Vintage Lane Stitches

I can't believe its that time of the year again!

Like most people I just cant believe how quickly the year has flown by and we are once again celebrating Christmas.This year for us will be quite a stress free lead up as we are gathering together with my husbands family at his brothers place Christmas Day. As much as I love hosting Christmas at our home it is nice to have the year off.The usual traditions and decorating has been happening around our home.

and the usual baking of a mega batch of honey biscuits.This is a photo of  whats left in our biscuit barrel. I  decided not to  bore you with more photos as you have seen them the last two years.

I took these pictures of our back garden the other evening with the sun on the hills in the background, it doesnt look as impressive in a photo but it sure is pretty to look at in real life!

and as you can see those peaches look just about ripe enough to eat! 

Garden Party

At the end of November we celebrated our middle daughters 21st birthday with a garden party for family and friends.After a rather anxious start to the day weather wise the afternoon turned out to be nice and sunny with just a bit of wind.Below are a few snaps of the party.

we had fun setting up with lots of florals,china,glassware and lace.

 

The cake was a jaffa mud cake.

The birthday girl with her sisters and cousin

Her 21st quilt recieved from her Gran.It is A Gardeners Journal by Annie Downes at Hatched and Patch. A very suitable choice considering she had a garden party to celebrate but the quilt was made 4 years ago!

Also another milestone in our family has been the Graduation of our youngest daughter from High School.Year 12 for her has been a busy but successful year. Her school had their Validictory Service a couple of weeks ago and we are very  proud of our girl for recieving the top mark award for Business Studies and English Communications.She also recieved a School service award. She is still to work out what it is exactly she would like to be doing career wise but is now enjoying some down time before Christmas and eagerly awaiting her SACE mark for her year of hard work.This is a very bad photo of her recieving her certificate.

in my next post I will share our Christmas preparations.

Bedroom makeover and some more camping

As promised in my last post I will show some pictures of our newly painted bedroom. I have been wanting to paint this room since we moved in 5 years ago but its taken this long to get it done. Originally it had a dark brown  feature wall with cream on the others but I  decided it wasnt really me, just a bit to dark for my liking. So I went for an all over colour called Rose beige which I am very happy with. Still a bit of tweeking to do but you get the general idea.The little cupboard on the right was a dark brown stain so hubby painted it for me.

A couple of weeks ago we had a longweekend here in South Australia so we decided to make the most of it and go camping again.We are lucky enough to  be able to camp on my brothers farm, where there is lots of wood and privacy which is nice.The Friday night was a bit windy and wet but it soon fined up for the rest of the weekend, you have to love a campfire.

and billys boiling.

Our campsite ( you have seen this photo before used in another post it was better than the others I took this time.)

Visitors for breakfast

We found a little fairy in her tree house

Ruins near our campsite

Lots of cooking gets done while we are camping, using the camp oven and our little barbecue on the fire.A roast with lots of veggies is a standard tea time meal.Thats the veggies in the camp oven and the roast lamb off to the side on the cutting board ready to cut up.

and the best part,eating.Yummmmm.

Scones for morning tea.

and roasting marshmellows on a stick.

So thats why we love camping so much.

Oh and I almost forgot, OMG how could I forget one of the reasons we dont camp alot in summer is this.It actually wasnt at our campsite but my sil found it that morning tangled in the net that covers their veggie garden eeeewwww.Its dead even though it doesnt look it,my dear brother arranged it like that to try to scare my husband.

I havent dont much sewing of late as I have been working full time as one of the girls at work is on holidays so I have been doing extra shifts ,but once again I will show some of D2s work.This is not quite finished but it is the covering back ground for her pin up board and was a project out of Leanne Beasleys Vignette magazine.

Granny,knitting and some flowers

Last week we helped Hubby's Granny celebrate her 100th birthday.We had a lovely visit with her in the nursing home.She is such a character and made us all laugh.For a 100 year old she is still very lively and has a better memory than I do now.

I have been busy cutting strips for a quilt I attended a workshop for at the Sydney stitches and craft fair.The pattern is a Monica Poole design from her new book.

Over the  winter D2 decided she would like to learn how to knit a beanie. These days when you want to know anything you just get onto you tube, search what you want to do  and up comes a tutorial. This was the result, a lovely beanie to keep her head warm.

We have had many lovely spring days lately so the garden is really starting to bloom.

We have also been kept busy with some painting, I will be back with some photos of our bedroom makeover shortly.

Allsorts

This last week I have worked,cleaned,washed,done the food shopping and paid bills. Yep just the ordinary old stuff that we all do.There has been a bit of time for the more enjoyable things like baking.Nothing too special just good ol cupcakes and anzac biscuits,something to fill the lunch boxes.

I Havent had as much time to sew so far this week but have done a bit of stitching on my GJ and TTS blocks, but none finished to show yet.D2 has made a table runner from The Hatched and Patched Angel Story book for her boyfriends mother for her birthday, she has done a great job.

We did have time to have lunch at one of our favourite places after a doctors appt.D2 had french toast with icecream,how good does that look! and mine was a much healthier choice. 

D1 and I also popped into Savers the big second hand store near us where we picked up quite a bit,one item was this silver scoop looking thing that we thought was quite nice, anyone know what it was used for??Only $2.99

Also these glass icecream dishes, arent they pretty? they were only $2 each.

I will show more in another post but for now must go and tidy up and get ready for work.Have a great day peoples!