Wishing you a happy Christmas

 With Christmas just around the corner, I want to wish you a happy Christmas. Christmas for me is a time of celebrating, having family together, delicious food, fun and laughter, but above all a time of worshipping the Great Gift-giver, who sent Jesus - the ultimate gift of salvation. 

"The Infinite became an Infant". How amazing is that!

I am very hopeful that I will see more than 20 of our family this year, now that our borders are open. Negotiating all the rules and regulations will be part of it for some of them, but totally worth it if we can be together! I have plans to be able to include hubby in Aged Care in the celebrations, but as with everything these days, we hold the plans lightly!

Meanwhile, I have one eye on the new year when I will be offering a beautiful new block of the month design. It is a very practical project with lots of different parts - 33 in all! 

Keep an eye out for the new design in January!

May you be blessed with the peace and joy of knowing the Christ of Christmas.

Val

The End of the Gentle Gems Hexies of the Month Journey

It's November and we have reached the end of the journey with our Gentle Gems Hexies. I hope you have enjoyed seeing these sweet little designs, even if you haven't been stitching them!

I have a small collection of fans and I think they are such a pretty accessory. These days we don't seem to need to use them much, since most buildings are now air-conditioned, but I couldn't resist adding one to our Gentle Gems collection.

Of course it features my favourite Grub Roses made with bullion stitch.

I put together my hexagons as a wall-hanging and for that to work, it was necessary to make a little half hexie at the top.

So here is the half-hexie bow. 

Of course the hexies can be put together in all sorts of ways. You won't believe how many arrangements I tried before I decided on the final one!

The patterns for these final Gentle Gems Hexies have been sent to all who have joined the 2021 Hexies of the Month programme.

The pretty design I am preparing for the 2022 Block of the Month project is almost complete.  The cup and saucer are part of the new design. The plan is to start that BOM in January.

Meanwhile, here are a couple more of my Christmas designs:

I've had a few health issues of late, so for those who pray, I would appreciate your prayer! The round of doctor's appointments, tests, and not feeling very well take their toll after a while, but I know that My Times are in His Hands - there's nowhere else I would want to be!

Happy stitching!

Val

 

Spring has sprung

Spring has well and truly sprung in our area and there is new growth everywhere. Many of my plants have a story behind them - given by one of our lovely family, or a friend, or a special occasion gift. I even have an orchid taken from my grandmother's plant (which I have carried from house to house in our many moves over the last forty years!) 

This clivea is the great-grand-baby of a plant that I gave a friend 30 years ago, but never owned one myself. She gave me this baby a couple of years ago and it flowers every spring, bringing with it many wonderful memories:

I love hanging baskets and I was able to buy these clever retractable hanging pulleys so that the plants can be at various levels. It also means I don't have to climb on a ladder to lift the plants down. I like to put them out in the yard when God blesses us with lovely soaking rain, as they thrive on that, compared to tap water!

The Tahitian Bridal Veil has grown very quickly:

I will soon have to transfer this Silver Lady Fern to a bigger pot:

There are two magnificent Magnolia trees in the courtyard outside of hubby's room and they have just started flowering. What a sight:

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In between admiring all the plants and flowers, I have been playing with Tailwind, a great program that helps you design Instagram pictures and Pinterest Pins.

Tailwind does most of the work, and I just do a bit of editing to finish them off.

 It's a load of fun and a bit addictive, and I am happy to have my projects presented with a bit of professional flair.

My main focus at the moment is completing the 2022 Block of the Month design. I am so happy with it. I have even done some pattern-writing! There are lots of parts to the project, so no chance of being bored with it! 

Happy stitching!

Val

What’s in a name? Cupcake or Patty cake?

I have long been fascinated with how the English language can change, depending on the country in which you live, or with the varying social and cultural backgrounds that are prevalent.

Here in Australia, you can virtually just about always tell in which State someone has grown up, by what name they might give a specific item, or how they pronounce a word. For example, just start talking about the apparel you wear when you are swimming: it could be swimmers, bathers, cozzies, or togs, and the chosen word will immediately reveal a person’s location or background.

