15 Minute challenge and Hot Christmas on the horizon

 The forecast for Christmas Day is 37C as today is a balmy 21 and tomorrow is 28 I am hoping they have got things very wrong.  Mo and I did the shopping on Friday and we planned a hot lunch so we will be cranking up the air-conditioning early and keeping it on all day.  

Mo is working late tonight and working again tomorrow (Christmas Eve) so she can't have the usual day with her boyfriend where they put together a gingerbread house and exchange presents.  She is making a cake house this year not sure when its going to get finished tomorrow after work.  

Last week wasn't a good week on the stitching/crochet front as work had a bit of drama again... I was glad to walk out the door on Wednesday.. fingers crossed things have settled down when I return in January.  There were a couple of days where I just was so damn tired of it all I didn't do anything and went to bed early and read a book.  

Friday after spending most of day at the shops including a trip to the Market in the city I pulled out an old Christmas UFO.  It is a design by Viv's Creations, luckily I have a few of her patterns I love her naive designs but sadly Viv passed a few years ago.  This one has lots of lots of detail to go and I have all the threads and the plan was to use beads for the berries.  Must say my stitching isn't as good as it use to be it will probably pick up as I get on with it.  

I've also done some work on my Judy Newman quilt.  Still haven't finished the hand piecing part but pretty much all the other blocks are done, when I get sick of the embroidery I'll get back to the hand stitching.  

Got a bee in my bonnet about finding some linen to make a table runner for Christmas (next year)  ended up pulling out most of my white/colour fabrics and ironing then a refolding.  Found quite a few pieces of linen that will be good for embroidery.   

I have bought myself a couple of Japanese embroidery books for Christmas which was
why I was on the hunt for linen.  

That's it for me this week.  Everyone have a lovely Christmas head to Kate's.  

15 Minute Challenge and Holidays are Almost here

 2 more days and I am on holiday I can't wait to just leave work behind for a couple of weeks.    It has been less than great at work the last few weeks I am so glad it is pretty slow client wise this time of year and we have time for all the other things that are happening behind the scenes.  

DH and I spent a lovely night away at the Adelaide Oval Hotel, and enjoyed a great meal at one of the city pubs for our anniversary a couple of weeks ago.  

The trip to Skein machine with the crochet guild was so much fun.  The 2 guy's who run the shop are just so talented.  One is a knitter (of only 3 years) and does the most incredible shadow work knitting check out his patterns on the site and the other  is a crochet guru.  They dye their own yarn and stock lots of local  products and yarn from the area.  Shopping was done and a picked up some sparkly yarn for my crochet baubles.  

Here is my piles so far.  Not all will make the finished wreath but they have been fun and easy to do.  I've purchased a polystyrene wreath, and i'm also working on a crochet piece to cover it using a sparkly sock yarn.     I need to get working on some candy canes and will do some flowers as well to help fill in the gaps.  There is no way it will be finished this year, I'm aiming for next year. 

The weather has been a real stinker the last couple of days 40 yesterday and 39 and humid today.  Work at least has very good air conditioning so it was good to be in the office for a few hours.  

Coco has had to have another tooth removed and she has been a bit flat the last few day, the heat probably isn't helping.  She had a reaction to the anti inflammatory meds she was given but is a lot better today.  

I really need to get back to the quilt I'm working on, most of the blocks are done apart from 2 more strips of hand piecing.  I want to top at least finished for a class in March so I need to get back to it.  Hopefully over my break I will get back to it.  

That's it for me today head to Kate's.   Hope to get back before Christmas.  

15 Minute Challenge Christmas Making

I've been working on getting the quilt top finished that I started at the Judy Newman/Margaret Mews workshop that I did earlier this year.  I've finished all cutting.  I'm not sure if I am going to like the finished product but I will preserver.  My problem is that they didn't stipulate light and dark for the half square triangles and now I am having trouble getting the value right in the finished blocks.  I've decided that I'm just going to suck it up and finish it and see what it looks like.  I have a couple of sides of hand piecing to finishing and more pinwheel blocks to sew then I can put it all together.  Their next workshop is in March so I still have some time.  

I have finished the first French General embroidery, and worked out how to frame my Topiary embroidery.  Still haven't managed to hang it.  

After much nagging in the house hold we have started doing Christmas decorating, well I have started making some stuff for Christmas decorating.  Our wreath has been looking a bit sad I want to make a wreath, but there is no way it will be finished in time, so I have made a temporary one for this year and will work on some ornaments to add to it.  Of course I found one on instagram using crochet baubles so bought the pattern and started last night.  I also have 12 days of Christmas felt ornaments that I am going to make so it will end up being a mixture of handmade things to replace the store bought baubles.  

The pattern for the baubles are much bigger than these but I didn't want to use plastic balls in them so I made them smaller (4 rows not 8) with a larger ply but same hook so there wasn't open weave and stuffed these with toy stuffing.  

This was this weeks project which came out so cute but doesn't want to stand up so well, she is a bit top heavy.  I think I will make a few more and maybe join them together so they stand up or put a loop on her and hang her on the tree when it goes up.  

That's it for me, the crochet guild is going for an excursion this weekend, travelling to a yarn store on mass.  One of the ladies from my end of town is picking me up.   Should be fun.  

Head to Kates.  

