Birthdays, Birthdays,Birthdays!!

I think there's birthday fever happening at the moment, cos my birthday book pages are choc-a-block for almost the rest of the month of November! :0)

OK ... so maybe I'm exaggerating a LITTLE ... but not too much! And it all kicks off tomorrow when my bestest-buddy-since-we-were-nine Lynette joins me sitting on the milestone of 40. I won't be catching up with her tomorrow, but rang today to wish her a happy birthday ... and to remind her SHE'S old now too! Tee! Hee! Hee! And during a 'short' (for us!!) chat of an hour or so, we set next Friday aside for a play date to celebrate in style with a high tea. Who knows ... we might even frock-up for the occasion - I promise to take photos! :0) Here's a photo of Lynette and I the last time we enjoyed a High Tea ... I think it might have been for MY birthday ...

See ... playing LADIES!! :0)

The second birthday on the list is actually ALSO tomorrow. It's my sort-of-sister Tiffy's 21st tomorrow and we're heading home to Mundubbera to help her party away on Saturday night. Tiffy began boarding with Mum and Dad about 5 years ago so she could finish senior with her friends when her family were moving away ... and she stayed! :0) She now works on a property north of Mundubbera as a Nanny during the week, but weekends see her head back to the Kippen's Chaos Castle for a dose of insanity ... and Mum's cooking! :0) She's pretty much part of the family these days, so I refer to her as my 'sort-of-sister'! :0)

Now, I've been showing you my progress on Tiffy's 21st quilt and you'll all be pleased (I'm sure!!) to know that I put the last stitches in it this afternoon! WHEW!! Talk about cutting it close! And here is the finished quilt ...

Ta da!! As usual, the lovely Rosalie of Rose Quilting did a FABULOUS job of the quilting. Here's a close up of the repeating pattern in the centre panel ...

Can you see the cute bee hive in the centre? Around it are several different types of flowers and down in the bottom left corner you can see a bee. Cute and not so busy that it overshadows the bright, cheerful colours of the 'Frolic' fabrics. I decided to do a scrappy binding to tie in some of the fun bright colours again and I'm pleased with how it came together. So ... one birthday quilt ready and one more finish to add to my OPAM list! :0)

And the other birthdays? Well ... one very special blogger is counting down to her birthday at the end of the month, just a day before my Mum's birthday on November 30, so I've got my thinking cap on to come up with suitable gifties! :0)

Right now, though, I think I'm going to go and have a cup of lavender tea and admire my newly finished quilt for a while before I hand it over tomorrow. I'll be back with some party pics next week. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend and manage to steal a bit of stitching time for yourself. Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS

Christmas Is Getting Closer!!

It's a scary-but-true fact ... Christmas is creeping up on us at an alarmingly rapid pace - EEK! Despite joining in the "Simply Christmas" fun with the lovely Kerryanne, I am nowhere NEAR being organised for Christmas. I DO have a couple of gifties bought and put away, but I get the feeling it will be a mad panic at the eleventh hour ... AGAIN!! ... to get ready.

Having said that ... I decided to shout myself an early Christmas gift yesterday ... sort of! :0) Now, anyone who's been popping into my blog for regular visits for a while now, will know we renovated our kitchen last year - and it's been WONDERFUL!! I cleaned out a lot of the odd crockery and cutlery, tossed out the Tupperware containers with no lids and the lids with no containers, I even bought some bright new red-patterned tea-towels to brighten and colour co-ordinate the room. HOWEVER ... one kitchen essential that DIDN'T get replaced was my oven mitt ...

Don't know if you can see it in the photo, but the left end is all frayed and has a hole in it and it generally looks tacky and icky ... but it's just been one of those things I've not been able to find a replacement for. So ... I decided to MAKE myself one (OK, yes, I WAS in fact procrastinating about doing something else!!). So, I scrabbled through my red and green fabrics (the cupboards and splashback are white, the walls are a soft apple green and I've introduced lots of red accessories to the kitchen), scrounged up a piece of backing fabric and wadding big enough, found a bit of giant rick-rack and played. The result? See for yourself ...

