Hello to my new readers and thank you for all the lovely comments.  Well the Crafty Princess and Auntie Nene and I went to the Craft Show at Rosehill yesterday.  Our royal personages were accompanied by the Crafty Princess' mum - better known as the Beading Queen and Jen B - better known as Australia's Answer to Martha Stewart.  The Beading Queen will make ANYTHING in beads - and we mean ANYTHING.  But she is a subject for another day....and a blog post all her own.  Sadly the Quilting Queen sent a text as I waited in the ticket queue that she could not attend as she had been nearly washed away in flooding in the City the day before and now had a horrible cold.  She must have been genuinely ill for the Quilting Queen to miss a craft show!!!  Kleenex and Vicks for you Coral.


Bright and early we got there, and thankfully the rain held off, and it was beautifully sunny.  Mind you as we spent all day inside flitting from one craft shop to another it really was off little significance - it could have been sleeting and snowing we would not have cared.


Bought a few things....wouldn't want the other thousands of things in the To Be Done List get lonely......

Kids are funny....I made a Advent Calender for my nephew and nieces....and then my son who is now nearly 15, was most put out that I had never made him one.......so...................See above.  At least I have nearly 9 months to get it done!

Bought a lovely pattern for a sampler "Christmas Garden" - this will go on the pile.  The Thea Governeur kit is a large one of Pears and has a matching one of Apples.  They are both lovely, to be sewn on linen,  but sadly I could not afford both, even though they were on special. Will save up for the Apples.  Also bought myself a new 6" cutting square in luminous yellow,I simply cannot see the number on my old square anymore - my eyes are going!!

I have nearly finished a little flannel quilt for a neighbours baby and remembered how lovely and comforting flannel is....so I found a lovely collection of flannels which I will put together (the collection on the right) - JUST FOR ME.  The other bundle of a selection of William Morris prints (another favourite of mine) and I am going to make myself a circular bag to put knitting and sewing stuff in for when The Quilting Queen and I go on our Stitches and Stately Homes tour....so I have until next September to get that finished.  Also bought a big chunk of cream 32 count linen for various projects yet to  be completed.

And saving the best till last.....Herewith The Crafty Princess and I visit the Lovely Boys aka Sewitall. Peter and Wayne sell a wonderful selection of linens and evenweave and Aida.  We have named them the Lovely Boys - they really are lovely and very knowledgeable about counts and weaves and colours and measurements.  Thoroughly recommend their website

http://www.sewitall.com.au

Peter, mrsdibble, Crafty Princess and Wayne

So after a lovely day.....when even Auntie Nene bought another cross stitch project - we were basically turfed out of Rosehill Racecourse at 4.30.  Now I have even more things I need to get to......hope I can get something finished before June when there is an even bigger craft show at Darling Harbour!!!

Happy stitching to all!!

Summer Passed Us By - March Wipocalypse

Sydney summer has been non existent - about 7 hot days - the rest have been rain.  Most of New South Wales is covered by water and people are being evacuated.  The huge Warragamba Dam has topped the spillway the first time in years.....But the silver lining of course is that we can use it as an excuse for sitting inside stitching where it is dry.  I have been reasonably busy with stitching.  The Wipocalypse has really focussed my mind on the huge range of stuff I have waiting to be started/finished.  I am please to see that this challenge is call Works in PROGRESS....I have lots of them.  Pity help me if they ever come up with a Focalypse - Finished Objects ..... I would be very much to the back of the pack in that race....Ah well.....here are some pictures.  Did get one small item finished - these Christmas ornaments were bought at the last Stitches and Craft show at Rosehill last April and were for Christmas 2011....but......(you all know what it's like)

The Crafty Princess and Aunty Nene and The Quilting Queen and I are going to this years show on Friday - so expect a vast number of pictures of our purchases!!!!

Other Works in Progress are as follows (in no particular order!)

This embroidery was dredged out of a Spotlight bag (Spotlight is our big craft department store for non Australian readers) bag.  The bag was so old it was starting the fall apart - not a bad effort for a modern plastic shopping bag!  So I added it to the list of things to do and I actually embroidered the hearts.  It is at least 15 years old and does not look too old fashioned (everything comes back if you keep them long enough).  But I can imagine it finished and in a lovely wooden frame.....sometime in the future!

Still going with Golden Wood...get used to this dear readers you will see it for some time.  But I have got to the right hand side edge....yet another black tree trunk with an elfen lady lurching behind it.  Looking at the picture it gives the impression that I have made some dire error and the right hand end finished below the left hand end.  I looked at this when I took it out of the Qsnaps and nearly died of fright (I HATE unpicking)....but followed the bottom row across and they DO meet up.....it just doesn't look like they do....heart went back to normal rhythm.

And the last one is this little sampler from Birds of a Feather, and it is going to say "The Bee makes honey from the Bitterest Flower".  The pattern actually says the bee sucks honey from the bitterest flower....which apart from being biologically incorrect sounded ugly so I am going to change it.  I love samplers, they are quick and charming.