Long time between posts

It's been quite a few weeks since my last post and the weeks are rolling by so quickly, can't get my head around the fact that it is December this Sunday, the first official day of summer here, and now only three weeks until my summer holidays start.  As of this evening, after prizegiving, Hannah will be finished high school for the year. She recently sat her Level 1 exams, and this coming Saturday morning has her annual end of the year dance show, which I always love going to. 

The last few weeks have been filled with a few trips away, celebrations and as always, lots of stitching.

I'm looking forward the 2024 Jingle Ball getting underway from the 7th December and this year I purchased three of the classes, yay, PDF charts, as kits are not available to overseas stitchers. I don't think I'll have the stitched pieces ready for the finishing classes over the weekend but each class does come with instructions, which I'll use when I'm ready to finish the stitching.

One of the classes is Hashtag Joy by Cathy from Hands on Designs, which I got underway recently.

One of my friends made me a new project bag recently from this cute fabric I'd bought from my local sewing shop.

Another friend had made these lovely strawberry fobs so I was able to get one for my little scissors.

My sewing machine has been getting bit of work out lately as I'm getting all my gift stitching made up. Primrose Cottage Stitches featured a tutorial for these easy thread catchers a few months ago so I decided to make up a few to add to friends pressies. You can find the video here.

In other stitching news, I had a small parcel arrive with two of the new Brenda Gervais charts, these will be my December projects, and a fat quarter of Picture this Plus Legacy Linen. I'm excited too because a recent order from 123 Stitch should be delivered any day with some fabrics, accessories and a chart I've been wishing for ages, I'll share this next time.

Glenn and I had another trip to Auckland recently, this time for the Pearl Jam concert, which was awesome!

The start of Christmas shopping

We took the ferry across Auckland Harbour one morning and had a stroll around Devonport, before enjoying coffee and cake at one of the cafes there.

Unexpectedly, due a cancelled flight, we had an additional night in Auckland, so we were able to catch up with some friends for dinner, one of whom we hadn't seen in few years.

Going back to where I left off in my last post, we were heading out to the beach for the first trip of the season in our campervan. We had to change locations due to the many other campervans all ready parked up but found a great spot at another of our local beaches, Porangahau.  

We had a wonderful few days, the weather was hot and sunny, and really enjoyed the break. Fishing, lots of beach walks, good food and company with our friends. 

I had to share this photo of myself and a dear family friend, Alison. Many years ago, when I was in my last year of university, I boarded with Alison, her husband Cliff and their two young children.  

I love my time staying with them, no stress, just a warm home, family meals and always, a ride to an from uni when I needed one, or missed the bus! Alison's Mum is a good friend of my Mum's so a short time ago, we met for lunch with some other friends. It was a wonderful catch up as it had been several years since we'd last seen each other. 

Each year I like to see which of our roses flowers first, and for the third year in a row, it was the divine smelling Friesia rose. 

This is Courage, gifted to us by friends when Glenn's Mum passed away. 

My number one favourite, Blackberry Nip.

Earlier this week, I headed along to see Wicked at our local movie theatre, and absolutely loved it. I think I'll go again during the holidays!

Finally for today, a very special occasion at my work a few weeks back, we celebrated our 30th anniversary of our disability service. It was a lovely afternoon attended by our mayor, deputy mayor and other invited guests.  This beautiful cake tasted delicious and was enjoyed by everyone.

See you soon xx