Ta da! Nice and fresh and pretty ... MUCH nicer to look at than the old one! :0) So, of course, I had to give it a test run, right? So I baked some banana muffins and used the new oven mitt to lift them out of the oven. Test successful, though perhaps if I make another one I'll use two layers of wadding, as the heat does seep through a bit quicker than the old oven mitt.

Mmmmm ... YUMMO! Delicious afternoon tea AND a new oven mitt! All in all, a productive afternoon! :0)

It wasn't until I was editing the photos to get them ready for this post that I realised how Christmassy my new oven mitt looks with it's red and green stripes. Hmmm ... since the kitchen AND lounge room are both decorated in the red and green combination ... it must be Christmas here all year round! Tee! Hee! Hee! Maybe not ... but in keeping with that Christmas-is-coming theme, I popped into my home-away-from-home, the Quilter's Angel, on my way home from work the other day to pick up a couple of bits and bobs and catch up with the lovely Marion and Steph. And while I was there, look what Marion very kindly donated towards our OPAM prize pool ...

Christmas fabric fat eighths!! Just perfect for those little Christmas projects! Don't you LOVE those cute snowmen?!! And although it's a bit hard to see, the second fabric has Christmas gifties on it.

THANKS HEAPS MARION!!!

 Peg and I sure have been blessed to receive some lovely prize donations for OPAM this year, which have been so much fun to pass on to encourage you gals to keep creating. Crafters really are a generous bunch, aren't they!! :0)

And now ... I'm off to stitch down the binding on Tiffy's 21st birthday quilt. I picked it up from the gorgeous Rosalie this week and sewed the binding on last night, so this afternoon and tonight will see me plying needle and thread to get it finished for the big event next weekend - I promise I'll share a photo when it's all finished and a photo of Tiffy with her quilt after the party. Then ... it's on to making the sample and tutorial for the Christmas project that I'll soon be sharing on Kerryanne's blog for "Simply Christmas". Stay tuned and I'll let you know when it's posted. In the meantime, I seem to have an odd little tune stuck in my head ...

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, Everywhere I go ...."
Tee! Hee! Hee! Til next time

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

OOPS!

I mean ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS

Parcels Make Me Smile!!

I bet you all love to get parcels as much as I do! I LOVE it when Postman Pat (actually, I'm not sure his name is 'Pat' at all, but it sure aint 'Patricia' cos he's got a beard like a srub turkey's nest!! Tee! Hee! Hee!) leaves parcels for me and I've received two this week already - YAY!

The first was one I was starting to worry about, cos it had been over three weeks since I clicked "Buy Now". With the Aussie Dollar at an all-time high, I just couldn't resist hopping over to the Fat Quarter Shop for a little spree! And I actually clicked the "Buy Now" button a few times. :0) Wanna see????

Yummy, Yummy fabrics!!! The first is some more 'Rural Jardin' fabric ... you know I just fell in LOOOOOOOVE with the whole range!! This is actually for a specific purpose ... that RJ layer cake I bought earlier in the year will one day be a quilt just for ME and this red yumminess is for the binding. And since it was THERE and I was THERE ... I clicked "Buy Now" on some more scrummy 'Pure' fabrics. The wall hanging I'm working on at the moment is made using some of this fun range, but I also have some charm squares and more design ideas in the cupboard that these will help with. Don't you love the cotton tape?! I have NO idea what I'll use it for, but it sure is pretty! Tee! Hee! Hee!

The second parcel arrived today from Fishpond, my fave online book shop stop ... free postage in Australia if you spend over $50 ... which SOMEHOW I always manage to do! :0) My new book should be very interesting ...

