FNWF and a long time

Firstly it has been a long time since I have last posted.  We are now relatively settled in Melbourne I suppose.  Hubby is working full time and I at the moment am working about 4 days a week.  I am working as a Casual Relief Teacher in primary schools so work can be a bit on a off.  On at the moment since teachers are getting sick, it is report writing time and schools are having planning days.

I joined in last night with Friday Night with Friends and managed to get a little bit of sewing done.  No thanks to miss Suzie who insisted on sitting on my lap rather than the perfectly good lap next to me on the couch!  The photo shows her under a wee blanket of what I was working on, but she had a number of times where she jumped onto my lap and settled down while I was mid stitch, right on top of my hands.  I am surprised she didn't get stuck with a pin or needle.

With all of her help I did manage to achieve getting most of the stems stitches down and the rest pinned in the right spot.  This is the large centre block for the Anni Downs Gossip In the Garden Block of the Month that I am working on.  I am doing it through Elm Grove Patchwork and I love the colours that she has chosen.  I am very much enjoying this project.

I have also been working in a Block of the Month I started a while ago when I was still in New Zealand, I did it through Patchwork Passion, the specialise in Japanese Fabrics, the woven taupes and the taupe colours, a bit like some of the selection Be Be Bold have here in Australia.  I love this one too.  This is one of the blocks I have been working on.

Another thing I have been working on since I last posted is a market stall with my aunty and her friend. We had a selection of things for sale and I had some pincushions for sale.  We went to a market in Bendigo and it was lovely,  we will do the same market again in July and I will expand what I make a bit, maybe some zippered pouches and library type bags too.  Here is a photo of what I had for sale, I have made an etsy shop also so if you want to pop over and have a look that would make my day :)
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/EscapadeInCraft 

I am about to come and have a look at all the lovely things people made for FNWF!

Hope you get some sewing time in this long weekend (for those who have one) and if not some great relaxing :)

Cornelia

The next update :)...Stitching and a new member of the family.

Things have been going well here, last weekend I went to a sewing "meetup" at a place called Can Do Books in Hawthorn.  If you are in Melbourne and haven't been there I recommend a visit.  It is full of crafty and creative books and I came home with these goodies which I am very excited to begin something out of each :)

100 Modern Quilt Blocks

Yoko Saito's Houses Houses Houses (Sorry I had rotating problems)

Stitch Zakka (Rotating problems again!)

I stitched some more of my Lynette Anderson Wildflower Wood Block of the Month, the satin stitch flowers were what I focussed on so that I can finish Block Two.  I have finished the Owls of block four and again have left the satin stitch flowers for last.

I have been helping out a couple of days a week at Sewn and Quilted in Blackburn and am really enjoying it.  It is nice to be around like minded people, and the fabric of course is very tempting.  I purchased this little bundle yesterday to begin my Green Tea and Sweet Beans quilt when our container with our belongings in it arrives.

The other news is that we have a new addition to our little family.  Her name is Suzie and we are having lots of fun with her.  She is only 12 weeks old so she is very playful, but also very affectionate which is what we were looking for in a cat.  I haven't done any sewing with her around yet so we shall see how much of a temptation those strands of cotton are for her very shortly.  We played a new board game the other night together which has lots of little pieces that I thought would be tempting for a kitty but she was happy watching and sleeping in my hat.  Surprisingly I have managed to write this whole blog post without her sitting on the laptop, which along with my hat seems to be a good place to sit and sleep.

Thank you Melody for your special Hello :) and thank you to anyone who has popped over here from Melody's blog! I am feeling excited to become more of a part of the blogging community.

Happy Sewing!!!
Cornelia

Friday Night Sew In and A few other exciting things :)

Well it has been a very long time since posting and some exciting things have happened!!

My husband Dean and I have just moved to Melbourne, from Wellington, New Zealand.  We are staying in the Eastern suburbs and are so far enjoying it.  We have moved as a bit of adventure, so no jobs, but we saved quite a bit before we left and are are staying with family for now so that is great.

So far we have explored the city a little bit, went to the Melbourne Gaol, have been to a board games group (we are very enthusiastic boardgamers) and we also went to Phillip Island to celebrate our second wedding anniversary.  Phillip Island was definitely a highlight as we went to see the penguin parade, it definitely exceeded my expectation, you got to see the penguins so closely and they were very cute!!