Then start saying “dance” or “enhance” and you will know on which side of the State border someone lives by how they pronounce the 'a' in the word!

So it is with those little cakes designed to serve one person, the ‘cupcake’. Growing up in

Australia, we hadn’t heard of such a word. A ‘cupcake’ is surely a cake cooked in a cup! We always called them ‘patty cakes’. Evidently this comes from the nursery rhyme:

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man.

Bake me a cake as fast as you can.

Pat it and prick it, and mark it with B,

Put it in the oven for Baby and me.

(or the initial and word ‘baby’ replaced with a child’s name).

It’s only in recent years, that the American ‘cupcake’ has taken over. (In Australian super-markets, we still buy paper ‘patty pans’ in which to cook our ‘patty cakes’!) Well, what’s in a name? They taste good, no matter what we call them!

So, in deference to my American friends, I present to you the October cupcake Hexie!

It's part of the Gentle Gems Hexies of the Month Programme. The other October Hexie is another umbrella, complete with pretty pink surrounds:

The patterns for these two Gentle Gems Hexies have been sent to all who have joined the 2021 Hexies of the Month programme. There's just one month left in the programme, but it’s not too late to join and it’s very reasonably priced, so hop over here for all the details.

I know a lot of stitchers are starting to think about Christmas, so here are a couple of patterns that might spark your interest. The "All is calm, all is bright" Christmas ornaments are very quick and fun to make and are a great way to use up fabric scraps.  

and what about this little Pudding Bauble that you could make for your Christmas tree - or as a gift for a friend, or a school-teacher:

Both patterns are very reasonably priced and meet the "fun, quick and easy" category!

After more than three weeks in lockdown, Aged Care facilities are open and I can once again go and visit hubby. It's amazing how much these visits lift my spirit and put a smile on my face!

I am working steadily on the 2022 Block of the Month project and it's coming together beautifully, or so a friend told me when I showed her!

Happy stitching!

Val

It's never too early for Christmas sewing!

I'm one of those people who absolutely refuses to put up any Christmas decorations before December! I raise my eyebrows when the shops start draping tinsel in October, and screw up my face when I am told there are only 90 days to Christmas!

However, I'm a realist and know that if we don't start sewing for Christmas soon, we're not going to finish in time for the celebrations!

This year I had planned to design a few new Christmas patterns - but they have not eventuated, so I hope you don't mind seeing some old ones. The Christmas Dove is such a fun and quick design and so symbolic of the peace and love that is God's Christmas gift to us. Then it is always nice to have a new oven mitt and trivet for Christmas cooking. The Ding Dong Merrily Table Runner has always been one of my most popular patterns. I have never understood the reason why, but I am thankful that people like it and want to make it!

The reason why there are no new Christmas patterns to show you is because I have found it really difficult to get the motivation to do anything much at all lately. Once again, I haven't been able to visit hubby for the past eleven days, and don't know when the lockdown is going to end. This time it is a gastro enteritis virus that has caused it. In reality, it means I have many more hours in my week to do all sorts of things, but in practice I don't have much to show for all the extra time!

It has been helpful in recent days to realise that this is all part of my grieving process and it's OK to sit and stare out the window and to transfer all the "to do" list to the next day, or next week! Even finding that my grief has a title - Ambiguous Grief - is helpful, because I know there are other people who understand and have been through it too.

 

Thankfully, I still find great comfort in curling up in my recliner in the evening with embroidery in hand, and if I am in danger of having nothing ready to stitch, then the motivation kicks in enough to at least prepare the next piece of applique or stitching!

I have even done some of the pattern writing for my 2022 Block of the Month Design, so all is not lost! Everything is just happening slower than usual and it's all good, because "All the days ordained for me were written in God's book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:16 NIV.

