love the mail

Today I got some lovely mail! It was my favourite subscription (actually it's my only subscription) and sadly the year is just about up for this to come to my door. Well what a wonderful surprise. It came with a gorgeous little bag made by Apple & Bee! It is organic hemp and just the thing I needed.

It was just yesterday I thought I should make some of Curly Pop's great drawstring bags for my smaller projects to be carried. I had cast on a little portable project the other night to carry to the hospital for when mum falls asleep on me.

Then this great little gem arrived today! Just the ticket. If you don't subscribe to Inside Out, grab a copy this month and you will get this fab little bag! plus a fabulous handmade and design magazine

stitching....trying to anyway

I have started two new projects over the last two days and can't concentrate on either of them. I am still plodding along with the novelty yarn scarf as well.

I am exhausted, and in between visiting mum at the hospital I am basically collapsing but trying to do some crafting to stay sane.

At the same time hubby has ripped up carpet and started painting rooms so the house looks like Iraq or worse!! Can't move anywhere, can hardly sit anywhere (yes it will be great when it's finished but I wish I could twitch my nose and it's done!!!!)

The best thing is once we reorganise the house I will have a bigger studio space so I am VERY happy about that!!!!

This stitchery is an owl I drew up some time ago after stitching my owl in the tree, well I finally transferred it to fabric and made a start!! If I am happy with it when it's finished I will try and figure out how to put up a PDF and then everyone who wants to stitch it can do so.

happy and creative week xx

A Giveaway Before Our Time!!!

This gorgeous crocheted scarf is the giveaway prize over at Alison and Megan's fab blog Before Our Time. Pop over if you want to go in the draw and you have until next Saturday to do it!!!!!

knitting along..

I have felt like picking up the knitting this last week as the weather is cooler and WONDERFUL!!! The scarf above is a novelty yarn scarf I started last year and just left as it started to warm up. I just don't do knitting once the warm weather hits!!!!

I love the novelty yarns. This is a mixture of 3 different ribbon ones (only one in the photo) and knitted up it is so heavy, just lovely. I have made a few of these and they have gone to family and friends, so this one is for me.

You may remember I started 2 library bags, one for Bel and one for hubby. I was trying to get two out of the remaining skull canvas I had. Well they ended up a little small I think for the amount of books Bel and hubby get. I lined Bel's with the pink canvas she chose so it can be reversible, (the other one is lined with calico) but I am going to give the two of them to Handmade Help with some other bags I am making for them. I will start another one for Bel, and hubby too.

Blogging still may be a little erratic as I am rather a worn out mess at the moment. Late Wednesday afternoon we found mum unconscious at her unit. She was rushed to hospital. She is still in Intensive Care. They are still not sure what has happened but are sure it is due to her Lupus. I just rang ICU this morning when I got up and am happy to say they said mum is awake this morning, some of the time (she was a little last night while my sister and I sat with her) and quite interactive. They also said she is asking for her nighties!!!! So I guess that means she is feeling a little better!!!!

They have ordered more tests today and now she is breathing unassisted and awake they will probably move her out of ICU. On Wednesday night as we sat in Emergency, they told us to prepare for the worst. Needless to say it has been an extremely emotional roller coaster.

Back soon :)

nice things....

Thank you so much for the well wishes, it's so nice to get those when you are feeling a little low. I am feeling a lot better and plan to get back on the blogging bandwagon!!!

It's been well over a week now since I started to feel really unwell and it was then that I had the most gorgeous little surprise arrive in the mail! Rebecca from Edward and Lilly sent me one of her sweet little birds she hand stitches! A while back I sent Rebecca some lavender to put in her birds. We have quite a bit of lavender growing and I was happy to send some off to be put to good use. It was a total and welcome surprise to receive this and very lovely of Rebecca to send it. As I opened the outer wrapping the smell of lavender was divine, even though the little birdie was still wrapped in a gorgeous handmade paper and cellophane.

THEN just the very next day I was given this award from Sophie for a Unique and Chic blog!!! Sophie has a fabulous blog, Her Library Adventures, it's a Wonderland to visit and of course we all adore her GORGEOUS brooches and Mixed Media pieces.

The best news is Sophie is having the most wonderful giveaway at the moment for her Blogoversary. She is generously giving away a mixed media piece and brooches. Pop over there now to enter, you have until the 28th!!!!!!!!!!!! But please don't take the winning entry away from me!! OK??



Then a few days later I received ANOTHER lovely award from Sophie!!! How lovely is that. The reason for this award is below.


These 3 gifts really cheered me up, thank you so much girls for sending them my way!!



"This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY--nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. The kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement! Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!"


I would like to pass this award onto the whole blogging community as you have been so supportive and generous to me. It's so hard to name just a few of you, and it makes my brain hurt just thinking about it!!!! :O


I have managed a little creativity over the last couple of days, a stitch here, a row there, a sketch here AND there. Will be back to share those soon.

flying low.......

I have been flying a little low for over a week now, not feeling too good at all. I have hardly even touched thread, paint, paper & glue or fabric. Must change that this week.

