It's beginning to look a lot like Easter...

Not much time for blogging lately, but this morning I'm not starting work until 10 am (instead of the more usual 8 or 8.30 am). This change of starting time is so I can work much later than I normally would. 

 Today is the last day of pre poll voting at the office ( the election is tomorrow) and we are open for an extra hour of voting. And just like those in retail find, people will arrive with '5 minutes to spare', just getting in the door before we close. But I digress...starting later means I have time for a short blog post. 

One night last week, I brought out my box of Easter 'stuff'...

And I started to put out some knicknacks...

Some of the old egg cups from the 1950s, who share space with some that are much newer...

My Easter Mini made for me by Anorina in a swap a few years ago and my lovely Easter mug rug which was in a big bundle of goodies ( donated by Helen McCulloch) which I won in a Sunday Stitchers raffle last year...and the little bunny also was a gift one year! 

 

Again most of these are gifts in blog swaps. The little bunny in the white mug was a gift from my roommate Judy at last year's Let's Get Stitched retreat...the bunny is exquisite! 

I haven't decided where my new Easter banner will hang yet, and it's still too hot here, to fill the white China bunny with little Easter eggs...by the time friends and neighbours were offered a chocolate egg, they would have melted somewhat! 

An Etsy Purchase and other crafty 'stuff'...

I've mentioned previously that I have been working on some 'secret projects' recently. These kind of projects usually involve a fair bit of 'stalking' of blogs to discover likes/favourites etc of those certain persons who are my swap partners.

One of the secret projects I have 'on the go' at the moment...

Well I discovered that one of these unnamed bloggers rather liked mice, so I went looking on the 'net' for crafting ideas which incorporated mice.
There was a designer on Etsy who had some lovely stitching patterns using mice but I really wanted a knitting theme. So...I wrote to this designer asking if she had ever considered developing some embroidery designs of 'knitting mice'. Susie Layman from Threads on my Socks answered my query saying she had in fact, some ideas for her mice characters, Miss Mousey and Lily, using a knitting theme. Susie said she would work on these ideas and get back to me. I didn't expect to hear back from her for several weeks, but it was only a couple of days! Needless to say, I loved the 'knitting mice' and promptly bought the pattern.
The pattern was instant download and includes 'mirror image' outlines as well as a page of motifs that can be incorporated into the larger stitchery or used on their own in various way. All this makes it a user friendly pattern and very versatile.
So Miss Mousey and Lily: A Knitting Kind of Day, here enjoying a Knit and Natter session...love them!

(Screen shot from Threads on my Socks Etsy Shop) 
And talking of knitting, Master Eduardo has been sitting patiently beside me as I continue on with that other project...

It's well over half way so 'right on target'! 

Mothers' Day...

Here in Australia, the second Sunday in May is Mothers' Day. Yesterday DD2 took me out to lunch as she would not be able to see me today...and a lovely lunch and catch up it was! 

Today I was supposed to go to DD1's for lunch but she has a really bad cold, so we postponed lunch for another time. 

DH went off to golf and I've had the most marvellous day 'pottering'...

One 'job' I did was to change the display and mini quilt on the hutch...this time the Blue Willow came out on display...

 Perhaps a closer look at that beautiful little quilt on the hanger...

Illene made this for me in a mini swap in 2013...and I made this one for her :-)

I posted some old photos of my girls on Instagram and Facebook...

On the left, DD2 aged about 18 months with yours truly at her Nanna's Melbourne home, and on the right, DD1 aged 5 weeks at the family party after her Baptism. Her dad and I are cutting her cake but she got none of it! :-)

And what a coincidence! DD2 used the same photo of her and I in her IG post...

With a nice message too...

I see she made reference to my 'perm' and 'Vegemite eyes' brought a smile to my face...I was the only one in our family of 4 who had brown eyes. Miss DD1, as a toddler, told her Nanna that 'Mummy has Vegemite eyes'...:-/ ( Vegemite is a savoury spread similar to Marmite ie dark brown ) 

It's been a little while since I was able to spend time with both my girls at the same time...so this photo from a few years ago is very special...

I hope all mothers had a lovely Mothers' Day with lots of spoiling! 

Easter isn't far away...

Earlier this week I thought that it was about time I put out on display  some of the Easter items that I had  stored away. Last year DH and I were away in the UK at Easter so these items stayed stored away. 

I have some old children's egg cups/ornaments which belonged to a friend, who handed them on to me when my children were little...1950s kitsch...which have become popular in recent years. These items would have originally come with an Easter egg.

In the next photo are 2 Easter gifts I've received; the mug in fairly recent times and the egg cup was given to me by a neighbour when I was in Grade 1...and I still have it! Lol. When I was a child, the boiled eggs were usually bantam eggs (from backyard hen houses or chook yards as we Aussies call them) and these fitted the duck egg cup perfectly. When my children were little in the 1980s, the eggs purchased from the supermarket wouldn't fit in this egg cup. 

Some of my Easter 'decorations' have come from blog swaps...

An Easter Mini quilt last year...

The little bunny the year before, as well as this cute little cushion...

I have also bought Easter 'stuff' from the local 'cheap shop'...

This year at Let's Get Stitched, my room mate Judy, gave me the sweetest little bunny that she had sewed...little Matilda!

Put all these things together and what have you got? 

A hutch ready for Easter, that's what! Lol.

Grow Your Own Blog party

Once again I'm joining in this event which is hosted by Vicki at 2 Bags Full. The idea is that each blogger writes a post introducing themselves; their interests, reasons for blogging etc.

