Friday Night With Friends

I love Friday night stitching while watching footy. It was made even better this week as I took part in as our monthly online Friday Night with Friends hosted by Chez of Gone Stitchin & Friday Night With Friends on Facebook hosted by Gail. Even one of my beautiful girls from my Thursday group, Ellie, takes part on FB & seeing that I haven't got off work to go to our group for about two months it is great to see her & what she is doing online.

 

Hun-bun and I were stitching up a storm. Hun-bun hogs the Ott light & sewing caddy while I snuggle next to him and his blankie enjoying having my much cuddlier boy close by.

 



That's my seat now in the middle!

We started with some stitchery.

Then after going to bed to read, had a nocturnal turn & got up again at 1am to cut out a Christmas block ready for applique.

The weekend took on a decidely lazy turn (loved it!) and Saturday night there was more footy and then a DVD marathon of Lark Rise to Candleford - another series in the vein of Downton Abbey but following the lives of the Hamlet people of Lark Rise compared to the town folk of Candleford. If I had know that 'Mr Bates' from Downton was in this I would have watched it earlier. Brendon Coyle has such a lovely smiley face.

 

This marathon stitching & watching session resulted in what I thought was the finish of my Christmas applique. It is only now that I look again & I realise not only is my little angel missing her blusher but her halo has also slipped. That will have to be fixed.

 

 

This afternoon while watching the Eagles overrun the Bulldogs I finished off the stitchery. There was some un-stitching once I decided the standing birdy did not enjoy having black legs so restitched them with a slightly darker shade of grey/blue.

 

 

Now I have the usual problem, two more lots of stiching finished, to go into the machine sewing pile. Maybe that's what I need to concentrate on over the next few weeks. The next little stitchery is already drawn for tonight's viewing of a bit of The Voice, Call The Midwife & maybe another epidose of Lark View. What a lucky duck I have been with my lazy weekend.

 

There are 64 other Friday Night with Friends sewers signed up on Chez's blog so if you haven't visited already, get over there and check out our world-wide get together.

 

Have a great week friends!

Tracee xx  Hun-bun xx

 

 

Friday NIght With Friends

I was a little slow to start but took part in Friday Night with Friends sewing last night as hosted by Cheryll from Gone Stitchin. Pop over to say hi, check out Chez's sewing for charity, her brilliant new quilting tool & to link to the 60 others stitchers who too part in our sew-fest.

As I said, I was slow to start but as I was home & footy is now on in Perth on a Friday night at 4.30 pm (don't get me started, this is way before I am normally home from work!) at least I started early and as is my way finished late. I saw the Doctor late afternoon & the lady at the Pharmacy gave me my script & said to me 'I hope your going home to bed now', to which I replied, 'yes, footy starts soon.' As I'm walking out, she's laughing & saying 'oh, no, that sounds like a fate worst than death' - maybe not the best statement to make in a pharmacy to sick people! It wasn't a bad fate - loved the game & thank goodness, after the debacle that was round 1 tipping, I got the tip right & the margin almost spot on too. (Aren't you pleased it is only Round 2 - you are going to get this footy obsession roller coaster ride of raving for the next six months!)

Back to stitching, I started a new stitchery, tracing the design, picking a key fabric & matching some threads to it. It's secret squirrel sewing but here's a peek of what I accomplished.

Later in the night I did the final binding on another secret squirrel project. Good thing it was only binding as I had to have my wits about me as Jeremy Wade & I again entered the wilds of Guyana in search of the RIVER MONSTERS. That makes our 5th encounter for the week. I almost shed a tear at the end when they said the scale taken from the massive fish caught gave DNA that proved it was a new species of that fish until then unknown to science & never before seen. It's been a great week Jeremy but next week hopefully it's back to work and you will have to shoulder the weight of catching big fishies for the world's enjoyment on your own! (Before you ask - yes I am still running a temperature so hallucinations may have played a part in the last week.... only that can explain why I watched my first ever episode of The Bachelor too).

So as you can see, it's been a big week, big night & I've done some big stitches. Check out what our sewing friends have been up too, I'm almost certain there will be beautiful things to see & many blogs where sanity reins supreme!

Remember - any advice on catching the big one, ask me how!

Tracee xx

Friday Night Knit In

My Friday Night Sew In turned into a Friday Night Knit In. My plan was to play with some half square triangles from a charm pack of Central Park. I was thinking of making some placemats and a table runner so deciding whether to make each mat an individual colourway or mix all the colours up together.

I didn't get home from work until nearly 7pm so by the time I fluffed around on the computer & decided I needed some dinner before 9pm, I realised that they were replaying episodes of My Kitchen Rules. I had forgotten to watch until a conversation with the lady serving me at the petrol station on Tuesday (Number 8 please - $53.86, any vouchers - yes please - did you watch my kitchen rules -  no, has it started? - yes, the Tassie boys were on last night - Oh I wanted to see that one!....)

