In my garden

It appears I may have a case of Blossom End Rot :(

And a mould problem :(

It seems I missed the ‘easy to grow, cannot kill pumpkins’ memo!

And they start off looking so sweet & perfect…

Any and ALL hints and tips on pumpkin growing are welcome!

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The vegetable garden on the other hand is thriving ;)

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And I am SUPERB at growing unknown plants

This could be a gerbera… or maybe it’s an echinacea… either way, it’s one of the few first batch of seedlings that survived and grew a flower!

Stocking Swap ~ 2010

RECEIVED!!!
The great stocking swap of 2010 hosted by Selina is finished, this was a great little swap and I was lucky enough to have a partner all the way from the United States  who not only sent me a gorgeous felt stocking (which would have been more than enough) 

but she was also kind enough to make me this gorgeous little owl. Oh boy, I am so loving owls at the moment…

There may have also been some chocolate in the parcel too… but well it was gone well before the camera came out to photograph my goodies ;)

Thank you so much TraceyLea – I love, love, love it all!

Looking forward to the 2011 swap now (hint, hint Selina ;)

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SENT!!!
As I know my partner has received her stocking from me – here is what I sent to Sandra in the United States ;) 

In true fashion… I managed to make myself to fronts and no back *sigh* when will I learn from past mishaps???

I got it right eventually and although I had no idea on how to put a hanging thingy on it… I think it turned out ok. Of course I had to send some little extras’ just because

 

& yes that is a magical elf up in the top right corner ;)

Merry Christmas :)

Favourite Things

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens,
Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad

 

Isn’t she beautiful xxx

It was a GOOD mail day yesterday! Cathy’s original painting Blooming   arrived safely in the mailbox and already it’s brightening up the room and making me smile when I look upon it’s glorious bright colours. Thanks so much Cathy, I love it!!!

It was meant to be… me winning this painting, it arriving in yesterdays’ post. As I alluded to in my original post when I heard I had won this painting… this marks a time of change, a blooming of the soul if you will - where I finally take charge of myself and my life and move forward to the future.

Plans are in motion and Phase one of the Bigger Picture is about to kick off.

This arrived in today’s post… 

I’ve signed up to do an online photography course….

PS  Cathy, my NANOWRIMO halted after the first few days and 400 words [FAIL] far too much going on to contemplate it this month, I bit more than I could chew… BUT that is all a part of phase 2 of the Bigger Picture, so maybe next year ;) hope you will join me LOL!

Christmas Crafts

Not long to go now peeps! I have been busy doing some little crafty things in between what has been a crazy few weeks of life.

An army of Christmas covered pegs – seen here, except  I just used old PVA glue for mine… and a packet of very dodgy pegs from the cheap store ;)

I can just imagine fresh cookies in brown paper bags with a cute peg for Christmas presents for the families!

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Of course once the Christmas Creating Craze hits…
I become all dazed and start seeing stars

LITERALLY! You can find the tutorial here, I also whipped up a little Christmas “granny” Tree too.

They were so quick to do… & I have a nice little pile started for a Christmas Garland

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Of course, once the crochet hook is out and I’m in the swing of it, who could resist making these gorgeous baubles that Pip posted the other day???

Ok so mine may not be the best looking bauble around, but it’s so quaint don’t-cha-think? I’ve got 3 more to do.

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And just because I needed a break from the Christmas colours…

A little hexagon that is a little dodgy, but oh so cute. Thanks again to Pip for sharing the tutorial.

But for now, there’s a quilt for basting, a Christmas tree skirt to be pieced together, a little hand-stitching, as well as some more granny stars. Happy Sunday crafting, whatever you may be up to!

In my Garden!

Feeling a bit sore and sorry for myself today… Yesterday after my beautiful man shovelled and filled half my new garden bed with mulch from our crappy pile of leaves in the back  (it’s producing the best mulch! I shovelled a further 2 barrow loads of our mulch and then headed to Bunnings to buy a further 6 bags of potting mix… in hindsight we probably should have ordered a trailer load of soil, but it was Friday afternoon and I really wanted to get the garden filled & Planted over the weekend.

Yesterday I spent the day adding the potting mix and spreading it out.

And by late afternoon I had planted row after row after row of new Vegetable seedlings… DH thinks I have far too many in this garden, which I sort of realised when I had a few punnets left over… So he’s organising BIL to come back this week and box me up a second garden right next to this one – YAY!

 

The muscles in my back are paying for all the shovelling and lifting yesterday, but it will be worth it if I can manage to keep this garden alive and start phase 2 of becoming self sufficient.

Phase 3 is chickens… although we are yet to work out the issues of snakes + our dog who hates birds ;)

BTW this is STILL a craft blog (but fast becoming a life / craft blog ;) I will have a post on my crafty weekend coming shortly – I’m actually supposed to be working today – on a Sunday of all days *sigh*

The Quick Quilt

We had our final babe born into our mothers group earlier this month and as I had made quilts for the previous 3 babes born, I knew I wanted to do one for this babe too… only problem standing in my way is my circumstances have changed vastly since the initial babes arrived and back then I had more time and head space to think and plan and make and do…

With the lack of time, I tossed around ideas of a pram quilt, even thought about making a little outfit and veering away from a quilt altogether…

Rifling through my stash last week and I came across a panel of fabric that the beautiful Kayscha sent me when she was de-stashing a while back. Much as I love it and would love it to use for myself, I just couldn’t see it being used in the near future, so I added a quick top & bottom border and wolah….

