My weekend Kangaroos - sharing some pics with you

These are 'my' kangaroos - a mob of 33 have spent this weekend at my area - I tried to capture a good photo, but hopefully this slideshow gives you an idea how close they are. Most of these photos were taken at 7:30 on Sat 29th - including my partly headshot - to show how close they are. There are a couple of foggy shots from Sunday 7:30am - I couldn't get really clear photos, but they were much closer before bounding away to safety (edited Sunday night at 8:30 - My photobucket slideshow mysteriously deleted itself - so I've just re-posted static photos to this post - sorry don't know what happened!)

Colours of Autumn - lots of recent photos to share

While I've been working an early shift these past few weeks, I've not been posting much during the week and I find that I try to avoid too much computer on the weekend. I would like to catch up with some recent photos.
Some are just sights - out and about, in particular the driveway of a house I drive past daily - I had to go back to capture this one, of course, there's not as many leaves, and it isn't at sunset, like the first night it caught my eye, but aren't the colours spectacular?



Then there are the mushrooms, these are so cute, and just inches away from the suburban road. -



Oh I had to share the pic of the merangue mushroom that Harry could't resist...I'm told it tasted nice too!




This is my stitching companion - Pyro. He does look so comfortable in the sunshine on my sewing machine table - pity I have to move him at all









Then there is Milo.
Dog - nuff said









Nearly forgot to show last week's bargain from a garage sale. I have been contemplating crotcheting an afghan rug this winter, but for $5 I couldn't pass this up!! I couldn't even buy the wool for that amount! It's huge enough to spread over our queen size bed, but for now, I'm adoring it over the back of my couch - giving that homey feel. The two sage green cushions at each end cost me $2 each. Mum made the green one on the left, I made the two in the middle - a cross stitch and an aida (hmmm needs a wash) and my SIL made the japanese fabric one on the right. Of course with all these coverings, you can't see the deep plum suede couch!! It's comfy enough to fall asleep on!

Competiton time....a pleasant Saturday evening browsing....

oh...sorry, not my competition - not just yet... I am coming up to 200 posts and how long before I gain 100 followers?? So I'll spend a bit of time collating a giveaway for those events...

The purpose of this post is to advertise giveaways I've found on blogs that I follow:
Dawn has changed her blog name and is having a mystery givaway.
Beverly has nearly 300 people following her PINK saturday blog - and after 2 years is having a blogaversary giveaway. (I'll be joining in on the Pink Saturday via my own Pink Glass Blog)
Pokua is also having a Sweet Nothings blogaversary giveaway - a very sweet ornie that she's stitched.
Beck is having a Dandelion giveaway - over 200 posts...must be something in the air!
Ann is also having a giveaway - offering a lovely stitching bag.

Oh dear....over 2 hours on my blogger reader - and I really need to post some pictures of other stuff.... Tune in again tomorrow - I'll process all the pics for the next post tomorrow...

Snowman WIP - you'll need your sunglasses - glare alert!

Bright isn't it?????

Hand dyed aida in fluro-pink - probably not quite what the designer thought of...but it leapt out at me when I pulled the design out of my snowman pile. I'll have to stitch the smile on the snowman pretty quick though - I keep feeling at the moment that he's frowning at me.

I'm stitching him with needle necessities floss again - the same melted marshmallow for the snow again, although I am bringing out the DMC-B5200 for the snow on the tops of the letters and the snowflakes (might add a bit of sparkly blending filament for that bit)

It was our 23rd wedding anniversary yesterday - Not a great bit of celebration as it was Jam session day and DS1 & DH spent the afternoon and evening out.

I did however, present DH with a card and some cutlery (23=silver plate) for his lunchbox. I wrote inside: "Isn't it KNIFE to know that after all these years, I still like to SPOON'd time with you - Just FORK the fun of it - lets try for another 23 years!"

groan away.....silly, but it's a typical 'me' pun for a card.

Happy Stitching everybody!!!

2010 - the Year of the Snowman - another finish

Here it is - hot off the needle.
One of the charts I won earlier this year - Curtis Boehringer - The Christmas Snowman - stitched on hand dyed pale blue aida - with Needle Necessities colours. Not the DMC flower thread called for.
I have declared 2010 to be the Year of the Snowman - any new projects started must contain a snowman. I can however pick up an old WIP.
I keep seeing cute little sheep so far this year...2011 may end up being the year of the sheep!
Happy Stitching!!

