Hello again

I'm way behind on the blogging front. Since my last post, there's been some good stuff and a little not-so-good stuff. C'est la vie.  Anyway, here I am again, enjoying life and making stuff.

I'm in two Christmas swaps this year; one on Instagram and Chooky's Secret Santa Christmas Swap, which I am doing for the 5th? year. The sewing mojo disappeared for a while - coincidentally with the appearance of a bad cold and hay fever for me and a bad cold and hay fever AND shingles for Mr LRH following a few days in Canberra - but luckily came back in plenty of time for crafting for Christmas.

Santa delivered my SSCS parcel nice and early - it was from Clare, who blogs at craftladyinkiwiland and contains this gorgeous ornament which will be displayed in my sewing room all year round. It's meticulously (and patiently) stitched on fine linen. And look at the instruction on the parcel's label  "Do not open until 25th December" - do you think she really means it? (I can almost hear Clare and Chooky in chorus : "Yes, she does!" Thank you so much, Clare, I can't wait to open the parcel - but I will, I promise! It's nice to have stitching connections across the ditch; as I've mentioned in a previous post, I was brought up in NZ after moving from Scotland with my mum and dad when I was two years old.

And I enjoyed making for my SSCS partner, who lives somewhere overseas. The parcel I sent was really light but was pretty pricy to send nevertheless; postal charges just seem to go up and up constantly. No doubt I'll be moaning to myself about this again in the next few days when I post parcels to my two brothers in NZ and cards to family and friends overseas.

The Instagram swap was also fun; I made gifts from brightly coloured fabrics (which took me out of my colour comfort zone - not  a bad thing at all) as these seemed to be my secret partner's preference.

Now I'm off to the sewing room to make a drawstring bag for brother number 3 - my brothers are all getting drawstring bags (it's okay, they don't read my blog) and a special coaster each. Choosing the fabrics has been fun - my youngest brother in Auckland enjoys painting, so his bag features paintbrushes; I'm using Melody Miller's wonderful arrow fabric from her Cotton and Steel range for  brother number 3 in Wellington (which doesn't mean he likes archery; I just loved the fabric and I hope he does too) and my brother in Townsville enjoys fishing, so his bag is patterned with - guess what?

But before I go, here's a little stitching-related extra. I live in Ballarat and today is the 160th anniversary of the Eureka Stockade Rebellion. The battle lasted 15 minutes, many of the rebels and several soldiers and police were killed and while the battle didn't go the miners' way, it's regarded as the foundation of Australia's democracy. Representatives of several stitching groups plus community members including little old me painstakingly handstitched a replica of the original flag with its stars of the Southern Cross. It was a very proud moment when I saw  'my' flag flying from a rustic flagpole early this morning at a ceremony at the site of the battle. It was a wonderful thing to be involved in.