Nearly March -Cyclone Gabrielle, Stitching and More

As you may have heard, two weeks ago now, Cyclone Gabrielle left a trail of destruction around New Zealand's North island, including here in our lovely Hawkes Bay region. Our property was fine and most around our town, there were precautionary evacuations in place for some areas situated by the river. Schools remained closed for the week and many businesses too. The nearest town to us and outer rural areas suffered extreme flooding, including the business where my sister in law works, and the school where my brother in law is the principal. Further north, near Napier, some of the surrounding areas suffered devastation, ravaged beyond repair, including Esk Valley and Puketapu. Entire communities were cut off. There were ongoing power outages, lost of communications and we recently had a Boil water notice lifted that was in place for nearly two weeks. Tragically, the death toll from Cyclone Gabrielle is 11, with most of these deaths in Hawkes Bay.

The emergency response has been like nothing we've seen in New Zealand and so many people have assisted in rescues to get people and animals to safety, reconnecting power and communications, roading, etc. It's been absolutely incredible. Local community volunteers have been out there helping with clean ups, food and supply drop offs, and getting rid of flood damage goods. With homes, businesses, wineries and orchards destroyed, the damage bill is estimated at least NZ $13 Billion. 

It's been a very surreal time and today, the last day of our NZ summer, it's raining again and there's rain warnings in place for the east coast again and some of Hawkes Bay.  

Before I move onto an update of stitching and other stuff, I just wanted to say thank you to those who reached out and checked in with me, greatly appreciated, thanks so much for getting in touch.

Back in early February, we spent a long weekend at one of our favourite beach spots, the farm at Blackhead Beach. I was so happy to be there as our January holiday week was cancelled due to bad weather. The weather was glorious, sunny and hot, and we enjoyed the days, fishing, going for drives along the beach, reading, and enjoying time with our friends.

Perfect spot for some early morning stitching with a cuppa.

This little stitching project was one of my February ornaments, Rudolph and Friends by Brenda Gervais. My 2023 ornament stitching is well underway, and I have four stitched so far, they just need to be made up sometime.

Now to share a few recent finishes from during this month - 

Dasher & Dancer by Natalie Bird, the Birdhouse

2022 Christmas Stitching along by the Tiny Modernist, Christmas Snow Globe. This was my Christmas holidays project and I really enjoyed stitching the fox, deer, nutcracker, penguin, polar bear and snowman. 

Lois Stocking by Shepherds Bush, name to add and charms, stitched on Floba linen with DMC pearl 5 threads.

A new start and it's Hector's Stocking by Shepherd's Bush.  I just love stitching these stockings.

Lastly for today, a good boy update - Mr Diesel is now 7 months old, and he's just such a joy, brings us so much laughter and fun. His latest trick is to bring in a piece of wood from the pile we have drying out on our driveway ready to be stacked away for winter and proceed to spread bark and bits of it around the entire house before we can catch up with him! 

Hopefully from today, I'll be back to some regular blogging, fingers crossed!

See you soon x

Advent Swap, a new start and new goodies

My friend Clare and I continued our annual Christmas advent swap in 2022. We don't have a set plan so we can pick any gifts for each other to include in the swap.  I always start collecting things at the start of the year as I also do a swap with a work friend, and then add throughout the year.

Once again I forgot to get a photo of Clare's gifts but here is the stitched ornament I made for her, design is by Heart in Hand.

These are all the lovely treats I received from Clare.

I was also received this gorgeous Santa as part of our stitching group secret Santa exchange.

The beautifully stitched and finished ornament I received from Clare.

Art & Frame in Christchurch had a new shipment of needle minders arrive a few weeks before Christmas so I couldn't resist this cutie:

 

I've had this Birdhouse design ready to go for ages so decided to get it started prior to going on my summer holidays. I'm using Cosmo thread and the design came pre printed in the kit.

I picked up this cute little tin at one of our local shops, thought it would be the perfect size for storing threads, my handcream, etc in.

This year I decided to purchase the Book of Days, a journal by Needlework Press for stitchers to record all my stitching progress and plans.

Of course, it couldn't travel alone from Stitch Witches, all the way down south in Dunedin, so I added a few other goodies - fabric for an up and coming project when the pattern arrives, a Lori Holt needle minder and a tiny pair of Kelmscott scissors.

Lastly for today, the dahlias in the gardens at my work are all out right now and look just gorgeous right now:

See you soon x

The Birdhouse Ready for Another Christmas

Several months ago I came across a new Natalie Bird fabric range called Ready for Another Christmas and a new pattern on the Milly Mac website.  I thought the fabric and stitcheries were so cute so I made several ornaments for gifts this year including ones to send to my stitching friends - Andrea in the UK and Carol in the US.

A fun project to work on, the thread I used was Cosmo thread 655, which is a colour very similiar to DMC 221. 

See you soon xx

Fun Stitching and a trip to the Daffodils

Hello friends, another week has rolled on by and we're pretty much had rain every day.  We did get two days of lovely sunshine last weekend then back to rain.  Glenn and I did manage to get a start on a big clean up around our back deck, swimming pool and greenhouse last Sunday, clearing away leaves, washing down walls, etc and then water blasting the deck.  Everything is so damp, slimey and slippery from this consistent rain over the past few months. Roll on some sunshine!

I've been stitching on a fun project this week - using some of the stitchery patterns from this new pattern by Natalie Bird from the Birdhouse, these will be turned into small ornaments.  This fabric is from a new fabric range also by Natalie Bird called Ready for Another Christmas - love these colours.  

Last week, in between showers, I was able to visit the local Daffodil farm. It's been several years since I last went and it's such a beautiful and peaceful place to go.  It was very wet underfoot so I didn't venture too far off the paths into the paddocks. 

Sadly, due the weather conditions, the farm has had to close to visitors before the season finished this coming weekend.  

This little puppy is over the rain too, but he absolutely loves being out in the garden and grass when he can be.  

Growing so fast, Diesel will be 11 weeks old on Monday.

Have a happy weekend. See you soon xx