Needle Books from Tokoroa

My recent sojourn in Australia meant that I have fallen behind somewhat in my contribution to the two needle book groups I am involved with.

By the time I returned there was more than on needle book needing my attention.

After working on this one I was able to mail it on Friday, but I still have needle books in hand.

This is a close up of my work for this block.

I used a hand dyed floral motif and then worked around it with purple sequin flowers, gold beading and french knots in cotton and silk threads.

I also added a row of blanket stitch to the left in variegated silk thread.

Now to the next challenge, I am sure I will catch up - real soon.

Silk Print Creation

A lady contacted me recently about the silk prints I sell on Trade Me.

She wanted a selection of small ones.  A friend had bought some from me and passed some on to her.

I asked her what she did with the silk prints and she said she liked to make greeting cards with them. What a lovely surprise when she sent me one of her cards featuring one of my silk prints.

The card stock she used is a lovely dusty lavender.  She has used gold trim to very good effect.

Even the inside of the card had extra gold work and the image does not show it but the note paper had fancy edging as well.

I felt it was a real privilege that she should have shared her lovely creation inspired by one of my silk prints.

Back to Needle Books

When I put out the call on my blog for people to join in with a needle book round robin a lady called Lynda happened to be searching the internet and found my entry.

She asked if she could join in and this week I have had the pleasure of adding to the embroidery on her block.

My contribution is a gold metallic thread feather stitch bush, some blanket stitching with silk thread and a floral creation that began with a green hand dyed leaf tucked into the seam line.

After a recent sojourn in Australia I am somewhat behind on my commitment to round robins but part of my target for this weekend is to bring them up to date so more postings will be happening.

First touch of winter

We have had a few days of not very nice weather but today the skies cleared and when we opened the curtains this morning there were our mountains with their first real coating of snow for the winter.

Our brother is staying at the moment and he has this theory that to have energy you have to put into your energy bank to draw from it and one of the ways of doing this is to go for daily walks.

Well it was a bit nippy down on the lake front but it certainly was nice to go for a 20 minute walk there this morning and with a top up of coffee to finish it off we did feel energised by the time we came home.

Linda wrote about this on her blog as well and she took far better photos than me so you may like to check her out as well.

Have car - tree will come down

We needed to find space in our garden for two new fruit trees so one tree had to go to make way.

Our brothers were visiting and so they spent quite a bit of the morning chopping away at the roots of the tree.

When they were satisfied they had cut away sufficient roots they attached a rope to the tree and the tow bar on my brother's car.

It took more than one turn but eventually the tree succumbed...........

and they had success!

They look well pleased with their efforts and rightly so.

However, the show must go on and so there is more chopping and hacking before the tree is completely gone.

We look forward to seeing our new fruit trees in place.

Quilts as gifts

A while ago I wrote about winning some lovely orange fabric in a raffle at our quilting group.

My friend from Sydney, Cherie, left a comment to say how much she liked the fabric.

Little did she know that the fabric was destined to be incorporated in a quilt especially for her.

Yesterday I met up with her and was able to give it to her.

From completion I had been coveting it for myself but it really was time to see it move along and go to its new owner.  I am sure Cherie will enjoy having it as part of her possessions.

Sister Linda has also written about this quilt on her blog and she cleverly quilted this for me after I had finished the machine piecing.