On Your Toes...it's time to stitch!

I have had such a lovely busy day today.....I started off getting various flower seeds and carrot seeds ready for germination, planted out my lettuce seedlings and got my strawberry plants into bigger pots. Then I headed indoors to get dinner in the slow cooker for later..and then I was free to get into the sewing room.

slow cooked Chilli Con Carne

I prepped some blocks for a BOM that I haven't revealed yet....but be prepared to stay in the dark a bit longer.....I expect to start stitching those over the weekend and I will showcase them in their own post because they really do deserve that. In the meantime...here is a teaser...

After tea time, I decided to continue stitching Dancing with Brolgas from the Australian Afternoon BOM. I had a few more ballet shoes to satin stitch so my birds could perform flawless pointe and perfect their arabesque and grand jetes.

All that is left is to stitch the audience who are sat there in raptured awe...

 and just as well....look what came in the post yesterday.

Looks like I will have to concentrate on Block 2 from A Country Tea Party now and no doubt Flowerville will probably arrive soon too....Australian Afternoon will have to be put away for awhile.

1. Thank you to Wendy at Sugarlane Designs for hosting us for FNSI.  I have just checked and there were 50 friends sewing last night.  Its going to be a fun and busy weekend visiting them all.
2. Kathy at Kathy's Quilts for hosting Slow Stitch Sunday
3.  Beth at Cooking Up Quilts for hosting Main Crush Monday
4. Super Mom - No Cape for hosting Stitchery Link Party 
5. A Quilting Reader's Garden for WIPs be Gone
6. Last but definitely not least....a thank you also to Lynette at What a Hoot for hosting BOMs Away.

My Blog Notes 

• I am hosting "Design Board Monday" Link Party at Bits 'n Bobs on  Mondays, would love to see you there so mark your calendar. It's open all week!
• The Link Up at Cath@Home is still open for another week......take a look and enter...because

 

No More Excuses & Dancing Brolgas

There should be no more excuses from me about blogging issues due to computer frustrations....because today I sorted out that problem. That's right, I hot-footed it into town today to buy a NEW computer.  I spat the dummy yesterday when it took me the whole day to write a couple of blog posts and link in to two other blogs....I kid you not! Nothing else got done all day.

All in all I had the most amazingly successful day.  Since it was a Tuesday morning I decided to stop by Frangipani Fabrics as they have a social sewing group on Tuesdays and I was just in time to introduce myself and have a cup of tea with them....there was cake too but I am abstaining at the moment. They are such a lovely group of ladies, I am going to enjoy heading there for a regular social outlet.  I did take some stitching with me so I added a few stitches to "Dancing Brolgas"

Afterwards, I headed down the road a few hundred metres to THAT thread shop that I missed out on when I last visited town.  What a treasure trove.....it's a tiny shop and full of bobbins of ric-rac, buttons, ribbons and threads, threads, threads...plus tapestry and cross stitch patterns....and much more. The shop is called A Stitch in Time and I can't wait to visit again. I did find the two missing threads for Australian Afternoon so can stitch to my hearts content now.

I was out later than I intended but as soon as I got home I got my computer started up and set up....thank goodness there was something in the freezer that I could count on for dinner tonight!

I would really like to thank all my little "Guinea Pigs" for indulging me and linking up to the party yesterday.....You are all Simply Amazing! There is still time to link if you want....CLICK HERE or to visit those who did.

Trial Design Board Monday

A while ago, I regularly participated in a link party, posting about what was finding itself on my design wall for the week. After a while I stopped contributing because there was no interaction from the link host blog or other contributing blogs which sort of made me feel like a spare wheel. I am learning that I am the kind of  person that needs rountine and regular posting on Link Parties is helpful with that which is why I would like to start my own Linky for Design Board Monday.

This week I decided it was time to cut a fabric that I bought on my last trip up to Brisbane. This is actually secret sewing but I doubt the recipient reads my blog so I may be safe.

I had initially wanted to use a pattern which incorportated the rail fence block.....like this one I pinned.

Realising that the birdie fabric would be too difficult to cut into the required block sizes, I needed to rethink without excluding the complimentary fabrics I had bought for this project a few weeks ago.

 I have spent the past couple of weeks rehashing block sizes and tearing my hair out thinking how I could make that above pattern work...until...I came across another pictureof another pattern that I though might just work better.  It is a Moda Bakeshop  Jelly Roll pattern which I will have to resize slightly due to the width of the birds. Yes, it was time to cut!

I started with the square-in-a-square block...as you can't continue until these units are pieced.  I pieced my blocks a bit different to the pattern which is maybe why my blocks finished up at just under 6.5" so I cut the blocks back to 6".

After a couple of hours in the sewing room, I was really happy with the results

There is plenty for me to carry on with for the rest of the week.

And, with that, I will get to the Linky......now I am new at this, so bear with me. Link a post of whatever you are working on this week in your sewing room...no design board or wall necessary. It could be piecing, stitching, knitting, crochet......anything involving needle and thread.

Here goes! Come on over and be my guinea pigs!

