Vintage Lane Stitches

A bit of everything again

To start off with, here is a picture of some more Spring goodness from our garden, I love picking a big bunch of flowers to put inside, in our kitchen, above our sink where we can smell them.

and a bit closer look, I wish you could smell them the pink rose is just beautiful. The candle is called dewberry dreams which you can buy at the supermarket, it has a lovely sweet fragrance 

This lilac flower also came from our garden, it too smells yummy, as do the freshly baked jam drop biscuits just out of the oven. Email me if you would like the recipe.

 
I have done a little sewing over the last week, I have been trying to finish off a quilt I started years ago here is a small sample picture, I have nearly finished and will hopefully show you the completed project in my next post. Dont look to closely at the blanket stitch, I used my machine for this quilt and I think I can get my hand sewing neater, machine is just alot quicker.

 
 I have also been off garage saleing again and found a few bargains, nothing I really needed of course but you know, they were just so cheap. Here are a few before and after shots of what I purchased.This little chair was 50 cents 
and after a quick paint job it was perfect for this little bear.

 

This little old black board, I thought would be cute touched up with a bit of black paint and used to write messages on throughout the year with chalk pens.It was $2

and after

This stash all up, only cost $13.50. I cant resist buying wicker baskets, I have so many and aren't the little birds on the tins sweet.

and finally this little cute jug and bowl was only $2.00, love the colours. 

I have decided I should try and do shorter posts more often rather than leave it all for one big post every 4 weeks,what do you think is that a better idea? Time just seems to go by far too quickly.

 
 

Opp shopping and some decorating

I Went Opp shopping with D1 the other day as she had to buy and outfit for a 21st birthday party she is going to.I was the ideal person to take with her as the theme for the party is the 80's, and  I know exactly what was worn back then, that being my teenage years and all. Remember the big boofy hairstyles and huge shoulder pads. Just to jog the memory a bit before going we thought we would watch this movie,I recommend it it is so funny and sooooo eightys.

 
Also while shopping I found these bargains for about $10 all up.

 
Can anyone tell me what the glass jug with the silver lid would be used for? My guess was red wine???

D2 has decided she has outgrown the decor in her bedroom so she is planning a makeover. She bought this quilt cover and quilt to go on her bed and is painting a feature wall in this lovely cranberry colour. The quilt looks more red  in the photo than cranberry  but is more of a cranberry colour. She also bought the lovely white dove to put on the wall as decoration. Cant wait to see it all come together will post a picture as soon as it does.

My latest purchase in the quilting department was the new Tilda book, I love it! There is something on just about every page i want to make.

Here's one of the projects, isnt she a pretty little bird, I will have to make a few of these I think.

To finish off I walked outside this afternoon to put the chooks to bed for the evening and had to take a photo of the sun shining over the vineyards and hills behind our house. Probably not as spectacular in a photo as in real life but we feel very blessed to have this in our backyard.

 

Baby sitting

A few Sunday's ago  I had the joy of babysitting my 16 month old niece. You would have read before about how gorgeous I think she is. Just have a look at this photo, I figured we must have done an okay job looking after her  because look how relaxed she is. It was such a fun day.

And get out the fireworks and sound the bells, shock horror, I have actually done a bit of sewing. I found this packet of squares the other day in my material cupboard and thought, if I could remember how to use my sewing machine, yes its been that long,I would sew them up add a border to make a little lap quilt. Cant remember the name of the fabric range, but isnt it pretty.

Thought I would also throw in a picture of our little dog Charlie, as I have'nt posted about him for awhile, one very mischevious little dog this one.

And here are some of the first signs of Spring in our garden, a lovely bunch of flowers for inside and some home grown produce, along with some nice warm sunny days.

Bring on Spring

Well I can say I have just about had enough of the cold weather and am looking forward to the warmth of spring and the flowers it brings.( I know I've posted this pic before,sorry.)

 All my chicks are home sick today with the flu, poor babies, so the fire is roaring (well sort of)

  and there is plenty of this happening.

It has'nt got me or hubby yet so lets hope we can escape getting it.

Had a visit with my little niece the other day and am looking forward to babysitting her all day next Sunday, she gets cuter everytime I see her.

 

look at those little hands and that cute little beanie.

 

Also decided to create a reading nook in our bedroom, so got hubby to paint our bookshelves white, as they were a yuck coloured wood stain and popped a comfy chair next to it and ta da !!!

