and malt biscuits which goes really nice with the sweetness of the filling.The base is cooked for 10 minutes then cooled and the filling mixed up and added then put in the fridge to set and chill well . then enjoy!!   and we did.  in the pics you can see a rather LARGE thumb print where someone poked it.....wonder who that was???? I usually grate chocolate on top but didn't have any as i had eaten it ..... nevermind it was still really yummy!!   I hope these pics upload ok as they take ages while i am writing this.
This is how i get it out of the tin.... very carefully !!  (and the pics came out in the right order...amazing ! )

I have also been chrocheting a tea cozy in a ripple pattern. My first ripple pattern too.  it is  finished but i think i need a fatter teapot as my one is a sort of tall shape not squat and fat like most pots. It came out ok and i put yo-yos around the bottom. i will post a pic soon.

Henrietta Whiskers Block 3 and 4 finished

Well I have had these 2 blocks finished for a couple of months now but was having trouble with blogging it, but all seems to be a -okay now so  here is my block 3 and block 4 of Henrieta whiskers.

I really need to do the next block before the 5th of june or i will fall behind and it's a little hard to catch up. I have been mucking around with my chrochet . I should be sewing these blocks!

this is flowering in my garden now!

This my 'Tree Daileia '. not sure how you spell that.(lol).   It is a beautiful mauve , looking very delicate.  They grow right up tall , like a tree then form heaps of buds then pop out these lovely flowers. If you don't get frosts  they grow anywhere. You can cut them down after they die back after the flowering and just leave pieces of the trunk laying under the bushes  and in october i think, they send out little shoots on the nodes and these start growing inyo new  'trees', You can plant them upright but i just dig a trench and plant them then they seem to be much better rooted in the ground.  We had some really gusty winds this time so they don't look too good this time round.  And when ' men '  keep chopping them down they don't have much of a chance to look good.  He said they are taking over.  lol.

My mum had this elephant milk tree growing in her lounge . she has had it for quite a few years now and its almost touching the ceiling ....so we chopped it!  we took the tallest piece from the plant as it will keep growing and i will get a new plant from it when i pot it up which will be soon.. It is now up to the clock on the wall and shouldn't grow to fast for a few more years yet.

my new pen

Last week I saw these pens on  Trade me (nz),  so i bought one to try . I've done a little sample of how it draws and  the colour.  It is lovely to draw on the fabric,  fairly smooth and you get a fine line .  They are called,   'air erasable' pen by 'sewline'.  You trace your stitchery and  the lines  will stay anything  from 2-10 days  according to the packet. (I suppose that has to do with humidity in the air)   If you want to remove it or change it then just dab with a cottonbud  that is dampened with water. I use a  gluepen by sewline also which is excellent!  I think they were about $8.50.
(sorry this pic is not great ....'nosey norbitt'  the kitten was being naughty!)

A couple of weeks ago I was in the salvation army shop, and saw this tapestry cushion . It was only $3.00 !  So i bought it. It had another cushion stuffed into it and had an ugly border around it so i pulled it apart and will put something much nicer around it  or maybe put it in frame to keep it from getting wrecked and hang on the wall....

all my blocks so far

I am still deciding on how to finish this.... I was trying to add a pic yesterday but it wouldn't work... but now it has , yay!

When i was at my mums during the school hols, I managed  to make 10 more of the 'candied hexagons' . But i haven't made any since ,work gets in the way! Here are half of them.

My blocks so far of Lcqal

I have finally finished my blocks for lcqal . I don't know what sashings i will do yet, I have been looking at all the finished tops on the flickr page tp try and get some inspiration.
they all look amazing!  some have done two tops and three!!  I have also been working on Henrietta Whiskers b.o.m. from bunnyhill. We are up to no. 5 already and this the only one i have been able to keep up with.
I  saw my big sister (pamduring April as her and her husband came to N.Z. for the v8 motor racing in Hamilton. We visited a few Patchwork shops and bought a little bit of fabric too.