A great new year so far!

Belated New Year greetings, everyone; do hope your year so far is progressing happily. Mine is; I am still half on holiday (still a few weeks to go before my second job at a primary school recommences for the year) so am enjoying the residual feelings of well-being and relaxation from my Christmas holiday break. My husband and I (sorry, sounding like the Queen here; I could do the white-glove wave if you insist...) spent the first week or so travelling around - a night in a cottage in Coonawarra, South Australia - 3 nights by the beach in Robe, SA - 2 nights in boiling-hot-but-good-anyway Mildura and 2 nights in Melbourne. The latter was a bit of an extravagance as we live only just over an hour away from the city, but it was so nice to walk about and mooch and catch trams and just do whatever. Yesterday we went to a festival at a very picturesque lavender farm, but the Big Ballarat Blog Meet to meet UK blogger Trashalou has been the highlight so far. Jodie (vintage Ric-Rac) arranged the get-together with bloggers from near and far coming together to meet each other and swap stories and ideas and food and sit under the big trees in Eureka Park and generally have a great time. Jodie is so brave; she invited us back to her place for hot drinks and cake and more chat and it was all great. If you want to see pics, you'll have to try other blogs; not only did I forget to take the camera out, but I still haven't got the hang of posting pics yet. We met first at Ballarat Patchwork; apart from door prizes and bits from Emma's grandmother's stash, we all came away with new bits and pieces. I am trying to be braver with colour this year and bought 2 nice bright fat quarters, Heather Bailey's new fruit pincushion pattern and the shop's own pattern for a pot mitt and pot holder. I'm happy to say the pear pincushion from the pattern is progressing nicely and is NOT doomed to become a UFO.
Happy stitching!

Thank you, and PIF partners

Thank you all so much for welcoming me so warmly to blogland! I am really so pleased to be part of such a great community. And I now have two PIF partners - Julie of Bush Baby Jag and Working Mom Knits in the US; isn't that great! There's still room for one more - you know the score; you sign up for my PIF adventure; I make and send your gift within 365 days and each of you sends out a message asking for your own three partners, and so the home-made happiness rolls on. What a great thing to be involved in. Hope you have all had a great weekend. Enjoy your week.

How exciting, I have had a response to my request for 3 people to be my PIF partners. Thank you, Julie from Bush Baby Jag! I will get crafting after Christmas. There's still room for two more. Hope everyone has a lovely week.

I have just signed up with Shelley of Angels Come to Play for my very first PIF! How exciting is that! So now I would like to hear from 3 lovely people who would like to receive a handmade gift from me within the next 365 days, and are prepared to do their own Pay It Forward to keep the handmade happiness rolling.

Here at last!

After sharing - and enjoying - so many others' bloggy worlds, I thought it was high time I joined such great company. Nothing much to say or show in this first post, but at least I've made the first move!