Angel Package

I've made up for doing absolutely nothing with a needle and thread these past two weeks, and have my Stitcher's Angel package ready to wrap and mail out tomorrow morning.

The sewing caddy which I've already shown.

Rather than turning this stitchery design into the bag it was originally intended for, I decided to use it in a needle case.

I couldn't resist this little sewing bag to go along with the other items.

Lastly, a stitcher's pail, photographed in extremely bad lighting.

All together ready to be wrapped.

Happy Stitching.

Lovely Mail

Organising swaps for me, is a fun process, yes a lot of work, but still fun. I receive a ton of joy from it and discover new blogs that inspire me to try new ways of doing what I love. It also connects me with women, I otherwise wouldn't have the opportunity to meet in person. I never organise a swap with the thought in mind of receiving extra parcels in the mail.
Last week and yesterday I was blessed with beautiful mail from two extremely generous women who were a part of the pin cushion and the bag swap.
The first parcel arrived from Pat. Anyone who knows Pat, knows that she gives from her heart. I have been blessed in the past by Pat, and this time was just as exciting and just as generous. I started to open the parcel and realised that you didn't want to see a pile of screwed up wrapping paper.

Such a cute envelope of parcels, which included very yummy and already gone chocolate, yummy tea, chocolate milk concentrate, a gorgeous mouse pad calendar,very pretty Fall charms, and a bottle of Best Press. Thank you so much Pat, I adore everything that you so generously included in my parcel, and the timing of it's arrival was perfect.

Yesterday the post lady left a box on my front porch from Mar. Another lady who is extremely generous and giving. All beautifully tied up with fall bows and leaves.

Oh my gosh, talk about being spoilt! An extremely cute mini iron, a yummy box of pumpkin cake mix, 2 sweet charm packs and a terrific pattern to use them in and a lovely fall pumpkin with such a sweet Scripture verse on it. The card made me giggle, :Queen Of Everything".....
Thank you so much Mar, what a wonderful surprise. You have both blessed my socks off, thank you ladies.

Happy Stitching.

On The Road To Recovery

Thank you to everyone who sent get well wishes. Today's the first day I feel anything like my old self, although a younger version would be even better.... I'm waiting patiently for this to arrive in my mail box from Aussie. All the Aussie girls will know all about it, but for those of you outside Australia, this mixture is like drinking tar, the most revolting flavoured mixture ever created. But it's the best thing since sliced bread for those of us who are allergic to everything on the market, including over the counter medicines and prescriptions. I just hope customs doesn't decide to seize it. Once I get a few doses of this into my system I'll be well on the road to recovery.

With a week or more out of action I'm behind on my Angel swap parcel and realised a few days ago that the time to mail out the SSCS is fast approaching. So it will be head down and tail up until I get these items finished and in the mail.

Last week I received a lovely parcel from Pat, (waiting for the camera batteries to charge) and even ventured out to shop for the SSCS. So I hope to have photo's of stitching items to show you next time rather than a boring bottle of cough mixture.....

Thanks again for your get well wishes.

Happy Stitching.

Back Soon

What started out as a horrible cold has turned into pneumonia. If you have sent me an email about the bag swap, please be patient as much of my time is spent resting or coughing my lungs into next week. Once I feel able to spend time sitting in front of the pc I'll reply to your questions.

Until then,

Happy Stitching.

Fabric And furniture

It seems I've worked in a little time for fun around my church obligations, which included some online shopping. These pretty fabrics arrived last week. Unfortunately all the fabrics I ordered weren't available, which is a shame as it was a collection I ordered, plus the yellow piece. So now I'll need to rethink what I'll use them on.

A lovely parcel arrived last Tuesday from Bonnie. I was on my way to an appointment and just couldn't wait until I got home for the camera, so it got ripped open in the car. A Christmas CD, two lovely kitchen tea towels and a wonderful packet of iron on Scripture verses to use, along with a sweet pattern for a table runner and a very thoughtful card. Thank you so much Bonnie, the timing of this parcel was just perfect.
Quite a few of you have asked for photo's of the furniture I'm restoring, which reminds me I must phone the fellow who's doing the cane work on my rocking chair. Anyway, this desk was covered with that horrible shellac and had a terrible laminate top on it. Underneath all that shellac was a beautiful piece of oak furniture. This has been a work in progress for many months, but I was happy to see it go into it's new home on Monday. Think I should have checked which way the handles were sitting before I took the photo.
This is the current project. Four dining chair were left in the house when we moved in. Again covered in horrible shellac and covered with a very nasty fabric.
So off with the seats and lets get stripping. So far I have one chair at the stage of one coat of varnish. It's going to be a long process, getting into all those little corners, then there's the job of finding the right fabric for the seats, but it's a process that I thoroughly enjoy.
Yesterday I decided it was time I got back to some stitching and as Tammy gave us a quick Christmas tour of a store I thought it might be a good idea to pull something out that needed finishing rather than starting something new. So this is what I worked on yesterday. Am in need of a trip to the store for more embroidery thread and waiting patiently for my new glasses which should make it a lot easier to see what I'm doing.

