Gifted Gorgeousness_September Update.....

Okay, a few things to catch up on for GG this month... but first, in case you do not know what I am talking about ...

Gifted Gorgeousness (or GG) is a SAL run by the wonderful SAL Mama, Jo from Serendipitous Stitching.  Basically, on the 15th of each month, we post anything which is stitchy gift-related.

First up is a gift of some lovely Henry Viii and his six wives chocolates that my dear friend Anna (no blog) brought back for me from a recent trip to London.  I have been resisting eating them as they look so cute with my Henry Viii thimble (which I bought at Hampton Court Palace in 2006) and my Henry Viii and his six wives teapot.

Thank you, dear Anna, for thinking of me. Such a thoughtful gift.

Also, I have been working hard on my DD's London blanket.  She has been travelling all over Europe and even into Morocco, where she spent a night in the Sahara and kissed a camel - I wonder if in Moroccan fairytales it is camels that turn into princes if you kiss them rather than frogs (which are probably pretty rare in the Sahara - lol!)????

She arrives in London next week, so I had better get a wriggle on - I still have five colours to go after the lilac - and I want her to have it before the English winter.

Then, my dear friend Linda, came home from her trip to France and brought me back this gorgeous Medieval book mark kit.  I can't wait to stitch it up!

                                  Doesn't she know me so very well?

Also, this month, I had the Prairie Schooler train birth sample framed and gave it to the new mum and baby.

I am so very pleased with how this turned out and Hannah, the new mum, loved it.

We had lunch at The Kiln, a very nice cafe on the site of the old Northcote Pottery (I still have some of their terracotta pots in my garden).

Okay, I think that is it for now.  I do have one more GG piece finished, which I stitched for a dear friend's 60th but it is off being framed, so I think that I will hold it over until next month.

Take care everyone, happy stitching, 

lots of hugs, 

P.S.  Ooops, forgot to tell you, please click here, if you wish to see what the other GG participants got up to this month.

Finally .... a Gifted Gorgeousness Post.....

.... Hallelujah!  I am finally posting for GG, after having missed July and nearly missing August!
  
If you are not sure what I am talking about.....

 Gifted Gorgeousness (or GG) is a SAL run by the wonderful SAL Mama, Jo from Serendipitous Stitching.  Basically, on the 15th of each month, we post anything which is stitchy gift-related.

.... but, as you can see, I am a few many, many day's late!

So, what sort of Gifted Gorgeousness have I been up over the past two months? Lots really, so here goes... in no particular order....

First up, I "gave" the gift of knitting (and the yarn, needles and pattern mag) to my DDIL last month, and within one

 week, she had finished her first scarf!

If you want to see her progress pics - check out this post and this one.

I am so thrilled that she has taken to this craft like a duck to water.

I also "gave" her the gift of Cross stitch.  I took her up a whole swag of cross stitch supplies to get her started (I thought that I had taken a photo of them but I cannot seem to find it anywhere on my phone - c'est la vie - just to let you know it was a couple of Prairie Schooler Christmas ornament designs).

She started to pick it up but not as quickly as the knitting! That will have to wait for our next visit, I think!

Okay, what is next for GG?  Let's see, I have started what I am calling a "London Blanket" for DD.  It is the same pattern and yarn as the Baby Blanket I made (you can see some pics of the finished blanket here, if you are interested) but with a greater range of colours as it needs to be bigger, naturally. Once it is finished it will be posted off to Old London Town to keep my DD warm over the English winter.

This is the colour palette which we chose together.  I think that it is going to be gorgeous when it is done!

... and here is a further progress pic - I am onto colour two now - can wait to get to the lilac soon!

and, look, it is taking me so long to write this post that I am well underway with colour two....

... the other GG project that I really want to show you is this Prairie Schooler "Baby Sampler" which I made for the baby of the baby blanket fame.

Don't you just love the red cow?

Now, I am sure that I have some other GG projects floating around but I want to get this post up and posted, so next time.

If you want to check out what everyone else got up to for GG, just click here.

hugs, 

Travelling to Toowoomba....

Well, it was with great sadness that TraderVic and I said goodbye to DS1 and DDIL.  But all good things must come to an end and we have had to hit the road again to travel back to Brisbane to catch our flight home.  This time, we are breaking up the trip with an overnight stay in Toowoomba - Australia's 16th largest city.

Now, I must apologise on two counts.  One, there are no photos of DS1 but this is because he was teaching all week and so we spent most of our time with our DDIL.  Two, no kitty cat photos on this post - so sorry!

My DDIL has taken to knitting with a passion, so much so that after only two nights after I taught her to knit she was trying to teach the daughter of one of her friends - lol!

But don't worry, we did manage to sneak in another cross stitch lesson and I have introduced her to the wonders of Flosstube for when she needs to look up how to do something - phew!

So, this morning, it was a last coffee in a cute, Melbourne-style cafe in Roma, The Queen's Beans.

Then it was time to hit the road, Jack, back along the Mad Max Highway to Toowoomba.

(We stopped for lunch in Chinchilla and the roadhouse had this cute heater)

Below is what we call a mountain in Australia - lol!

... and here is my stitchy progress on today's road trip.

Okay, off to find a local pub for dinner.

See you later, hugs, 

More Roma living.....

Yesterday, we did some more roaming around Roma - there are some lovely old buildings.

Then, I couldn't resist, I just had to go visit the Ace Drapery again... oh my goodness, the treasures of quilting fabric inside plus nearly every other crafty thing that you could possibly need.

I really loved these two fabbies but I did resist temptation - not sure how, but I did!

Then it was off to dinner at the Irish pub in town, where I had the most succulent lamb shanks.

After dinner, I gave my DDIL her first cross stitch lesson.

She started to pick it up but not as quickly as the knitting!  However, after a while, we all decided to watch a movie on Netflix - Chef - a sweet, easy watch. 

 So, she switched back to her knitting and is now a third of the way through the scarf!  I think that, for the moment, she is liking knitting more than cross stitch but that may change with some more cross stitch practice.

Today, I accompanied my DDIL to one of her  piano student's homes (on a farm, with chickens, ducks and peacocks).

Where, of course, I found the most adorable cats yet, on my trip - three rag doll cats.  Oh, so beautiful!

... and one of them was a Mama Cat, she had four absolutely gorgeous kittens a few week's back.

 On the stitching front, I have Finish #2 for my Road Trip stitching.  Not overly thrilled with how it has turned out - not the design's fault but mine!  I made an error somewhere near the start, didn't pick it up until it was way too late, so had to ditch the idea of a border and create this snow "hill" instead - now it is a bit of an odd shape - may have to make it a bell-shaped ornie, I think, when I Finish Finish it.

Then, it was on to Start #3.  This is another PS design, The train from PS Book #69, Prairie Village I.  This will be a baby gift for the upcoming family friend's son's baby for whom I made the baby blanket and softies - you can read about them in this post.

 I am hopeful of having this piece near completion by the time we get home late Friday afternoon, as it involves fairly large blocks of single colours.

Anyway, that's me signing off from Roma in Outback Queensland.

hugs,