Time to wish you a happy Christmas!

As 2025 winds to its end, it's time to wish you a happy Christmas! My blog posts have been only occasional this year, a reflection on this season of my life and my age!

I have been just as busy as ever, but it now takes a bit longer to accomplish things! I still enjoy making pretty items to donate to the Christian bookshop which my daughter manages in Rockhampton. Then the two calendars I made for the Aged Care where hubby is a resident, took a considerable amount of time and effort (see https://val-laird.blogspot.com/2025/10/redesigning-my-calendar-quilt.html and https://val-laird.blogspot.com/2025/08/welcoming-spring.html) 

I spend the morning working for my church (administration and Bible Study preparation) and the afternoon is time with hubby at the Aged Care.

Then, if I stay awake long enough after the evening meal, it is time for stitching Scripture verses for the items to make for the Bookstore.

This one is a mini-organiser:

A notebook cover:

Another mini-organiser:

Journal cover:

and a pretty box to keep treasures!

Thank you to those who still have a look at what I am doing - some of you have been with me for a long time!

I pray this Christmas will be a special time of celebrating the birth of Jesus - the Only One who can save our poor world and those who live in it!

Val

Redesigning my Calendar Quilt

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the Aged Care where my hubby has been a resident for the last 4½ years, asked me to make perpetual calendars for two of their Dining Rooms. For the first calendar I made my original Garden Dreams Pattern. I gave it just a few slight adjustments but it was basically the same as the original design and everyone loves it.

What was I going to make for the second calendar? I don't know whether you are like me, but I really dislike making the same thing twice!  There was no way I was going to make another Garden Dreams Calendar, having just spent three months making the first one!

Four years ago, I designed a lovely perpetual calendar wall quilt, called Days of Delight, and it was offered as a Block of the Month program in 2022. It is labour intensive, but spread over 12 months made it possible and 'doable'. 

There were lots of things to love in the original version of the Days of Delight project, eg the cute little Days of the Week mini-quilts. Since I hadn't made those for four years, and with totally different fabric bringing about enough difference, I was happy to launch into applique and embroidery to create them. I just changed one mini-quilt to something a little less complicated than the original. 

Then there were the sweet little hexagons. They are flipped so that the sides are parallel. I decided that they could stay also. Who doesn't love a hexagon???

The 12 sweet little Months of the Year mini-quilts also got the nod, but I have made them smaller and removed the extra embroidery elements in the new design.

They were the easy decisions to make! While I liked the original version of the background, there was something about the solid fabrics that I used that didn't give me that exuberant feeling of just loving every bit of the design!

Actually, I could probably say that about almost every quilt where I have featured solids! My style just doesn't lend itself to using them! Give me tone-on-tone or busy little fabrics any day!

So a total revamp of the actual background was the answer! For the main feature, I used one of my quaint cottages, with a lovely Suffolk Puff Garden.

A wheelbarrow, a tree and a birdhouse were added, and it was all starting to really come together.

It just needed some Prairie Points to finish off the edge and Blossom Cottage is complete!

Of course, you have to have somewhere to store all those mini-quilts and hexagons, so a fabric box was the answer.

 

I have removed Days of Delight from sale now, but Blossom Cottage pattern is available for purchase in its place. You can find it on my Wall Quilts and Hanging page here.

Now I'm just waiting for the quilt hanger to arrive and Blossom Cottage Calendar should be soon hanging in the dining room. I am hoping the residents love it as much as I do!  

Happy stitching!

Val

Party fun and little ones!

There are lots of birthdays in the later part of the year in our family, so it's party time. One of our great grandsons had his 4th birthday recently and that gave me opportunity to also see his little cousin, our new great grand-daughter. These four below belong to our grand-daughter and grand-son who are twins - two boys for the grand-daughter and two girls for the grand-son.

Aren't they gorgeous!

Another of our grandsons will be turning 21 next week, and his brother will be 23 the following week, so another party to look forward to! Then yet another grandson has just announced his engagement!

Speaking of little ones, I am blessed to see lots of babies on my morning walk. Three sets of these Wood Ducks have the cutest little ducklings at the moment.

My Hoya hasn't had babies but it is flowering beautifully this year; it's the best show I have had on this plant, so I am very happy.

I am still making bags! I get a few rows done each day, sitting with hubby in the Aged Care and before long, another one is finished.

This is a little notebook cover that I made for the Christian Bookstore where my daughter is Manager.

Now I have another lovely 'party' event to look forward to - my son is spending 12 days holiday with me, starting at the end of this week. Apart from a few odd jobs while I have a man in the house, I have quite a few ideas of how we can spend some enjoyable days! As the Bible says, 1 Tim 6:17, 'God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.' 

God bless you.

Val

Welcoming Spring

2025 Winter, for me, has been especially cold. I have always felt the cold more than other people seem to, but this year has been harder than ever.

Apart from the physical problems of chillblains and Raynaud's disease, Winter always makes me feel depressed and wanting to hibernate. I am therefore really looking forward to the warmer weather and am welcoming Spring with great enthusiasm! 

