March Birthdays...

Earlier in March DD1 organised a surprise party for her husband who was turning 40. We all managed to keep it a secret and the family were all ready and  waiting for Cam to come home. We had all brought food and DsD2 had made the birthday cake. We had parked our cars in streets a little way from DD1 and Cam's house.
DH, Anthea and I were the first to arrive so we had some time with baby Carrie...

And when Cam arrived home we were all ready to shout out 'Surprise!' Including Anthea whom we had coached! Lol  Cam was chuffed that we were all there.


#2 granddaughter has been nicknamed 'Whelan the Wrecker' by her 2 grandmas and she was in fine form that evening. DD1 has a huge selection of DVDs and they are all arranged alphabetically in the shelves. Well, Miss Holly started pulling the cases out and big cousin Anthea was trying to put them back...but not in order of course...but so sweet.

( Whelan the Wrecker is a well-known demolition company in Melbourne. My girls' dad was from Melbourne ( and always used the term 'Whelan the Wrecker' to describe anything or anyone who was destructive)  as are Holly's paternal grandparents. Here in Brisbane, 'our demolition company' is the Deen Brothers! )
And today, March 31, was my sister in law's 60th. My brother organised a lunch with those of us who could make it, as quite a few of the family were away for Easter.
A surprise guest was my SiL's brother who had flown up from Sydney. He brought a special gift that my brother had organised.
The birthday girl was speechless!

That parcel contained a painting that my SiL had seen in a gallery and fallen in love with. My romantic brother tracked down the artist and 'talked money' and eventually secured the painting.

The painting is of an old Queensland style house situated on Enoggera Terrace, Red Hill, right here in Brisbane.

This restaurant is well known for its pizzas so several were ordered for sharing.

My 2 younger nephews are so grown up now...I'm a very proud Aunty.

A lovely lunch and celebration to end a busy month.

Fundraising...

In my last post I mentioned the palm crosses that our parish makes and sells to raise monies. On Sunday I found out the 'figures' for 2018; total number of crosses made was 7120 and money raised was $3204!
And at our Sunday Stitchers meetup for March, there was also some impressive fundraising by our smallish group. The focus this year was the Melanoma Institute and the Tour de Cure. So instead of the ubiquitous 'pink themed food' morning tea, we chose Yellow or Blue coloured foods. Hmmm...blue is a challenge to get variety and not have an oversupply of cupcakes with blue icing!! 😄
I took along a small platter with 2 types of blue vein cheese with some rather yellow rice crackers. And my other offering was some dried mango, dried pears and some rather ' moreish ' slices of dried ginger. These I placed in rows alternating with blueberries.

The next photo shows our delicious spread in our meeting room...

Some yellow feather boas added to our themed decor...

To raise money that day, we had all been invited to bring items from our craft stashes for a 'bring and buy' table...it was very popular and some of the ladies came with small suitcases of items. I suspect they planned to not take that much home again though! 😆

( at the end of the day the items left were bundled up and have since been donated to The Nest, a community based group who raise funds for their programs for women and children by selling haberdashery etc crafting items)
We also had a Raffle to raise funds...many thanks to Michelle for the main prize and thank you to Sandi for the Easter themed prizes.

Inca won the first prize!

As usual, we had lots of fun at our monthly stitching day, but let's get to the 'nitty gritty'; how much did we raise? We had agreed in a previous month that we would contribute some of our reserve funds which have built up quite nicely and add these to whatever we made from the raffles and 'bring and buy' items. So our grand total was $644 which was split between the 2 charities. Great achievement!
This is my 'loot' from the Bring and Buy table. We were all very lucky that Sandi was decluttering and brought along finished items that she had made just for the pleasure of the making, but with no real idea of what she would do with them. Her work is exquisite so I'm very happy with my haul which will be mainly gifts.

And also in March, Chookyblue is once again doing the March Charge ( a walking challenge) to raise funds for Cancer Research and Support for Sufferers. DH and I made the easy decision to sponsor Donna again this year.
So lots of busy busy people working hard to raise funds for others...but then, isn't that what life is all about?

It's nearly Easter...

