Some pretties from my garden ....
... heavenly blues....
... and I don't remember seeing these last year - an unexpected surprise....
Stitching has been very much on the back burner of late - but I have done a couple more angel blocks - this one is maybe my favourite so far ....
... but the flying ones are pretty cute too...
Before I went away I was playing around with some ''stuff'' - as you know, I adore Barb's buttons, so had a wee play with a bit of this and a bit of that - just added little treasures and stitched as I went - there was no pattern to follow, no lines to stitch on - just make it us as you go - and see where it ends up.
So .... we went on a holiday and it was better than excellent:)) Ten days of perfectly blissful weather, beautiful scenery, great shops and very good company. There was a purpose to the holiday that involved carting a bike all the way to Nelson - for the first two rounds of the New Zealand champs - we had two weekends in a row doing the racing stuff but the days in between were rest and relaxation! I had forgotten how stunningly beautiful it is way up the top end of the South Island as it has been many many years since I had been there.
Fell in love with some of the houses - very very cute ....
...lovely little window boxes....
I am pretty sure I managed to visit almost all of the second hand/antique shops and I did find a couple of gorgeous little treasures. My lovely little pink jar....
... and another sweet tea cup to add to the collection...
Well, I couldn't very well come home without a memento or two, could I. Nice, ay :)
I thought I would do tons of stitching in the evenings, but in the end this is the sum total of what I did...
... it's one of Brenda Ryan's lovely little houses - I ambitiously had three of these ironed onto fabric to stitch up while away - not sure that half of one really counts as ''tons of stitching'' :) My child had a mixed bag of results - the less said about the first weekend, the better - but in a nutshell, I have discovered that it is the most gut wrenchingly difficult thing to do, to watch your child take a 40ft crash, scrunching into the rock and gravel, and not be allowed to go and give him a cuddle as that certainly would not be ''cool'' in front of the crowd!!! He did get up (eventually) and in a zig zag fashion, managed to cross the line. Then I gave him a cuddle!! Too bad what the others thought!!! He was a little mangled, but came right for the second weekend's racing, where he did great. He's off again this weekend - as I write, he is hurtling down the mountains, over at Diamond Harbour. Round three, and then just one more to go next weekend, here in Dunedin. Hope he turns up tonight with no mangled body parts!!
Wish my child a fast, but safe, ride :)
See you.
Jenny
So I took the hint and in the evenings I have been relaxing, so much so that not much stitching has been done. But I have made a promise to myself that I am going to completely finish my ''Angels Story'' quilt this year - last year I did the grand total of one applique block - how shameful!! So this week I have done this one....
...and almost all of this one....
Before Christmas I did do some stitching for little presents - I had drawn my niece's name in our family "Secret Santa" draw so I thought I would make her up a basket of lots of little goodies - and these were some of them....
Kept up the New Year's day tradition again this year and went for a nice long walk in the afternoon - started out here (on a very well maintained track) ....
and ended up a bit past here (on a slightly more rugged track:) ....
We couldn't do a picnic lunch at the top this time as we left later in the day, but a picnic afternoon tea of lollies was an okay substitute :)) See, that is the great thing about going for a long walk up a long hill - I did not feel a single ounce of guilt for pigging out on lollies at the top :)) 
... and leaves - fabulous colours....
... and ferns in gorgeous shades of pure green ....
My challenge to myself this year is to finish everything I have started in the past couple of years (apart from the hexie quilt 'cos that is definitely a 5 year project!). But.... there is all this other stuff I want to do as well ....well, I guess that is part of the challenge :) And what else will this year deliver - who can tell??
