Special Sewing Day & OPAM Closed!!

Well, hello there all you lovelies! :0) I hope you've had a great weekend with lots of fun, relaxing stitching and creating going on. It's been a bit of a busy one here at Edward House ... comings, goings, votings (BLECH!! What do you do when you don't want to vote for ANY of the political parties cos they're all selfish, self-serving and out of touch with 'ordinary' citizens?!?!). And somehow I've run out of weekend ... AGAIN!! Don't you just hate it when that happens?! :0)

Quite a bit of my time in the last week or so has been getting ready for a very special sewing event ... a very EXCLUSIVE sewing event. :0) You see ... with all our house shuffles, busy end of year, visitors coming and going etc ... etc ... etc!! We were a wee bit REALLY slack at keeping up with family birthdays last year. So ... rather than trying to think of 'things' to buy as gifts, I decided to host a special event in lieu of a gift ... a sewing day for a few of the gals in the family ... a sort of mini-Stitchers Dream Day Out. :0) Step one ... we needed a project ... something with a little bit of hand stitching and simple enough for a couple of our nieces to tackle. The result was ...

... a simplified version of my drawstring lingerie bag sporting a pretty appliquéd daisy. Next step ... a bit of research into favourite colours and putting together some kits ...

These were popped into some giftie bags along with a few goodies ... chocolate ... of course!! :0) ... a nice purse size pen, pretty notebook, lip balm ... you know ... girly necessities! Tee! Hee! Hee! I also did lots of cooking to make sure we'd have yummy morning tea and lunch nibbles. Then on the day ... we got stitching!

Here's GB's sisters Kylie and Tonia and niece Annie-Rose working away.

And here's Kylie helping her daughter (niece number 2!) with some side seams. And at the end of a very enjoyable day of stitching and chatting ... and EATING!! ... the result was ...

... Five different versions of my drawstring lingerie bag. Not a bad day's work, right?! :0)

Don't you love all the different colour combinations?

Annie-Rose's favourite colour is purple. She hadn't done much embroidery before, but I think she did a lovely job on her blanket stitch appliqué.

Here's Taylah's finished bag. Don't you love the pretty aqua with the pops of green, pink and purple? She did! :0) Another novice stitcher who did a lovely job. Just quietly ... I think Taylah might be hooked on sewing and stitching ... gotta start 'em young, right?! :0)

Tonia likes a red/blue combo and this is a pretty classy finished bag, don't you think? Tonia has done a little bit of stitching before, which was just as well, cos she's a leftie, so a bit hard for me to think 'backwards' to help her! :0)

Last but not least, Kylie likes a fresh aqua colour and the pink/purple daisy petals just pop against the fresh background, don't they?! :0)

I had a lot of fun putting these kits together and hosting the sewing day together. We all tend to buy our own 'things' but many of our best memories are more about events and the people we spend them with, so I hope I've provided some fun, fond memories for the gals. Goodness knows how I'm going to top this one next year ... cos can I tell you, there's already talk about "Next Time". Tee! Hee! Hee!

So ... that was MY sewing adventures for the weekend ... and I KNOW lots of YOU have been stitching, cos you've been emailing your finishes for OPAM through to me and my GORGEOUS Partner-In-Crime Sweet Peg. Thank you!! :0) Great to see so many of you getting into the swing of things early in the year. Don't forget ... there will be no prize draw this month ... Sweet Peg and I will do a double-whammy random draw at the end of February for both January and February, so you do have a chance to catch up with us with your January tally still.

Oh ... and of course, the sign up for OPAM is now CLOSED!! Thank you to all of you lovely ladies who have joined Sweet Peg and me for another fun year of being creative and remembering to take some time out for ourselves to recharge the creative batteries!! :0) In the next little while (ie. once we find a stretch of uninterrupted time in crazy-busy schedules!!) Sweet Peg and I will be putting the list of OPAM 2015 participants on our sidebars. Can I encourage you all to make yourself a cuppa, find a comfy chair and take a little bog-hop through the other OPAM participants ... I guarantee you'll be blown away by the cleverness of OPAMers and will enjoy drooling over gorgeous finished projects. And if you could take a little bit of time to leave some comments to encourage each other, that would be fantastic! So many gals don't have many people in 'real life' they can share their creative journey with, so be each others cheer squad! :0)

Right now, though, I'm off to make myself a cup of tea and catch up on a list of emails and maybe squeeze in a little bit of hand stitching before I have to think about getting dinner ready. Hope your week is off to a fantastic start ... and that it continues to hold that form! :0) Til' next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS