sscs 2012 pressy for my swap partner

I should of done this post by now but just got distracted by things here so here it is .  My swap partner was leanne . She is in Tasmainia so I hope she is ok with all the bush fires that are happening over there at the moment.  I made her a 'half eaten gingerbread man ' for her ornament to hang on the xmas tree.  Then I decided to make a cathedral  windows cushion cover.  I hope she liked it.  I used some 'bliss fabric'  I had.
Here is a pic:

one 'half eaten gingerbread man'..too cute!

the front

the back  with invible zipper

some flowers

unpicked 

Maori potatoes..not very pretty outside but..

a lovely pretty purple flesh inside (sorry pic is dark)

Before Christmas I won an auction here in nz (called trademe).  I bought some hexie flowers  .They are quite old, vintage almost looking.  The colours are rather ugly . They had a yucky pink centre on everyone and some of the surrounds were that pink too. There was 13 of them and after studying them I have decided to pull the outer circle undone and make them into a separate flower.  I think I will put a cream or white or maybe another colour around the flowers because they are 'ugly' how they are and by doing that i should end up with 26 more hexy flowers and should be able to blend them with others...hopefully. They look ok as just a flower without the colour around them. Well that is the plan, but I'm not in any hurry so it will be a slow'work in progress' as I need to find more fabrics that go together.  I have already nearly finished rejoining them into flowers.  I think I will change the centres to something else I need to audition some colours yet ...anything but pink will look better!

In my mum's garden she had grown some of these 'maori potatoes'  they are tasty but look a bit  weird .

My little chicks are growing day by day . I must take some more pics of them. It was so hot here today ,not a cloud in the sky...but now it is quite overcast looking but i don't think it will rain. I'm off to bed now.

"Six more mouths to feed."

"Happy New Year everyone".  I have been away at mum's over the xmas break but came home on saturday. The weather was hot but not so great back at home.  Well before I went away I managed to buy some fertile eggs on  trademe and had them couriered to my mothers as she had a 'clucky' chook and we put the eggs under her to hatch...so that by the time I got there at xmas they should be hatching and then I could take them back home with me.  I forgot the chook was little (a bantum)  she couldn't manage to cover all the eggs so tried 7....she broke one.....so then it was 6....she broke another ...we ended up with 5....only 3 chicks hatched .  What to do with the other 6, well we rang around her friends who keep chooks to find another clucky one and we found one so under the chook the eggs went. well only 2 more hatched but thats ok . I now have 5 cute Aracauna chicks. These chickens lay the pretty lite blue eggs. My last one of these chooks died this year so I wanted to try and get a few more.  I just hope there are more girls than boys....I just have to wait and see.
The 2 last chicks hatched 3 days after the 1st ones and you can see the difference in the wing feathers, if you look closely.

1st one hatched out.

5 cute aracauna chicks.

2 new chicks the 3rd is hiding

I haven"t done any sewing since before xmas which was finishing Chey's Star  quilt which he really loved! I saw a cute quilt on terrys blog which I night try and do slowly. I am going to try and finish some old projects too.

my sscs parcel has arrived!

The mail man delivered my sscs parcel last week, but I havn't  had time to do a post about it.  It is from Kris of tag along teddies.  She has made me a lovely ornament . She is a christmas  angel and is hanging in my sewing room at the moment as i still haven't put up the tree yet!!  Then she can live on the tree ." Thankyou  kris,  she's beautiful."  I haven't  opened  peeped in  the other package  yet, it will be going under the tree. Thanks chookyblue for hosting the swap, you do a fantastic job each year.  It's heaps of fun.!

mail has arrived.

my sscs ornament from Kris

I bought a few kaffe fabrics on trademe (like ebay).  And I found a basket full of patchwork fabrics in the hospice shop today and bought them home with me too! I might go back tommorrow and get some pink as I couldn't make up my mind about it,...if it is still there. I know it is there as I was there when they closed the door at 4pm and opens up at 10am. It is within walking distance for me, only 5 mins up the rd. I found a couple of books too.

some Kaffe fabrics

fabric finds in the hospice shop.

