Lovely Surprise....

Look at what came in the post for me today.....They're coasters from the swap that I joined on Amy's blog a while back... Aren't they GORGEOUS!!! They came tied up with a little bright orange polka dot ribbon to match the orange polka dot fabric that's on the reverse side of each coaster. Thank you so much Shannon, I just love them so much!!!! You can check out some more pic's of them here.

I also had this lovely fabric arrive by surprise with my mail today all the way from Hancock's of Paducah....It's to replace some fabric that I ordered a while back that never arrived... I just assumed that they had forgotten all about it.... What a bonus that they hadn't!!

I whipped up another one of these bib/aprons for my little princess using some Dick and Jane fabric that I bought from here. I couldn't resist buying the fabric when I saw that it was only $4.98 a yard, what a BARGIN!!!!

Jodie from Ric-Rac has posted another fantastic tutorial on her blog. If you haven't seen it yet I recommend that you pop over and check it out. It's for a super quick and easy tote. Here's my attempt at it.....I lined the outside of my bag with PVC.... Where I live you can't even turn around without getting covered in red dirt so I thought that the PVC might save me from having to wash my new little tote quite so often. I put some little felt yo-yo's on either side as I didn't have buttons quite big enough to make the right kind of statement...I got a chance to go to a clearing sale over the weekend. I bought some great old wooden screen doors that I'm going to sand back and lacquer. They will look just perfect on the NEW house that DH and I have bought......

Yes that's right..... DH and I have just purchased 'Darling Downs' station. A 33,000 acre sheep station in Central West NSW. There's a lovely old homestead on the property that I'm dying to renovate. I'm so very excited about the whole thing and promise to tell you all more about it very, very soon..... Until then, Happy Crafting ;)....

Flat Out!!!!

Where has this year gone??? I can't believe it's nearly March already....

I've been so flat out lately, I've been finding myself sewing into the wee hours of the morning just to fit in a bit of crafting time (am I desperate or what???). Where has this new found motivation for sewing come from??? I'm loving it and hope that it doesn't disapear any time soon!! I've sewn up this fifties bib/apron for the little princess.....I love the way it's turned out, the tutorial was super easy!!! Don't you just love the back view??? LOL!!!It has toweling on the reverse side, I just used an old toweling nappy that I had left over from when the little princess was wearing them.... I also whipped up these overalls in some dusty pink mini cord.....
The pattern is New Look 6312... I must admit, I didn't really follow the pattern 100% but I still think that they turned out O.K. and look just like the pattern picture...

The little princess tried them out the other day (hence the brown marks on the knee and chest region) and I've run them through the wash once, not that you can tell!! Lately I'm finding it really hard to remove dirt and grime from play clothes...

I put nappy san in with my washing but it still comes out with horrible stains on it. Could my washing machine need a clean out??? How the #@*! do I do that? If anybody has any old remidies that may be able to help me out I'd love to hear them!!

Early Riser....

For Valentine's day yesterday I set the little princess up with some paint, card stock and an old egg carton... We were determined to tackle this craft idea from A Little Hut. All went well up until we had to cut out the egg carton to form a heart shape. Boy this was HARD!! We did the best we could and ended up with this.....Pretty cute hey??? The back of the heart was coloured in with red pencil by the little princess and had a Valentines Day verse written on it... This will no doubt be the first of many Valentine Day pressy's that she'll make for her Daddy...

With the rest of the card stock that was painted red we cut out heart shapes in all different sizes and scattered them over the table at dinner time.... It looked gorgeous teamed up with a red and white check table cloth. We all sat down to a lovely candle light dinner of Lasagne (daddy's favourite) and salad with homemade chocolate bavarian (also daddy's favourite) for dessert....

How did you spend your Valentines Day???

I got a chance to whip another set of these coasters up this morning...You see, I couldn't sleep and was up at sparrows fart, 4:27am to be exact... The house is sooo peaceful at this time of the day and it was nice watching the sun come up, maybe I should do this more often!! What time do you like to rise out of bed in the morning??

Slow and Steady

I've finally decided to finished off this lap quilt that I started over 5 years ago using all of my scraps...

Being new to the whole quilting process the thought of hand quilting this quilt seemed a little bit daunting!!!! I scrapped up all of my courage and a heap of thread and started stitching away yesterday morning. If I can aim to do an hour before work each day than hopefully this quilt will be knocked over before I know it. After all 'slow and steady' wins the race in the end now doesn't it?? Even though it's been a 5+ year long race!!!! LOLThere's just one problem that I have.... I don't know the correct way to start my thread off.... I've been doing a few loops in the one spot to secure the thread but am scared that this will come unwound once the quilt is washed.... Does anybody have any pointers for me?? Fingers crossed I'm doing it right... :)

TAG.... Your It!!!

I don't know why but I've been putting this off for a couple of weeks now, must be because I'm unsure as of what to write..... Yep, you got it right I've been tagged by Levin and Alaina and must list 7 random facts about myself....Thank you so much ladies, I really enjoy reading both of your blogs and am honoured to of been tagged by you...