I hope to be back very soon

happy and creative week to all :)

my creative space

My Creative Space this week is actually other women's spaces. They feature in this gorgeous book called Where Women Create by Jo Packham.

I have it out from the library and have been waiting for it for months, the waiting list is so long. It is really worth a look. Beautiful studio spaces owned by very inspiring women.

I have 3 favourites and the most favourite is the one featured on the cover

(more photos of this studio in the book)

below is my 2nd favourite. LOVE the curtain fabric!!

Next photo I put in because of the amazing stash!!! and this is only part of it!!!!!!!!

and the next 2 photos are of my other most favourite studio. It is full of whimsy and antique furniture, it is truly beautiful!!!


look at those map drawers!!!!!!

other creative spaces are over at Kirsty's!!!!
drop in and check them out :)

Lady Crinoline

I know I know, I have changed my background again! I liked the last one but I felt it was a little too distracting so I have gone back to polka dots. I (almost) promise I will keep the polka dots for quite a while. I will just change the banner photo now and then, and maybe the colour of the polka dots!!!

A few posts back I shared some trios mum gave me from her cupboard. Well this gorgeous one mum bought for me on Ebay! I have really wanted a Lady Crinoline trio since I started collecting a few years ago. I just don't have the money to be buying trios anymore, but mum couldn't help herself and she put a bid on this, and won it! yippeeeeee thank you mutti! It is sooo special!

If you watched Lost in Austen last night (I hope you did) what did you think???? I loved it. I must admit though I felt a little....tense with Miss Price changing the novel like that. Especially Jane marrying Mr Collins instead of Bingley! how tragic. But I reminded myself that if I looked in my copy it would be just as it should be!! Imagine that though, if as we watched it, millions of copies of the novel around the world were changing inside their covers!!!

Can't wait for part two!!!

post edit: was it just me or did everyone think Mr Darcy was hauntingly like Heath Ledger??? spooky

Elizabeth Bennet no less!!!!!

Tomorrow night on ABC1 at 8.30 is a FABULOUS show called Lost in Austen. All about a 21st century fan of Jane Austen who finds herself actually living as Elizabeth Bennet in the novel Pride and Prejudice! It looks wonderful and funny, I can't wait.

I must break out the popcorn for this one!!!!

Sadly, Colin Firth is not Mr Darcy in this one but it will still be great I'm sure :)

too much fabric?????

I had a fly by night oppie dash and surprisingly I found these sweet as vintage sheets, still in their packet. You know how it is, plastic has gone yellow and brittle and so has the sticky tape, but inside the treasure remains perfectly pristine.

I had a little dilemma however, as I try to only buy things at the op shop I can use. I also drop a bag of stuff off as I go in so I am purging a little of the stuff at home at the same time.

I had decided around xmas time that I was going to use up my stash and not add to it (until necessary of course!!). After the devastation and loss of the bush fires I realised how sensible this was even more. We can loose everything in an instant.

I had cleaned out and gave some fabric to the op shop early in January, which felt good. I was ruthless and got rid of some I knew I wouldn't use.

Then, a couple of weeks ago came a little parcel I had forgotten I had paid for late last year. It was the Amitie Blog VIP fabric pack! It was gorgeous little morsels of fabric, but I thought "what was I thinking?" We are trying to be even more frugal than we usually are and use what we have and here was fabric arriving in the mail!

I promptly repackaged it and sent it on to a Quilter who featured on Handmade Help a few weeks back who had been on the radio and mentioned she had lost everything. This felt so good, and I plan to do it through the year with other Amitie mail outs.

Meanwhile, did I need the sheets or not? I do plan to make a quilt using all my vintage sheets and pillowcases, and the quality was so good?????

Of course I bought them - $4.50 what could I do????? and hey.......I may even use them on the beds!!!!! :)

a space for creativity

My creative space this week is the dining table. I have decided my sewing table is just too high to use comfortably so I moved onto the dining table for a while. I was cutting out bags for Handmade Help when Bel asked could she have a new library bag with the leftovers of the skull fabric. Then hubby thought seeing as he is doing Post Graduate Studies this year a new library bag in the skull fabric was in order too. So they have turned into a patchwork of both colourways as there was only pieces left over from the pencil roll I made for xmas.

I usually line library bags for extra strength so I will put calico in hubby's, but Bel's I will put in another cute fabric so she can have 2 library bags in one.

I am off to Kirsty's now to see whose windows I can peek through to see their creative spaces!!!

beautiful Brooches

I was so excited on Monday when I received a gorgeous present to myself! I made a Custom order with Sophie for some of her lovely fabric brooches. I had a very hard time deciding which one so I ordered three of course!!!!
They were so beautifully wrapped and the brooches are even more sweet in real life than I thought they could be. I would love many more but I must be content with these 3 beauties for now. Thank you Sophie so much.
Sophie was raising money for the Bushfire Appeal through February with the sale of her brooches. (of course that's really why I had to buy 3!!!!)

So if you haven't already dropped in on Sophie's blog and Etsy shop yet you really must!!!
I wore "I Heart Wonderland" today and had some lovely comments and questions about it :) They are irresistible xx