A Book Post

Over this winter I've read several good books which I'd thought I'd share today:

The White Princess by Philippa Gregory, #5 in the Cousin's War series - I was reading this as the White Queen series started on TV. #6 is due out this year. 

Recommended by brother in law, I am Pilgrim would be the best book I've read this year so far.

Before We Met, a suspense thriller, and bit of a nail biter waiting to see what would happen next.

Buried Angels, #8 in this Swedish thriller series, by one of my favourite writers, Camilla Lackberg. I have enjoyed all the books in this series and this was no exception. Can't wait for the next book now.

And borrowed from the library this weekend:

What have you read lately and enjoyed?

Bits & Pieces

It's almost the end of the school holidays for Hannah and today we're having a day at home together, she's happily playing with her Lego and then has a friend coming for a sleep over, and I've been catching up on some things and hope to do some sewing later. 

So this post is really a catch up one today to share some miscellaneous happenings around here.

It has turned bitterly cold here and I'm certain it was trying to snow at one stage yesterday! Recently a friend gave me a couple of balls of this lovely alpaca/merino mix, so I decided to make a slouchy beanie to wear going to and from work.  It's knitting up so lovely and soft.  Once this is done I'll cast on the pattern for the male beanie, to be a gift for my father in law's birthday later in the month. This is the pattern I'm using, which I received a few weeks ago (you can sign up here to receive the Naturally newsletter and also receive weekly free patterns).

One of my dear friends celebrated her birthday this week and we'll be catching up this Saturday evening so I decided to make a little crochet wash cloth for her. The Eco Store soap is a favourite of mine and I couldn't resist buying some of this new body wash for myself and my friend the other day while grocery shopping, I'm the perfect consumer when it comes to spotting new body gels, etc on the shelves at the supermarket, ha ha. Pattern can be found here.

Glenn and I have decided to have a bit of a change around with some of our furniture in the house, and also down size our bedroom furniture - he'd made this way back when he was a young apprentice boy at the joinery factory :)  Our walk in wardrobe has plenty of space so last weekend we put up some new shelving, and also had a massive sort through of all our clothes, shoes, my jewellery and hand bags, etc - we were very ruthless!

So neat and tidy!

During winter is when some of the flowers I adore come out, and this week I've had a bundle of winter sweet sitting on my office desk, just lovely.

My all time favourite, the Daphne, is also flowering prolifically in the garden at the moment.

Now for some Hannah news - look at her go!  The other night she asked Glenn to take the training wheels off her bike, which he did, and she was away first pop, no troubles at all.

She's growing up so fast!

Enjoy the weekend x

Violet's Blue

Violet's Blue by Blackbird Designs is now finished - this has been one of my favourite pieces to stitch this year.

I used the recommended threads, Weeks Dye Works, and the fabric too, 30 ct Iced Cappuccino by R&R Reproductions.

Now for a little giveaway, if you would to receive this gently used chart, please leave a comment on this post and I'll draw out a winner at the end of next week, 25th July.  I'm happy to send any where:)

Wool and the Gang

Thank you for the sweet comments about Violets Blue Sampler - it's been such a lovely design to stitch and I love the shades of purple. I've now only have the words to stitch, and of course, 1 over 1 stitching is not my favourite so it's taking awhile, ha ha.

I've decided to have a little giveaway of the chart when I'm finished so watch this space if you would like to be included - I'm happy to post anywhere :)

A few months ago I was browsing Ravelry and spotted a black and white top that I quite liked. This lead me to the Wool and the Gang website, where I was smitten with lots of the cool designs.  The great thing is that you can buy a kit to knit your own or have the item made by the Gang.  I decided to go ahead and order two of the kits, there's nothing like this available here in NZ, and they arrived recently.

This is knitting up very quick on the 8mm needles!

These little accessories were also included.

These will keep me busy over the winter months :)

Violet Sampler & some new patterns

I have been stitching on this lovely sampler lately and it's now almost finished. Many thanks to my friends Kath and Clare, who both helped out matching up some needed threads - it's amazing the differences in dye lots of Weeks Dye Works threads.

So some recent progress pics to share :)

It's been awhile since I bought any stitching stash and these lovely patterns arrived recently. 

I couldn't resist either when I spotted that Alicia from Posie Gets Cozy had some new felt animal kits available - Miss Juniper Kitty will be a friend to Miss Maggie Rabbit.

These should be keep me busy for awhile!  I also spent a little bit of time over the weekend kitting up some Christmas ornaments to work on once the Violet Sampler is finished and a few other small projects.

Last Two Sheep Virtues

These two sheep virtues were stitched a few weeks ago:

Gratitude

Joyfulness

I finally made an order to the US for the last of the felt I need to finish all of the pillows, now it's just getting around to it :)

Meet Rosalie Rabbit

Back in February I bought a knitting kit for this super cute rabbit. The kit is by Cameron-James Designs and came with everything you need to make it. I started knitting this about Easter weekend I think and finally finished the bunny just before I left on my holiday.

This was so much fun to make, my first ever knitted toy.

Cute pom pom for her tail :)

Pretty bows too :)

And of course Miss H just loves her and Rosalie now sleeps with Hannah every night:)

Home from Australia

I'm back from my trip! We flew back to New Zealand on last Monday afternoon and then a short flight down to Napier, arriving home about 8pm.  It was soon back to reality having to go to a two yearly First Aid Training day and then back at work for the rest of the week. Our group all had a fantastic time, its a hard to believe that our holiday has now been and gone, that's what happens when you look forward to something for such a long time :)

I've got loads of photos to share and news all about our trip so I'll get started!

We arrived at Coolangatta Airport on the Gold Coast on Monday 16th June and then traveled by shuttle van to our accommodation, the Mantra Sun City at Surfer's Pardise for the next seven nights.

The view from our apartment's balcony early one morning

During the week, we did lots of sightseeing, shopping and activites we'd already booked before leaving on our trip.

One afternoon was spent on a river cruise, that's the high rises of Surfer's Paradise

We took a lift up to the top of the Sky Point tower, marvelous views all around

We had some wonderful meals out duing the week and  I found a new coffee to try out, this was a honeycomb caramel latte from the Coffee Club.

How about that lemon meringue pie, didn't get to try it but it looked so delicious!



One day we spent at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary, I got to touch a snake, eekkk!!

Where we stayed was so handy to everything we wanted to do, and there was also time to just hang out, great pool facilities there.

Spent a bit of time on this gorgeous beach :)

Lots of shopping was done, at Pacific Fair, a huge shopping mall and Harbour Town, a brand direct outlet shopping centre.

One night a few of us went to Dracula's, which is not for the faint hearted. Lots of laughs and great music though.

Another trip was to the Carrara Markets, lots of stalls of food, clothing, hand bags, sunglasses, you name it, it was probably there.

We also went to the Australian Outback Spectacular show one night which everyone really enjoyed.

And one final photo on the beach on the last afternoon, quite a hot day, probably 25 c, and I've even come home with tan marks from wearing sandals all week, lol.

What a wonderful week it was, but I was very happy to arrive home to see DH and Hannah. Hannah loved all the goodies I'd bought back for her and it sounds like they had a great time together while I was away.

Back with some crafty news soon!