While I have felt like crawling into a warm hole and hiding, common-sense prevailed! One of my grand-daughters made me this absolutely gorgeous rug and I have used it constantly, curled up in my recliner after the evening meal, with the rug doing its work, and body warm enough to tackle my stitching.

The focus of my stitching for the last couple of months has been this version of my Garden Dreams Calendar.

The Aged Care where my hubby is a resident has been brightening up their Dining Rooms and when they saw my perpetual Calendars on my website, asked me to make two for them, one each for two Dining Rooms attached to the Wing in which my hubby is cared for!

I was especially happy with how the box turned out - a lot of work but totally worth it.

Now that Spring is just around the corner, I have made a start on the second commission. It is an adaptation of my Days of Delight Calendar. With warmer weather starting to make its presence felt, I am facing life and stitching with much more enthusiasm and delight! 

Happy Stitching!

Val

Family Delights

Hubby and I have been blessed with a large family! We have four wonderful children and 15 grand-children. Many of the grand-children are now married and we have eight great-grandchildren, with another one due any day and another due in December and another in January! If we count everyone, at the moment we are a family of 42!

There have been all sorts of reasons in the last couple of months for family to be visiting home - our home! Holidays, work, conferences, World Congress, and just plain 'visiting Grandma' have brought them to our Capital City, Brisbane. We are just an hour north, so near enough to drop in or stay for a few days.

Needless to say, it has been a great joy to see them all, spend time together, catch up on all the news, and just relax in each other's company. Being able to see all four of our children and their spouses has been wonderful, given that they are scattered around the globe! The verse from Psalms 127:3 comes to mind: 'Children are a gift from the LORD.' What a blessing!

 Only a little bit of stitching has been happening but that's not a problem. There's plenty of time to catch up before we see some family again at Christmas.

I've had a couple of commissions to work on, so hopefully next time I will be able to show you one of the finished projects!

Happy stitching!

Val

Some redesigning

It's been a few years now since I have had any new designs published. The demise of all but one of the craft magazines that published more than 200 of my original designs meant that there was no longer a ready outlet for my work. 

That hasn't meant I haven't done any craft for those years!!! It just means I haven't been designing on the same scale, or making projects specifically for publication.

Much of my craft work now is redesigning! As you will be aware, if you follow my blog posts, I donate to the Christian Bookstore of which my daughter is the Manager. Their policy is that they will only sell goods that have a Christian message or Bible verse, so are not in competition with other local stores and are able to have unique gifts alongside their many Bibles and books. Over the last 15 months I have had fun redesigning a number of my patterns to make them suitable for selling in daughter's store. I popped some lovely Scripture words on this cushion cover that I had made a couple of years ago - another project redesigned!

The Bible Pouch above was a customer's order. I was given the dimensions and the verse to display and the request for it to be dark blue - a fairly blank page to work on. I decided to redesign my 'Walk in the Park Satchel'. I love how it turned out, so I hope the buyer does too!

I found this lovely doiley I had worked some time ago when I was looking through one of my many crates of crafted goods. It is stitched with the rather unique Bunka thread, and was meant to be worked with a punch-needle, but I chose to hand-embroider it. It was designed to be a wall hanging, but I decided to make it into a tray cloth or doiley and crocheted the pretty edge around it. When I saw it again, my eyes went to all that lovely space on the top right corner - I could add a lovely Scripture verse there and donate it for sale. So here it is finished! I am very happy with the whole project and hope someone falls in love with it enough to purchase it. I get such a thrill when my daughter lets me know that a customer enjoys seeing my work or that they have bought one of my projects as just the right gift for a friend or family.

The coat hanger cover above is another redesign. I found it in my 'Passes drawer' (Projects at a Stand Still).with pieces cut out and flowers embroidered - it had just never been sewn together. It was easy to add a Scripture Verse and complete it. It has already sold. 

I am finding the redesignging just as rewarding as bringing the original design into being. There is still much joy in embroidery and there's nothing like stitching the Word of God to encourage you!

God bless you.

Val

Bits and Pieces of Life

An update on my hubby: He is doing OK, not eating or drinking as well as in the past, still has some pneumonia, sleeps a lot, but is generally his happy self when he is awake. God's grace is truly amazing!!!

My daughter's parcel of goodies for the Christian Bookstore (see previous post) arrived in good time for Mothers' Day and some of them walked out the door fairly quickly! 

These crochet bags always seem to be popular. To me, simple crochet like this is something I can do without having to think at all, muscle memory takes over, and I hardly need to look at what I am doing, so it is an ideal activity for me to do while sitting with hubby in the Aged Care.

The pretty Japanese fabric in this coat hanger below is one of my absolute favourites! I thought long and hard whether I would give some away to make this sweet project for donation. Common sense won - what is the point in dying and leaving this earth with a lot of pretty fabric still in your drawers???  The hanger was sold on the first day it was in the shop, and then the buyer put in a request for me to make another one exactly the same!!! She gave hers to her mother for Mothers' Day and now wants one of her own!

