Monday, February 10, 2014

Fire Watch

Let's pray these conditions ease today!!

Fires abound around Victoria and New South Wales with the high temps we've been having combined with the dry situation!  We had smoke over our way late yesterday, and it seems we have woken to fire watch with the closest one around 50 Kms away.  We both will head off to work, with precautions made here as best we can.  I will be keeping a watch on the fire app today while I'm at work.  Take care everyone, I know there are others all over with challenges today as well......my prayers are for you as well!

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Recap from Last Week

Last week seemed to go by in a flash as I had both  my daughter and my husband with various medical issues, so I need to recap as a couple of swaps turned up here !
A big thankyou goes out to Cheryll from Gone Stitching.  for hosting the Initial Heart Swap!  I've received mine in the mail from Kaye  ....... such lovely work ....... if you follow the green letters in the cross stitch, it actually spells out my full name  "Sharmayne"!  Thankyou Kaye!



As it turns out, Kaye was the lady I was making for............ after visiting her blog it seemed she was into cats and cooking,   and on receiving a thankyou email, turns out she loves purple as well!!
I decided to make Kaye one of my own aprons, and I'm pleased to say that she seems to like it!  I really liked the colour combinations on this one  and the cats inside the hearts on the fabric I used for the pocket!

 
I also sent out my dishcloths  to ?????  and received a set from JulieThanks Julie they will be well used!

And  on browsing some blogs over the past couple of weeks, I stumbled upon a few that took me to Ravelry- a site for anyone who has a love for yarn and working with it!!  After initially getting a little lost over there, I've found so many people willing to help out newbies to the site!  Its a place where you can put your yarn projects, patterns, have your books and magazines on a library shelf of your own, keep a record of your stash and see and find lots of ideas and patterns!!  And now that the winter Olympics have started, there is a bit of a challenge to work on some projects and UFOs to get them completed during this time!!  Sounded like a fine idea to me.... I can get some things finished that need doing, so I'm currently working on a market bag - yes, it is summer here and we do have a heat wave, but I'm thankful to say we also have air conditioning which means its too hot for outside work, and perfect temp for crochet work!!



Sunday, February 2, 2014

Rainbow Scraps

Yesterday morning I stumbled upon So Scrappy  and found something that really caught my eye....... Using your scraps in a rainbow challenge. 
 Angela picks a colour for the month and we get to use fabrics in that colour from our stash to make anything we like ......... I've decided to cut 2inch hexies  and make up flowers each month which I will put together for a lovely rainbow quilt at the end of the year .  

 FEBRUARY IS ......  PINK - still a work in progress this week, but at least the little hexies are all done and ready to go together
      
Since I only found this post and challenge yesterday, but  was just in the mood and with the time to sit and stitch, I decided to get to work on the  January  Flower which was -  BLUE

Perhaps this will also work to count towards my Wednesday Flowers??
I would also like to make up a butterfly block or something  using my fabric scraps/stash, but I've been searching over the internet and just don't seem to be able to find something that would be relatively easy, would make an actual block, and that looks really nice!  I sure found plenty of ugly and weird ones!!  If anybody has a pattern or a suggestion I would love to hear from you please. Maybe as I visit some of you I may just stumble on something and perhaps you will be kind enough to share..........

Something else caught my attention while visiting new blogs over the past week........   TUSAL.... (totally Useless Stich Along) - if that doesn't make you ask then what about ORT...... Well, perhaps you already know all about Orts and Tusals, but for me it seems like a rather fun sort of way of keeping all those threads in place rather than dropping all over the place.  Once my old fashioned glass milk bottle (my hubbie collects some old bottles here and there), is full,  I intend to pop it into a little wire cage to hang out in the trees for the birds to use.  My woollen threads will also be going into here as well...... nice woollen insulation for those little bird nests.

I'm also busy trying to work on a couple of my yarn UFOs from last year.  I started them last winter......... Summer is probably not the time to be knitting ........ Which is probably why I started on the Hexies this afternoon LOL 

Something else caught my attention while visiting new blogs over the past week........   TUSAL.... (totally Useless Stich Along) - if that doesn't make you ask then what about ORT...... Well, perhaps you already know all about Orts and Tusals, but for me it seems like a rather fun sort of way of keeping all those threads in place rather than dropping all over the place.  Once my old fashioned glass milk bottle (my hubbie collects some old bottles here and there), is full,  I intend to pop it into a little wire cage to hang out in the trees for the birds to use.  My woollen threads will also be going into here as well...... nice woollen insulation for those little bird nests.
Hugs Sharm