When you have finished linking up here, head on over to Main Crush Mondays over at Cooking Up Quilts and Making Mondays at Love Laugh Quilt......that's where I am linking up as well.
 

Some Threads to Stitch

I did quick trip into Hobart yesterday to get a last few threads so I could finish stitching a couple of WIP blocks. Well the trip IN was quick....more about that later.

 My first stop was Spotlight because I know I can get DMC threads there....besides, I was also looking for something in the homewares aisle. Out of the 7 colours I needed,....suprise, suprise...I could only find 5!

 No probs, this time I remembered that there is a thread shop in town so off I went to find it.  Not much help though as they had closed early!! The ones I had would have to do. The trip home was interesting. I had no idea how to get home from where I was so I called on my TomTom to help and it took me home on the windy trecherous route which was definitely not the quickest route.  By the time I realised, I decided to just go with it......at least, the scenery was amazing around the base of Mt Wellington.

The two threads colours I didn't have were not necessary for finishing the blocks that I wanted to so today I sat down to finish them.  And here they are:

First off, the daisies on block 1 of 'A Country Tea Party' ......so pretty

Then I pulled out my first two unfinished blocks from "Australian Afternoon". Here is Emu makes a Duck.

and lastly I finished off Possum Reading

I loved stitching the little yellow daisies.

They sort of remind me of the daffodils that I keep finding in the garden and which I keep picking for little pops of spring all over the house.

While I wait for my next BOM blocks to arrive in the mail, I am going to stitch
The Brolgas are Dancing.

I also managed to do some block piecing today....more on that later. Actually, I got a bit done today....from stitching and sewing to herding cows to photographing sights in the yard....those are currently appearing on Cath@Home

In the meantime I am linking in to
Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts

BOMs Away at What a Hoot

Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape

 

Squishies!

When I walked down to the mailbox this morning,  I was very excited to find, not one, but two squishies in our ample sized mailbox.......both for little old me.

 A quick glance alerted me that my missing threads had arrived but I wasn't sure what was in the parcel from Under the Mulberry Tree. It could either be block 2 of Flowerville........or, the Tilda fabrics.  It turned out to be the fabrics that will make up the Dresden plates and I am in love.

And guess what? I completed block one last night. Here it is, ready for the middle of that dresden plate.

So, after much oohing and aahing and fabric stroking, time to open the other parcel.  Now I only needed 3 skeins of thread which would have cost just over $4 with GST........but, I had to spend $10 to make a purchase. No probs, its always handy to have some of those plastic thread bobbins.....right?

Unfortunately, that didn't help much so after another little look on the online store, I spotted this very pretty little thread holder, that took me over the $10. Unwrapping it, I was delighted with what I found.....cute, hey?

What with the extras and the postage, it is something I am hoping I won't have to do again.....postage is a killer!  However, the threads are here, so I can finish off Block one of A Country Tea Party before the next lot of squishies arrive.

P.S....don't forget to head over to Cath@Home ......I have a giveaway happening.

Slow Stitching on Friday Night

I have been a very good little stitcher in the last couple of weeks and finished off most of Block 1 of my "Garden Tea Party" The only bits left are the daisy petals and the ducklings.....waiting for the threads. I subjected poor Shez to my rant about that yesterday......so lets leave that well alone! (but it has nothing to do with my BOM supplier).

I have just totally loved stitching this block with it's variety of stitches.....the teddy and the grass were done with a single straight stitch and the duck food were little french knots.

The bullrushes are satin stitched and.......wait for it......the daisies are daisy stitches! Not yet done though.

Now, with that block set aside for the time being, I had the chance to sink my teeth into my next BOM.....Flowerville, which has yet another different stitch that I don't think I have done since I was in Primary School.....Chainstitch! Gosh I struggled with that one....so much so that I opted to stitch the outer border circle in backstitch. Here is my chainstitch......hopefully this is the last time it will be viewed so closely.

 There is also a few Satin Stitch bits as well.  I am mastering that quite well.

This is how far I got during the week and my aim last night was to finish everything to the left of the little cottage.

We had a late dinner as my farmer came in late from the fields so it was well after 8;30pm before I settled myself in front of the telly to watch some good British drama.....Midsomer Murders and Line of Duty.  No doggie girls on my lap tonight. I bought them a new bed this week and they just love it!

Even so, in 2 hours, I had only done a few stems and started on some satinstitch  petals.

Those satinstitch petals slowed me down.......striving for perfection makes for slow stitching.

All in all I am happy with what I achieved and I will do somemore on Saturday.

Before I headed to bed though, I had to wake up this cute curled up bundle to have a quick walk outside before bed time. Just look at her cuddled up to teddy......adorable!

Big thank you to  Cheryl at Gone Stitchin for hosting us last night......head on over to the link and see who else took part in the get together.

Also linking in to Stitchery Link Party at Super Mom - No Cape

Giveaway at Cath@Home

And because I always like to have one last word........I am having a giveaway on my blog, Cath@Home, starting tomorrow (Sunday 6/9/15) so I would love for one and all to come over and see.