The Past Week

Winter has well and truly arrived with the start of June - I honestly don't know where the past few weeks went to!  We've been having very frosty starts to the day followed by sunshine and then by evening its freezing again.

I've been doing lots of cooking and baking lately, and trying out a few new recipes in our slow cooker from the latest Annabel Langbein Winter book.  The Bolognaise and Beef Bourguignon were delicious and there were enough leftovers to put a couple of extra meals into the freezer. Another new recipe I made on the weekend was a Perfect Winter Apple and Walnut Cake - this was a real hit with my stitching buddies on Saturday afternoon :)

Back tracking a little bit to last weekend now, we had a busy few days, and made the most of the extra day off work for the Queen's Birthday public holiday.  Hannah and I went out with one of my friends to check out an Arts and Crafts Exhibition held every year during Queen's Birthday weekend.
We decided to stop for coffee at a cafe we hadn't tried before - great coffee and delicious peppermint slice too!

Then it was onto to the local art gallery, Artmosphere. Hannah was thrilled when the owner said she could try out the rocking horse - then she wanted to take it home!!

During the week I had my crochet bag out one night making some more circles for my Flowers in the Snow blanket, sewed a few ends in too.

Picked up some new fabrics from my local sewing shop and some reading for the weekend:

Received a lovely gift from my dear friend Wendy:

Friday afternoon, on the spur of the moment, I decided to head off to the movies, by myself!!  A first for me, and as you can see I nearly had the whole theatre to myself.  I went to see Pitch Perfect 2, which I thoroughly enjoyed, laughed and laughed, and loved the music too.

This weekend was busy too, stitching with the ladies on Saturday, and then Hannah had a birthday party to go on Sunday, plus all the usual weekend jobs.

I picked up a few more balls of wool for my crochet blanket so had to try out the colours together, this photo is not very accurate.

Sunday afternoon, having the house to myself for a few hours, I decided to start a Gail Pan stitchery. Once finished this will go into the pressie box.

So there you go, that's what I've been up to over the past week.

Have you got any slow cooker recipes to recommend or been to see any good movies lately?

See you soon x

Bits & Pieces

Wow, thanks for all the wonderful comments about Christmas Garden - it brightens my day when you take time out of your busy lives to share your thoughts with me. Thank you :)

Another week has rolled around and March will soon be here. We're heading into my favourite time of the year, Autumn, and after some scorching hot days recently I'm looking forward to the cooler autumn weather. 

I was happy to find a copy of this magazine in the local bookshop last week with some gorgeous Christmas Crafts including a few stitchery patterns by Gail Pan and Natalie Bird. 

On Friday I went on a little road trip with my friends Clare, Elsie and Janet to Palmerston North so we could visit the Craft & Quilt Fair.

What a lovely morning we had browsing all the booths.  Isn't this Red Brolly quilt gorgeous? Clare has this planned as a future project.

                   

I was very happy with my little bag of shopping, especially my new favourite stitching accessory, the little folding lamp.

I could have spent way more but there's a local Quilt Show on here in late March so I will look forward to some more stash shopping then! 

Time for a kitchen reno update - this weekend we had a few things on, Hannah had a birthday party to go to and then a friend over to play, we had our good friends' 40th wedding anniversary party Saturday evening and then Glenn had a trip out of town yesterday. 

He did find some time to put the handles on the cupboards and drawers, I love them!

Last Week

After stitching my last few projects, I felt like pulling out one of the little Shepherd's Bush kits that has been in my stitching basket for ages, the Sweet Stitches scissor fob.

It matches perfectly with several of my stitching scissors including this cute pair of blue and white polka dot ones.

But for now its attached to my pair of Julia Ginghers.

 It was very satisfying to have it stitched and made up over a couple of evenings last week.

This past Saturday afternoon my stitching buddies came around for a few hours.  It was a rainy afternoon so just perfect for a natter, a snack or two, and some great company. I forgot to take photos of what all the ladies were working on, my project for the afternoon was February Word Play by With thy Needle & Thread.

I must have been too busy yakking and snacking as I had to do a fair bit of reverse stitching on Saturday night, lol.

Sunday also turned out to be a very wet day so I finally read a few magazines from the pile on my bedside cabinet.

I also had a browse through a new felt book, ordered once I'd seen a friend's copy. It has some really cute designs and was quite cheap, $10 NZ.

I have yet to take some decent photos of my finished Christmas Garden - it's been raining here for the past few days but we're due for some sunshine for the rest of the week, hopefully!

