Happy holidays....

This weekend has been a really fun one ...... we started our annual holidays last Friday... well my DH did...  you don't get annual leave when you're housewife..... lol.... we always try and have a long weekend or at least a day or two in Feb because it is our wedding anniversary on the 18th and this year he hopes to take two weeks..... so we have headed out in our boat ....

Saturday we went to the local farmers market and bought some sour dough bread.... homemade of course and some home grown vegies and fruit, if we were going home that day we would have had three new chooks but you can't take chooks on a boat now can you...... can't see why not ....lol....


Then we cruised over to Metung and had a long slow lunch at the pub, sorry no pics but it was delish, the food always tastes better when your sitting on a verandah looking out over the water.... so spoilt....

After lunch we travelled around to our favourite spot....

the Barrier Landing and lazed around the rest of the day fishing and sewing..... we all know who was doing what.....

I was sewing of course......and before anyone asks we celebrated 34 years.... and yes they have been 34 great years, I wouldn't change any of them.....

Some lovely gifts....

Some Christmas gift pictures at last...... 

my dear friend Melissa (no blog) gave me this gorgeous Sue Spargo kit...

the fabric and trims are so colourful and rich...

can't wait to start this one........

My friend Sharon (no blog) gave me this beautiful cross-stitch sampler ....... which she suggested I start on January 1st..... as if I had nothing else to sew...lol...

complete with fabric and threads and a needle - all ready to go......

the linen is a lovely rich dark green and the threads are silk.....

of course I had to start it on the first day of 2012....

the thread was so lovely to use, I can see myself actually finishing this one ......

Sharon has the idea that I should have it done by 2013.... we'll see.....

I have also been stitching this little cutie over the past month.....

another gift from Sharon and (another no blogger) Helen back in 2005...

It looks really sweet with those special little ceramic buttons on it, I am planning on getting it framed.

It is a great feeling ticking another project off my ufo list!!

Have dusted off my Christmas tin so I can cart around my next project...

a Christmas project of course....

finally getting to stitch my "Tis the season" stitchery....

Way way behind the girls in the stitch-a-long group, most of them finished theirs last year as we were meant to, I figure better late than never......

Promising start to 2012.

Happy New Year everyone! What a great start to the year I've had...
we've (hubby & I) cleaned out the shed, taken a huge load to the tip....
 I have pulled everything out of my linen cupboard and put most of it back all neat and tidy... it looks so good...strange how you get excited about a tidy cupboard but thats me??
the bedroom downstairs is ready for visitors and I have even had time to do some sewing, I will post some pics soon about what I'm working on....
 First I will show you what I made for the "B" gift for our sewing/embroidery group......

a Blue Block roll with a BlueBird in a Birdcage......

now as it turned out the lady that got this pressie was my mum who was very excited because it was something that she needed.... 

the other exciting sewing news I have is a bit belated.... I could have shown you this back in mid December but I didn't have any pics or time to actually post about it ......

I have finished piecing my Gardener's Journal .......sorry about the photos I will try and get a better picture of the whole top, if you pop over to the stitch-a-long blog you will see more photos.....

Merry Christmas all my blogging and stitching friends, I hope you all had a wonderful day.

We had eleven for Christmas lunch with turkey, ham, pork and crayfish and the traditional accompaniments including a delicious steamed plum pudding and homemade ice-cream all very nice.
     Then we packed a few clothes, all the left-overs from lunch and a couple of bottles of bubbly and headed down to our boat with Kate (dd2) and spent a relaxing Christmas night watching a really spectacular electrical storm before falling into bed.

     Early in December my embroidery/stitching group had a Christmas night where we all brought a present, handmade that started with 'B', I was very lucky and received this absolutely gorgeous gift....

a Bed for my scissors.... very cute....

the sweet little verse says...

Needle and thread, needle and thread, when starlight fades I lay them to bed...

it turned out that my dear sewing friend Melissa made it, so that made it just a little bit more special...

I will post what I made very soon...

Holidays & stitching...

Okay.... back in October we went to Cairns to stay with hubby's brother & his wife in their new house...

the house was gorgeous, very comfortable and luxurious... we had a lovely weekend with lots of bubbly and swimming in the pool... it was really hot......
the other highlight of the weekend was going fishing and staying overnight on the reef...... I caught a yellow fin tuna (no pics) first big fish offshore so I was excited, Cindy - skippers wife caught a red emperor.....

the ocean was very kind to us that day.... dead calm....beautiful......

We picked up Victoria and Karl (dd1 & fiance) at the airport on our way home and they stayed for a few days before going back to Mount Maunganui.....

Then a few weeks later we flew over to meet Karl's family and see his hometown.....

Mount Maunganui...... 

Here we are after a walk around the base of Mt Maunganui with Janet & Paul... Karl's mum & stepdad..... really lovely people...... 

We had hiked to the top of the Mount the day before.....

 a magnificent view of the town from the top.......

We had a bbq at Karl's dad & stepmums' house with his sister, her hubby & kids and his stepsister, that was a fun afternoon too..... didn't get any pics....

so with all my travels I have been able to get heaps of stitching done on my GJ........

and I am on my last four stitcheries.....

GJ progress.

Look what's been happening in my upstairs sewing room this week......

Yep thanks to those sal girls I've got my a*** into gear and been madly piecing my Gardeners Journal blocks and they are looking good!  

Heading to Cairns tomorrow for a few days so hopefully I will get some blocks finished next week.... 

What's in a Name!!

       What's in a name?? well for my blog title it was an obvious choice.... My Upstairs Sewing Room is where I spend most of my time sewing,
although I have been known to sew almost anywhere in the house, I have a floor lamp and my chair in the lounge so I can sew at night while DH & I watch tv together.... I sew at my dining table when I have stitching friends over for a sewing day...... I really love stitching outside in my garden when the weather is kind..... I don't leave the house without a little bag of hand sewing to sew in the car or to take with me when we go boating...... still trying to figure out how to sew & drive at the same time....lol.... oops getting carried away !!!
My sewing is upstairs which is great because it is out of sight so only very lucky people get to see the mess  way I have it laid out with my machine set up ready to go all the time, a huge cutting mat - great to work on.... a bookcase with all my P & Q magazines & books, embroidery books all nice & handy... nice big cupboard & drawers for storage; perfect in all ways.
It has been lovely reading about how peoples blog titles came about, thanks Dawn for asking the question..... now guess where I am taking a coffee for an hour or so.....