Late to the party

I dropped in briefly to Chooky's  party at the weekend but it was soon obvious that for this little red hen sewing just wasn't  going to happen. I've been out of action with the worst cold I've ever had - the unwanted souvenir of my recent and very wonderful trip overseas - and even the small effort required to put a few hexies together was beyond me.

Yesterday was a different story though - the hacking cough has disappeared and the energy levels were up and I found myself at the sewing machine thinking "I wonder if I can do this?" Among the (untouched) projects prepared for stitching during the trip was this little piece to be appliquéd in hand blanket stitch. With some trepidation - because I haven't  tried it before - I began raw-edge appliqueing  by machine and yes! It worked!  So sometime soon my little cuppa will become a mini quilt. Next up will be putting together  the hexies as a rosette to decorate a covered hanger, one of the project in Lisa Cox  new book A Spoonful of Sugar. I follow Lisa's blog of the same name; she  has such pretty projects to share and her book is just delightful.

The book is among the recent happy mail received lately - birthday gifts from my three brothers, a pretty Liberty purchase and another good book - Krista Fleckenstein's Beyond Cotton, with lots of detail on printing and stamping your own fabrics.  A few years ago  a couple of friends and I had a hugely enjoyable fabric stamping day with lovely Leslie of Maze & Vale and while I haven't  done any more since that day I'm  keen to get going again.

For the past few months  I've been taking part in a series of No Fuss Swaps organised by stitchy friends in Queensland. They're  the simplest, easiest  fun swaps - the photo shows what I happily  received from Christine  in the Kitchen Kapers swap (minus the giant homemade Anzac biscuit, which was delicious - thank you very much, Christine). I'm running a bit late with mine so will have to rug up tomorrow   and go shopping for the tea towel, biscuit cutter and special biscuit and choose a favourite  recipe to send to my partner.

Apologies for the dismal quality of the photos by the way - the camera on my tablet isn't playing nicely right now.