Where have I been???????

....goodness knows!!!!  Seriously, I cant believe we are in the middle of the year already! It will be Christmas once again before we turn around.

So, talking of Christmas, some of the Thursday crafties decided to do things in time for Christmas this year :)  Armed with gallons of glue, they set to it :)  The result...some lovely little bon-bons!

As some of you may know, my BFF family came for a visit from Wales for a few months.  We had the pleasure of entertaining them for an afternoon.  This is cute Seth (the one on the left by the way!)

Seth had a bit of an early birthday while he was here (with his Nana below and Jack) and his new friend the Koala backpack :)

 

Unfortunately, the family had to go back home to Wales :(  We had a lovely BBQ at Claire's place before they headed to the grey, grey yonder!

In between the last post and this one, I went off to Melbourne for a two night stint and a YWCA Encore refresher training session. We had to spend some time in the pool, which was a little walk from our hotel.  What a lovely facade the Melbourne Baths have!!! Inside it is quite newish and modern.

Ruth, waiting for the tram to take us round the city of Melbourne's CBD.  Was a stinking hot day and very humid - not common for this part of the world.  Tram ride was great except we had to sit for 7 minutes at the stop/start part of the line to wait till the next circuit was due to go!  NO Airconditioning!!!!!!!

Once again Christmas rears its head....there is a lovely shop located near the hotel we stayed in (which is also just round the corner from the Queen Victoria Markets) that sells Christmas bits all year round.  Of course I had to take a trip inside :) :)

Mothers Day....we (YWCA Encore) attended the Mothers Day Classic Event which took place in the Adelaide park lands this year.  By taking part, I mean we had a tent there!  No excessive exercise for me!!! LOL  Here are the team - June, Chris, Judy and myself - was a good morning!  We were fortunate to be next to the fruit stand, free fresh fruit all day for all concerned :) We even got to take nearly a box of bananas home because they had so much left at the end of the event!!!!  All money raised goes to breast cancer research.

 

Chris's husband Marty ran the event (I understand he did very well with his timing ) Well done Marty!

On a completely different note now....I finally got my new quilt rack in-situ!!! (Well, kind of!) Its in the spare room for the time being, as my male cat can get a bit nervy about new things about the house and has been known on a couple occasions to leave his mark on things :(  Eventually it will come out into the bigger room :)

We have also had many Not the Snobs & Slobs get togethers.....

Glenice made a lovely flower embroidered quilt.

 

Claire made a cute quilt for one of her friends newborn baby.

Lorraine completed this beautiful stitchery and applique quilt.

Lynne's Cat Quilt coming off the long-arm :)

Claire yet again with another finished project - her Snowball Quilt.

 We also had a couple of Not The Farmers Wife quilting group too...unfortunately I have not taken many shots of these events :( Other than this one with once again ....Claire with her nearly finished one of her Kim Diehl wall quilts (has since been completed)

 Friday just gone was the latest get together....here is Lorraine with her template....

 ...and showing us how to use it!!!! LOL

 And just to finish off, I must share this cute (well I think it is) pic of Tiger and Rose having dinner together :)

 Hopefully, the next blog will not be as long away as the last one.....

Happy New Year!

Here I sit, listening to the possum aka the elephant with clogs! skimming across our roof!! Sorry, I digress already!! One of my aims for 2013 is to be more up to date with the blog :) Second is to spend more time on myself/family!!!
Since my last post, we have had one of our 'trees' flower and fruit! This is it...anyone have a guess?? Its a banana tree and we have fruit!!!! The garden centre said it would never do that here in South Australia, but there it is...just waiting for the little fingers to ripen now.

 

Had done a bit of sewing towards the end of November - made this Santa 'sack' for a friend interstate.  Sack being the operative word, ended up being bigger than the child it was made for, certainly will last a life time I think!  

Early December and we went off to a volunteer BBQ - don't win many things in my life - but had a lucky guess...and won 1306 M&M's!!!!!!!

Then we had a lazy day...so did the cats!

Went to the opening of a new bra shop (yes you may laugh those that know me personally at this one!)  Michelle is the owner and is called "The Bra Lady", 99c Prospect Rd, Prospect.  So if you are in the area go and see Michelle (professional fitter of over 25 years.)  There is a lovely cafe next door, so makes for a good visit in the area.

As December approached, I thought I had better get some bits and pieces ready for my Christmas gifts - so here is a little forest ready to be placed in the gifts.

 

A lovely little person (along with his parents) arrived from Wales to spend some time in the Land of Oz.  This is Seth - some of you would of seen him on Quilty Gals blog - he is her cute little grandson!

 

Of course he made his debut at the Thursday Crafties! Here we all are with our finished crazy patch waistcoats that we did as a project last year.

Finally!!!! my big San Fran House is finished and wired and lit!!!  Here are some pics - outside the house and viewing through the windows.

The upstairs balcony.

 

The bathroom.

 

   

The study.

Bedroom One.

 

Kitchen. (Maid is peeling prawns for the party!)

The front entrance.

Dining room with the tables laden with food (lighting is pink cos the shades are pink)

 

And of course it Christmas so there has to be a tree and nativity scene! 

There are another couple of rooms, so will post them later when I take a better pic of them :)  Some of them need a couple of bits and pieces in them. 

Then it was on to Christmas Day.... 

as you can see, one of our guests was thoroughly tuckered out after his meal! ( Had nothing to do with the fact he works night shifts and was exhausted...lol) 

 

So this brings me to 2013, and I would like to wish all of you the best for the coming year.  Hope it is a happy, healthy and fulfilled year for you all. xx

A relaxing day....

...but lots of walking for us all. We took a trip to Wallington Hall. Lovely place to walk around. Couldn't decide if I liked the house or the gardens better!Here is the Bumble Bee Stroker at it again!
One of the rooms in the house is full of miniature houses (could be one of the reasons we went there?)
And of course lots of tapestries and cross stitch that was very old was on view too.
Next day was a disaster in the morning --- we toddled off to Holy Island, only to get there to find out it wasn't open till 12pm (yes, we had looked on the web to find out the tide times and opening times but no mention of the opening times on this day). So we trotted back to the village, thinking we would look at the Priory and the Church...guess what? They are owned by English Heritage and they wanted a fee to see each of these things - Holy Island is National Heritage so that would of been another fee. So we said sod off and waited for the bus to take us out to the Castle but that was another fee and we would of had to stand!!!! So we went back to the car - where we had another fee for parking - and headed off to Bamburgh Castle instead!!!!
This is the view of the Farne Islands from Bamburgh Castle. It is not owned by National or English Heritage and apparently never will be.
The gun handle below belongs to an old musket from the 1700's and is inlaid with mother of pearl and is just exquisite.
The curtain was enormous - couldn't get the whole lot in the pic. The pieces are no bigger than half a centimetre and seem to be some sort of felt.
I would say this was the under garment for chain mail - as it is hanging in the armoury room. It is a quilted tunic - very worn to say the least.
Went to visit one of our friends and her new cat Lilly. She is very small and cute !!!Dad and Dave in the bandstand at the local park. This dates back over 110 years.
We took a trip to Birmingham NEC at the weekend. Got a great deal at the hotel. This is the front entrance. Tried talking the concierge into letting me have the light fitting and carpet but he said it wouldn't fit in my bag :(
Sunday was Miniatura!!!!!
Didn't take many pics to put on here of the show, but this one was well and truly worth the share. It is handmade by and English chap. Didn't buy one - didn't have enough money!
This lovely chap was not for sale so was allowed to take a pic~!
Well, off to do the washing now....