15 minute Challenge and Holiday Fun

 We are back from a 2 1/2 week road trip and we managed not to murder each other.  It was mostly good fun and the driving wasn't nearly so terrifying as our Tassie trip last year.  I managed to do some stitching or crochet most nights back in our accomodation, I think there was only 2 nights in total that I didn't do anything.  Progress on my embroidery 

We hired a car from Adelaide and then drove every couple of days (mostly to a new spot). We got a cracked windscreen on day 2 of the holiday which meant we needed to stay a bit longer in Bendigo in order to get it fixed but all in all we pretty much kept to my original plan.  Bendigo was my favourite place so an extra day didn't really matter to me. 

The beware of snakes on the trail the last day came in useful we were just finishing up a coastal walk and there was a young brown snake (I think) on the trail.  We clapped and made lots of noise and he/she headed back into the bush.  

Friendly birds at Lorne

That's it for me I have lots more pictures, I need to do a photo book.  

Head to Kate's to see how everyone is travelling.  

15 Minute Challenge and a busy Month

 The usual September hoo ha is over today.  Lots and lots of invoices to finalise and our accounts department decided they needed to do end of month at 11.15, then wouldn't let us in the system for another hour which is the longest its taken all year.  I'm not sure why all the managers weren't up in arms, at least I managed to get everything done in the end, but I wasn't happy.    

My co-worker was back today so that is one less thing to worry about and I go on holiday in 2 weeks.  Yay can't wait we have a road trip planned.  

Mo's market prep is in full swing, she is making lots of props for a her products and she is printing off her stickers and art prints now all the other items are done, fingers crossed she does well.

Maestro's apprenticeship  is finished and he is now a fully qualified Chief and starts a new contract.  He was hoping to drop a day now and mainly do front of house but I'm not sure how that will go as they had one of the cooks leave unexpectedly so we will have to wait and see.

I've been busy and have had a few finishes the last couple of weeks.  A couple of sewing boxes and a quilt finish.  

My latest crochet throw is finished just have to wash and block it, so that will have to wait until next time.  

Head to Kate's you know the drill.

15 Minutes and Bits and Pieces

 The year is definitely wizzing by I cant believe we are well in to September.  We have had quite a few warm days even though spring has just started.  

My co-worker had to head off this morning as his wife was in labour. The count down is on for me to finish the quilt.  It's lucky I finished the quilting on Thursday afternoon and started the binding on the weekend.  Will need to get on to the hand stitching (I don't like machine stitching it down).   I have loved getting back behind the machine and doing some machine quilting.    

I started having a bit of mini clean up in the sewing room, I need to find some more yarn storage.  There is already have a couple of bags that need to go to the charity shops shortly.  While cleaning a rediscovered a couple of small cases that I want to make into sewing boxes.  Below is the plain painted box.  I've got a few stickers and elements to paint up and go on before I start looking at the inside.  Have you seen the travel sewing cases on instagram that are made out of travelling jewellery cases.  They look darling, mine is on order from Amazon but I decided to make a start on a bigger one for paper piecing projects.  After trawling through instagram I have found a couple of how to's (in Italian) but I think I can follow the photo's.

A couple of weeks ago I did an afternoon class making this sewing bag.  The clam shells are hand pieced from a small template (not paper pieced).  It took me about a week to finish and it came out lovely.  I have another pattern for small purse that originally used hexies but I want to use the clam shells again, they are so much easier than paper pieced clams and they look pretty much the same.  Not sure when that is getting started though.  It was lovely doing the class I miss regular classes the most since COVID. 

 

Mo is getting ready for a market in about 6 weeks.  Its at a gaming convention, she is making a few gaming character inspired pieces.  She has also been working on these cute animal figurines.  She has also made polymer clay phone/key fobs as well as earrings.  I think she will be doing some art prints and stickers as well if she has time.  She has also applied for another market closer to Christmas just hope she can make enough stock by then.  

I'm down to the last square of a crochet blanket I have been working on.  Need to get them all together and work on a border.  Crochet Guild meets this weekend it will be good if I can get all the squares together by then for some show and tell.  

Hope you are getting your 15 minutes in.  

Head to Kates' to see how everyone is progressing.  

15 Minute Challenge and its been a while

 Sorry its been over a month.  Monday night has been problematic for blogging so I'm giving a go on Sunday night.  We have been picking up Mo from work Monday nights she doesn't finish till late and then we cook dinner and it better to sit in front of the TV and stitch or crochet than blog.  

I also was sick for a couple of weeks, got some bug thanks to Mo who caught it off her boyfriend.  I can't really complain haven't been sick with cold since before covid and have so far missed out on Covid joy.  We all did Covid/Flu test and it wasn't either of those so just garden variety cold with a bit of a lingering cough.  

But as you can see I have been busy even with a week break spent on the lounge doing zip.  There is a finished quilt top and a finished embroidery piece.    I'm unsure what to do with the embroidered piece I'm leaning towards framing it, just don't know where I will put it.  DH doesn't like to hang things on the wall but I'm thinking I could put it above my sewing draws in the lounge room, but might have to sneak it there and see if he notices.

Work has been busy on and off, we probably need to divide some the work a bit better as I am getting bored at times waiting for things to come back from clients.  Its a nice break from been constantly under the pump but I don't like having so little to do.  But as my offsider is about to go on paternity leave for a couple of weeks at the drop of a hat I am probably going to regret these comments soon.  

I leave you with a picture from my walk around the lake this morning.  

Head to Kates to see how everyone is travelling.