FNSI & IHSW August Update

Friday Night Sew In (FNSI).... held on the third Friday of every month - hosted by Wendy from Sugarlane Designs.

Friday night saw me putting in the last of the back stitches on my Santa Claus.... You haven't seen him yet as I only started stitching him in the last few days and now he is finished!! Yippee :o) Amazing what a cold, wet couple of days in front of the telly can do for your stitching progress!!

August 2015

This little cute Aussie Santa and mates is my August choice for the Christmas Ornie SAL 2015.  Another task ticked off the list!!  The design is from the Cross Stitch Crazy magazine (issue #171) and is designed by Jenny Barton.  There were a number of Santas from around the world but the Aussie one tickled my Christmas funny bone!!  (I was toying with the idea of putting a red dot in the middle of the spider for the classic Aussie Red Back Spider.... but I don't think it would have worked!) 

If you think he looks a bit strange.... I stitched him on plastic canvas, then trimmed it down before gluing on some felt to the back of him yesterday morning.  I still have to trim the felt down a bit but I will do that later in the week once I am happy that everything is well stuck!

If you want to have a look at who else joined in for Friday Night Stitch In, head over to Wendy's blog (Sugarlane Designs) for sign-up links.

International Hermit & Stitch Weekend (IHSW).... held on the third weekend (Fri - Sun) of every month - hosted by Joyce (Random Ramblings).

This month saw Joyce have a two part IHSW!  Part 1 was last weekend and....  this weekend was Part 2!

My plan for the weekend was to yet again stitch on "Halloween Sneak Peek" by The Trilogy.  As the month draws to a close I need to finish my "Black Cat" for the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog.

When you last saw this piece I had just finished the "Haunted House" for last month's Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog post:

July 2015

Over the weekend I managed to get 2 box borders finished and 3 sides of the "Black Cat" one stitched.

Tonight I will get that last side stitched and then start on the cat and with a bit of luck by the end of the week I will have the black cat ticked off the To-Do stitching list!

If you are wondering what everyone else did over the weekend, drop on over to Joyce's blog and have a look at sign up post for a full list of who was participating.

So that is it for my stitching weekend....

Now before I go.... I have a quick update on some stitching that I have now started doing for "The Alphabet Club" posts.  August was our first month of posting and but I failed to show a stitching piece... but I can sort of fix that now!!

I have decided to stitch an afghan using the gorgeous ABC cats from Les Brodeuses Parisiennes.  I have admired the designs from this French designer for a long time and finally got up the nerve to place an order.... (and it ended up being a rather large one at that.... Euro to Aussie Dollar is not kind!  I wish I had thought to go to their shop when we were Paris a couple of years ago....) I just love Parisienne / French inspired stitching.... ooh la la!! ♥♥♥

I still have a little bit more of the "A" cat to go before starting "B" but I had to put this down for a while to concentrate on other stitchy things.  I must say stitching on the very soft afghan material is going to be quite challenging I think!!

That's it for today... see you again soon!

Enjoy your week, happy stitching
Hugs xx

New SAL Blogs on the block!

Morning!

Just a quick post this morning before I head off to the Dentist for more root canal work on my pesky tooth.... what a way to start a Monday morning, hey?!?

I wanted to mention some SAL blogs that have recently been set up by Kaye (Kitten Stitching).

I have mentioned this one before, but it is so good I just have to mentioned it again!!
If you like Christmas stitching and want to join in on the fun of having a monthly theme to stitch to, then why not come over to the Christmas Ornie SAL blog.  This blog is the sister of the Hallowe'en Ornie SAL blog...

If you love to stitch the gorgeous Prairie Schooler designs then you will want to go over and join in on this blog.  Kaye set this one up after hearing about the PS team's imminent retirement....  The link to the Prairie Schooler SAL blog is here...

As is often the case, I am late to the Prairie Schooler party... but hopefully by joining this blog I will finally have the motivation (kick up the butt) to stitch some of their designs!

So not content with the first two great blog ideas... Kaye then set up a SAL blog for those of us that love to stitch Red, White and Blue designs... Americana / Patriotic designs, and so the Americana SAL Blog was born... link is here.

Love the design that Kaye stitched and then used for the blog logo... it is just gorgeous!

And finally for the last SAL Blog Kaye joined forces with KimM (Wisdom with Needle and Thread) to set up Tudor Tuesdays SAL.  The girls have a FB page for all things Tudor and now they have gone one step further and set up a blog page!  Link to the Tudor Tuesday SAL blog is here

Please pop into the new SAL blogs and say hello.... and if you have a mind to sign up contact Kaye and join in with all the new blog fun on the block!!

Have a great week....

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx

Gifted Gorgeousness SAL 2015 - Update #8

Goodness me where is the time going..... here we are again - it's the middle of the month and it's time for my Gifted Gorgeousness post for the month.

This month I have one of my original GG designs that I have slowly been stitching on and I also have 2 gifts to show you.  First up is:

Lizzie Kate - Joyeux Noel 
Giveaway win from Kay's Random World - link to Kay's original giveaway post here and link to my post about the giveaway win is here

Tiny Tidings XV - Lizzie Kate

The last time that you saw 'Joyeux Noel" was in the June update when it looked like this:

After a couple of hours of stitching the other night it now looks like this:

Almost finished.....

Gift Number 1
The first stitching gift that I have to show you is a Margaret Sherry design that I stitched for the "Send a Smile" Exchange on the MS Lovers Blog.

