Catching up

Hello friends, well, it's been some time since my last post - the winter bugs caught me and I have had a few weeks of feeling not very well, the usual goings on at work, extra after school things on for Hannah, and also, my father in law's house has now been sold, which meant lots of time sorting out household items, the tools and machinery from his workshop, property maintenance and cleaning too. 

This week is the last week of the school term for Hannah, then the holidays start. We are getting excited as our family holiday is almost here - we are heading to the Gold Coast, Australia. It's been five and half years since our last trip to Australia (we had a fab holiday to Melbourne just before the pandemic), so we are all looking forward to some sunshine and some chill out time together.  Of course there might be shopping involved, ha ha.  It's almost ten years since we took Hannah on her first overseas holiday, which was to the Gold Coast, and I was looking back on the photos and things we did on that trip recently, just seems like yesterday! 

But first, we have an exciting event coming up this weekend, Hannah has her very first ball to go to. The dress and shoes are ready, appointments for nails and hair have been booked, on Saturday it will be all go!  I can't wait to see our beautiful girl all dressed up on Saturday evening. 

I was taking some photos the other day of my stitching finishes to get ready for this post and there's a little pile waiting for me to get to my sewing machine for some finishing time. I haven't done any sewing all year, haven't really felt like it, but over the coming winter months I hope to get back into the swing of things.  I'm going really well with my destash in my craft supplies and it would have been completely done if I hadn't been sick for a few weeks.  I'll be back into it after my holiday.  

So here we go, all my stitching finishes from the past few months. 

Cottontail and Company by Scattered Seeds Samplers, stitched on 36 count light mocha linen.

Spring Fling by Brenda Gervais, stitched on 32 count opalescent pink fabric by Silkweavers

Peace & Goodwill by Brenda Gervais, With thy Needle and Thread, stitched on Picture this Plus, 36 count Legacy linen. 

I've also spent time stitching some of my sampler wips too but don't have any progress pics to share of them.

Next up are all the ornaments I've stitched so far this year:

JBW Designs French Country Santa

Christmas Fawn by Satsuma Street

Love & Joy by Heartstring Samplery

Birds that Sing by MommalovesyouGB

Hands on Designs free chart 2024

Hands on Designs free chart 2024

Several months ago I was browsing the Spotlight store website when I spotted this fab little storage tool box. At the time it was out of stock but recently, they were back on the site and better still, on sale, so I purchased one for my craft room.  

It now sits on my sewing desk and contains all my extra scissors, thread drops, thread rings, DMC bobbins and number labels, needle packets and a whole lot more.  

I have been working on a sewing job for a friend, she recently completed 15 little red work embroideries and I offered to finish them for her as they are going to be donated for a fundraising craft event later in the year.  So cute.

Last week I was able to spend a bit of time with some family visiting from Australia, three of my younger cousins. It was so good catching up with them as it had been a few years.  

Out walking with Diesel on a sunny winter afternoon is great way to forget about things for awhile, he just loves his walks on the river tracks. 

Talking of Diesel, we are so going to miss him while we're on our trip but he will be having the time of his life as our friends Bruce and Alison are going to be looking after him, and he will get to hang out with their black lab Meg.  

I'll be back in a few weeks time, middle of July, wow, how the months have been whizzing by this year.  

See you soon x

17 Birthday Candles

Hannah turned 17 yesterday, and I can hardly believe it! She said to me last night, this time next year she’ll be 18—how is that possible? We’re incredibly proud of our wonderful girl. She’s still passionate about all things hair and beauty, working hard on her ballet, and really enjoying being an assistant teacher for the young ballet dancers at her dance school.

We celebrated last night after dance class with takeaways and some divine cupcakes from a local bakery, yum!

Today it's my youngest niece Sally's birthday, she's 14 today, where have the years gone? We're looking forward to seeing Sally on the weekend as we're planning a family morning tea to celebrate Mother's Day.  

See you soon x

 

Three new starts

This month, being my birthday month, I decided to have several new starts. First up, this cute pink fawn from Satsuma Street.

I just love these adorable designs, and stitching on the perforated paper is quite fun.  

