Merry Christmas, OPAM finish.

A quick post to say Merry Christmas to everyone.  Hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas Day shared with those people you love the most. We got to do that yesterday when we had our family over for an early Xmas Day celebration. This morning Chris and I had our eldest son, Scott, pop in for breakfast and a swim before heading off to visit relatives for lunch leaving us the rest of the day to enjoy each others company and to celebrate that we are one year older. It has been a wonderful day as we have been swimming, had a lunch of leftovers including trifle for dessert and generally not doing much at all.  I looked through my cards and found some birthday scratchies and won $27, then looked at all my beautiful presents again, read some new magazines and watched some car racing with my hubby.
I can't finish this post without showing some pictures of yesterday so here are a few.

This is the Christmas wall hanging I finished this week. I got the label with our surname on it  from Sweetwater.

Scott,  Josh and me in the pool enjoying the water.

Debbie, Kiah and Hayden

Scott, me, Hayden and Kiah who has just returned from 4 months study in the USA. 

Josh, Deb, Todd and Scott.  Had to rescue my SSCS parcel (the yellow one) from Josh before he opened it.

My daughter, Kym, made it from work just in time to have an early dinner with us.

Our Christmas Meal. Vegetarian Noodle Salad, Spinach and Feta Salad, Tossed Salad, Curried Sweet Potato Bake, Roast Potato, Glazed Ham, Roast Turkey, Lamb and Pork.  Thanks to Scott and Todd for roasting the meats and  Kiah for her lovely vegetarian salads.

And a  big thank you to my grandson Joshua who made our cake. Here we are about to blow out the candles on our White Chocolate Tim Tam Cheesecake.    It tasted just beautiful.

A fitting end to a great day.  Will be back soon to share with you the gifts that I have received from Odette from Chili  in my SSCS parcel. They are just beautiful.    Till then Happy Holidays...........

FNWF win, Xmas with my Grandsons.

Yesterday I had a parcel arrive from Cheryll from Gone Stitchin'.  I had won a beautiful Patchwork and Quilting Journal by joining in Friday Night with Friends earlier this month.  It is a wonderful journal which helps you record everything you do to make a quilt. As well as recording the fabrics used with a page for swatches, you can work out the cost, what pattern or design you have used, and lots more, also a page for the final photo.  Thank you so much Cheryll for this book, I look forward to recording my quilting journey in it from now on. Below the parcel and book.

Today, my eldest son brought my grandsons over, he has had them for the weekend so they could see all their Brizzie relatives and get their Xmas presents.  My turn came after lunch.  I forgot to take a photo of their gifts but they were very happy with them as their main present from their parents was a green scooter so I got them a helmet in bright green to go with it, new pj's and a few DVDs to watch on the holidays.  They also got some new goggles so of course we had to have a swim to try them out.  We had a couple of hours in the pool, then a few nibbles and it was time for them to go back to Scott's so they could try out their scooters.

Tom is the eldest and Jake. It's hard to think they are brothers as they are so different. Tom likes his hair long and Jake short. Tom eats like a bird and Jake loves his food.  I made them a bag with Reindeer noses (8 Maltesers and 1 Jaffa).  Printed the labels from  the net.  They are really fun to do.

The Hulk on the left and Spiderman on the right. The masks have faces on them and the boys put on their scary faces.

 So that was my day, the presents have been wrapped, some have been opened, I got to have kisses and cuddles from my boys, the Xmas food will be bought tomorrow and Christmas Eve we will have our Christmas Day with all the trimmings.  Christmas Day there will be just 4 of us here but that is okay as Chris and I will be able to celebrate our birthdays with a bit of a relaxing day and hopefully eat some leftovers so we don't have to cook.  Hope to post again but may not get time in the next couple of days so I will end with :-

WISHING ALL MY BLOGGING FRIENDS A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS.
 MAY YOUR DAY BE SPENT IN THE COMPANY OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS
AND MAY SANTA BRING YOU LOTS OF GOODIES TO ENJOY.

Till next time......   Hugs.......

SSCS Parcel arrived, Lets Stitch 2012 win

Today I had two parcels arrive in the post.  One was my SSCS parcel and the other was one from Sarah at Quilt Fabric Delights.  In November I joined Lets Stitch 2012. Over the month I received a number of patterns from several designers and also as part of the club, a few competitions were run. I entered some of these and was lucky enough to guess the correct number of paper pieces in a pile and name most of the cut shapes. Not bad for someone who has not done any paper piecing before.  I am looking forward to making up my prize which included a bag pattern by Sue Daley, a mini charm pack of Noteworthy and some hexi papers.

Below is my SSCS parcel sent by Odette from Chile.Thank you so much for my beautiful red work heart.  I have placed the parcel under the tree until Christmas Day and look forward to opening it then.

Here is a close-up of the heart and Christmas Card

Still have a few things to stitch before Xmas Day so best go and do some before I go to bed.
Be back soon..............   Hugs.......

Christmas at last.....