One Quilt top finished in an afternoon ;)

Tomorrow I hope to baste and quilt it and it looks as though a trip to Spotlight might be in order for some binding fabric!!!

Thanks so much Kayscha! 

What I sent + some crafting

Here is the little quilt I made for the EB Doll Quilt swap ~ I sent to Leah this year and used it as an excuse to try something a little different to my normal quilting boundaries.

Right from the start I had an idea in my head of what I wanted to do and really, it didn’t deviate much from my initial drawing. The house, sun and ground were all from my head, the flowers were from a magazine. I liked it all except the garden path, in hindsight I probably should have gone with my initial idea of stepping stones… oh well.

My first real attempt at raw edge applique, I really enjoyed the process, although I didn’t baste the quilt first…

It was a fun little quilt to do and I was sad to see it go. The best part about it for me, was it got me used to my machine (finally) I’ve been needing a project that got me in there using the machine, trying out the settings and just doing. I’m pleased I am finally at one with the Queen!

The backing was plain spot fabric & my quilting was basic echo quilting around the house, flowers and sun. I did attempt a little bird in flight FMQ’d into the sky… next time I might put an applique bird.

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Today I took a day out of our busy lives and stayed home with the girl. I’ve been a wee bit crafty and can you believe I started AND finished a small project while watching Glee…

Gardening – During!

I promised to come back last week with some progress shots of our new vege garden… unfortunately we got rained out at the end of last week, so it wasn’t until today that our vege garden has finally made some progress!

All boxed up ready for the soil! Tomorrow I will hopefully have soil and Friday I can finally start planting some seedlings – Yay!

Over the weekend, I replanted the remainder of my seedlings that I started way back here… I was surprised to find the majority of my herbs were still hanging on and they have replanted nicely in some window boxes!

I also started clearing out another section of our overgrown jungle garden and threw in some birdseed (mainly for the sunflower seeds, but a friend told me that you can grow all sorts of things from doing this ;o ) that was late Sunday, check out my shoots already!!!   

EB Doll Quilt Swap #4

Is now done & dusted for another year! My gorgeous quilt arrived today from the Amazing Helen :)

Oh my Gosh! I’ve been admiring Helen’s Quilts for as long as I’ve been blogging and now I finally have one on my wall – Eeek…. To call my OWN!

My very own Wonky house! It’s bright and beautiful and oh so wonky… (actually to tell the truth, it makes my own attempt at a wonky house – look more like the leaning tower of pisa ;) 

The fabrics are simply gorgeous together!

The backing is gorgeous – check out that butterfly!

I am slightly excited about it and can’t stop gazing in awe every time I pop into the sewing room :D

Great job Helen – thanks so much! And a huge thanks to AJ for organising the swap again this year!

Reading Blogs

I have 283 blogs in my reader & with the recent announcement that Bloglines would be closing ~ I went into panic mode because truly… google reader and I have never seen eye to eye. To make it worse Blogtoberfest was approaching and wasn’t I relieved when the closure was extended until the end of Blogtober!!! As the end of Blogtober quickly approached, my bloglines was heaving under the pressure of daily posts and I decided it was time to start getting acquainted with Google Reader. Alas… the majority of my blog reading happens in the evenings on my iPad and let’s just say it & Google Reader do not mix! I have to do a double finger move just to scroll and it was so annoying

Huffing in total frustration and about to give up daily blog reading :o I popped over to the App store and stumbled across this

Reeder

(especially for iPad)

It has carried across all my existing folders (I have every blog categorised) and all I have to do is click on that folder & read the entries within.

To leave a comment is one more click and it brings up the blog I make my comment and off we go. It also gives me the option to ‘bookmark or note’ the blog post (handy if you want to save a tutorial for later!) plus you can also twitter and all those other links too! A wonderful invention and it’s saving me TIME & SANITY! 

Why am I posting this… just thought I’d share incase you too have an iPad and need to save your sanity!

gardening ~ before photos

After another disastrous attempt to start my own vege garden (well I lie… it’s not so disastrous as there is zucchini’s and possibly pumpkins ;) and one lone carrot that’s not looking so good :)

I have a helper coming over tomorrow to box me up a brand new garden… now all we need to decide is where to put it…

Here against the back wall of the house, next to our water tank…?

Or here in this perfect little corner… (although this corner IS prone to flooding ;)

Hopefully I will have some ‘after’ photos come Friday!

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The skies are grey this afternoon after the heat wave this morning I think there is another storm on the way… surprisingly the grey skies seem to have sucked up my grey mood, I’m feeling a lot more calmer after the last few days of tension and tears.

  

Check out this little beauty… a double header!

ETA: progress on NaNoWriMo… 400 words :(