End of holidays

A book is a friend

-American proverb.

My holidays have almost come to an end and I can't wait now to get back to work and see what the crew got up to over their time off. I have just been given a pile of material, and naturally had to use the bits up. I have made one side of a banner and am still working on the other side. I will show and tell before it goes to school with me.

I have been knitting of a night time for a wee little person still waiting to be born. How precious babies are.

You might recognise some of the colours.......leftover wool from previous projects. I love them all and I have tried to use colours that go with either sex. What ever is not according will go to another baby that I have just found out is on the way. Never a dull moment in this neck of the woods.

As one of my boys slept in until 10.30am and the other one until 1 pm, I thought I would give my sewing machine a good thrashing. It was fun. I have been needing table cloths and colourful prints to use in the library as displays for different subjects. I found some really nice prints.

Ballooning and sailing.

I have lots of bright coloured letters to pin to the display board and can surround these lovely pieces of material with words that go with the subject. I am really ready to start work!!!!!

I had a little rummage through some of the material stash Ruth had given me and found some bits stitched together already, so I thought a plastic bag holder would come in handy for the library.

 I then thought how great it would be to have a giant sized bag to put.......hmmm.....some of the toys in, that I have made for the library. I may need to make a few more of these so they all fit in. At the end of term I always pack the toys away and at the moment they are in boxes. The bag is almost 2metres wide and I've used up bits of floral materials.

It is about 4.30 in the afternoon and I think it is high time to do some housework....oops!! Well I have just been so busy today...sewing. I'll be back on Friday to join in the Colourful Friday group. Happy sewing to you all.

Kind regards, Anita.

My birthday!

Happiness seems made

to be shared.

-Jean Racine.

I celebrated my birthday during the week and was spoilt big time by my boys. Heather and I went out for a lovely morning tea....lovely tea for two and cheesecake!!! Heather then presented me with a beautiful basket jammed full of goodies.

There was absolutely everything yummy you could think of in that basket. I was really surprised to see buttons in there, as we are both a bit clingy to our buttons. Can't wait to get that wool on my knitting needles.

This would be me and my partner in crime Heather. We have been friends for so many years and knitted miles of jumpers together.

I had a wonderful birthday aside from all the presents. Lovely visits and phone calls from lots of friends and family. Sorry to the people who phoned up to wish me Happy Birthday and I couldn't talk for long. There were people in and out visiting me all day, so I was a bit pressed for time. Thank you for your kind wishes.

Here is a photo I said I would should show you. In a previous posting I showed the Girls Corner banner come wall quilt. Here is the cushion I made out of the leftover material. And the cushion itself is made out of the rows of wadding someone had given me.

I plan to sew some more cushions for the girls corner and at the moment I am stitching the Boys corner banner as well for the boys.

It should make a nice display when I get everything completed.

As I am on holidays I also have found the time for knitting as well. A friend of ours is expecting a baby and I have every excuse to knit as much as I like!!! lol. I have made sure to make blues and pinks and here is what I've made recently.

I am so happy with how this jacket turned out. I just love the fancy collars. The pink jacket also has a cute collar and a herringbone stitch on the top part of the work.

I have only just finished stitching this one up right before my posting, so I haven't stitched on buttons yet. I have to say, I love the old pattern books to knit from.

I just adore this old book and the pages are falling apart everywhere, but I keep it in a plastic folder to make sure I don't lose any of the patterns.

Today I painted our bathroom, with help from Cory. Brandon would've helped but he was still sleeping. Pixie and I are off to the shops soon to see what fixtures can join the new bathroom. Have yourselves a great week and I shall return soon.

Kind regards, Anita.

Girls Corner

The door to wisdom swings

on hinges of common sense

and uncommon thoughts.

Yesterday two of my boys went gokarting, Brandon stayed home with me.......so you all know what that meant.....sewing!! I had been given so much material throughout last year, that I did know what to do with, but was a bit pushed for time. I have managed to hack away at the pile, as I knew I would, and made many fun things for the library, oh and for us at home.

My latest project is a wall hanging made from scraps of girly materials and calico. I have been itching to make two wall quilts, well they're more like banners really. A Girls Corner and a Boys corner, and a display of books that would go well for each gender.

The lettering is done using felt and I wanted the line of letters to be uneven...give it the kid look. I buttonholed the letters and found a leftover flower that I appliqued on and also buttonholed.

The finished work is about 4ft long x 2ft wide. The blocks are roughly 6inches in size and the colours seemed to match together. For the backing I used calico and all I have to do is stitch up the bottom where I pulled the work through.

I did have more of the dark squares left but forgot to take pictures of what I made. I'll show you next posting.

