I had a "thank you" phone call recently from my friend Lorraine in South Australia. And while it's always lovely to chat to her on the phone or in person, I was a bit puzzled about what she was thanking me for, until she enlightened me. It was such good news - I'd entered a giveaway from Lisa at aspoonfulofsugardesigns.com and guess what - I won! Hooray! And because I tagged her, Loz was a winner too. Double hooray! We were both thrilled to bits. My parcel full of gorgeousness arrived promptly and included a jelly purse frame in my favourite aqua, lace, tape, scissors, thread cards and a charm pack of Lecien Quilter's Basics. Thank you so much, Lisa. By the way, if you haven't come across Lisa's lovely blog yet, do yourself a favour and get reading. It's full of making and baking creativity.
Another lovely blog by another very creative spirit is found at jennyofelefantz.blogspot.com. Jenny creates beautiful designs and runs a monthly stitchery club. One of her latest endeavours was running a needlebook swap using one of the many embroidery designs created for the club. The most diffult task was choosing fabrics, a pattern and a stitchery - so many choices. Choosing the colours was easy, as my American partner, Capi, likes pinks and blues and pretties. It's a direct swap, so it has been really nice for us to get to know each other. We both sent off our parcels in the last few days so now all we have to do is wait (im)patiently for the postie.
The Mister and I are planning a trip to Europe in the middle next year to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary (longer than a life sentence - we know all the jokes!) We want to spend some time with our daughter in China, visit friends in England and my rellies in Scotland, do a bunch of sightseeing there and spend some time in Paris and other parts of France that take our fancy. Since we've only just started looking at travel brochures, we're a bit sketchy on how we'll travel. We don't fancy driving, so we're looking at a combination of rail journeys and river cruises. As retirees, we don't have an unlimited income of course, but we're determined to do at least some of the things we really really want to do. Fingers crossed for not too much arguing during this process!
Despite giving myself a big talking-to the sewjo is still on a go-slow. Not so the fabric-buying habit, unfortunately. I have eclectic tastes and can't resist far too much of what I see online or for real. There may not be much
stitching going on but there sure is a lot of fabric patting! I picked up some very pretty pieces (teacups, roses and the Eiffel Tower) yesterday at my local patchwork shop, Cotton Factory. Alison, the owner, is a lovely lady and very much an enabler - as well as running a terrific online business, she posts pictures of new stock on Instagram - oh, such a trap. The shop is full of gorgeous fabrics and patterns and interesting people. When I popped in yesterday, I got to say hello again to ace designer the gorgeous Sarah Fielke, who was there teaching her "Definition of Stitch" pattern, with all its quirky modern lettering giving a dictionary definition of that thing so many of us like to do. Like me, Sarah's a rugby supporter but while she supports the Wallabies I'm all for the All Blacks across the ditch. I've been in Australia for more than 40 years but I'm still a Kiwi at heart. We've swapped a few comments on Instagram recently and when I said jokingly yesterday that I'd like to make a quilt that said "Go All Blacks!" she immediately replied, "Oh no, sorry, this pattern doesn't work for those words." Love it!
PS: Apologies for the lack of photos - they're on my tablet which is not playing nicely and won't let me upload pics right now. Technology - phooey!
