Saturday 28 April 2018

Some advice please....

I lashed out (Aussie expression for spending money lavishly) and bought this gorgeous ByGone Stitches pattern that I have been lusting after for a while now. I plan to stitch it for my Americana SAL blog. It is the American flag with all of the fifty states listed in the order that they joined the Union.  The design is called One Nation.  It is a perfect chart for my Americana stitching passion.

However, I have a bit of dilemma, as I cannot decide which colour fabric to stitch on.  All three fabrics are from my stash (as it was too expensive to order the design and all of the CC floss as well as the fabric - not when I have a drawer full of linen fabric of all descriptions).

I would love some advice as I keep wavering as to which one to choose:

Choice #1: A grey/brown linen.



Choice #2: A light blue linen.




Choice #4: An over-dyed buttery yellow linen (it is a bit yellower than this pic show).

I hope to start this in a week or two so plenty of time for me to procrastinate and prevaricate - so your thoughts would really help.

P.S. I am having ANOTHER Girl's Nest Giveaway (#6), click on the pic below if you would like to enter.  Closes May 31st.

hugs, 


Friday 27 April 2018

April 2018 IHSW and FNSI ....

Okay, a slightly late IHSW and FNSI post but c'est la vie!

FNSI first:



I started my Friday Frolics and FNSI last Friday wrestling Furio for control of my stitching - lol!  He really is my stitching cat!


I am pleased to say that I won the tussle (yay! I could beat a cat a 100 times smaller than me - lol!) and managed a finish before my Friday morning coffee group.


Sorry, I did iron it but it still looks a little crumpled!  I made a few changes to the original  - see below - I hope that you like them.


Then it was onto my Temperature SAL.....

Before: 


Progress.....


Pretty happy, quite a bit achieved on this SAL piece.  So, a successful FNSI!

Now, for  IHSW:


For the rest of IHSW, I focused on my Temperature SAL and here is how I went:

Saturday:



Sunday:


 ... and I even picked it up again on Tuesday evening and did a bit more. This is coming along so nicely, I feel.



If you would like to find out more about IHSW, please click on Hermie below:






... and if you want to see what the other IHSWers got up to this month please click on the two links below:

Random Ramblings IHSW Link UP post  (sorry, this is still the March post as Joysze has not had time yet to put up the April post)



... and if you would like to find out more about FNSI, please click on the pic below:


... and if you want to find out what the other FNSIers were stitching, click on the link below:


hugs, 

P.S. I am having ANOTHER Girl's Nest Giveaway (#6), click on the pic below if you would like to enter.  Closes May 31st.



Wednesday 25 April 2018

LEST WE FORGET INDEED!


Dear Dad, I have been thinking of you a lot these past days leading up to ANZAC Day.  I think of you as a little boy....



... leaving England at just seven years of age with just your Mum to come to make a new life in a foreign land, mourning the loss of a father whom you never knew who gave his life to protect his country in WWI.

I think of you as a young boy, growing up in the working class suburbs of Melbourne during the Great Depression,  working hard at school but having to give that up to go out to work at fifteen but finding a father figure and mentor in your boss, Mr Murphy.....



I think of you as that brave, innocent young man who went off to war "as it was the right thing to do"  - your words, not mine - not knowing what horrors you were to face in the years to come during your incarceration in the infamous Changi prison for over three long years after the Fall of Singapore.


I think that some part of you, like those first Diggers of old, thought that this was, in part, going to be a great adventure. After all, where else would you get the chance to wear a monkey on your shoulder?



Alas, adventure it was not to be....

I think of you, somehow, through determination, resilience and some pure luck surviving that terrible place and coming home to marry your childhood sweetheart.  My Mum, whom you adored and with whom you had a long, loving marriage (67 years) and looked after for her very long life (91 years), caring for her yourself until almost the very end when it did just get too much for a 94 year old to do on his own.