Blessings on you,

Val

Colour Analysis

 Many years ago, when I was considerably younger, our two girls and I had a personal colour analysis consultation. It was a really great experience when a professional analysed our skin complexion and eye and hair colour and matched them with colours of clothing that would make us look our best. I was already fairly aware of what didn’t look great on me, and now having a colour swatch to take shopping gave me a greater confidence in buying old favourites and trying new colours. It didn’t surprise me that I was designated a “Summer” seasonal palette, since that was my favourite season anyway!

 From when I was a little child, people would always tell me that blue is a shade that really suits me. There are some colours that drain the life out of me like yellow or black and I know to avoid them near my face and just to use them in small pieces. 

I guess it's inevitable that I will take colours that I like and that are in my colour palette and use them in my designing too. So in the September Gentle Gems Hexies there are two hexies with a lot of blue in them. 

 Our blue butterfly is very simple, but the addition of a pink running stitch inside the wings gives it a pretty look. The yellow body is worked in rows of stem stitch.

I love hats, but I have a quite small head so it is difficult to find anything that looks good. On top of that I have very fine hair, so an hour or so with a hat on and the dreaded ‘hat hair’ looks anything but great! But I can still dream, and so there is a pretty blue hat on the second September hexie. 

 

It’s decorated with beautiful bullion roses and looks as if it is ready for the next ‘Easter Parade’.

The patterns for these two Gentle Gems Hexies have been sent to all who have joined the 2021 Hexies of the Month programme. It’s not too late to join and it’s very reasonably priced, so hop over here for all the details.

My lemon tree has produced loads of lemons this year so I decided to indulge and make some lemon butter. It's decades since I've had any, and I had forgotten how wonderful it tastes!

Now I need to think how I am going to use up the rest of the lemons on the tree!

If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook, you will have seen little sneak peaks of something different that I am preparing as a BOM for 2022. It is coming together nicely and it's always exciting when a project nears completion. Here are a couple of pics to whet your appetite!

Until next time, happy stitching!

Val

Beads, Sequins and Stars!

 A couple of years ago I bought the lovely Star of Wonder Christmas panel (by Nancy Halvorsen) from a friend who had given up any intention of putting it together herself. The days of the country colours in the panel are long gone, but I still love the way the panel has captured the wonder and worship of Christmas in its whimsical design.

Initially, I added a couple of borders, quilted it, bound it and added a hanging sleeve. I always had the intention of one day embellishing it.

When my daughter, Janelle, saw it, she told me she had the same panel that she hoped to put together one day. She also has a huge array of beads, sequins and all sorts of glitzy bits, so next time she visited, she came with packets full of pretties and great ideas on how to use them on the panel!

Eventually I was motivated enough to put in place some of her ideas. I think the cleverest one is what she suggested to use for the crowns.

I thought it would be fun to make the sheep fluffy with some cotton wool.

I ended up with glue and fluff everywhere but I like the three dimensional effect.

The beads bring the holly to life.

And the roofs look like they are decorated for Christmas!

Much as I dislike using metallic thread because of the way it strips so easily, I persevered and there are little bits of gold highlight here and there, like the angels headband and the crosses on the lower garment.

I couldn't resist using it on the scallops on the dress and the swirls on the wings. If you look closely on some of the previous photos, you will see other little bits highlighted as well.

My favourite Palestrina Knot Stitch had to be included somewhere, so the crib blanket received the treatment!

I am so thrilled with the completed hanging and can't wait for December so I can hang it on the wall.

 Christmas 2021 is just so uncertain here in Australia. It is the year of our cycle when the whole family comes to our place for Christmas. How much of the whole family will be able to come is the big question. Our daughter is in Japan, so being able to fly home is very doubtful. This week our son was supposed to be coming to spend some time with me from interstate, but the trip was cancelled when they went into lockdown and our State borders closed. I am thankful that our government is keeping us safe while they work very hard on vaccinating everyone, but I do long for the days when family can come and go as they please. Meanwhile long Skype calls are a happy alternative! Cultivating a heart of thankfulness makes all the difference. 1 Thessalonians 5:18

Blessings on you

Val