Mouse... designed by Margaret Sherry

This gorgeous little mouse was a freebie gift from Cross Stitch Crazy.  I painted and stamped the frame and then coloured in the stamped image.  The little cutie then went off to the Netherlands.  Angel's post is up on the MS Lovers Blog if you would like to see what else I sent to her.

Gift Number 2
A couple of months ago the lovely Anne, from Doll's Musings, became a Mum!  Her delightful bundle of joy arrived safe and sound and I finally got my act into gear and sent her the little Koala that I started as part of the Crazy January stitching I was doing.

This little Koala was designed by Carrol Nielsen and came from a larger design of delightful Koala's and gum leaves.  I just love Carrol's designs... they are so cute!

Koala - designed by Carrol Nielsen

So that's it for another GG post.... goodness it feels good to be able show a couple of finishes!!

Don't forget to visit Jo's blog for the link ups to everyone's GG post for the month!

Til next time, happy stitching
Hugs xx 

If you're not sure what this particular SAL is all about.... Jo from Serendipitous Stitching hosts this SAL - the link to my post late last year about the SAL is here.... but essentially this SAL is about stitching charts/kits or using fabrics & threads that we have received as gifts, won in giveaways or anything that is intended be a gift or giveaway prize... or anything else that you can loosely use the word "gift" for!!  If you wish to sign up for this SAL, click on the button below or the button on my sidebar and you will be re-directed to Jo's blog.

TUSAL August 2015

Quick post for this afternoon.....

Here are my lovely ORT's for August - when I took the photo yesterday morning we had the most delightful sun shining outside - almost a Spring day!  I am so hanging out for Summer!

As you can see in my photo the small suitcase of ORT's is hanging out with the gorgeous purple South African Daisies or if you want to use their botannical name...  Osteospermum.  I just love these beautiful flowers - they are so easy to grow and are happy being ignored!  And of course this particular variety is purple - which is probably my most favourite colour of all time!

I will be back again soon with my GG post... I even have a couple of finishes to show you!!

Catch you next new moon with some more pretty ORT's! Happy stitching...

Hugs xx

*********************

If you don't know (or haven't heard) about the 2015 TUSAL, Daffycat is again hosting the fun Totally Useless SAL (TUSAL).  Essentially we stitch and save our ORT's (Old Raggety Threads) and every New Moon those of us participating in the TUSAL post a picture of our ORT's jar, and then leave little msgs for Daffycat on her blog to show that we have been stitching and have posted our wonderful pics.  Please head over to her sign up page and join in the fun!

New Moons - 2015
13th September
13th October
11th November
11th December

The Alphabet Club - Detention for Letter "A"

"They only met online, but it changed their lives forever"

Today is Saturday 1st August (and the first Saturday of the month).... 

which means today is posting day for

"The Alphabet Club" (TAC)

Over the coming 26 months (oh my goodness.... that is a long time isn't it?), I will try and introduce you to some typically Aussie words and sayings (commonly called strine or slang), and who knows there may even be some stitching to show!

So pull up a pew, grab a cuppa and an Anzac biccie, take the weight off for awhile and have a squizz at my post all about the letter "A" :o)

So where do I start... well, let's start with the obvious "A" - Aussie (pron. Ozzie) - Australian!  Yep, that's me - one good old fashioned Aussie Sheila writing about some great Australiana!

Let's try these ones on for size.....

Ace!: Excellent! Very good!
Aerial pingpong: Australian Rules football
Amber fluid/nectar: beer
Ankle biter: small child
Arvo: afternoon
Aussie salute: brushing away flies with the hand

One of my favourite sayings is "Act your age not your shoe size".....  and then of course there is always the saying "Away with the pixies" which as a young 'un would have described me - I was often away in my own world snuggled up with a book and tuning out everything and everyone around me! Nothing's changed actually, I still do it now....

Probably one of the best known Aussie acronyms would be ANZAC.  The acronym ANZAC was coined in 1915 when Australian and New Zealand troops were training in Egypt. The word ANZAC was eventually applied to all Australian and New Zealand soldiers in World War 1. The term is particularly associated with the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915.  The ANZAC biscuit came about as a way to send food to the soldiers that wouldn't spoil before it arrived at its destination.  The recipe for the Soldier's Biscuits was based on a Scottish recipe (or so I believe) and was dubbed the ANZAC biscuit after the landing at Gallipoli.  The biscuits would be sent in a tin, often the "Billy Tea" tin, to keep them fresh.

For those that might be interested I have added a recipe for the scrummy ANZAC biscuit below:

ANZAC Biscuits
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 (three-quarters) cup coconut
125g (4 oz) butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup
½ (half) teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon boiling water
Combine oats, sifted flour, sugar and coconut.
Combine butter and golden syrup, stir over gentle heat until melted.
Mix soda with boiling water, add to melted butter mixture, stir into dry ingredients.
Take teaspoonfuls of mixture and place on lightly greased oven trays; allow room for spreading.
Cook in slow oven (150°C or 300°F) for 20 minutes.
Loosen while still warm, then cool on trays.
Makes about 35.

I had planned to try and stitch a Letter "A" for this first post... but as usual the best laid plans of mice and men, and me just didn't come off!  So instead of getting an "A" for this post I probably deserve an "F"!

If you would like to join in the fun of "The Alphabet Club", pop over to Chiara's blog (The Grey Tail) to see what all the fun is about and link up your for post for the Letter "A".

See you next next month when it will be Detention for the Letter "B".

Hoo roo from me....
Hugs xx