I haven't done a lot of stitching in the last month. Our Church is having a weekend of celebrations at the end of this month/beginning of June to celebrate our 50th Anniversary. We've had a great Committee putting the weekend together, planning a Dinner, an Op Shop Bonanza, Sausage Sizzle, Dedication of a Prayer Garden, High Tea, Sunday Service of Thanksgiving, a luncheon and celebratory cake! 

I wasn't on the Committee so just expected that as Secretary, I would be finding and distributing information, historical documents, photos etc. It didn't quite end up that way! The writing of the Historical Booklet ended up on my plate, lots of hours editing a Historical Powerpoint Show followed, then I was plunged quite out of my depth when I was asked to edit a half-hour Video, something that is definitely not on my list of skills! Thankfully I think everything is all in place now, with the celebrations starting in just 5 days.

 I'm looking forward to being in my much more comfortable space of embroidery and stitching again!

Val

When plans get changed!

I had some lovely plans for Easter! Our younger daughter works full-time, so a four-day Easter break was the ideal time to go and visit her and her family. We have a wonderful train service which takes 8 hours to her city and the Government gives pensioners four free trips each year. So my tickets were booked and the packing was done, but I didn't end up getting on the train!

A couple of weeks ago, I alerted the nurse at the Aged Care that my hubby had a bit of a cough. A couple of days later he was quite unwell. By this time it was the weekend before Easter and he ended up in hospital on IV antibiotics. He not only had a chest infection but also Aspiration Pneumonia.

He initially responded well to the treatment and I spoke to the doctor about my planned trip and he saw no reason not to go. That all changed the day before I was due to hop on the train. He deteriorated rapidly and the doctor told me to spend as much time as I could with him and to call the family as he was not expected to survive.

So Easter was spent sitting at his side in the hospital, holding his hand!

Amazingly, he recovered enough to be sent back to the Aged Care a few days later. He is weak and now has heart and kidney issues on top of his very advanced dementia, so is not in a great state. I am thankful to God that he is comfortable and is being well cared for. 

So God had other plans for my Easter! It was a difficult, emotional time, but I have known God's peace as so many of my friends were praying for me, and our family have been so supportive and helpful. I did manage to get to Church on Easter Sunday to celebrate the amazing fact that Jesus is alive and death has been swallowed up in victory. That puts everything into perspective!

So I have unpacked all the pouches, journals, mini-organisers, bags, and things I had made to donate to the Christian bookshop my daughter manages. Now to find a box and freight them to her so they are there in time for Mothers' Day in a couple of weeks!

God bless.

Val

Big Clouds with a Silver Lining

Brisbane, my closest city 65km south of where I live, is a wonderful sub-tropical paradise. It is far enough south of the equator that it doesn't have excessively hot temperatures and doesn't usually get the wild weather of the tropics.

It was therefore major news when it was announced that a Category 2 Tropical Cyclone, called Alfred, was heading our way and that where I live was right in its direct path! The last cyclone to hit Brisbane was in 1974!!!

With many people never having experienced a cyclone before, government agencies constantly explained to us what we needed to do to protect our homes and our lives. A friend helped bring my outdoor setting inside the house and I moved every one of my many potplants so they could not become missiles in the fierce wind. I had tarpaulins and sandbags ready, put the wheelie bins and anything else that was loose in the garden shed, filled tubs and jugs with water, charged the phone and the devices, turned the solar system off, then waited and prayed. 

I asked the Lord for two things - that He would protect me and my home, and that He please would not let my power go off. The thought of dealing with a freezer full of food without power for a week was just too much for me to contemplate. 

Alfred was a Cyclone with its own agenda. It constantly did not do what was expected of it; it stalled just off the coast and thankfully somewhat petered out by the time it hit us. Because it took so long to arrive, there were four full days when we had to stay at home and not to be on the roads. Three appointments that I had were cancelled, I couldn't go and visit hubby, and everyone was so consumed with the cyclone, that no-one sent me any emails that required work from me. And my power didn't go off! 350,000 people lost power and some were without it for more than a week, but God was very kind to me and answered my prayer.    

What's a girl to do with four days stuck indoors ... with power? Sew of course! Those big cyclonic clouds certainly had a silver lining for me. Four days with no responsibilities meant many hours from morning to night to spend being creative - in between all the phone calls from concerned family and friends!

I had picked up some brand-new 7in zippers for just 10c each from the local Op Shop so found a use for them in some small zippered pouches. One of my daughters had requested a new water bottle carrier, so that soon came together. There was time for quite a few other bits and pieces too - I was in my happy place! 

God answered my other prayer also, and I and the home were kept safe with no damage. The horizontal rain managed to creep in under one door and in one window, but that was very easy to mop up. Thankfully, there was little of the widespread flooding that had been predicted.

It was a new experience for me to be on my own in the face of a natural disaster but I felt very supported by family and friends and by Jesus who is always with me.

Many blessings on you.

Val