Best laid plans…

Well my planned Friday Night Sew In was a bust…

Have been struggling with insomnia for the last 10 days, with resulting fatique, headaches and general aches and pains.

Lucky if I manage 4 hours sleep each night… so by Friday I was literally running on fumes… and woke up Friday morning to ear ache, sore and itchy eye and blocked nose… but only down the right side of my face!

A very late start at work, mean’t a very late finish… so I went home and curled up under a crocheted blanket and watched a repeat of Agatha Christie and then a soak in the tub with the hope of getting some sleep.

Didn’t quite work out that way… still awake at 5.00am, but when I did go to sleep I slept through until the phone woke me at 12.30pm.

My weekend was a write-off really… though I did manage to do some work on the Butterfly wallhanging on Saturday night.

June Friday Night Sew In…be there or be square…

I missed last month’s sew in – not that I wasn’t sewing, just that I wasn’t around to flaunt my work, as I was away on retreat. Planning for this one though… finishing off the Butterfly wallhanging mentioned here – just to sew down binding and hanging sleeve and it’s done… and doing some work on extra something for my cat loving swap partner to apologize for being so tardy… and also working on a teacosy for another swap partner.

Will need to be careful about photo’s as I think the girls look at the blog sometimes!

Memories of Maldon…

As I mentioned in previous posts, I had my annual retreat at The Parsonage a few weeks ago.   While I wasn’t very well over the weekend, and there were a couple of other sickies amongst us… it was still a lovely time and I think we all suffered a bit of a pang as this will be our last year at The Parsonage, and next year we will need to find other accommodation.

As usual on the drive up we did a bit of a shop hop, meeting up at Gisborne to check out Quilters Bazaar and the Drapers of Mount Macedon, and then on the advice of Catsmum, we stopped off in Kyneton to visit Pick Up Stitches, a new to me, Wool and Patchwork shop, who were having a sale.

So, I ended up with a bundle of Heirloom Magic Merino yarn and over the weekend away I stitched some more Grannies, which I found easier to work on while we sat and quietly chatted or watched movies.   I’ve enjoyed these so much, I rang Pick Up Stitches last week to see if they still had the same dyelots in store, and bought some extra yarn to make a largish lap rug.

The inspiration for these grannies comes from this post at the always inspirational Lucy at Attic24, which lead to me to here and more especially to this photo and all it’s lovely green goodness.

And for some more intraweb crafty goodness – check out the Quilt Gallery on Threadbear’s site of the splendiforous show and tell at The Applique Society meeting we were lucky to attend while we were away…    I could make all of these… and it was funny how many of these I have patterns for already!

Butterflies, flutterbies…

I am part of a private Flickr group that is making tea/coffee themed blocks each month … well, I’m mean’t to be, but still trying to work out what I want to do.

But, they also have organised monthly swaps, that you can volunteer to participate in.

I showed photo’s of the pincushion swap here, and last month’s swap was butterfly themed.   I love butterfly quilts, have one on the go, and plans to do others at some stage.   So you can imagine my delight when opening my parcel from the lovely Kate in the UK to discover this bounty…

2 lovely appliqued blocks

A truly gorgeous needlebook

And a lovely mug warmer.

With most of May being a bit of a write-off quilting and stitching wise due to the dreaded lurgy and subsequent headaches/migraines, I, of course, am running behind on my project for Kate.   But here is a sneak peak of a appliqued and stitched butterfly wallhanging that I’m hoping to have on it’s way but week’s end.

Oh it’s hard to be random…

Even before I finished the Giant Granny Square I had started some other crochet projects.

Having gone to Spotlight to buy a crochet hook and discovering they had a sale on Spotlight Basics 8 ply, I bought a bundle of 17 different colours and a bag of white and searched Ravelry for a random project that would stretch my skills a little by doing some other than a standard granny!

And found the Lion Brand Traditional Granny Blanket – sorry can’t link to pattern, as you need to subscribe, but if you like knitting or crochet I’d advise that you do, some fantastic freebie patterns.

So over the last 6 weeks or so, I’ve been slowly making up these wobbly circles in various colour combo’s until I used up all 17 balls, and will now turn these into squares using white, when I feel so inclined, and catch up with some commitments.

Random Granny Blanket centres

Am trying to weave in the ends as I go along, so it’s not a major drama at the end.   Have no idea what the finished blanket will be, as I’m using a different ply and hook size so these will come out smaller than the pattern.

The Big Reveal… Parsonage Dresden Plate Exchange

I’ve posted quite a few times about the Parsonage Dresden Plate Exchange… a 9 month block exchange where a group of 9 friends made Dresden Plates to the specified pattern, colour and size all to be revealed at our annual retreat at the Parsonage in Maldon end of May.

I can now reveal all of the sets of blocks made (except mine… which was left behind in Melbourne and I still haven’t received… sigh!)

Pam's Pink and Green Dresdens

Jayne's Pink/Red/Cream Dresdens

As you can see, Jayne made extra’s – and still has more to make – she wants this for her bed!

Blurry photo of Debbie's Dresden Hearts

Jenni's Autumn Dresdens

Megan's Red and White Dresdens

Jule's Peace on Earth Dresdens

Kylie's Pretty Spotty Paisley Dresdens

Catherine's Red, Green, Brown, Pink Dresdens

The Bramble and the Rose…April/May

I realise I hadn’t posted an update on The Bramble and the Rose, that I am doing as part of a stitch along on Ink Circles Stitchers blog.    Mind you, haven’t had clear enough vision to work on this at all since early May, so suspect this will be another project that I fall behind on.

This is my current progress as at first week in May.

The Bramble and The Rose - 3rd Update

And this was where I was at at the end of March.

The Bramble and The Rose, 2nd progress update

Giant Granny Love

Well I finished the Giant Granny Afghan I posted about here.

Giant Granny Afghan

Didn’t end up making it as big as I planned, when it was obvious I would have had to buy extra of some of the coloured yarn to keep going.   It ended up at 48 inches square, which is still a lovely size for snuggling under.

Scalloped edge

And I was very chuffed at being able to look at a granny rug I had bought last year and work out how to replicate the scalloped border… which I finished off in green.

Now, I’ve discovered that Miss Gracie, the yowling wondercat likes wool… actually likes it so much, this is what happens everytime I attempt to hook!

Gracie adding and abetting, or is that hindering hooking

Where, oh where, have I been…

I’ve been to London to visit the Queen… yeah right!

Have been away in the land of pucky, sneezy, sleepy, mopey etc. with a recurring viral infection, migraines, gastro etc.   Still not 100% but getting there.

That’s not to say that I haven’t actually been doing anything, have quite a few photos to share on my work prior to getting sick and others work in progress so will be doing a series of blog posts over the next little while to play catch up.

Also working on some secret squirrel stuff for an online swap – will post some sneaky peaks soon.

So stay tuned!