This week I have put up my decorations and am finally starting to feel a bit 'Christmassy'.  I'm not sure where last week went but I know it was busy. My grandson Jake has gone to stay with his Mum for the school holidays. Before he left, he got a really lovely report from his teacher as well as good marks in many of his subjects, so I am very proud of him. Now I am just trying to finish off a few things before I run out of time and Christmas Day is here.
Here are some photos I took today.

Our tree

Wooden painted Santas

These are some ornaments I painted when I was in my Folk Art phase. My teacher was the lovely Teresa of All Things Vintage.

Since we changed to a small tree last year, my extra baubles go here. 

Above and below some of my Santa collection

A Nancy Halvorsen wall hanging

Santa stitchery wall hanging

My Tis the Season getting another airing this year.

I asked Kerryanne  from Shabby Art Boutique to  paint this for me.  She had a special on a while ago so I jumped at the chance to have a stocking hanger with my four grand children's names on it. The stocking in the middle says 'Our Grandkids'.  I love it.  The triangle trees on either side are ones I painted a few years ago.    

My darling grand-daughter arrived safely home from her 4 months exchange at university in the USA today so I am one happy Grandma and look forward to catching up with her in the next day or two.

To close, here is something I am working on. A banner with seven triangles, I have some printed labels from Sweetwater to add to the red striped ones.  Should look good when I finish. Well must go and do some stitching.  Till next time........  Hugs.........


 

Brissie Blog Meet, Raffle Win

Yesterday I made my way to The Wishing Well Cafe at Victoria Point to meet with some other Brisbane Bloggers.  We had morning tea, lunch and managed to do a bit of stitching  while we talked and caught up with what we had been doing since our last get together in October.  We also had two visitors brought along by Linda who had been travelling with her on her recent boat cruise up north to see the eclipse of the sun last month. I will show you a photo of these two later on.

The wishing well in the middle of the cafe.

From the left, Susan, Cheryl, Deb, De, Maree, Marilyn, me, Linda & Maria.

Here are our mystery visitors, Peg and Dale enjoying a cappuccino.  They travelled home with Maree and now having a holiday with her. Can you guess which one is Peg?

I enjoyed my lunch of Cajun Chicken Salad and was very good by not having a dessert although when they came out, I wished I had ordered one.

Show & Tell with Marilyn, her wall hanging using hand dyed fabric and below her carry bag which she made in a class with Joy from  JoyPatch (great for quilt blocks)  .

 Below are three SKOW quilts made by Susan, De and Cheryl.  All beautiful.  I brought my Gardeners Journal, an embroidery journal and some of the mug rugs I am working on for my show and tell (no photos of mine as I have blogged about them on a previous post and I think I am getting to photo overload status).

We were also given a tree ornament from Susan and Marilyn.  Thank you so much ladies, they are both gorgeous and will look lovely on my tree if I ever get it up. Susan's is the doll and Marilyn's is the snowflake.

Today, we had our last day for the year at my quilting group.  We had a lovely morning tea and our raffle was drawn.  Lots of lovely goodies hidden behind the cellophane.  I was lucky enough to win one.

Above and below is what I won.  15 fat eighth pieces of fabric.  The fabric puts me very much out of my comfort zone so will have to put my thinking cap on  so I make good use of them. 

Well, if you have made it to the end, thank you.  That is all from me for tonight.  Happy Stitching.......

Last Nights Results, OPAM finishes

Well it was an interesting night.  I ended up having some unexpected grandson sitting duties so my plans to get lots done sort of went by the way.  Having said that, after getting Jacob settled into watching some car racing with Grand-dad, he  ended up falling asleep so I popped over to my room and got this done.

I am making some mug rugs for my family and adding their names to them. I finished the quilting and added the binding, just need to hand stitch that back. Below are two more.  Need to add the names and stitch.  For those who don't drink tea or coffee, I am making smaller square ones. 5 more still to prepare and stitch.  

I needed a break from these so started to cut out some squares for Xmas bunting.  Got the kit from Sweetwater last year. Three pieced triangles and 4 striped. Have four printed labels to go on the striped ones. Hope to get it finished to hang up this year.

It was getting late so went back inside to wait for Jake's Dad and did a bit of stitching on this Gail Pan free ornament  pattern until he got back. So it ended up being an okay night and I was happy with what I managed to get done. The prep work always takes the longest.

Now I am going to go and check out what everyone else did last night and do some blog hopping.
Oh, before I go, here are the two mug rugs I have already finished.  Added some buttons to mine.

Till next time Happy Stitching..........

Friday Night with Friends & Other Stuff

Tomorrow night I am joining Cheryll for Friday Night with Friends.  If you would like to join in, pop over here and link up.  Go and get some sewing prepared and on Friday night, stitch away knowing there are lots of other bloggers doing the same thing.  On Saturday, blog about what you did and then go and check out all the other blogs to see what they got up to.
I haven't been getting very much done lately (only 2 mug rugs completed and some more secret swap things, no photos as yet) so am hoping I can make some progress on the many Xmas things I have started but not yet finished.

I am closing with the above picture.  It is from our October blog meet.  Hoping to see all these girls and a few more for our next  bloggers meet at The Wishing Well Cafe on Sunday.  Must remember to take my stitching and some show and tell.  See you Sunday girls.......
Till next time Happy Stitching.........