Wednesday, October 26, 2011

The Queen is in Australia, can you guess why?


HRH is here to pick up her tiara, I accidentally popped it into my luggage and brought it home with me after that wedding.










I'll be polishing up the silver and getting the Wedgwood out for a spot of afternoon tea. Steve makes a mean coffee and it'll just the thing to perk them both up after a long day in Melbourne! (Shhh... don't tell anyone she's popping into Adelaide, it isn't on the official itinerary).


What would you do if she was visiting you?

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

A gift, a mystery, a start on Halloween and a request for puppy housetraining help.


A gift-

Lookie what I won from bronny -

My very own limited edition sheepie fob- it's so cute and I'm in need of a new one!

She also sent


a lovely letter with some floss and


some pretty coasters- check out that quilting! Thanks bronny, it was a lovely surprise to open your gift!

A mystery

Uh- oh, when the envelope looks like this

and has this put inside


it's not good. According to the leaflet, either a sniffer dog detected 'something' or an xray detected 'something'.  Fortunately a physical search of the contents revealed nothing. But what was coming from overseas that got stopped for inspection?

This-


Yep, a chart, a business card and a plastic bag. That's all.  By The Bay Needleart's  Stitch an Inch was calling my name, so I ordered it from Donna's etsy store.
  I wonder why it got opened- did the sniffer dog smell another dog's smell or doggy treats in/on  it?  Or did the xray reveal cross stitch contraband? We'll never know.

A Start on Halloween


Last year I bought Halloween charts nice and early, but still didn't manage to stitch or make anything in time. In fact I didn't even start anything.

So, I'm starting nice and early this year. It's July already (in case you didn't know), so I figure I'll be finished in time, I think.

I've started
Sew Spooky, by iStitch and as I didn't stitch it last year, I'll be making a small adjustment to the charted date. I've purchased some Halloween fabric for finishing and matched the floss to the colours in the fabric.

I've also kitted up


Voodoo Bob (got it from Stitching Bits and Bobs last year too)
 And also, I've kitted up


a pumpkin! I think I bought that from Joanne at 123 Stitch last year. What is so strange about my mystery envelope  that got stopped at Customs recently (Stitch an Inch), is that when my pumpkin chart arrived last year I was shocked that it didn't get stopped. Have look at what is included with the pumpkin chart-

Yes sir, a bag of contraband, also known as stems and twiggy things for decorating the pumpkin.  Guess the dog or xray machine was on the blink the day this envelope went through postal customs...

Help- I need puppy housetraining help!

After the death of our dear Jack last November, it has taken a while to feel like having another dog in our home.  I didn't think I'd ever get over Jack's early death.  However here we are!

Another Jack Russell.  We've named him Ben. Nicholas did want to name him 'Russell' (he named Jack) and then decide that 'Bullwinkle' was a better name. Steve had his favourite names as did I.  'Ben' was the only name we all liked although I was kinda partial to Bullwinkle too!
So, he's almost 9 weeks old. We had to drive 3.5 hours to pick him up- the breeder drove 3 hours to meet us (Ben's a country boy) in the outback!

Here's my problem- his bowel is somewhat out of sync with his eating.  All of our previous dogs have had fairly predictable poops after eating.  Not Ben. I feed him at 6.30am and he poops at 10am. Or feed him at 6pm and he poops during the night (10pm- 6am) on the laundry floor. Three times. Or eats and poops straight away. Or eats and poops an hour later on the family room floor.

Anyone got any tips of helping him get all synced with his eating then pooping?  I put him outside after he eats and when he wakes up from a nap. And in between when he starts to look like he might want to pee. He's peeing outside without many accidents. So, is this just a puppy thing? Jack was a bit older when we got him and he was all synced and ready to go! Any suggestions greatly appreciated!

Monday, June 27, 2011

When the weather gets cold...

I start knitting! It's been a while since we've had a 'normal' winter- the kind where its wet and cold, not dry and mild like it has been for the last 5 or 6 years. When it gets cold I feel the need to knit. So I've dug into the bottom of my drawer,  found my needles and went in search of wool. Here's what I'm making...

It's a cardigan to snuggle up in on those chilly days. It's knitted on circular needles (had to buy one in the right size as my extensive range of knitting needles does not extend to circular ones) and it's a freebie pattern from Red Heart and is called 'Cardie to Love' which, of course, I do. After redoing this sleeve 3 or 4 times, I discovered  its for 'experienced' knitters'.  Fortunately I am one, but only when I pay attention and mark down my rows!