I think of you being a great Dad to me and my two sisters and of how you loved to spend time with my children and the footy games you would go to when Collingwood played Richmond and how you would gently comment about how good the win was when your team, the Collingwood Magpies, beat my family's team, the Richmond Tigers  (which happened a lot in those years).


I think of you going to ANZAC day celebrations to meet up with Army buddies and reminisce about what surely had been the "Bad Old Days" but you would always come home with a smile on your face.


I think of you at 97, living in the nursing home, which you loved, despite your preferred wish to stay at home, proudly wearing your medals on what was to be your last ANZAC day, last year.


... and as I sit here writing this post, crying for the loss of you, I think of your bravery as you fought your last battle, not scared of death but not wanting to leave your daughters alone.  You left this world, just fifteen days shy of your 98th birthday but, Dad, you left the world a better place for all of us here in this great land of ours, Australia, and I am so very proud to have been your daughter.  Love you, Dad.

Vale Roy Willard
28.08.1919 - 13.08.2017


LEST WE FORGET
ANZAC DAY 2017



hugs, 





Sunday 22 April 2018

A Happy Dance Friday and an indulgent and relaxing Sunday......

can be found if you click on the images below....

Kitten Stitching and the Friday Frolics...




New Start Sundays SAL....




... and, of course the Friday night Stitching was part of FNSI, click on the pic below if you want to see what the other FNSIers got up to....



hugs, 


P.S. Don't forget my newest Girl's Nest Giveaway (#6) , click on the pic below if you would like to enter.  Closes May 31st.

Thursday 19 April 2018

A sort of/Sorting Girl's Nest Giveaway #6


As you all know from my Grand Designs Eaglemont posts TraderVic and I are trying to clean out our house - we need to get rid of so much clutter that has accumulated over the past twenty years by the seven people that lived here in that time!

So, this means some of my stitching stuff, too.  I am trying to be ruthless with pattern books and patterns that I have either stitched already or am no longer interested... so, watch this space over the next couple of months - even more giveaways may come your way.

Hang onto your hats, this is a big one.... there are ELEVEN prizes to be won!
All are available to be sent worldwide and you can enter in any or all of them. But please do comment clearly on this post which one/s you are interested in.

Giveaway #1:  Summer Rose Quilt pattern book + some Signature panels for the back of a quilt.


Giveaway #2: The Victorian Language of Flowers bell pull.



Giveaway #3: Fa La La by Little House Needleworks (part of the All Dolled Up series) -  Lightly used and no beads.


Giveaway #4: Petite French Stockings by JBW Designs (lightly used).


Giveaway #5: Liberty Starburst by Summer House Stitche Workes (lightly used and yes, it was an earlier Giveaway on the Americana blog but I lost the design for a while and when I found it again I contacted the person I was going to send it to you but she has decided that she doesn't want it after all, so now it is up for grabs again).


Giveaway #6: In a Garden by Homespun Elegance (lightly used - now I have a vague memory that maybe I promised this design to someone but if so I have no idea who but if that person knows who they are and contacts me, it will, of course be theirs).


Giveaway #7: Le petit marin by Les Jardins de Nana


Giveaway #8: Fee de Noel by Les Jardins de Nana


Giveaway #9: Le Chat 2 by Les Jardins de Nana


Giveaway #10: Little Lamb Kit, part of the Spring Bouquet Collection by Mill Hill (sans floss but contains the magnet and a square of brown cardboard).


 Giveaway #11: Three freebie patterns from magazines....



Please comment CLEARLY, on this post if you are interested in any or all of the eleven giveaway items.  I will use the random generator to choose who gets what.  

Ooops, almost forgot to say:  if you are a no-reply-commenter, please make sure that you include either your email address or your blog address or both in your comment.  This is so that I have a way of contacting you if you are lucky enough to win one of the prizes.

You have until the end of the May, i.e. May 31 to enter.


hugs,
 



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