Back in February I won a draw on Nic's blog Down by the Creek creatingbythecreek.blogspot.com for her 2nd year anniversary and a few days later a very special little parcel arrived, inside was Mabel Monkey and her own bag of bananas, we shared the bananas and they were delish..........

she was quick to hop in the fruit basket to see if there were any more bananas,

She was very excited to meet Lizzie and had to sit nice and close while I stitched the binding on my wall-hanging.......

Mabel then had to play with the "Barbie wardrobe" that came with Lizzie...... yes I am a Barbie fan..... vintage of course......

This weekend my DH went on a boy's weekend fishing..... yes.....oh yes...... of course I did miss him and he came home with a good catch of Snapper and a Gummy.... yum yum...... so I was able to sew to my hearts content and I finished this cute bag... it will hold another sewing project .....

Mabel wanted to help show off my new sewing bag.... cute.....

it hangs nicely on my cupboard door

and I finished my Christmas Cheer wall-hanging at last, here it is already for next Christmas..... so now I can put two finishes on my list...hurray...

Now on to my April project, no pics yet.....

Hi everyone, yes I know I have not blogged for a week or two.... the time just seems to vanish .......it would help if I stayed home......
back in Feb I went to the Aust Quilt convention with my SIL and two girlfriends we stayed overnight so we got to go on Thursday and Friday which was really good planning..... the quilts on display were really inspiring.... the work that has gone into some of them was mind boggling ....how do they do them?? and of course we shopped and shopped..... but the highlight of the whole show was spotting Christine from Aunties Quaint Quilts .... I knew she was going to be there and I reconised her from a photo I saw on another blog ...... she was there with her sister, Kath, they were lovely girls it was so nice to meet in person after we had spent so much time reading each others blogs..... Another highlight was I purchased a new sewing machine I hadn't planned to I just wanted to look but they offered show special prices and I couldn't resist so now I am the proud owner of a Bernina Aurora 440 QE I had to wait a week or two before I picked it up. So I had to have a big tidy up (again) in my sewing room .... had to pack up my dear old Elna ...felt quite sad because we had been sewing together for the last 20 years but my girls will enjoy her.
I picked up "Lizzie" (short for Elizabeth- QE.... hehe ) last Wednesday, she looks so beautiful in my sewing room..... so now I should get some serious sewing done.....lol... better get the camera out and take some pics to show you.

This is a quick post to show those of you who are doubting my ability to finish anything at all that over the years I have achieved some finishes..... this is a Christmas quilt from a Nancy Martin pattern in one of her beautiful "coffee table" books and my Santa bear... I didn't make the reindeer...... but I did arrange the flowers...he he he..

some quilting friends each made a star for this wall-hanging from the Little Quilts Book....one of my favourites.... and my "o' Christmas tree" cushion, again though I didn't make the reindeer..

And my pride and joy.... "the Spirit of Christmas" cross-stitch, this is one of my most cherished projects......

After spending much of this week thinking and crying about these bushfire victims I have not done much other than try and do things that may help... and I still feel miserable and unhelpful....
I need to get my life back in order because me being sad doesn't help anyone at all... so this weekend we are going to stay with BIL and his wife on the south coast of NSW as we did a few weeks ago... it was really lovely and we can't wait to go back there.
Then next week it is our wedding anniversary on the 18th, can you believe 31 years and we are still happy :) every year we try to go away for our special day...... we leave Monday and will be back on Sunday, didn't think we'd be doing it this year thought dh would have to work but he has got time off... we are heading to our favourite destination.... our boat and we will spend lots of time relaxing, swimming, fishing, stitching, reading, eating and a few glasses of bubbly to celebrate.....

Hi everyone, I tried to write a post yesterday but I just couldn't... today I feel quite ga ga, quite stunned... on Saturday it was very hot again I thought oh great another 43.c day, our airconditioner still isn't fixed ... it's okay I'll do what I did last week and sit under the fan and read a few blogs with a cold drink yes even too hot to sew..... I read Granny Loz "deja' vu" post mid afternoon and thought same for me, I was going to comment on it when I noticed a lot of smoke outside.....decided to turn the radio on and heard about all these fires and they were telling people in certain areas to activate their fireplan.... our area was one of those places.... then the wind got up and I thought s**t what the hell is a fire plan.... where we live I have always felt very safe and thought it totally unnecessary to have a fire plan, we have houses and green paddocks all around us and no bush maybe a little along the river which is across two paddocks away... we have pine plantations a few kms away but after seeing this horrific wind and heat I am now rethinkng my fire plan. As it turned out the wind changed direction and we weren't in any danger but then it rained and now everything outside is filthy and black, our new outdoor setting is putrid and it is undercover, the cars also undercover.. black, the house, the windows...can't see out of them, our spa looks more like a billabong, even Archie isn't a golden retriever anymore he is dirty grey and of course you have to use soapy water to clean it all so we have a big cleanup ahead of us,
BUT at least we have something to clean and we are all safe.... not like so many poor poor people who have lost loved ones, friends, neighbours, their pets, livestock, their homes, even their whole town, just everything... my heartfelt sympathy goes out to all these people and their communities, it just breaks your heart hearing their stories.... so so sad....
How brave and courageous must our firefighters and emergency workers be and all the support people that go with them... I think it is time they were recognised in a big way for the extremely hard work they do.......
I don't know what else to say just hope everyone stays safe........
I think I will just go do some quilting now and say a quiet little prayer and lots of thanks for what we have ( strange for me I not very religious at all reallybut what else can you do)......

Yes another day like yesterday and the days before....

I think my boys are sick of the heat....

although it was only 35.C this morning not quite as hot but still......
so we drove to where we keep our boat (45mins) and thought we'd go somewhere for a swim unfortunately the boat had her own ideas and didn't want to go..... lucky there was a cool breeze and it was only 29.C so I sat and stitched while DH cursed and sweated trying to fix the problem only to find it wasn't going to happen today...... by the time we got home about 2pm it was 38.C and not nice.... so I stitched some more...
Now the cool sea breeze has reached us and its about 27-30.C so I'm going to sit outside with a glass of wine and listen to the jazz on the radio and quilt a few stitches in my wall hanging...

Well I have been quilting like a madwoman to get this finished....silly me why didn't I machine quilt it.... oh no!.... I thought it would look better handquilted but I didn't anticipate a week of over 40.c and as everyone who quilts knows you can't quilt without touching the quilt... so my efforts to finish this by the end of January are going to fail......

but thats alright because I will finish at least two projects in Feb.... another reason (here we go) for not finishing is because we keep going places.... like taking the two hot dogs for a swim....

Archie loves the water and fetching sticks you throw for him......

He likes to lie down in the water sometimes when you walk him he will just lay down in a puddle obviously cooling off... it is funny to watch....

Nixon just likes to wade around..... drinking the water and then coughing it up because he swallowed too much.... lucky its fresh water.....

Today it's 43 - 44 again ....third day in a row and they are forecasting a "cooler" day tomorrow with 35.c what a joke.... its about now I want to go and live in Tasmania......