Up next, I'm adding another sampler design to my growing collection of sampler wips - Americana Blue by October House Fibre Arts, stitched on 36 count Fibre on a Whim Affogato linen and with the recommended Weeks Dye Works Blue Jeans threads. 

Started during the Easter break, a little chart that has been on my to stitch list for ages, Cottontail & Company by Scattered Seed Samplers. I'm using all the recommended threads and 36 count mocha linen.  

You might remember me chatting about having a major sort through in my craft room/office? I spent quite a bit of time in there over the recent long weekend and made some really good progress, sorted out lots of donations for the local op shop, scrapbooking resources that I no longer want to use have been given away,  a big box of fabrics to give to my friend for the destash sale coming up.  This coming weekend, I'm going to sort through all my knitting yarn, needles and patterns.  Getting there very slowly!

See you soon xx

Easter weekend

 I hope you had a wonderful Easter weekend, we certainly enjoyed our four day break.

We started the weekend with a very wet day on Good Friday, the tail end of Cyclone Tam, which had seen quite rough weather and flooding up the top of the North Island and Auckland. The rest of the weekend the weather was very warm and sunny. We spent our break working on some projects around home, catching up with family, a day out to Napier and just enjoying being around home.

We were treated to some yummy Easter goodies on Thursday morning at work. 

 It was a beautiful day on Saturday, just perfect for strolling around Napier, browsing the shops and enjoying our favourite Starbucks drinks.  Lots of people out and about enjoying the sunshine. 

We had a Jamieson family barbeque on Saturday evening and had a fun night catching up with Paul, Jude and the girls.

Of course we enjoyed some Easter treats!

Hannah's annual Easter basket, minus the new pj's she was already using lol.

We enjoyed our "cheese" o'clock on Easter Sunday after a day of gardening and other outside jobs. I cleaned the greenhouse out and emptied some of the vegetable gardens, all ready for winter. 

Glenn finished the new raised rose garden so a few new plants purchased and planted in the garden. 

My niece Zoe came home for a few days to stay with my parents so it was super lovely to catch up with her, and her Dad, my brother Marcus, came to stay too. I'm so proud of Zoe and her partner Dylan - they have recently purchased and moved into a new home, and Zoe has also changed positions at her current workplace, so busy times for her.  Diesel just loves Zoe and gives her lots of smoochy hugs whenever she comes to our house. 

This week has been zooming by, public holiday Monday, three days to work, another public holiday on Friday for ANZAC Day. I had thought about taking some time off  but I decided to wait until the next lot of holidays in July as we have bit of a holiday adventure planned, more about that another time!

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon x

A finish, new stash, books and scissors

It's a beautiful autumn day here in NZ, and we've been enjoying some really nice weather lately. I love the weather at this time of the year, cooler mornings and evenings but gorgeous sunny days. Our daylight savings ended last weekend. Its also the start of the school holidays here, Hannah now has two weeks off school after finishing term 1. We have the Easter break coming up from Friday so we're all looking forward to some down time around home. We might head up to Napier over the break, for a day out, go somewhere nice for lunch perhaps. Other plans include more sorting in my craft room/office and Glenn has been building a new rose planter box as we were gifted a rose from some friends, Compassion, so he'll try and get it finished.

Another work in progress ticked off the list, Green Coat Santa, which I finished over the weekend. Stitched with recommended threads and 32 count natural Belfast linen.

Lovely mail received recently from Helen, That Crafty Kiwi :

I've ordered some linen from Helen for this chart

New Cohana scissors, all the way from Japan. I couldn't resist when I saw these being advertised 

Oh Joyous Day came out of my stitching basket for my sampler choice last week and I spent a few evenings working on this lovely design. 

Some new books bought with some birthday money. A new cook book by Vanya Insull, VJ Cooks, a NZ food blogger, and this is her third book. I just love her recipes, so easy and most of the recipes use pantry staples. 

a new Hunger Games novel, and the latest in a series by local Hawke Bay writers Gareth and Louise Ward. They own a bookshop in Havelock North, which is not far from where I live.

Have a fab week friends, see you soon x