July wrap up

It's only been about a month since my last post, which is pretty good compared to some of my recent efforts :)

Things are going fairly smoothly on the family front-nothing major to report which is good. It's nice to have stability sometimes!

Crafting wise, I've made some progress with a couple of finishes. I finished the binding of the jelly roll quilt. I didn't actually take any photos of the finished item before I took it to it's new home with my in-laws, but I do have a couple of in-progress shots while I was working on the label.

I also finished our July project for the SAL, which was a bag from 'Tis the Season' book. I chose to use the 'Scrumptious' line of fabric by Bonnie & Camille, along with some stash pieces.

As far as WIPs go, I'm finishing off a simple charms square lap quilt, and working on my hexagon quilt at the moment. I'm planning on making up a goals list for August for craft and may even put that here on the blog.

I've also signed up for an online class to extend my quilting skills- it's The Penny Sampler quilt class and should be lots of fun.

A few months, a few finishes

Just a quick post to update what's been happening. Ron's work has been busy, maybe more than usual, with challenges that come with managing strong personalities in the IT world. My work has been busy with one new system to get the hang of in the library, and another for the council to start next week. Luke is in the midst of mid-year exams. Caitlin has continued with Open Access College which we will stick with for the moment. We've had a bit of a hurdle with our psychiatrist  having to retire suddenly (as in, two days after we last saw him) due to extreme ill health. It has taken some time for us to find someone else, and then to get an appointment, but next week we finally get to see someone.

Craft-wise I haven't done a huge amount, but I have had a few finishes with the SAL. Here's the last few month's finishes.

I'm currently working on getting the binding ready to apply to the jelly roll quilt, so I may have another finish soon? We'll see ;)

Good Mail

I don't know about you, but for me, there's a few different types of mail-junk, bad/boring, and good. As I've shown previously, each month I get two fat quarters of fabric from a swap partner as part of the Fat Quarter Swap, which means I get at least one lot of good mail each month. This month my swap partner was Arlene and our theme this month was 'lucky dip'. These are the fat quarters I received-they will be great additions to my stash!

The other 'good mail' I received recently was a prize I won on Samelias Mum blog. I was thrilled to win as I love a good period drama/crime and this series was a favourite. I've also been enjoying 'Call the Midwife', 'The Dr Blake Mysteries' and of course 'Downton Abbey'.

In other news, Ron had his softball club presentation last night, and won 'best team man' for his team. We have two weeks of school holidays now-we don't have anything specific planned, but will be out and about although Ron and I will still be working.

I have finished all the stitchery parts of my wall hanging, so I'm now onto the construction phase. I also finished the hand quilting on this jellyroll quilt (finally).

I don't have anything planned for at least tomorrow (although that could change) so I'm hoping to get some crafting done in between the usual tasks.

March, Easter, and a Finish

So-it's April already! March is usually a busy month anyhow, with Luke's birthday (he'll officially be an adult this time next year-yikes) and our wedding anniversary (21 this year) but with an early Easter thrown in, it's just flashed by.

We travelled to Lake Bonney at Barmera as we've been doing for...22 years-with only 2 of those missed, but it was only a short visit as it doesn't fall in with school holidays this year. I don't have any pictures for this post as they are still on the camera.

Before we left, I finished my SAL 2013 March pincushion from Anni Down's 'Some Kind of Wonderful' book. It turned out quite well, and I was very pleased to make the deadline amongst packing.

I did get a little stitching and knitting done while we were away (especially during the car journey) but I admit I did spend a fair bit of my down time reading too.

The SAL project for April is a Christmas wall hanging and it uses the same stitcheries for the quilt from the same book ('Tis The Season by Natalie Bird) which I started some time ago and has been languishing in my WIP/UFO pile. I made an executive decision to use the stitcheries I've done-I just need to finish off one. Here's what I've got so far.