So by 9pm I was on the couch, bacon sandwich in hand, cup of tea at the elbow and knitting ready to go. What I didn't realise was that it was a replay of all three episodes so it was around 1.30am before I was off to bed. I have made this scarf before with yarn from Spotlight, Paris by Panda. 

It is soft & stretchy so snuggles the neck & I like the autumn tones with a splash of raspberry. Mine's still going strong, hanging on the rack waiting for next winter so this one is for my present box.

So now I have another pressie for the Birthday Stash box and am up to date with my MKR's viewing. So like everyone watching this show I am looking forward to Monday's episode and hoping the Spice Girls might get a small lesson in how to be a little more humble and respectful. It is fun though watching the two pairs of cocky youngsters who are happy to boast they know everything and can see the faults in each others behaviour but not their own. I loved seeing where the Tassie boys lived in Deep Bay, right on the water, just down the road from one of my favourite spots, Cygnet in the Huon Valley. More country venues I say!

To see oodles & oodles of Friday Night Sew In posts, go to the links on FNSI-muma Cheryll's blog and read on....

I have the WA Quilt Guilds Applique Club meeting tomorrow so tonight it's back out with my very neglected SKOW quilt. If I can finish one more block then that is another row that can be machine sewn & only another one & a half rows to go.

Happy stitching

Tracee xx

Friday Night With Friends

Last night I took part in my first Friday Night with Friends sew-in hosted by swap-mama Cheryll from Gone Stitchin.

I started earlier in the afternoon & made a very large cushion cover to replace an old one for the playroom at work. It's about 80cm x 100cm so not much to photograph but here's a pic of a smaller part of the fabric. It's cute for $8.00 a metre in the Spotlight sale bin.

Next I did a clean up of my cutting table & storage area in the laundry. I set up my new cordless iron - another Spotlight bargain at $19.99. The base reminds me of a snail who lost his shell. I thought it had lost its cord too but found it snuggled into a little hidey-hole in the snails buttocks! The kitty tin is for the rubbish & the red tin is for my scraps. I must have been reasonably productive last year because my scraps have outgrown the big scrap bin in my sewing room - maybe time to make them into something. As I told Sharon recently, I have scrap phobia so maybe one of those no planning, just grab & sew string projects might snap me out of that. Ohhhh, I shiver at the thought of it!

Later that evening I watched some episodes of Criminal Minds & did some knitting. No this isn't a fizzy red volcano, though I see the resemblance. I'm teaching myself to knit Christmas balls from the book on my sidebar '55 Christmas Balls To Knit'. Every time I see one of these knitted baubles on someones blog I covet them deeply so thought I better learn to make my own. I've done a couple with plain yarn so now have moved up to glittery fuzzy yarn - quite a new experience. I am hoping to soon get to the point when I can knit the fair isle picture knit ones the book is full of.

Finally I finished off a mug rug for my Uncle Gordon's birthday present. Maria suggested on my previous post where I lamented what to get this dear man for a present, that a mug rug would be nice. I decided that was a fine idea because Uncle Gordon doesn't go to bed without a cup of tea & a piece of toast. It's been his routine through all his married life with Aunty & beyond. It doesn't matter what was for dinner, tea & toast sends Uncle happily off to dreamland. So I stitched this little stitchery rug with nice alpine pictures my mountain climbing Uncle will love (I know - it's a bit FUGLY & the pics are Canadian - not New Zealandish - no bears or beavers in NZ - but I think he will like it).

So that was my productive Friday. If you haven't read about everyone elses FNWF, click here for the list & start visiting. There's 69 blogs to visit so grab a coffee.....

You may of read about some recent swaps where commitments have not been honoured which considering the amount of work, care & effort most of us put in to our projects, this is very disappointing and such a let down for the recipient that misses out. So swappers take up the initiative and take the pledge;

I Tracee Quiltkitty will try my utmost...

·        To always swap on time.

·        To always email a THANK YOU to my partner.

·        To be considerate and thoughtful when choosing a gift.

·        To give my partner the quality of gift that I would like to receive.

·        To communicate when it’s required.

·        To NEVER over commit and let a partner down.

·        To advise the swap mama when I receive my gift.

This I sewomly pledge....

To get a copy of the button & copy the pledge go to Cheryll's latest post or you are welcome to copy from here to. Thanks Cheryll, great idea!

Here a link to Tipnut - More Than 50 Fabric Scrap & Remnant Ideas..... lots of free patterns.

Happy Sunday!
Tracee xx