Holiday week 2 - day 4 (and beyond)

Goodness me... I never did get to show the progress made on day 4

I last left you when I was about to put the 9-patches together. This was a fun project and I was able to butt the seams so it all lay quite flat and for the most part the points connected perfectly. This was such a buzz!!!
I pieced the remaining cream and green squares together in preparation for adding a border

I laid all the squares onto the bed to try to work out the final layout - meaning I didn't want any same greens touching. After I took this photo, I realised the pattern called for it to be one more row taller and one less wide. I re-arranged the blocks and pinned the rows together and stitched them up.
I've now come to the realisation that I want a bigger quilt than this will give me (like who reads final dimensions on the pattern - come on!) and have decided I need to cut 6 more pinetrees out to make one more row and one more column.
That was my plan for week 2-day 5 of my holiday.
However, it was not to be.
Due to a family emergency, I was called back to work to cover the reception desk. It turns out that there would be nobody who knew how to operate the switchboard or access the database on the friday. (I believe in the coming weeks, this corporate shortcoming will be addressed by the powers that be).
So no final stitching up of my quilt.
The Saturday was chock-full of running teenage son around and the Sunday was Mothers Day - spent at MIL - so no quality stitching time at all. I'm back to work now, and it is darn nigh impossible to think about cutting fabric at the end of the work day - I like to work by daylight.
Now it is the following Sunday - and early afternoon, I plan to have the rotary cutters out and cut up the balance of the fabric needed for those extra patches. I'll get as much sewn together as possible today. I might even be able to post another progress pic.

Holiday week 2 - day 3

I had a blissful day yesterday - procrastinating until I really felt comfortable to sit down at the machine and start piecing the trees together.... First things first, the tree trunks....



Then the treetops came together......

then all of a sudden, I had a forest....


today, it's the attack of the 9-patch!!!!!

An Excellent Giveaway for quilters!

OOOOO


OOOOO

and again

OOOOO

Anita was a very lucky lady and won a copy of the about to be released EQ7 - even luckier are her blog readers as they have the chance to win their own.
Of course, I've seen quilts made using EQ - various versions and would love the chance to start another obsession.
Good Luck to one and all

Holiday week 2 - day 1 & 2

Once the weekend was over, it was time on Monday to head off to my girlfriend Karen's place for some much needed 'Girl Time'. I had a lovely lunch and there was a serious quantity of show & tell and fondle. Karen helped me with the remaining greens for my Pine Tree Quilt. Tuesday morning dawned and I headed back to Karen's really, really early, to pick up all my Pine Tree fat quarters that I had brought for show and tell and left behind (oooo I was really angry with myself for that little slip-up) I actually parked outside Karen's house about 7:45 after dropping Martin off at work, read a book for a little while, and woke up about 9:30 having fallen into a deep Nanna-Nap. (a lot of embarassment there). Fabric retrieved, I made my way home and today spent my time cutting fabric. Here are my treetops and my 9-patch green squares. Doesn't it look splendiferous???? Tomorrow, I plan to spend sitting at the machine....I'll stitch as much as I can - I'll show more photos when there's something more to look at...

Holiday week 1 day 4 - Dandenong Market

Friday, after dropping hubby at work, I called at Dandenong Market - to pick up the week's worth of potatoes. I also took about 5-6 cross stitch pictures to a lovely lady called Lee, and spent a glorious hour picking out mats and frames. It may take me a year to pay it all off, but then I'll have another few pictures finally on the walls.

I envy Edgar's photos of his local open air market, so thought I'd take my camera to grab some colour and texture photos - pity you cannot capture the aromas of the fresh fruit ( possibly just as well, because some of the aromas of the great unswas hed of Dandenong may filter through!) The fruit and vegie stall holders were bemused as I asked their perm ission to take these photos - they couldn't understand that I was going to publish them to my blog for people in other states and countries t o look at.

I then called at an Op-Shop in Doveton, and met a lovely lady, Kate, with whom I have exchanged email addresses because I may just be able to help her on her quest for a particular quilt pattern. It will be in one of the 300+ magazines I picked up in January! I picked up a couple of old glass tumblers - one with flannel-flowers and one cutsie Koala - then toddled on my merry way when I accidentally fell into Spotlight at Narre Warren. Here for $11.50, I picked up the broadcloth fabric to use as the background to my trees. I remembered that there was another patchwork shop in Berwick - and found another green fat-q there - no pic of that yet. Before I headed home, I thought to look through one more Op-Shop, this time in Pakenham and found a cute pair of witches. These will help fill out my Halloween display shelf in October!