It's called "One Magic Square" and gives lots of practical advice on how you can feed your family with a vege patch that's one square metre. Hmmm ... well, my vege patch is a big bigger than that, so I guess I'll just share the left-over produce with friends and family! Tee! Hee! Hee! You know I've been playing in the vege patch for a while now and I thought this book might help me get a bit more organised with my small area. We'll see how we go! I'll have to take an updated photo of the vege patch to share with you ... everything is growing like mad! The lemon tree is bouncing back after the attack of the killer caterpillars, the tomatoes are turning into triffods and following in the footsteps (do plants actually have footsteps?!?!) of the world-domination minded snowpeas. We've already enjoyed a fresh zucchini from my little vege patch and lots more are in our gastronomic future (good thing we LOOOOOOVE zucchinis!! Tee! Hee! Hee!) and the cucumbers are getting bigger every day, too. YUMMO! A fresh salad summer coming up for us! :0)

That's about it for me for today ... still trying to recover from my big weekend. Oh ... and I will be uploading the pattern for "Blooming Butterflies" to the Tag Along Teddies web site later this week, so if you're looking for a quick, fabulous project to make for Christmas gifties, stay tuned. I'm off to pop the kettle on now ... just call me "Polly"! Tee! Hee! Hee! May all your mail be parcels! Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!
KRIS



Exhausted But Happy!

PHEW! What a big end to the week I've had!! You see, this weekend was the fourth annual Creative Craft Retreat and for the fourth time, I was asked to teach a class. So my weekend has been spent teaching some lovely ladies how to make my "Blooming Butterflies" tote bag and journal cover ...

We all headed about 45 minutes north of Toowoomba to Lake Perseverance for a weekend of crafting, chatting, relaxing and eating meals that someone else had prepared and cleaned up after - YAY! :0)

Here we all are! There's me second from the left and if you take a peek at the pretty lady in the bright blue top third from the right, you'll find it's the clever and talented Val Laird. She's also taught at all four Creative Craft Retreats ... cos her daughter Janelle is the main instigator! Tee! Hee! Hee! Lovely as always to catch up with Val!

I had five lovely ladies playing at my table and they did a FABULOUS job on their projects. As well as that, they were very low-maintenance students! Tee! Hee! Hee! Here they are all hard at work putting their applique` designs on their patchwork panels on Friday night ... except for Ros in the back corner, who was running a bear-making production line. :0)

They look very industrious, don't they! :0) They sure were ... all weekend! The first to complete their bag was Judith. Now ... when I teach a class, I stress to the students that their project does NOT have to look exactly like mine ... in fact, they are encouraged to think of the pattern as a starting point to add to, change and adapt to make it their own and Judith certainly grabbed that concept and ran with it! :0)

Judith found she didn't have a big enough piece of fabric for the circle base, so she joined a couple of pieces and made an oval. And when she decided that she didn't like the 'grass' she'd stitched at the bottom of the flower stems ... well ... she just added a couple of rather cute witchetty grubs to cover it! :0) She then rummaged through her left over bits, added a few fabrics from my little stash of off-cuts that I made available for the gals to play with and ...

VOILA! A GORGEOUS patchwork journal cover with some striking echinacea flowers - well done, Judith!! Next to finish her bag (after a minor hiccup where the lining was almost put in upside down despite sticking her head in the bag to check which way the pocket went! Tee! Hee! Hee!) was Jan ...

Aren't Jan's fabrics yummy?! I especially loved the stripe fabric ... it reminds me of Fruit Tingles lollies ... yum! :0) Now, Jan also had a bit of show-and-tell with her ... a quilt she'd bought as a kit a few years ago. It had sat in her cupboard patiently waiting to be made up until last year, when Jan joined Val's embroidery class and was inspired to dig her kit out and get working on the stitcheries. Boy, is she glad now that she did! :0)

Isn't it FABULOUS! The stitcheries are in lovely deep jewel colours and the sashings are shades of autumn - lovely work, Jan! :0) Not far behind Jan in finishing was Chris. (Yes, it did get a little confusing sometimes to have a 'Kris' and a 'Chris' at the same table! Tee! Hee! Hee!)

Rich reds and blues for Chris with cheerful golden daisies. Well done Chris!! :0) And only a draw-string-thread behind in finishing was Natalie, who made a cute "Nighttime Nara Bear" with me at last year's retreat. Natalie was working only with fabrics that she could find in her limited stash, but her bag still came up a treat ...

It just goes to show that when you add a bit of creativity to some limited craft supplies, she can still weave some magic! Lovely effort, Nat!! :0) And the last of our merry bunch (and believe me, there was LOTS of merriment and laughter in our corner! Tee! Hee! Hee!) was Ros, who managed to finish off two bears that she'd worked on before the retreat and made outfits for three of her six bears ...