At the Nobbies on Phillip Island

Dean with a Koala at the Conservation place on Phillip Island

Owl block of my Wildflower Wood BOM-What I worked on for Friday Night Sew In

Now to sewing!  I participated in Friday Night Sew In last night and have done some more work on my Lynette Anderson Wildflower Wood block of the month.  I have finished stitching one block already and am working on the second and third ones.  I am leaving the second one for now because I am putting off doing the satin stitch flowers, satin stitch is definitely my least favourite to do, because I am not so good at it I guess.

I look forward to posting again as I have much more to share on the Sewing front :)

Cornelia

Friday Night with Friends

Well, my friday night started off with a nice dinner with the hubby before he went out to a gig.  I decided to start a new project, I worked out I have 7 projects on the go that I have the resources to finish, and I am going two block of the months as well, so why not add another project to that list!!

This project is not of the quilting variety though.  I have decided to start a cross-stitch with The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery (http://thefrostedpumpkinstitchery.bigcartel.com/).  They have such cute patterns and I have begun the woodland sampler.

Much to mum's hilarity, after all my stitching last night I realised this morning that I had started in the wrong place, so all my hard work has just been unpicked and restarted ( I apologise for the terrible photo, it doesn't matter anyway as none of that exists now!).  There seems to be a common thread, as the last cross stitch project I did, about 10 years ago in my early teens, I couldn't finished because I had oriented the fabric the wrong way and the stitching wouldn't fit.  Though this was realised much to late in the unpicking game and was never looked at again.

Hopefully I am on a better roll now.  I think a blog post might follow this one about another project I have on the go that I am also having troubles with!   Story of my life!!

I hope your Friday Night with Friends was a bit more productive than mine!  I look forward to reading your posts.

Cornelia :)

Late FNWF post

Sorry for the late post, but here is the bag finally finished!

I am posting this on my iPad so I a unsure as to how it will turn out.  I went to take a photo of the bag with my camera but the battery died as soon as I pressed the button so iPad camera it was.

At the moment I am working on sewing another couple of things, one is a needlecase and pincushion, practising my needle turn, and the other is a quilt that I am very excited about but is proving a little tricky to sew together.  Hopefully I will have more projects finished to share soon.

Please excuse the boardgame in the background!

Cornelia :)

Friday Night with Friends

Cornelia and I aren't very good at keeping up with our blog posts and it seems that the best way to do it is to sign up with Friday Night with Friends.  It's a great excuse to sew and to share what we've been up to.  Last time I shared with you block one of my Chateau Hexagon Button Club wall hanging and today I can show you blocks two and three completed and the start of block four that I stitched last night.  Here is block two:

Typical of me I didn't quite do it the way it's meant to be.  It was supposed to be like a sampler and had an alphabet and numbers on the bottom, but this verse came to me as I was stitching it so I put that on instead.
This is block three:

Isn't it pretty with the flowers in the wheelbarrow.  It's so exciting receiving the patterns each month and not knowing what's going to be next.  Block four has a cute goose button and has one stitched goose and one appliqued goose, except I think I might applique both geese instead of stitching one.  We'll see when I get to that bit. Here it is so far:

It looks a bit funny with just the goose legs drawn on waiting to be stitched and the tree has to have leaves and flowers yet but I'm planning to sit down this evening and do some more stitching so it won't be long before this block is finished.

Cornelia is busy making a bag like my one that I posted about recently.  It's one that we started at a retreat with Annie Downs.  She's busy sewing it together now and as soon as its finished she'll be doing a post to show you so you'll have to pop back again to our blog soon to check it out.  I know I can't wait to see it :o)

Corrina

A weekend sewing

As you can see below Mum had a very productive sewing weekend (even more so than she showed which I am sure she will post about soon).  I did also actually, I spent most of the weekend sewing in the end.  Mum is much more focused than me (and has far less projects on the go).  I flitted between about three projects, though the ultimate goal was to finish a project by the end of the weekend.

I joined in with Friday Night With Friends (though am super slack and am including my results in this post), in which I sewed some hexagons, laid them out and started to sew some together.  Then I decided to have a little organise of my sewing things and I bagged all my projects that have yet to be started, but I have all of the fabric etc for.

Then on Saturday I sewed some more hexagons together, did a tiny bit of stitchery on one project.  Then by the evening I figured I wasn't going to have any projects finished that I had started....so what is a girl to do but to start another one.  I had a little needle roll kit in my friday nights organised pile. So I got that out and by Sunday night it was nearly finished (the only reason it isn't is because the kit didn't have enough thread and I didn't have one to match so I have to go and buy some).  There is only a tiny bit of blanket stitch to go.

After I ran out of thread I switched to the last project, again sewing more hexagons together but for a different bag :).

Hope you all have a lovely week!
Happy Sewing,
Cornelia