 

 

Nothing like a good holiday to get you back on track

First off, I would like to thank everyone who commented on my last post,which was far, far too long ago. I hope to try and improve on that. Thankyou for the many recipes I recieved to use up our large crop of lemons, thanks to the other obsessed Twilight fans (I can't wait for the next movie in the series, New moon, and yes I am rereading the books again for the third time) and also thanks to fellow bloggers for  your caring emails, checking up to see that all is okay in my blogging absence.I have no real excuse except the busyness of life and a lack of motivation, that I hope has been cured by a much needed and long awaited family holiday.

We have just returned from our holiday where we relaxed, saw lots of new sights, shopped and  spent quality time together, and just had a really great time in beautiful Sydney Australia. My husbands aunt and uncle live in Balmain, which is 5 minutes from the city centre. It is such a beautiful city with lots to see and do, here are few photos of what we got up to.

This is where we started, Adelaide airport, this was the girls first flight ever,they were pretty excited.

 

this is our plane

 

Where we stayed

 

and our lovely hosts Auntie Sue and Uncle Barry who let five extra people invade their peaceful home for a while.

 Here we are waiting to catch the ferry from Balmain into the city with the harbour bridge inthe background

and the beautiful city,opera house and bridge taken at night from Mrs Macquarie's chair.

 

 

Will bore you with more holiday photos in my next post but in the meantime, thought I would show you Hannahs stitching achievments while she has been on holidays from Uni. She made this bag for her boyfriends mothers birthday and also intends to make her some slippers to match, and finished two more stitchery's for her Truly Scrumptious quilt.(At least someone's got some sewing done.)

 

 

   

Its been awhile

Life has been quite busy since my last post , which I cant believe was six weeks ago. This year has flown by faster than any other year Im sure, its getting close to the middle of 2009 already and It feels like I have just posted about christmas only a few weeks ago.The change of season has been lovely with lots of crisp mornings and  refreshing rain, enabling us to light our wood fire to keep warm. Our view from the back of our house changes to show the different seasons . 

 

This is probably the last of my roses for the year before I cut them back again too.

Easter, School musicals (which I will post about later),craft fairs, weddings, Mothers day, netball, planning a long awaited holiday and every day life has filled up my days, but one thing in particular has replaced reading blogs (jut for a short while) and that is these books.One book of the series is missing as I have leant it to a friend who is also enjoying them as much as I have.

 

 As shown in my previous post my daughter is a huge Twilight fan and recieved the DVD for her birthday, which I watched with her and enjoyed. She nagged me for ages to read the books knowing how much better they were than the film and she was right. I cannot believe how this beautiful love story ( well yes I can actually because I love a good romance story wether it be a movie or book) has had me reading every spare minute. I usually read a book about once a year, if that , but I have read all of these books in 1 week, my family thought I had gone nuts. Not only that, I am now rereading them again. I wont even try to explain the story to you other than say its a Romeo and Juliet type story with different type of characters. I also enjoyed the movie and cant wait for the next to come out in November. I would love to hear from any other Twilight addicts. From what I hear there are lots out there.

Mothers day was lovely spent with both mums and some lovely gifts from my daughters

These came home with me after a trip to the Easter craft fair

 

 

That reminds me Easter was spent with friends at the Clare Valley in South Australia, we had a lovely time catching up, unfortunately this is the only photo I took. Us all enjoying  a yummy webber roast on the Saturday night.

And last of all I will soon have a tree full of ripe lemons does anyone have an easy lemonade recipe I could try or anything that uses lots of lemons.

 

Happy Easter and I have a bit of catching up to do

 

First of all I would like to wish everyone a very blessed Easter, I hope you all have a great time with family and friends. 

Now to catch up with whats been happening in the last few weeks, life got very busy there for awhile with work and lots of birthday celebrations.

Our youngest daughter had her birthday a few weeks ago, and judging from the pictures I think she was pretty happy with her presents.

 

she is a huge Twilight fan

 

and she was pretty excited about getting a new mp3 player and also a lovely pretty pink Billabong jacket amongst other things.

 

It was also our cute little nieces 1st birthday and she celebrated by having a smiley face party. When she was born we gave her a smiley face balloon, which she still has by the way, and now she loves anything with a smiley face on it. 

The birthday girl.

she has just started walking 

with her cousin and  I.

