On a mission

I am on a mission to claim three more finishes for 2012.

I finished Mr CP's quilt on Christmas Day. I did have to take it back after it was unwrapped as there was still a little bit of binding to hand stitch down.

He seems to like it. I was really happy with how it turned out.

Pictures to come...

I just have to darn in the ends of this colourful eye-spy that I made for the nephew of Harvey's carer.

I love how it's turned out but in hindsight with I'd just done straight line quilting and not the meandering. 

I think I'll make one or something similar for Harvey as he seems to love it.

The design is in Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings book.

This last one is for The Retreat. The fabric was from a Chinese Whispers swap with my aunts. I added some of my own, chopped various widths and added the sashing and I'm really happy with it.

I've already started a baby girl quilt in the same style with girly fabrics....just in case :o)

I decided to try my hand at some free motion flowers. I feel like I've mastered loops and meandering although I still need more practice.

Anywho, some of the flowers turned out really good. 

And some need to be deadhead :o) 

So these two are going to be finished tonight. We are off to a BBQ that will be pretty casual so I plan on plonking myself down the with a cool drink and getting ends darned in and binding sewn down.

Projects-to-be have been swimming around in my head.

I want to finish so old stale ones and I want to get stuck into some new ideas.

Harvey definitely needs a Foxy quilt and obviously the new bubba will need something mummy-made too.

I think I'm feeling urgency to finish some things before bub comes along as I know I'll be in baby fogland for a month or two at least.

Wishing you all a very merry New Years Eve.

See you next year!

Abbe

A semblance of productivity

Thursday nights are bed, chocolate, twitter and One Born Every Minute nights.

I don't watch alone though, I watch with my crafty twitter friends, Jules, Bec, Fi and a few others. We make silly conversation as we watch babies being born. It's fair to say I spend a bit of time squirming these days. I'm 24 weeks now so reality about pushing baby out is setting in....

Last week I managed to get some time in between tweets to start working with my Chicopee fabric.

With a new couch coming to Club CP we are going to need some new cushions and I'm going to mix this with the previous line, Hope Valley. 

I finished the mittens tonight. Just need to sew them up. They aren't perfect but it all adds to my knitting experience.

More enthusiastic eating by the munchkin. 

Hello, what's this? I had a very lucky win after putting my business card in a draw at the Dayview Textiles stand at the AQM. Low and behold a phone call later that day and I was a winner. As soon as my so called friend realised what the phone call was about, she punched me.

Sign of a true friend - not backward at coming forward with her jealousy!

My arm is still sore.....

I'm absolutely stoked with the Jinny Beyer Palette Collection - I have no idea how I am going to use the 150 fat quarters. For the moment it's only for patting and not for taking out, it looks too pretty as it is!

Wishing you productivity and big wins.

Ab x

Crafting weekend - an open invitation

You’re invited!

Come to

‘Chat n Craft’ at The Retreat Woodend

on

Saturday the 12^th and Sunday the 13^th of January

10.00am to 4.00pm

Or make a whole weekend of it and stay at The Retreat.

Bring your crafty projects to work on, some show and tell and your sense of humour, bring a buddy or meet some new crafty mates.

Any type of craft is welcome, if you want to work on it - bring it!

Cost: $50 per day or $150 to stay for the weekend.

Cost includes morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea each day.

Breakfast and dinner are also included if you’re staying.

Goody bags and prizes throughout each day.

Limited places available so contact us now to book.

Contact Abbe on 0412 932 880 or at abbe@theretreatwoodend.com.au

www.theretreatwoodend.com.au

The last few weeks

So for a solid week we felt like this

Which made us do this 

And then even this (but at least there's smiles). 

Fortunately he felt all better so I went off and visited my favourite crafty girl.

She gave me lemons so I made lemon curd and she gave me eggs so I made pav.

That meant we had to do some of this 

That required some of this

Last night we tried a fresh strawberry and yoghurt face mask - it definitely has miracle youthful powers. See? 

In between all of that other stuff I grown more of this



21 weeks

Every now and then I've worked on this for Mr Fox.

So that's the last couple of weeks for me.

Fortunately we're all healthy and happy again and full of yummy pav so life is pretty sweet.

Happy sewing,

Ab x



My kind of Auction

A crafty one!

Many of you know my friend Bianca, those that don't, she's over here.

She's good fun, crafty and a mum to four.

For the last year she and her family having been facing a huge challenge.