I told Ros that she now has her very own "Bear Hug"! :0) The red check dress was made from a ruched pillow case that Ros started making when she was at school ... and never finished. She says she could never quite bring herself to throw it out ... and now it's been 're-purposed' to become a fashionably pinafore for a little pink bear ... who was made from Ros's old dressing gown! :0) See ... when life gives you scraps and hand-me-downs ... make some craft projects that everyone will be envious of! :0)

So, that's how I've spent my weekend. Thanks for a fun time, gals ... see you again next year! But right now, I think I've earned a little break, so I shall go rustle up a boiled egg for dinner and watch the X Factor. Hope all of my blogging buddies have had an equally creative weekend! :0) Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!

CHEERS!

KRIS

Some Winners & Some Finishes!

I was going to be back Sunday to shock you with two posts in a row and some photos of more finishes, but, well ... time just got away from me! :0) I'm sure you'll all know what I mean! And then, of course, it was end of month blog-hopping time for Peg and I to collect the finishes for OPAM, so that kept us a bit busy, too. There were 615 finishes for October! How FABULOUS is THAT!!!! Well done to you all! It is always so exciting to see the photos of fabulous finishes as we hop around your blogs or open your emails. You really are a talented group of gals out there in blogland ... not to mention good-looking too! Tee! Hee! Hee!

OK ... so the winners for October's OPAM draw are:

Kate W

Laila (Jacobs Quilt)

Sheila

Congratulations ladies! If you'd like to email me with your snail mail addresses, I'll be packaging up some surprises for you and going to visit my buddy Raymond at the Post Office to crack the whip on Australia Post to deliver de letters! :0)

And a big CONGRATULATIONS to ALL of you OPAMers! It's always wonderful to be able to add finishes to our lists and cross them off our "To Do" lists, but it's great too, to see that many of us (Peg and I included!) are also making progress on some long-term projects like quilts. So even if you didn't get to list any finishes, well done if you made some progress on a WISPY WISP or two! :0)

Do you remember I said I was procrastinating over finishing a sample for the class I'm teaching at this coming weekend's Creative Craft Retreat? Well, I got busy on Sunday and finished it - YAY! Now I just have to write the instructions - BOO! :0) I wasn't happy with the fit of the first sample of the covered sketch pad/journal that I made for my "Blooming Butterflies" pattern, so changed a few numbers, re-measured, re-cut, re-sewed and ...

Ta da! Much happier with this version and now have the strips running the same way as the bag, so think it will match better. What do you think?

I'm now happy with both samples, so tomorrow will be instruction writing day ... GROAN!

I also FINALLY put together another block of my Gardener's Journal quilt - YAY! I've had the stitcheries for this one finished since our holiday in early August, but just hadn't had the time to get into the sewing room and do the measuring and cutting thing for it. Because I'm using up lots of scrappy bits from my stash, I am cutting the pieces block by block to make sure I balance the colours etc ... which makes for a fair bit of work each time, but I'm happy with how the blocks are coming together. Here is Block D ... Weeding the Garden ...

Oh dear ... not her best angle, but a view my neighbours would probably have if they looked out their kitchen window when I was in the garden on Sunday! Tee! Hee! Hee! I was planting another pretty shrub, though, not weeding! :0) So, my quilt so far looks like this ...

I really like the scrappy scatter of colours that is starting to happen with my Gardener's Journal Quilt ... looks a bit like my garden ... bits of colour here and there, not a lot of planning, but lots of colour and fun! :0) I know I'm a couple of blocks behind, but I'm still stitching along ... slowly ... in between deadlines etc! :0)

I also finished another tea wallet ... but have just realised I forgot to take a photo of it. Ah well ... next time. But right now, I think I'm going to shout myself a cup of lavender tea, sit and stitch and watch "The A Team". I love me some corny 80's action series! Tee! Hee! Hee! Dirk Benedick sure was a HONEY! :0)

Hope you're all having a lovely start to your week and that you're taking some time out to stop and smell the roses ... like these two beauties from my garden!

 

Til next time ...

BEAR HUGS!
CHEERS!
KRIS