All I want for Christmas… (liberty fabrics & walking again!)

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Posted on 26/12/2023 by Jan

A belated Merry Christmas to everyone! We had a lovely relaxing day with family yesterday. DH’s mum had been in hospital for some urgent, unplanned surgery in the two weeks prior so it was nice to have her home and on the mend.

Well December did not go as planned. Unfortunately I have spent the last month dealing with a very bad flare up of arthritis, mostly in my ankles & wrists, and I am only just able to walk about a bit better the last two days. So needless to say I did no Christmas decorating, no sewing at all and a lot of watching TV – finally watched all five seasons of Poldark! But today I am finally up and walking and feeling able to sew and generally get moving again.

I was given some really beautiful fabrics for my birthday and for Christmas by DD.

These two for my birthday.

and this gorgeous Strawberry Thief bundle for Christmas!

“Strawberry Thief is one of William Morris’s most popular repeating designs for textiles. It takes as its subject the thrushes that Morris found stealing fruit in his kitchen garden of his countryside home, Kelmscott Manor, in Oxfordshire” (Wikipedia)

Sarah Fielke is doing a beautiful quilt -“Stop Thief’ inspired by Strawberry Thief fabrics so since I was given the fabrics I had no excuse not to buy the pattern so that will be one of my quilts for 2024.

On the home front we finally got on to a good tradesman who came and built two walls of bookcases in DDs room in just 4 days! Such a relief after so long and I’ll happily get him back in the future. Now it needs painting to DH is working on that this week.

This week ahead I’m packing up some donations, making my sewing lists for 2024 and setting up my planner. I’m hoping for big things around the house this year, lots of quilt finishes ( finally), more regular blogging and a great holiday/cruise in August.

“Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

William Morris.

post cruise & post covid! – Owl Hare & Hollow

Posted on 25/11/2023 by Jan

We had a great time in New Zealand and it was so nice to be back on board a cruise ship again. The weather was perfect, it’s a beautiful country and we enjoyed having a balcony cabin so we could just watch the views from our room. Sydney Harbour put on a good show for our sunset sail-away.

We had a few days scenic cruising starting in Milford Sound – it really is a beautiful place, reminded me of Alaska. It wasn’t as cold as last time we were here but there was still snow on top of the mountains.

Here’s me in the pink.

Of course everywhere you go in New Zealand its just filled with picturesque scenes of old lovely old buildings like this church perched on the side of the hill and its just green everywhere!

The highlight for us was visiting the Whakarewarewa Village. The steam pools were so hot the geyser was spraying quite high and the ground is hot under your feet. It’s not a tourist village but a real home to the people who live there. Unfortunately I can’t upload the videos I took but I have a couple of pics.

Overall we had a great time, but near the end of the cruise we had a bit of a cough and a sniffle and tested positive for Covid. Fortunately we were not too sick at all but as we did not want to bring it home to DD we decided to stay away until we both tested negative. So our holiday was extended another week or so while we lay around at a house at the beach just resting and recuperating. We’ve been home a few days now, still not 100% but pretty good.

I took my Owl Hare & Hollow embroidery panels with me on the cruise and I really enjoyed doing them – it’s so relaxing – and I was glad to have them with me when we extended our time away. I just love this quilt pattern. I think its going to be a long term project though as I’m not so good at English Paper Piecing which I’ve been putting off but I was able to complete five more panels while away.

and I’ve started on some of the easy blocks:

On the home renovating front we’ve been ‘ghosted’ by the tradie who gave us a quote for some work so we have had to start again – finding a new person to come and quote. It’s so frustrating, this is the second tradie who has done this, given a quote then ghosted us when we ask for details to make the deposit. I wish they would just tell us if they don’t want the job and with Christmas coming up that will probably slow them down as well.

Bonnie Hunters Mystery Quilt starts today so I am planning to do that over the coming weeks. I need to pick our my colours so I can get to work on the first clue and finish up a donation quilt thats almost done.

Linking up with:

Lots of sewing & time to pack!

Posted on 30/10/2023 by Jan

The last two weeks has just flown by! I’ve been busy sewing, doing my volunteering and still dealing with tradies and quotes. We will need to modify our renovation plans as it becomes clear that prices are more than we planned. But thats OK we’ll just go slower and do a lot more DIY around the place. We leave for our cruise on Thursday so I need to start packing today. I am quite excited thinking about getting back on board the Royal Princess and going cruising again. I’m planning to blog our holiday this time so lets hope our internet at sea works OK.

On the sewing front, I bought myself a Stripology ruler. I’ve wanted one for years but they are quite expensive but now that I have it I can really see the value. It just makes cutting fabric so much faster and easier. Great for cutting down the scraps and cutting strips from meterage. Its going to get a lot of use.

Another Blockheads 5 block is finished. This is the 12″ block

and this is the 6″ block

I haven’t made all the blocks but heres what I have so far:

My scrap strip bins are getting pretty full so I made a lot of 1.5″ strips into 4 patches. I want to make some mini-quilts and wall-hangings next year so they will come in handy for those. I enjoy just making simple patches.

Then 3″ and 4″ bins were overflowing so I decided to make HST’s and play around with a few ideas on the design wall. HST’s are so versatile!

And on the weekend as I was sorting through some flimsies waiting to be quilted I pulled out my Sweet Dreams top. I want to make it bigger and so there was enough leftover fabric to make lots of 3″ squares so I’m going to make a border of those. Thats what is on my sewing table this morning.

Well time for me to get organised and start packing. I’m taking my Owl Hare & Hollow embroidery with me to do on the ship. If all goes well my next post will be from onboard.

Linking up to: Oh Scrap, and NinaMarie