I also found a "U.F.O" forsale too....only $15.00  ....It needs a bit of work....It is 'trip around the world
' pattern i think. Looks like it has been strip pieced but not matched up very well in places and the seam allowances are all over the place(maybe why it doesn't match up so good) and there is a tear in the side and a small stain.  I'm thinking of taking off the end rows and trying to replace the stained bit and add some borders to make it wider....quite a bit to do but i like a challenge .

a u.f.o. 

the rip

stain to fix

I have also nearly finished Chey's star quilt too. I want it done before christmas . I just have to do  some fm stars  on the border. I have finished binding it last night, it took me a couple of nights to do that and now i have a sore finger. Oh and I want to make up a label then I will give it to him.  It's only about 6 months late!! lol!  "Better late than never I say".  I'm sure he will love it. Kids don't look at crooked stitching! lol!

chey's quilt 

binding going on.

a cute bag.

this bag is knitted calico in the blocks

some books 

one very smug "Norbitt" ..what a poser!

some buys from the hospice shop...

Well I went a hospice shop down the rd where i work and saw these bags and thought I would like just the handles to put on some other bags i will make and they were only $3  for the red one and $2 for the other one.  I would never use them as they are so I shall pull them apart soon.  I also found a book on' bullion stitch embroidery. It has a few lovely projects in it to make. I love doing bullion stitch. It is amazing just how many things you can use the stitch for.

I have sort of started a new project. (shouldn't really...)  but I was looking at a blog of Jan mac'sand saw her Joseph quilt (sorry can't think of the proper name but you will know what I mean from the pic, I think)  I have been wanting to make one of these for quite a while now and then I found the roll of florani stitch and wash I had stashed away quite a while ago and so have started to make some petals.  I don't think I will make a huge one ,maybe just a smallish size , then it might get finished!!. Keep you posted.

A couple of weeks ago I got given these drawers ...full of wool  mainly soft pastel shades but there is heaps of white which will be very useful for the next crochet project I start but probably not till after the summer...when it gets here.!   Some of it has' fontana' on the label...don't think they sell that one anymore!  It was from Wayne's ,bosses wife, they were having a clean out. We also were given a brand new wall heater still in the box and a floor heater  too and some other bits and pieces.

I have been driving with
Conor nearly every other night , he is getting better each day. He doesn't stall the car now and a lot more confident. I got him to put some new wheels on my car today too. We take chippy for ride each time to get her use to the car as she use to get car sick! (yucky) but she is good now.

chippy admiring the view.

another sunset

the teatree is flowering now..it looks like snow when it drops its petals

I best go and start the dinner or it will be  a really late dinner and boys always moan they are hungry! bye for now.

end of the week.

I took my son Conor for another drive to the end of our rd, (our rd is 10 k long and all loose metal) and we got there just after 8 pm to see the sun setting.  It goes down just after 8 pm these days as we are into daylight saving. I have a few pics but probably won't get them in the right order so I leave it up to you to figure it out.

(These are in reverse order, sorry...so scroll up from the bottom perhaps)

gone...the sun sunk down below the horizon.

the view in early evening. looking out from Anawhata beach and over left  toward Piha beach.

all most gone.

going down...

going...

going..

going...

 

sinking  on the horizon...

As soon as the sun hits the horizon mark it is so amazing to see how fast it actually disappears from view.  Blink your eyes and you nearly miss it.!  It is a beautiful view too.

Well I have done a little sewing but don't have any pics yet. I have been doing the quilting on chey's quilt.. He will get it before xmas . It's way past his birthday but I really want it done before xmas so he doesn't think it is a xmas prezzy.  Just got to do the borders then the binding.



And a pic Chippy relaxing on the deck in the sun. Lucky dog!

chippy relaxing.

''It's finally finished".

Well I finally finished my 'fusion' blanket on tuesday!  So glad to have it done.  It has been sitting in the bag on the floor for weeks just waiting for me to do the edging and once I started it didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I did a scallop edging all round in the chocolate brown cotton.  I used 2 charm packs one on each side so it is reversible. The charm pack was 'Dragonfly summer".  I like how it has turned out.

Now to finish some other things half done....

the squares layed out 

all joined up and finished.