Lastly, if you have received your bag from the bag swap and haven't let me know, please do, so I can balance the spreadsheet. If you haven't received your bag, and I've emailed to say it's on it's way could you email me and I'll double check on the mailing for you.

Happy Stitching and thank you for hanging in with me while I've been inactive.

We Have A Winner

Well I think I've finally got a little bit more organised with my time. I have the first study ready for the Women's group at church and more ideas running through my head. Now that I have a better idea of the time involved in getting these studies ready I can manage my time a little better.

I hate to admit it, but I haven't been in my sewing room for over 2 weeks, but I hope that will change this week.

I was amazed with the number of entries for the giveaway.......150....... I knew it would generate more than usual but my gosh 150. So my thought on that is, for those of you who have been lurking in the wings and not commenting until the giveaway, please leave a comment. Although I haven't had the time to respond to the recent comments I do try to make a point to reply to all comments that aren't set at no reply, and I do enjoy reading your thoughts and suggestions.

So without any more procrastination lets see who the winner is. I used one of those random number generators, but have absolutely no idea how to copy the results to sit in the blog. So you'll just have to trust me that it was fair.

Drum Roll Please

And the winner of the retreat bundle is:

Comment number 9

shequilts said...
Hi Linda, congratulations on 300 posts. I would love to be in the draw for that very pretty pack.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008 3:26:00 PM

Kate, congratulations, if you could email me your postal details I'll get your parcel out to you on the weekend.

Happy Stitching and thanks for joining in on my celebration.

Some Of Your Questions Answered

Just a little update on the previous post. My apologies for not responding to all your entries, but with over 155 it's just too big of a job. So please know that if you've entered and have left a valid email address that you are entered.
Some of you asked about the fabric line and where it was purchased. Bee Happy by Mary Lou Weidman for Benartex. and I purchased it from Heart of Dixie, wonderful customer service.
Some of you also asked about the patterns. The bag pattern came from allpeoplequilt.com and being the person that I am I changed the design a little. The ironing mat was something I saw in a magazine and the travel iron cover was an idea I came up with as I was thinking of what I could put together in the bundle. The bucket pattern is from Farmyard Creations.
One of you asked how I made the bottom of the bags stable. I use either heavy duty corrugated covered cardboard or adhesive backing board used for cross stitching. I then make a sleeve for it to fit into so that it's covered and matches the rest of the bag.
I'm sorry I haven't answered your questions earlier but I've been taking advantage of the good weather and doing a little furniture restoration and preparing for the new Ministry position.

This One's For You !!!

Do you remember these little previews from a few posts ago?

Several of you commented on how pretty the fabrics were.

Here they are finally finished.

The quilters retreat bundle, all together. (If you click on any of the photo's it will give you a closer view)

A pretty tote bag with two outside pockets.

Six pockets inside the tote and a nice stable base.
A Stitching case.

Inside, room for a seam ripper, scissors and several floss cards of embroidery threads.
A little bucket for either snipped threads or perhaps storing tools.
A traveling ironing mat, with two layers of insulated batting and one layer of regular cotton batting.
A mini iron insulated travel case.

And shown in the first photo a matching needle case.

Cute collection?? Well this collection that I've named the quilters retreat bundle is for one lucky commenter. Why, you may ask, it's my 300th post. I made these for those of you who travel to quilt retreats, nothing worse than having to tote along a huge ironing board and regular iron. No need now, that's covered.

Now I'm not a big fan of asking bloggers to put a link up for a giveaway. It's just not my style. I'd much rather have a giveaway for my regular readers. So here's how this will work. Leave a comment on THIS POST ONLY and if I recognise you as a regular reader/commenter, you'll get an extra entry. If your new to my blog or a lurker, you'll get a single entry. Sound fair? I'll leave it open until Monday the 13th of October, and yes I'll mail overseas.

One final thing, please make sure I can get in contact with you. If you are set at no reply please leave an email address in your comment.

Happy Stitching

Edit: I've had several comments already that are NO REPLY, I'm sorry ladies but if you don't leave some way for me to contact you in your comment I won't be able to include you in the draw.

More Mail And The Weekend

My apologies for not replying to all the comments from my last post. If you remember I said I had a splitting headache that sent me back to bed. Well that headache turned into a quick bout of stomach flu, that knocked me off my feet for a day and a half. Thank goodness I felt as good as gold come Saturday. The down side is that left only Saturday afternoon to prepare all the food. By nine that night it was all done and I had a clean kitchen again.
Sunday afternoon was terrific, we shared lunch with the congregation from our new church and had wonderful fellowship. Lots of laughs and giggles. Everyone went home with full tummies and ready for an afternoon nap....
This lovely parcel arrived in my mail box the other day, from Deb. She was having a little giveaway on her blog and this is the wonderful parcel that I won. No reason not to smell nice now. Thanks so much Deb.

I'll be back in a few minutes with a little surprise for you all.

Happy Stitching.