New Year's Eve

I've been enjoying my holidays - stitching, scrapbooking, having visitors, going out, shopping, spending time with my family... but I am starting to get a bit fed up with all the eating!

We took our visitors out for the afternoon yesterday, and luckily caught the only bit of sunshine we've seen this summer. We came across this lovely English garden (my favourite style of garden) at Kaitoke Country Gardens.



There was plenty of other pretty scenery, unusual plants and sights to see. Locals might be interested to know that it is free to wander the gardens.



The evening was topped off with a BBQ (more eating!), and this fiery sunset - courtesy of the smoke and ash in the atmosphere from the Australian bushfires. Stay safe if you are reading this from across the Tasman.



I see a lot of bloggers are listing their goals for next year. Mine are, once again, very simple - stitch and enjoy. Although, I am going to add one more for 2007 - count more regularly and more carefully - I've done way too much frogging in recent months.

Finally, I'd like to wish everyone all the best for 2007.

Christmas Eve

It's not long now until Santa arrives... one more sleep to go! Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you all have a lovely day with family and friends, lots of pressies and good food!

I've had a great week with a couple of Christmas dos, my Mum's 60th, an awesome Christmas bonus (which will pay for our flights to Australia next year), and I found the elusive DMC 115!! Yay.



Here's a WIP of 'Lavender Hill' by Little House Needleworks. I'm stitching it on 32 count 'Rose Petals' hand-dyed fabric from Countrystitch. The photo doesn't do the fabric justice, it's very pretty.



I've dabbled in scrapbooking in the past (I'd made a whole 2 pages!), but I think the bug may have finally got me. My younger sister and I have had a scrapbooking weekend this weekend, and I made four pages (here's one below).

My sister has enough scrapbooking stash to start a shop and she doesn't mind sharing. I have a bit of stash too, so I think I've definitely got a new hobby for 2007.



The writing has been blurred out beneath the photo, it just has my Grandad's full name and army number. There are some more photos in myWebshots (in the album titled 'Other Crafts' for anyone who is interesting in scrapbooking.

Merry Christmas!

A day off work

I love summer, there are so many days off work to be enjoyed! Today I've taken annual leave, as it is my Mum's 60th birthday. My sisters and I are going to be surprising her with a day out shopping. She is taking my Dad to a Doctor's appointment and then they are headed to one of her favourite cafes where we'll 'spring' her!

Tonight there is a surprise BBQ for her with some of her older and newer friends. It will be quite a day, considering she thinks she is only out with Dad for a bit and then to what she thinks is just a family BBQ!

Here she is as a sweet wee tot...



Hope you're all having a good week.

Another small finish

Winter's Eve by Country Cottage Needleworks, from this year's issue of JCS Xmas Ornaments magazine.



Hope you're all having a great weekend.

A small finish

Woodland Santa and I have fallen out. I've lost count of the times that I've lost count! I've decided WS and I need some time apart. So, here's a small Christmassy finish. I'm hoping to borrow my Mum's sewing machine to make it into an ornament, maybe I'll catch the ornament bug?



Oh and here was a card that I stitched my Dad for his 65th. It didn't turn out special enough to make into a card, so not wanting to waste the time I'd put into it, I slapped it on the CD cover which holds the movie I made him. (Thanks for the well wishes for my Dad, he's recovering well).



Not long until Christmas now. I am sooo looking forward to the time off work!

Dust storm...

As you can see I haven't got very far with Woodland Santa, but here's a (not very good) piccie of my slow progress.



Things are still busy, and not allowing for much stitching time. Dad has been in hospital, Tess is overnighting at the vets tonight :0( , we've had new ceilings installed (hence the dust storm title of this post, what a lot of cleaning up OH and I have been doing), we've also been tidying up the garden now we've got some good weather (yay!). Oh yeah, and then there's Mum's birthday and Christmas preparations... now summer is here I'm starting to get a bit excited about Xmas.

Last week one of my workmates surprised me with this bunch of roses (a crap photo, they don't do these beauties justice) - just to thank me for my help. Wow, I'm still quite astounded and touched.



Thanks for the comments on my last post. I laughed at Karen's comment 'Look at that hair'... yup, glad I didn't inherit those curls! LOL.

Happy stitching!