So, where do I start????

1 - I think too much!!! I have to write my thoughts down on a piece of paper when I go to bed at night just so I can go to sleep, weird hey??

2 - I mow the lawn exsessively, I don't know why I just do... The sweet smell of the cut grass just does it to me every time!!

3 - I can't resist a bargain even if I'll never use the item, silly I know but mark something down 75% and I'm a sucker and I just gotta have it....

4 - I love eating steamed dim-sims ('golden wok' variety). I could eat them for breakfast lunch and dinner EVERY DAY!!!! They're so delicious...

5 - I LOVE ric-rac!!! I have oodles and oodles of it. I love how it looks sewn into the boarder of things like those pencil rolls that I made....

boy... this is really hard....

6 - My husband is my best friend.... Corney, I know but he really is. I don't know what I'd do without the support and companionship that he gives me each and every day...

7 - I'm addicted to bloglines.... After my sister Abby introduced it to me a couple of weeks back I just can't get enough... It's so much quicker then checking out all of my favourite blogs when only a handful of them have posted... You see it lets you know when each of your favourite blogs have submitted a post. Go check it out if you haven't already it's GREAT!!!

Also the wonderful Cathy has tagged me for the 'You Make My Day Award'... Thankyou Cathy, you have made my day by giving me this award...

Now.... Who will I tag??? There are so many fantastic blogs that I've been reading lately that deserve both of these awards... Here's who's standing out from the crowd at the moment to me....

Tracey

Curly Pops

Miss Marzie

Loniemay

Ibby Bee

I won't be offended if you wish not to participate in this tag ladies but it would be great to find out a bit more about each of you... ;)

Traditions....

One of the traditions we started when my little princess was born was 'EATING PANCAKES' for Shrove Tuesday. Last year we ate pancakes for breaky and this year we went the whole hog and decided to eat them for our main meal at dinner....DH loves jam and cream on his where as little princess and I love maple syrup and cream.... What's your favourite pancake topping??? What traditions do you share with your family?? I'd love to hear all about them... ;)

"Hooked"

I came across a great little pattern the other day for a crochet wash cloth and have been dying to give it a go. So over the weekend while it was raining and I was stuck inside I managed to whip a couple up.... They're made out of 100% cotton which is supposed to be better/softer on your skin then acrylic or 100% wool. If it was destined to be a dishcloth I've been told that the best fibre to use is good quality acrylic. It's supposed to stand up to the scrubbing of the dishes better then cotton. What do you think??

After looking at all of the lovely coasters that people have been making for the swap I couldn't help but make up a little crochet set. I designed this pattern on Friday night after several failed attempts at making a hexagon block. What do you think???I made a set of six coasters out of the 100% Australian Merino Wool I bought back here. My swap partner is from overseas and would just love these coasters.... OH, now to decide which one's I'll send her, maybe I should just send her both sets????

Now that I'm "hooked" on crochet again I decided to whip up a little carry bag to put any projects that I'm working on in. I made this little tote from the 'Bend the Rules Sewing' book by Amy Karol. I swear it only took about 20 minutes and it's fully lined, how greats that??? And yes you're right I used some of the Humpty fabric from here.

I grow all of my veges in a series of old rain water tanks scattered around my yard. This one has some cherry tomatoes in it. They've just gone crazy after all of the rain??? Another thing that has happened to them since the rain is that a grub of some kind has started burrowing inside the tomatoes.... I have heaps of tomato plants scattered around my yard but this is the only one with this grub in/on it.... Does anybody have any pointers as of how to get rid of the little terrors???I also recieved my Winter Quilt from the swap today.... Thankyou so much Tracey I LOVE IT!!!! I'll post some pics later on in the week. Take care...... :)

Hey PESTO......

I couldn't help myself.... I had to make another one of the apron dresses from last post for my little princess, this time in pink.....They're great!!!! Super cool for the hot Summer days that we're having at the moment. I promise a tutorial is on it's way soon.... She loves kicking about with her lambs, can you remember this black one from back here??? So much for her being pure black.... Now she has little white freckles all over her back. Hasn't she grown!!!!Thanks for the great ideas with what to do with all of the basil that I've been growing.... I made a batch of pesto up last night to stir through some pasta, it was DELICIOUS!!!!

It was sooo simple... I just blended 6 tablespoons of grated cheese (I used Cheddar but you could use Parmesan), 2 really big heaped cups of basil leaves, 1/4 cup of roasted cashew nuts (or you could use pine nuts), 2 peeled cloves of garlic, and a teaspoon of salt in a food processor until it was well combined. Then I slowly drizzled the oil in while the food processor was on low speed. I did this until the mixture resembled a nice smooth paste like in the picture below.... Hey Presto we have PESTO......Thanks to the heads up from Randi of I have to say I'll be freezing any extra pesto from now on as it keeps longer in the freezer then the fridge....

DH went on a bit of a shopping spree last week and bought us both 4 wheel motor bikes... A bit spoilt I know!!!! We went for a ride on them last night - SO MUCH FUN!!!!! Have a great weekend everyone..... ;)