Its Finished

I spent all day yesterday at the sewing machine,

quilting my SKoW quilt

and I sat up until 1am stitching down the binding

Some Kind of Wonderful

designed by Anni Downs

needle turn appliquéd  

machine pieced

machine quilted 

Christmas Delights

They are all out and I am home alone, so it

was a perfect time for me to blog about Chrsitmas

From Cheryll my partner in 

Mrs Martin's Christmas Angel Swap 

I received these lovely lovely goodies

there were also chocolates, but some girlies who live here

might have eaten  ate those......

from Leanne, who was my partner in the yahoo

group I am part of, again the girlies who live here

might have eaten ate the chocolates

from Peg, who sent me these so I had something to open on Christmas day

as my SSCS gift was held up due to bad mail handling....

I sent to Anne-Heidi in Norway

her Christmas Day gift

and the decoration

from my dh and the girlies,

The Naked Chef cookbooks (I love Jamie Oliver)

and Andy Allen who won the last series of Masterchef

I ADORE my new winter hat, really I love it and it was 

THE BEST present I received

Angry Birds 3DS game and pencil toppers

from my MIL and FIL

and from Santa

The complete BOM set of Butterfly Garden

by Leanne Beasley

as soon as I have mums quilt finished this is my next project.

Its lovely having mum and dad here, we have all eaten too much food,

drank alot of coffee, maybe drank a lot of alcohol, MAYBE I said ;)

we have just pottered around and done some touristy things, they are 

currently at the Whale Museum with Em and Imogen, we have been

to Bega and shopped, the kids had Christmas money they needed to

spend. Dh has only worked today so he has been home too its been lovely.

No sewing has been done at all, not even at night, we have been

playing Canasta of an evening, which is alot of fun, but time

is ticking by too quickly and Monday will be here before we know it

I am going to have Dh take them to the airport and I know

mum and I will cry if I take them.....

Next Post will be

December 31, mum and dad leave first thing in the morning on the 31st, it's just to tricky to get some blogging time.

I have some lovely swap pressies to share, so please be patient

So Busy

Since my last post

I celebrated Christmas with my sewing group

ladies last Monday

The girlies finished school last Wednesday

we did a smallish road trip to Bega last Thursday 

to finish off the Christmas shopping

Saturday I cleaned the house, caught up on the washing

and picked up my Mummy and Daddy from the airport.

Sunday we just hung around the house and planned our

Christmas lunch.

Today saw mum and I head into the supermarket 

at 7:30am, to get everything we needed for our lunch 

tomorrow, we have been to Pambula and bought farm 

fresh oysters and some delicious prawns from

our local fish shop.

The washing is all done, ironing will be done tonight

after we have all been to Mass then we will just have

to sit and wait for Santa to visit and get a good nights

sleep as no doubt we will be up VERY EARLY 

tomorrow day.

from my family to yours

have a blessed, safe and happy Christmas

xxx

Its Clean Up time

my Christmas creating over the last few weeks has

left my sewing room looking more like a

bomb site than a place to sit and sew 

and enjoy the space.

See what I am faced with

pins, cotton and who else knows what under my sewing cabinet

my cutting table, which I can use ONLY if nothing needs to be cut

larger than a 4" square

even the floor below my design wall

and my computer desk, I can't get to the ironing

basket so that is piling up on the chair too

the empty lindt chocolate tins need to be binned, they were

for the girlies Christmas gifts for their teachers.

its not even organised chaos...sigh

The final 4 blocks of mums quilt... 1 done 3 to do in the New Year

because

month 5 of Lancaster has arrived, so I will be working on this

until all the appliqué borders are complete

4 more big sleeps until my mummy and daddy arrive 

(hence the big clean up lol)

and this morning I had the awful job of

telling dh that his uncle had passed away in the early hours

of the morning. 

I have kept him home from work (compassionate leave)

and sent him to golf.

We won't be attending the funeral but have flowers on the

way, there really isn't much else we can do from here.

RIP Uncle Lloyd.

The world lost a true gentleman this morning.

I've been Sewing

In between going to the end of year presentation assembly

for the girlies school, going to the supermarket and the usual

day to day stuff we all do I am so pleased I managed to get

some machine time in, working on Mums quilt

This block mum hand pieced

these blocks I machine pieced

now I have finished 9 of 13 blocks

YIPPEE

the next 4 blocks are going to be a mix of machine piecing and

my favourite needle turn appliqué 

sadly tonight I have 4 bon bon's needing their little

stitcheries to be stitched.

and a proud mummy moment,  Sophie got an

award at the assembly, she received her classes

'Citizenship Award'

and yesterday she informed me that all year she has been helping a little

girl in year 2 with her reading,

I am so proud of her, and so proud to be her mum.

Life returns to normal

I have spent the last week biting my tongue

trying hard to be the good daughter in law

and its been very very hard.

no really its been VERY VERY HARD

I  had to listen to her criticise my son,

(my child who is related to her only by marriage)

tell me I have gained quite a bit of weight

(does she not think I know)

have a dig at my husband, her son which

really didn't go down well with me and 

that all came out on day 1

tell us the same stories that we have

had to listen to for the past 19 years, its

like she is on constant repeat

interrupt  my father in law and correct him

every time he opened his mouth to say something

then argue with him when he tried to put her

in his place, I really wanted to tell her to 

just shut the f**k up and let him talk

but my parents raised me better than that

I listened to her decide that my husband who has

washed up the pots and pans after dinner for the past

19 years, shouldn't have to do that, after all

'he goes to work everyday and I don't'

what the......

I have fed them, washed & ironed their clothes

only to be treated like crap in my own home.

Her parting words to me today were,

'its nice to see your housekeeping has improved'

it took all my might not to say what I thought.

Plus the last time she spent any significant time with us was when 

I had 3 little girls under 5 at home 24/7, we had a house

of toys spread from 1 end to the other

Well I am pleased to say my free loading in laws have left,

our life is returning to normal and I can again sew my

days away without her making her snide remarks

within hearing.

and I am so pleased that my mum and dad arrive in 12 days

and they don't make snide comments, they are

always happy to help out, and no doubt dad and I will

come to blows over just who is going to

hang out all the washing and then who is actually going to

iron all that washing.......I will let him win the ironing

battle but don't tell him :)

Really some people just have no tact or class.

Sewing wise 

I have 4 bon bons to make for the girlies teachers

Christmas gifts this week and I will put the final touch 

to my last gift for the Angels Swap tomorrow, 

I have 14 berries to stitch down on the final

 applique block for mums quilt, then I will 

start the 3 blocks I can sew on the machine and

the 4 blocks that need to be hand sewn, when she

is here we will sort out her border triangles and I can

start stitching. I am getting there slowly but surely

Mum has 2 quilts heading off to be custom

quilted then they will be sent here for me to do the bindings

and I will send them home to her.

I am hoping to get some sewing in for myself over the next

couple of months but Gumdrops quilts take 

priority at the moment and throw Christmas into the

mix and I am tired just thinking about it all :)

Fish & Guests

Smell after 3 days

That's all I have to say........

For now!