Her oldest daughter, Maybelle, was diagnosed with Leukemia just over a year ago.

(Maybelle October 2011 and October 2012)

Maybelle, is still undergoing treatment but so far she is responding well and all things going to plan, will recover and go on to live a full and normal life.

Her wish is to travel to America and see the Ellen DeGeneres show live.

As overseas travel is not covered by the Make a Wish Foundation, Bianca and her crafty co-horts are fundraising.

There is a Facebook Auction starting on Monday the 5th of November.

Bidding will be as simple as leaving your bid in the comment section of that item.

There are over 100 different items to bid on from stunning quilts, fabric bundles, handmade clothes and non-crafty items like MP3 players and hair straighteners.

Something for everyone.

https://www.facebook.com/LetsGetMaybelleToTheEllenShowAuction

Go take a look and think about shopping for Christmas.

Abbe xx

Milling Around

Today I dragged my boys to Bendigo to visit the Bendigo Woollen Mills and Spotlight for a bit of shopping for the stash.

I might have gone a little crazy. 

The woman in the shop was very patient with me and my complete lack of knitting knowledge. 

Actually, her customer service was excellent.

I told her if my knitting fails I'll have a lovely pile of pretty wooly (cotton) balls to display in a nice bowl.

At Spotty, I picked up a couple of patterns.

The Kwik Sew is a cute maternity dress, hopefully I can nut it out and if I like it I'll make a few for summer.

The New Look will be for after baby. I'll be a clothing sewing whiz by then and have lots of spare time with two under two.........

Stop laughing.

I'm also hanging to try sewing with knits so bought this cool black and grey stripe.

We'll see what happens. 

And the kiddo, he got some cars.

Those chairs in the hall?

They are blocking the bathroom and toilet doors to stop him getting in but sadly he's already worked out the barricades :( 

Oh, and that face, that is totally a poo-face.

I should save that for his 21st.

Bwhahahaha

Ab x

A free weekend

Website

Since opening in July, The Retreat Woodend has been wonderfully busy 

and there are only a few weekends available before the end of the year. 

A group has had to postpone until next year so the weekend of 

Friday the 23rd through to the 25th of November is available. 

Accommodation details are on the website or send me an email at

abbe@theretreatwoodend.com.au

Thanks,

Abbe :o)

The Aftermath....

Soooo during my sewing absence the sewing room became a little.....

Messy.

Like a bomb site.

Ridiculous.

Dumping ground.

Scary.

Too hard to deal with. 

After a lazy morning I finally got off my butt and tidied, organised and put away.

Look, you can see the floor!

The current projects are on the bed.

There is still some organising to do but it's a LOT better than it was. 

I even wrote a list of sewing projects to do and hung my lovely mini quilt that Bianca made for me a couple of years ago. 

I completed a block for Mr CP's quilt and played with my Go Cutter circle template.

I think it's fair to say I've been productive today. Finally.

Abbe :o)

A story to tell...

On Saturday the 6th of October, I married my wonderful partner.

Lucky me.

Are you wondering if he's a good catch?

He made the cake. 

The man can cook.

The top layer was white chocolate mud

Middle was lemon.

The huge bottom layer was chocolate with a rich chocolate ganache.

Awesome. 

We didn't get around to 'practicing' our kiss but funnily enough it was one of our sweetest ever. 

I think I scrubbed up okay. 

The most handsome suited dude. 

Aunty Pam and I made the felt bouquets.

I may have got high on the glue gun fumes... 

Check out the garter with the sexy sucky-in undies!!

Jules didn't think I'd be brave enough to publish this picture but hey, it's me.

So I've been absent for the longest time since I've had my blog.

I haven't sewn for nearly three months.

It's not because I've been to busy being Bridezilla.

It's not because I don't love sewing or blogging anymore.

It's because of this....

Baby Fox is due late March.

Unfortunately, I have had horrendous all-day morning sickness and early bleeding that had us fearing miscarriage. That roller-coaster seems to have finished so now it's just the normal pregnancy adventures.

I must say that without my sewing girls, Jules (all of her photos above), Fi and B, my wedding would not have run as smoothly. I'm a lucky girl to have my 'internet friends'.

I'm glad to be back,

Abbe x

Soooo..... where have you been?

I'm submerged in wedding-ness at the moment.

W-Day is approaching fast and the list is looooooong.

I'm so glad for the internet and my unfussy ideas/willingness to compromise/denial.

One day I'll sew again. One day.

Ab x