I am a retired primary (elementary) school teacher, who loves to knit, stitch, garden, read and travel. I am Australian and live in Queensland, a state on the east coast. I have a 'blended family' of a lovely DH, 2 daughters and 3 stepdaughters. DH and I are 'empty nesters' now but over the years, all of these young adults  have lived with us at one time or another.

When I retired I joined a knitting group that provides knitted, crocheted and sewn items to the needy in the community. Believe me, it is not just the homeless who are needy. Originally I knitted beanies, children's jumpers, throws etc for the group,but over the last few years I have volunteered to join up some of the thousands of squares that are donated to the group each year. This certainly keeps me busy! The photo shows a number of blankets made with donated squares that I've joined...

I also knit throws that I give away as gifts, or to groups to sell or raffle to raise funds. I try to do a few of these each year.

The photo above shows me working one evening on one of my 'signature' projects, a garter stitch chevron/ripple throw, using a variety of yarns. 

A throw knitted in mohair yarns for my DD2 to celebrate her 30th birthday...

Like a lot of crafters, I have far too much fabric and yarn in my stash...but I still find more that I 'can't do without' and purchase more :-) Like this Christmas fabric that friends were using last year...couldn't find any in Aussie stores, but finally tracked some down in an Etsy store in the US!

I enjoy blogging and even though there is no real theme to what I write about, I share my everyday adventures in living life to the full. 

Over the years, for me, 'writing' was all about the academic aspects of writing ....I wrote to inform...I wrote to persuade, but I rarely had the chance to write to entertain. With the latter role, I can be relaxed in both the style and the language used and that's what my blog has mainly become...to entertain but with some elements of 'informing'.
Last year I wrote posts while we travelled in the UK, France and Hong Kong.

A beautiful scene taken from high on the hill in Whitby, UK...

With my DH after the Dawn Service on ANZAC Day at the Australian War Memorial outside Villers Bretonneux, France...

The view from the window of our hotel room in Hong Kong...a quite swanky hotel overlooking some not quite so salubrious apartment blocks.

Later this year, we are planning to visit Canada, where DsD3 is living and working for 2 years.

My stepdaughter took this very Australian 'onesie' to Canada...oh and the neck support cushion! Lol

Many years ago I loved to embroider but had not worked on any such projects for quite a while. Through blogging, I have signed up for swaps that required stitching and once again I've discovered how much I enjoy it. 

I stitched this mini quilt in a Summer themed swap...

I have also 're-ignited' my love for English paper piecing (EPP) and always try to have a project on the go using that technique.

A Christmas 'ornie' made with small hexies...

A Dillybag (designer is Judy Newman) was a favourite project last year...also hexies!

 The next photo shows my current EPP project, a cushion cover for a friend's mother who is celebrating her 90th birthday. I still have a long way to go with this project!

As well as chronicling our travels, I also write about changes to the suburb that I live in. As the city grows, single houses in my suburb are being replaced by multiple townhouses...I have it all documented if it's in my street! lol

I could go on and on, but just one more thing about me...I love purple! :-)

Regular readers would know that I have just passed the 1000 posts' milestone, so somehow I've found lots to write about over the years:-).

In conjunction with the Grow Your Own Blog Party, I am having another small (but very nice) Giveaway. It's one of Gerhard's lovely fabric patches. 

I've used the photo from the NaturesFaceArt website so that I didn't have to take the patch out of its packaging. The design features masses of gum blossoms, framed by gum leaves with a beautiful butterfly in the centre. Gerhard's patches are suitable for all kinds of projects, especially patchwork. To enter, just leave a comment on this post...

Vicki, the organiser of the Grow Your Own Blog party has requested that all bloggers who run a Giveaway in conjunction with their post, that February 15 is the date to draw the winner's name. So lots of time for people to visit and leave a comment. 

Swaps...

Blog swaps are an excellent way to 'meet' other bloggers as well as encouraging people such as myself, to revisit old skills and use these to create items to send to our swap partners. I had been a very keen sewer in my younger years but gradually did less and less. I started signing up for blog swaps in late 2010 and had so much fun that I signed up for some last year. But this year, I've outdone myself...there are actually very few that I don't sign up for! That's why I have 4 swaps due for posting by the end of April!

So I've been working steadily on these swap items and yesterday 3 were posted away. Unfortunately I can only tease you with photos that only show a snippet of these items as the items are still on their way to their new homes...

First the colour swap...

Something for a room in the house...

Something personal...

Something 'smelly'...

Something to eat...

Next is the Mothers Day Mini Quilt Swap

It looks like a muddy mark on that corner...but it's not! lol  I rarely work with browns or browny pinks so it made a nice change to work with those colours...

I drew up the design for this project, including a quote that I had found, but thought that my lettering looked very ordinary. I ended up writing to Jenny Elefantz and asking if it would be a copyright problem if I used her alphabet published in her eZine.

Jenny replied that the lettering was indeed under copyright but that she was very happy for me to use the letters as long as I acknowledged it...which I did of course.

Another swap is the Mrs Martin's Celebrations swap and yesterday I posted the Mothers' Day parcel away for that! Again the photos are quite enigmatic! lol

I'm just finishing off the Table Runner Swap which uses a pack of charm squares. It will be in the post in the next day or so...last weekend it looked like this...

Now swaps are 2 way things...I'm getting parcels from other people who were given me as their swap buddy. Already one has arrived! A table runner from Sue at Quilted Hugs and what a lovely surprise! It's lovely thanks Sue!

A beautiful range of fabrics...

I think that my other 3 swap parcels may come when we have left for NZ so my neighbour will be on alert ready for the postman, and I'll have some lovely surprises when I get home.