Here's my current Cross Stitch wip-


The Bookshelf by Little House Needleworks. You can see I left the hoop in, I got sidetracked by my knitting and forgot to take the hoop off.

And I finally got the borders on (well actually I did it some time ago, finally got around to photographing and then blogging about it) for my 2nd Layer Cake Quilt A Long.

It's quite big, Steve had to stand on the coffee table to hold it high enough so it wouldn't drag on the floor (hence part of the delay-  waiting for him to finish the very important task of being busy doing nothing). Just waiting on the backing to arrive now and then I'm going to quilt it.

Hope everyone had a productive weekend!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Hey Aussies and NZ'ers- The Stitching Post is having a Sale

The Stitching Post is having a sale to celebrate their 10th Birthday!

I'm off the peruse, cos  I'm pretty sure I *need*  something...

Happy  Shopping  Stitching

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

What's your Royal Wedding Name and which Tiara will you be wearing?

Well, I'm still waiting for my invitation to arrive!  Then I found out last night that the invitations have all been sent to our Royal Wedding Names, along with just our country and that's why they haven't arrived. So, go the post office and see if your invitation is waiting there for you in your Royal Wedding Name.

So what's our Royal Wedding Name, I hear you ask? It's quite simple really...

1. Choose between Lady or Lord

2. Take the name of the oldest relative (of the same sex) you know about.(go back as far as you can)

3. Take the name of the first pet you owned. And then hyphenate it with -

4. The name of the first street you lived on.

Easy peasy!

So, my invitation went to.... drum roll please...

Lady Adelaide Jeffrey-Allen

(Very posh sounding, isn't it?)  

For your laughter,  Steve's Royal Wedding Name is 

Lord Clement Puddles-Torrens


I've picked my Tiara out- what do you think?

Just gotta pick out the gown now!

What's your Royal Wedding Name and which Tiara will you be wearing? 

If you want to play along, work out your name, pick your Tiara and post on your blog. Then comment back here so I can visit your blog!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Quilty and Stitchy Finishes.

Yes, I've been missing- summer holidays have finally ended and high school has started for Nicholas!



Then there was that little problem with computer which resulted in a system restore- after much hair pulling and swear word muttering to myself, it's finally up and running again. Sigh, computers drive me nuts.


First up, for your viewing pleasure is my Valentine's finish-


It's by Carol of istitchaholic



And although I finished stitching it the day before Valentine's Day, it didn't quite get finished in time. Oh well, it will be for next year!



Here's the quilt I've just finished making for Nicholas. It's made from batik fabric and will fit a queen size bed- not that he's in one yet, but as he's already taller then me, I think his next bed will be queen size. I painted his bedroom during the summer holidays, and am now doing the soft furnishings. As his bedroom is quite big, he has a feature wall of blue/green with the other walls being white. Very fresh and crisp. Just the thing for a teenager. And he can take his quilt with him when he leaves home in about oh, 20 years or so!



Just waiting on the backing to arrive.  As Nicholas is a swimmer, I picked this quilt to represent waves and blues to reflect the colour of water. 

Here's some blocks from the Layer-Cake-Quilt-Along-2010  Three more blocks to go, I think!






I'll have two different quilts, a pretty one for me, and my very first ever, Christmas quilt!

And finally some hexagons that I've been making while Nicholas swims (3-5 times a week).



Only 95 more to go!



Now I'm off to catch up on some blog reading!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Do I really have that much floss?

When your guesses started coming in, I thought 'they're a bit high, I don't have THAT much floss'.

But then I started thinking about it- bad idea- and I realised that with 6 boxes, each one capable of holding around 100 flosses, I surely did have that much floss!

So how much floss do I have?

Well, I have 669- so that makes Missy of Eat Stitch Love the winner with her guess of 661! Congratulations Missy, I'll email you shortly. Thank you to everyone who played along, I hope you have fun!

Happy Stitching!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Blogoversary! Guess how much floss I have!

Well it's my second blogoversary! Woohoo! Let's have a little fun!

If you can guess how much DMC I have,  you will win a prize!

Here's my collection-

There's this box
And this box

And this one
And this one

And this one

And this one

Pretty easy so far!  One last little lot and that's it!

The closest to the number of floss I have, will win!

Win what? you say.

Well, I can't be bothered going through my stash, and the mail delivery is still atrocious, so the winner will get a US$30 gc to

Interested? Get guessing! One guess only please!

Make sure your email addy is in your profile, or in your post.

I'll count the floss next Wednesday 26th and let you know.

Here's a little help- some of the floss cards that are laying down have floss sitting underneath them too that you can't see!