Hallowe'en Blog Hop....

... every Hallowe'en the redoubtable Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts a fun and fabulously Spooky Hallowe'en Blog Hop.

You need to follow the letters from blog to blog to spell out a Spooky Saying to win the prize.

So, here goes, my letter is:

G

... and you need to hop over to Needles, Pins and Dragonflies to find out the next letter.

Lastly, I cannot leave you without some Hallowe'en eye candy.  Here is one of my favourite Hallowe'en finishes:

Haunted House from the Side Panel of  "Halloween Days sewing basket" by Simona Bussiglieri of Mani Di Donna on page 89 from JCS Halloween Ornament Magazine 2015.

Have a great Hallowe'en everyone, 

TraderVic and I are off with some friends to Beechworth for a couple of days of R&R and then Monday night we are going with DD1 to see the fabulous Fleetwood Mac - so exciting!

hugs, 

Smalls SAL/Hallowe'en Ornie SAL update...

Well, here is my Smalls SAL update - a couple of days late, I am afraid!  As is often the case, my Smalls this month are related to my Hallowe'en stitching.  I am just scraping in for my July Hallowe'en ornie for the Haunted House theme but I am a day early for my August Hallowe'en ornie for the theme Black Cats, although my cats are not quite black but there is a ghost cat! lol!

July: Haunted House from the Side Panel of  "Halloween Days sewing basket" by Simona Bussiglieri of Mani Di Donna on page 89 from JCS Halloween Ornament Magazine 2015.

August: Halloween Cats - freebie from Kreinik, which you can find here.

I am very pleased with my finishing on both of these cushions.  I think that maybe I am finally getting the hang of creating a nice finish.

TraderVic keeps asking me why there is so much stuff in my sewing room but, of course it is full of my stash so that I can always put my hand on the perfect fabbie or ribbons or buttons or beads for finishing.  For my haunted house I found some gorgeous reproduction fabric in different shades of lilac and the perfect ribbon - do you like the pretty little purple bow underneath the haunted house?

Furio approves....

I love the ghost kitty and do you see how Furio has snuck onto the top of the right column and Milo has crept underneath the ghost cat?

I finished it with little black cats on a ribbon.

And the bottom and backing fabric is black kitties on black!

For both of these designs I used overdyed 28 count fabric from my stash, plus various DMC and specialty threads which I chose myself.

Click on the wee ghostie below to check out what other people stitched for this month's Hallowe'en SAL.

... and you can check out everyone else's Smalls SAL update, here.

New SALs update:

I am so thrilled, I have had a wonderful response to my Christmas Ornie SAL blog, which you can check out here.
Also, I have had some good interest in my other two new SAL blog ideas: Americana and Prairie Schooler, which you can read about here if you are interested in joining.

Plus, watch this space for a new idea coming from me and my SSF, Kim from Wisdom with Needle and Thread.

hugs,

Weekend Roundup (or an early FNSI and IHSW post)...

.... okay, as usual I am going to stretch a long bow and my weekend roundup will cover next week's FNSI and IHSW.

How so, I hear you ask?  Well, next weekend, TraderVic and I are heading north to Sin City (Sydney) to visit DS2, we are planning to take him out to a fancy restaurant, catch up with some family friends, do some sightseeing with him and check out his new flat.  So, I am thinking in the midst of all that there will not be much stitching happening.

Luckily for me, this weekend just past was a quiet one for us, so lots of crafty, bakey things were done by me, so I have just moved FNSI and IHSW forward a week for me this month.  Clever, hey?

 Now, for those of you who don't know what I am talking about.

FNSI stands for Friday Night Sew In, it is a virtual stitch-a-long evening on the third Friday of every month when stitchers from all around the world sign up to stitch on their own projects "together".  It is hosted by the lovely Wendy from Sugarlane Quilts, so check out her blog for the sign up post which should be posted sometime this week.

IHSW stands for International Hermit and Stitch Weekend, it, too, is a virtual stitch-a-long but this one is all weekend long - from Friday night to Sunday night.  It is always the third weekend of the month, too, so FNSI and IHSW always coincide - most happily.  It is hosted by the gorgeous Joysze of Random Ramblings, so check out her blog for the sign up post, too.

You can see the badges for each of these SALs on my sidebar.

So, enough chat, what did I get up to on my weekend?  Well, lots of fun stuff!

For FNSI, I finished knitting my Tri-cowl scarf - here is a pic of me modelling it for you all.  It is lovely and warm and just right for this Antarctic Vortex the south east of Australia is experiencing at the moment. I have obviously picked the right year to have taken up knitting again - lol!

I also found some time to start my Haunted House for this month's theme for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL.  

Side panel from "Halloween Days Sewing Basket"

JCS Halloween Ornie Mag, 2015

p. 89

Stitched on overdyed lilac 28 ct evenweave

My own choice of DMC and speciality threads

Then on Saturday, I followed one of my other passions - cooking.  I made Steak and mushroom pie (pastry and all) and Brookies (Brownies/Cookies).

Yummo! (If I say so myself)

Over Saturday and Sunday, I worked some more on American Baby and Day 11 of Santa's 12 Days of Christmas:

Across the weekend, I also spent quite a bit of time setting up my new blog:

Christmas Ornie SAL 2015

I would love it if you went and checked it out and even more if you would like to join - the details are all on the blog.

So, in all a most productive weekend except I developed a terrible toothache in one of my premolars - so it was off to the dentist for me yesterday who suspects it is a sinus infection in my tooth!  So, more antibiotics for me (my third lot in as many months) and very strong painkillers until the antibiotics work their magic - I can tell you that tooth hurts so much if I even think about touching it!  No fun at all!

I hope that all is well with you and yours,

hugs,

A fruitful Sunday....

Yesterday, I had a most fruitful day both on the baking/cooking side  and on the stitching side.  Let me tell you about the baking first....

First I made a big slab of Zucchini slice to cut up into squares and freeze for my work lunches.  It smelt so delicious when it came out of the oven that I had to have a slice for my Sunday lunch - lol!

Then I decided to bake bread rolls (first time ever!) using this recipe from the lovely Melissa from St John's Stitcher, it is her Nan's recipe.  You can find it here.

Lovely, hot, straight out of the oven with a pat of butter.

Then I made some raspberry shortbread slice, from a very old recipe of mine (not sure where it originated from).  It is delicious with a cup of coffee.

Then I got down to some serious stitching.  First off I finished an exchange piece - I am so pleased with it but I can only show you snippets until the recipient gets it.

Then I finished "Haunted House" as my May piece for the Halloween Ornie SAL

I just squeezed it in under the "Monsters" theme as it has a ghost in it.

It is another freebie from Maja of The Snowflower Diaries.

So, I was very pleased with myself this Sunday.  Although I may have pushed myself too hard as I am not feeling too good this morning - a bit achey all over, I hope that I am not coming down with some sort of virus!

Have a great week everyone.

hugs,