Lately

Hello there

I've had a random assortment of finishes over the past week or so including two more of the LHN Sheep Virtue series:

Simplicity By Little House Needleworks

stitched with recommended threads, 30 ct Cocoa Linen by Weeks Dye Works

Faith by Little House Needleworks

stitched with recommended threads, 30ct Dark Chino linen by R&R

The first of August's ornaments:

This is my Joy by Little House Needleworks

stitched with GAST Country Redwood, 32ct cream linen 

Next up is the completed baby blanket, which I just need to block sometime:

Newborn Baby Blanket by Altadena Green

4mm circular needles, The Wool Company Utiku 8ply cream 400 grams

A little crochet hat for baby Milla:

Little Sister, pattern by Linda Permann found online here

Started last night is another baby blanket, this one is for my friend's baby girl due in December:

I've chosen a melon colour from the Cleckheaton Country Aran range for the middle of the blanket and cream for the outside border. It's so lovely and soft.  The pattern is from this book, which I bought after seeing it reviewed on Retromummy's blog a few months ago.

Earlier this week I picked up the lastest issues of Mollie Makes and Simply Crochet, which I look forward to reading over the weekend.

Hannah was so excited as Hairy Maclary came to stay with us for a few days.  Her school class recently celebrated Hairy Maclary's 30th birthday as a project and each student was able to take him home and then write a story about his stay.

Hairy Maclary loved his afternoon tea with Hannah, lol.

Enjoy your weekend and thanks for your visit xx

Flowers for You

Hello there

I don't think I've shown a pic of Flowers For You, which I'm stitching for a friend's birthday, well, a belated birthday present now :) 

I love the colours in this design, I love everything about a Blackbird Design pattern!

I picked up a few of my favourite magazines on Saturday, waiting on my bedside cabinet for some night time reading this week.

See you soon x

Holiday Break Nearly Over

Well, my summer holidays have nearly come to an end, its back to work on Monday for me. I can't believe how quickly this time off has whizzed on by, but it always does.  Hannah and I have just returned home from a little time away staying with our relatives in Palmerston North. Its a little trip we take every year at this time.  We spent our time catching up, visiting local parks and pools, and of course, shopping!  Lots and lots of sales on at the moment.  But of course it was nice to get home, and back to DH, after being away for five days.

During one of our visits to the park, I found Hannah hiding out in the flower garden, such vibrant colours :)

Glenn has been busy during his break and has been working on a new project, he's building us a green house on our back deck so we'll be able to grow our own vegetable and plant seedlings.  I can't wait until its done to get some seedlings underway.



I mentionned in a previous post that I'd treated myself before Christmas to a few new goodies.  I bought these JBW Design patterns to stitch this year:

Two new books, both of these I've read during my holidays - the Language of Flowers would be my favourite book that I read during 2012! Excellent!  I've done alot of reading over the past few weeks - I'm onto my 5th book for the break. 

I also picked up this crochet book, which I'm sure will come in handy this year as I'd like to extend my crocheting skills, lol.

I couldn't resist picking up this cute Cath Kidson tin, which came complete with some wool and a hook to make up a small granny square cushion. 

I was very excited to find a NZ stockist for the Mollie Makes magazine recently - two issues arrived while I was away so I've been enjoying reading these over breakfast the past two mornings. Such fun projects to do!

That's the end of my catch up for this time. I'm off now to make a birthday cake for my Dad, who is 60 today. We're having a family bbq to celebrate tonight - can't wait!

Until next time, thanks for stopping by, see you soon x

Home Day

Hannah and I had a "homeday" together on Monday as I had taken the day off work. Hannah's caregiver (my aunty) had taken a couple days off to spend time with her DH who has just returned from working overseas for the past two months in Iceland.

After doing our usual things around the house, having a cuppa with a friend who stopped by, doing some baking to pop into the freezer for lunches over the next few weeks, a bit of gardening, and the usual playing Hannah and I popped into town for a browse around the shops. It was a nice day to be out and about. I picked up this issue of Australian Homespun, the Kids Issue:

It is jammed packed with several great projects and these ones jumped out at me:

An apron that would be perfect to make for Zoe

Love, love this mermaid bag

This sweet doll is part of a Princess and the Pea set, just so cute!

Of course, a visit to town isn't complete without a stop by my local fabric store. As well as picking up some necessities for a few holiday projects I'm going to be working on next week, I spotted these two girly fabrics so couldn't leave the shop without a metre of each!

Thanks for your visit!

~Katrina~