I went for a quick drive this morning to take a photo especially for you to look at, it is one of my childhood haunts.

When we were kids this was like one of the best places to hang out. There were a tribe of us kids that lived up the street, so you can imagine how much fun it was to play here. You might laugh, but this is a sale yard. When I was small there were sheep, cattle, pigs, ducks, chooks and other animals sold here.  They still use this place but usually you will only see sheep being sold here.

The ramp shown here was the most posh and grandest play thing you could have. Only the luckiest kids got to pretend this was their castle. There were a tribe of us kids at any time, so you had to abide by the rules. Many a day I would sook because I wasn't with the group of kids that had the palace!! There were lots of other places to choose from around the grounds. lol.

This building was actually a Butter and bacon company back in about 1918. I wish I could get my hands on a photo of the premises as it was back then. The photo below is the inside and I remember being scared to death of these big pens with slats of wood on the top. What on earth would you hold in there....it must be a monster (I thought as a child).

They were to hold the boars and when I first lay eyes on the size of a boar, I was terrified. I was so glad the tops of the pens had slats of wood. You just can't please some people!! The next photo is of a row of pens (as they are called here)....normal sized ones.

One thing that has been fun is I have been able to share some of my childhood haunts with my boys. I must be honest though, I'd forgotten the smell of sale yards!!! Hey guys, thanks for coming down memory lane with me, it was fun. I love that sort of stuff and I must say...I wonder what things my boys will remember of their own childhood haunts?

Happy sewing to you all.

Kind regards, Anita.

More piratemania.

The great man is he who

does not lose his child's heart.

-Mencius.

I have finally finished my secret project. If you have been following my blog, you will know I have gone pirate mad.......

With all the scraps and bits of material that have been either given to me or from leftover from projects, I have put them together to make the border of this cute parrot/pirate quilt. I was flicking through an older edition of Simply patchwork & stitching (Vol 10. No.2)....

 and found this beaut little wall quilt....right up my alley I must say. So I set off to work and got stuck into it. The finished size is about 12 x 16 inches. My wall quilt is going to the school library to be included in a pirate display and I still have to find a toy pattern to make a parrot.

I have now turned my sights onto another project and have sewn up the pieces.....

Well? What is it you say? Too bad...you have to wait and see what it turns into. Ha Ha. Now I'm scaring my boys to bits as I bought a tin of paint to redo the bathroom and that bright green you can see in the picture above.....I think that is close to the colour of the paint I chose!!!!! I'm busting out you guys!! I will start the painting at the later part of the week.

I've decided to give the bathroom a shake up. To help me out I have gone to the library and taken out two bathroom books to give me some ideas.

I have seen some of the Terence Conran books before and they are full of different ideas. Some you like and some you can do without, but certainly all are very interesting. I rather like looking through the house decorating books, some of the decorating guru's out there are pretty amazing. I am partial to Randy Florke, he is one of those people who can shuffle different pieces of furniture and decorating items together and make a house look a million bucks.

I hope you can take a minute to say a prayer or have a thought about those people over in Queensland who are suffering at the hands of Mother Nature and all the flooding. To my blogging friends who have been affected by the floods, my thoughts are with you.

Kind regards, Anita.

Pirate Mad!!

In Charity there

is no excess.

-Francis Bacon.

For me, Sunday is the best day to play catch up. Some of those jobs that I've been plugging away at have been completed. I've been able to keep the housework down to a dull roar, peace and tranquility is with us and all is going well. I had the chance to finish my pirate flag today!! I'm so excited, I've gone mad I'm sure.

I have no pattern for this at all. Simply getting an idea of skulls and bones and away I went. The black material is just some fleece that was laying around, the white skull and bone is from leftover white linen and of course I found some other black material later and that went on the back. Buttonhole stitch around the white material and there we have a pirate flag.

I have threaded through some rope on the lefthand side and I haven't tried to fly it at all, the neighbours might become concerned, if they're not already!!!!! I've always had a thing about pirates but I think the movie Pirates of the Carribean might've set me off again.

On the knitting front, I have been in baby mode and couldn't resist knitting up some little items for King Edward Memorial hospital in our state. The hospital specializes in premature babies. I often knit for them.  Check out these tiny boots. The pink ones across the foot measure about 1and a half inches. Tiny!!

I just have to make the cord to run through the eyelets and they're done. Oh I also found some big pieces of material in the scrap bag and have made a couple more tableclothes for my library displays for work.

There's no rest for the wicked really!! I have started on another project that I will give you a sneak peak of......

I wonder what this is??!! lol. I am going to start on the buttonhole stitching as soon as I finish my post.