Her party food table with all the happy faces on the food.

   

We all had a great time.

 On the sewing front I made a few purchases from spotlight the other day as the girls and I would like to make an apron each to hang in the kitchen. If you go over to Netty's blog Thats Graphic she has done a post about the history of aprons with some great pictures.

 

Won't they make up the prettiest aprons with a striped coordinating pocket on the front.

Finally, thanks for hanging in there if you have got this far, it was our 23rd wedding anniversary on the 22nd of March. We went out for a lovely lunch and  I thought I would post a wedding photo to mark the occassion, my goodness we looked soooo young.

 

I would love to see some more wedding photos from all you bloggers out there so if your brave enough to post one let me know so I can come visit.

 

One year anniversary

Lots to share from the happenings at our home over the last couple of weeks. First of all it is my 1st year blogging anniversary, I cant believe it has been that long, time flies when your having fun.Thanks to everyone out there who has visited and left such kind, encouraging comments,when I have stitched something for a gift I am planning on having a giveaway to celebrate, so stay tuned.

 March is a very busy month for our family with 8 birthdays and two wedding anniversaries to celebrate, not all in our immediate family of course. Last Tuesday was our eldest daughters 20th birthday, here are a couple of her presents her sister made for her.

 

Also this little hanky she thought she would embroider for her to try out her newly acquired embroidery skills, isnt she clever?

 

Her little sister is having her birthday next Tuesday so this is the gift she has made for her. It is a jewellery holder, the idea is to hang necklaces and earrings from the little round silver rings. She found the pattern in a magazine and adapted the title on it to suit her sister (she is a big Hello Kitty fan.)

 

  

Had a visit from my dear friend Netty from Thats graphic last weekend ,we had a great time catching up over a few wines.

I dont know if regular visitors remember a couple of chairs I bought awhile ago for a few dollars each from garage sales, here they are all painted up.

I made these rag balls awhile ago

 

and this is a gift I recieved for my birthday from my sister, isnt the little patchwork sugar bowl so cute.

 

Finally just for a bit of humour, or embarresment I say, my dear husband wanted me to post a picture of his new work shoes,BIG DEAL you will say until you see the photo directly after of his old faithfuls he has been wearing for awhile now.

  

He said the holes were great ventilation for his very sweaty feet. Now thats embarassing!

 

   

What I have been up to

Today was my day off and what a perfect day it was. First of all  after months of no rain it finally happened, it rained just about all day, how nice and fresh it made everything feel.

 

and we are expecting more showers over the next few days which is great. I sat inside and stitched most of the time which was wonderful considering I havent picked up a needle since before christmas.I finished another block for my Leanne Beasley quilt.

 

and also started a cross stitch. I havent done one for years, but at the craft fair before christmas they had this one finished and framed on display, which inspired me to get this kit out I bought  years ago and make a start, I really enjoyed crossstitching again after all these years. 

 

and my new chooks have started laying which is good so had to show a photo of their work.

Vintage sewing,monte carlos and chooks

  A funny combination I know but here are some photos I hope you will find interesting. First of all I was appreciating some of the lovely work that has been done on some of the vintage linen that I have bought .I had to show you this french handkerchief (well thats what the guy told me it was) that I purchased at an Antique shop at Victor Harbour, probably about 10 years ago,isnt the lacework beautiful .

 

and these flowers are so perfectly padded and sewn onto this hand towel.

 

these cupboard knobs were bought from a garage sale by my MIL. At the moment they sit out on display on top of our T.V cabinet ,anyone have any suggestions as to something creative we can use them on or for.

 

Middle daughter has been down spending time with her Grandparents for a couple of days and her Grandmother has been teaching her some embroidery stitches, this is a sample of her first go at it

she also gave her some of these old embroidery transfers that she found at a garage sale

   

 

Daughter no.1 has been passing the time away before going back to Uni by baking these yummy monte carlos biscuits

 

and finally after a long wait introducing two more additions to the  family, our chooks, Addie (short for Adelaide) and Maddie ( short for Matilda) Maddie is the darker one( you needed to know that didnt you). My husband thinks Im a bit nuts naming them that, but I think after his effort at naming the  canaries, Kev and Trev, I did okay. Anyway here they are

 

I have only had them a week and havent had any eggs yet but I am presuming that this is normal? can anyone tell me, I figured they needed time to settle in.