 Hopefully this means that not only do I get a good start on this month's project, I'll get rid of a UFO as well. I'm also hoping to get caught up with my cross stitch SAL this month, so when I've got some decent progress on that one I'll take a picture.

February catch up (better late than never)

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Now that Google Reader is on the way out, I'm using Bloglovin' to keep track of blogs I follow. It's a bit different, but not so you can't work out what you're doing. I've had to put that link at the top of my post to claim my blog with Bloglovin' apparently, although I'm not entirely sure what that means...

Family wise we are doing OK. We are trialling Open Access College for our daughter which is basically schooling online with lessons live via the Internet. Year 12 continues for our son-I think the formal is next term?! Time really does fly! Ron won his softball grand final last weekend in a close (8-7) match. I am still getting some work shifts at the weekends (to fit in with being there for Caitlin) which I am still enjoying-we have some systems changes coming up in a few months so that should be interesting.

Craft wise, February was not particularly productive. Until we got things settled with school, things were very disrupted and I found it hard to get much done. I decided to use my 'pass' for the Stitch-A-Long for February but am planning to finish the bag in my own time. I also didn't complete my planned motif for the cross stitch SAL but I'm planning to catch up with that too. We are heading away to the Riverland for Easter as usual, so I'm hoping to get some crafting done then, although as it's not part of the school holidays, we won't be there for long.

I've got pictures of the FQ swaps I received last month and this month. Firstly, for February from Heather-you can see on her blog what I sent her, as I never remember to take a photo before I post.

My swap partner for March was Claire and it was a purple extravaganza!

 I think my next post will be after Easter-hope you get a nice break (if you can) and stay safe!

Stash enhancement & general catch up

Firstly, thanks for everyone's comments. There has been some progress on the health front for my daughter, but it does seem slow some days, and we are still working out the best plan of attack.

Just a quick catchup post today so that I get back into the habit of blogging.  I picked up a couple of fat quarter bundles the other day from Spotlight-Sarah Fielke's new range called 'On the Pond'. I don't have specific plans yet for them, but I coincidentally received a few more of the same range from a swap so I may grab a couple more so I can make a good sized quilt.

We had some cooler weather a few weeks ago (I think one morning I even put the heater on-in February!-in Adelaide!) and consequently got my hand-quilting out, and am almost done. I don't have any pictures at this stage, but will try and finish it up on the next cool day, and then take one. Then it will be the binding, and finished-hooray!

I'm at various stages with my stitch-a-longs so I'll wait until I finish February's progress before I post pictures of those.

And to finish, here's another picture of the new kitten, Archie.

Is that a pulse?

Yes-the blog is alive (barely), but they say that if there's life, there's hope ;)

It has been an eventful 6-7 months since my last post. Without going into lots of detail, I've re-entered the paid workforce after an absence of 16-17 years (customer service officer at my local library/council), and we have also been dealing with our youngest child's onset of depression and anxiety. This hasn't left me with time and/or inclination to blog over the last half of 2012.

I've decided that I need to try craft more (and blog) this year as it's a great for de-stressing, as well as something I can have control over and can see progress, when other things seem to be way out of my control.

I did  refrain from joining all the stitch-a-longs, knit-a-longs, quilt-a-longs and craft-a-longs that were around at the beginning of 2013. I did sign up for one Stitch-a-Long that uses books I already own to make a small item each month. I finished the first item (thread catcher) in January as required so a good start.

I also signed up for a Facebook stitch-a-long with a group of Australian stitchers. The design we are stitching this year is here. We plan to stitch one small square each month, and the centre design as we go.  I stitched my first section in January on a Stitches and Spice fabric with DMC 4240.

I've signed up for the HAED BB stitch-a-long but haven't made a start on it yet. Another thing I could have started this month, but will leave until later in the year is Sew School.

I also have some WIPs I want to finish, and of course new projects, but I'm not making any specific plans for any of those at the moment.

I should be back soon with some more updates but here's picture of our newest family member-Archimedes-usually known as Archie.