I've really had the most wonderful week, enjoying my three darling's on holidays. Tormenting my husband (the best fun) and celebrating Heather's birthday. this week Heather and I went out for morning tea to celebrate her birthday....the trouble we had finding a cafe that was open, not full of people etc, was unreal. Finally we found a special place and sat our weary bones down to a lovely cup of tea. Of course we needed to have lots of tea because we talked so much there was smoke coming off our tongues!! lol. I hope you enjoyed your birthday Heather.

Enjoy the new week ahead and happy stitching to you all. Kind regards, Anita.

My latest project.

Hope is the

parent of faith.

-Cyrus Augustus Bartol.

The New Year has been such a relaxing time for us

at home. Lots of sleepy mornings, swimming on hot days

and fun things like being together. The mornings are

fairly quiet with two teenagers nicely sleeping in until later in the day. That quiet time has given me the opportunity to get some housework out of the way and some sewing done before anyone opens their little peepers.

My latest project, one that I have really enjoyed, is now finished. Here they are....

Aren't they fun? I had seen them made years ago and have since made many myself. They are little brooches. I have made them before with Christmas material and given them as gifts to people. The original doll had arms and legs made from buttons. I have made them with buttons before, but then I had later seen them made with beads. I rather like the beads, as I found you would use lots of buttons per doll. So if you were just using what you already had in your stash, you would need about 36 buttons all of the same size. That is a bit tricky to do. The beads on the other hand seemed easier.

As you can see there are many of them. Each of the girls has a pair of knickers on and dresses are made from those strips of material that are just laying around. The faces have just been drawn on using fabric pens. And the cute hair is embroidery thread. You could really use whatever you have on hand. A small safety pin will be added to the back of dolly and away she goes.

I'm thinking they will be donated to the school P & C for their Mother's Day stall....if there is one this year. I have also knitted up some prem baby bootees but the photo didn't turn out very well. I will show them next time.

Well I'm so out of here now, I'm fishing through my bag of scraps to see what's next on the menu. Hmm I think some boys look like they could use some food. Might make a cup of tea now for myself.

Cheers everyone and take care.

Kind regards, Anita.

Sending my prayers

Peace is

always beautiful.

-Walt Whitman.

Welcome to 2011 to all out there and I hope you had a lovely New Year. I almost made it to midnight but my eyes decided to check out the back of my eyelids.....zzzzzzz snore, snore. Oh well, the next day was as special just the same. I haven't let go of Christmas yet and am still making Christmassy things with left over material. A friend let me use her pattern to make this lovely fellow.....

I'm afraid this was the best photo I could get, all the other photo's were very blurry. I'm a great photographer.

Oh look there's a bit more of him. I love his antler's. I will be making some of my angel dolls in the next few days, an attempt to use up those scraps of material I can't throw out. I have also sewn up a dinosaur tablecloth, but forgot to take some pics. I will have to dig it out and take a shot of it to show you.

Again, I don't seem to be able to put those knitting needles down. It doesn't help when friends decide to start a family and know you're a knitting addict!!! lol. I found some beautiful baby wool in 4 ply, a lovely mix of blue, white and mauve throughout the ball of wool.

There were about 222 stitches on the needle at one time, as the body of the jacket is knitted all in one. Which didn't worry me a bit because one thing about knitting that I'm not real fussed on is stitching it up when you finish. The pattern itself was so easy to do, incredibly, it does look complicated, but it really isn't. I love the collar, that was also done in the pattern instead of just plain stitch.

I haven't put the buttons on yet but will do so in the next few days. Right now I'm prowling around the house for another pattern to knit....a girl jacket this time. Pixie asked me today if I was looking for another pattern to knit.....it must be the stalking movements I do and he knows the signs!!!! It is awful if I finish a project at 9 in the nighttime. I have to have another pattern ready to start.....I think that's when my husband goes to bed, to keep out of the way. No, actually he just laughs.

My precious Heather was no help to me today either. She came over for morning tea and clutched under her armpits were some knitting books she had found from the library.

This book is devine. I love the pink baby pattern on the cover. It is knitted in cotton so I will make this outfit, but not just yet. I need to find a 4 ply pattern to use up this wool I have right now.



I also found this treasure of a book at the library last visit. It has some great ideas and is nice to look at, with a hot cup of tea.

Make sure you take advantage of your library, if they don't have the book you want, they can always order it in for you. It's a good way to check out a book before you buy it.

Before I take off I would just like to send my prayers and wishes to all those people being affected by the flooding over in Queensland and the east side of Australia. There has been so much televised about the flooding, many people have lost their belongings and pets. My thoughts are with you all. Take care everyone, each day is special. Kind regards, Anita.