FNWF

I spent a lovely afternoon with my stitching friends who meet each Friday afternoon.  With it being school holidays I was able to be there for the whole afternoon, not just calling in after school as I usually do.
 I have been knitting a dishcloth (yes a little late to the making of dishcloths compared with others) ...a friend gave me the pattern and a ball of cotton to use..all I had to do was get out some needles and knit.  So for FNWF I managed to finish it off, not too bad I think for someone who has not done a lot of knitting.  Now to look for some other patterns to try as I don't need the good light for knitting that I would for stitching...

                         

Is it Spring? and FNWF

Well it is supposed to be Spring but the weather is so changeable from day to day...we have had misty days where the mist has clung to the hills and above the harbour...sunny days with a cold wind blowing..and today it is a grey, rainy day..I wonder what tomorrow will bring???

Still with Spring comes blossom on the trees and lovely spring flowers..and an icecream from the Rob Roy Dairy after a drive at the weekend, best value in town..yum..caramel fudge this time.

It is the first Friday of the month this week and so it is time for ...

                                     

sign up over at Cheryll's

       

I am still here..

Time seems to have slipped by and it is a lot longer since my last post than I thought.  It's been a busy term, beginning and ending with one of those lurgies which has been doing the rounds over here..ERO (somewhat similar to the school inspectors) came midterm and so my stitching has suffered from a lack of mojo and time.
I do have a few things to catch up on including my trip up to Ashburton, at the end of August, to take a class with Katrina Hadjimichael when she was over here in New Zealand.  An absolutely fabulous weekend.
Well probably the best thing for me to do is...make a list ...of everything that I need to get on with in my stitching..will see how successful I am..
Back soon with some photos and a post on  my class with Katrina.

FNSI roundup...

As I am writing this snow is falling outside..I wonder how long it will last.  We had heavy rain till about an hour ago so the ground is rather wet, so while the snow is falling it is not laying on the ground.  Still it is great to watch while keeping warm inside.

FNSI coincided with the last day of the school holidays for me so I was able to spend the afternoon stitching with friends (in real life) before I joined in with every out there in cyber space.

My bag has made slow progress as I had one of those bugs going around and so the first week of the holidays passed in a blur.  Now that I am feeling better it is time to go back to school again,..typical!!

So here is some of the progress I have made...

          

Some felt flowers, buttons and some of the hexagons that are in progress...

I hope you all had a lovely stitch a long on Friday as well..

Just as I thought..I've come back an hour later to publish this post and the snow has stopped here but just across on the hill opposite us it is rather white across the top ...and the hill suburbs have a good coating...and it is very cold outside...

Next project in the making

..will be the Home Sewn Sampler Bag by Anni Downs.

....Stitchery panels are ready to start..

         

And the papers and fabric for the hexagons

               

And when I am finished it will look something like this photo from Anni's book

                      

Now all I have to do is finish writing the rest of the school reports this week so that on so I can get on with some stitching ...

Little design boards..

I bought the foam core board, cut it to size and then watched the You Tube clip of them being made.  Lori Holt made it look easy..but I haven't done a lot of work with a hot glue gun a lot before, so it looks like a bit more practice could be on the way..
I made them 10" squares so I got  exactly 6 from the sheet of foam core board.  I have some looking 'au naturel', waiting for their fabric binding....

...and some others that have been finished with their fabric 'binding' around the outside..I'm rather pleased with how they turned out.

We've had another lovely day to finish off the long weekend over here. A stark contrast to the weather on the other side of the Tasman with the damage that the storms have caused up and down the east coast in NSW. 

 I've had a few phone calls with Mum over the weekend, checking how she is with the wild weather.  She is fine, just a bit of a  mop up where the rain blew in where it hasn't before.   She went for a walk down to the beach today to see what it was like after the storm, met up with a friend taking photos of the surf and got them emailed to me.. the southern end of Dee Why and the pool is somewhere there under all that water..and rocks washed up here and there

It's unbelievable to see the power of the water and it's ability to cause damage..

Getting back into blogging..at last...

..as part of the celebration for the Chookshed's 4th birthday....
                                       
I've been reading what some of you have been up to over the weekend, but I need to get on to leaving some comments as well.
It's been a long time between posts..a busy beginning to the year..lots of ideas but motivation has been lacking..I could think of any number of things that have distracted me from blogging, and the longer I was offline the harder it was to get going again.
So with the Chookshed's birthday came the impetus that now sees me online again.
I have been wanting to make some design boards for a while..so after seeing Chookyblue's post I got myself organised.. It's the Queen's Birthday long weekend here in NZ so I have another day tomorrow to finish them up along with a bit of work on some other things..and then some photos to take. We have had 2 wonderfully sunny days on this side of the Tasman such a contrast to what we had last week.