For a couple of weeks each year, Green Hills parish gets into entrepreneurial mode as thousands of palm crosses are made and sold to (church) schools and other parishes throughout Australia ready for Palm Sunday Services. We raise a few thousand dollars this way; all very nice.
Working bees to strip the fronds from the palm branches and then cut the strips into lengths are always social occasions...


Then most parishioners take bags of cut strips home and then start folding...

One of my bundles...

And Easter approaching means a change of display in the hutch here at our place...
Blue Willow, out! ( for a while it's back in the cupboard not literally 'out'! 😉)


The boxes of stored Easter items...

And now already for Easter...the little wooden Easter banner is still to be put up, but I need DH's help with that.

Many of the items were from Easter Swaps I joined in previous years...and a win a few years ago in an Easter Raffle at Sunday Stitchers...all lovely memories and loved items. Children who visit love it! ( so do I! Lol) 

Let's Get Stitched Brisbane 2018; Part 3

The third shop that we visited on our bus trip was Voodoo Rabbit at Annerley. This tiny shop has always had the reputation of having unusual and even quirky fabrics, along with the more usual range of patchwork fabrics, patterns and notions.


The window display was certainly quirky 😉

And a better look at that sewer, without the glass of the shop window in the way!

The little shop soon got very crowded with ladies eager to purchase items...

Just the owner Kylie was there to serve...and I decided rather quickly that I didn't need anything.
The next stop was our hotel and weren't we all glad to go and have a rest before the Pizza and Games Night. Bus trips sure can be tiring! Lol
The evening started off very sedately...




After our pizzas we had the Supplies Swap. Up to 3 crafting items in our stashes that we no longer needed could be brought along and for each item we were given a number. When the number was called you had to dash out to the table where all the items were placed and quickly choose an item. I had #12, 13, 14, so had quite a good choice of items. Those at the end did not have such good choices.
I chose fabric bundles...you know I need fabric...not! (The items I brought along for the Swap were 2 kits that I now know will never make up and a ziplock bag of doilies. )

We played some crazy games...


We each had been asked to bring along a paper bag which contained a fat quarter, a card of 6 buttons and another sewing notion such as needles etc. ( in other years it was always a charm square pack and they had been getting expensive) . The 'left- right' game was played like pass the parcel and at the end we each kept the bag we were holding. These were the contents of the one I got...

Just a few days before I had been thinking of the Olivia the Pig books that I had given to great nieces  a few years ago. So I was thrilled to see Olivia and friends on this fat quarter.
On the Saturday I checked out of the hotel in the morning and headed home. But on Saturday night I headed back to meet the others for our dinner at the Morrison Hotel. That couldn't be missed; the steaks there are always superb! We took up 3 large tables.

And my steak meal did not disappoint.

To end the evening we all received one of these...

I had thoroughly enjoyed my time with all the Let's Get Stitched Ladies. 

Let's Get Stitched in Brisbane 2018; Part 2

On the Friday was the LGS bus trip to some of the local quilt shops. Like a lot of places in Australia, many of our beloved quilt shops have closed. In my area of Brisbane on the north side, this has indeed been the case. 
Our first stop was on the south side of town at Nikki Tervo's Brandy Gully Patchwork. Since the previous LGS Brisbane bus tour , Nikki has expanded her little shop to include a large class area.


Pretty soon there was a queue for the checkout...

My modest purchases...after all, I don't really need anything! Lol

And the generous Nikki included a free stitchery project in every bag at the checkout.

Our next stop was at Cleveland; at the always impressive Bayside Stitchcraft.

This is a big store!


Shez had fun with the stairlift...


Both counters soon had queues.

There was a lot of temptation at this store, but my purchase was even more modest than at the first store of the day...just some buttons for Holly's birthday bunting that I really should start working on soon.

Then it was time to move on to our lunch stop...Southbank. I lunched at a Greek restaurant with a small group of my fellow bustrippers...



Edit
The food didn't disappoint! Yum!!

After our delicious lunch we walked around that part of Southbank...the girls from out of town were interested in a shop called 'Dougnut Time'.

Two of the girls bought a doughnut each...but not yours truly 😬. The doughnuts are huge but then again if they are charging an average $6.95 each, one might expect them to be on the large side.

Posing for a photo before we headed back to where we were to meet the bus.

One more shop on our tour, but I will write about it in the next post.