Miss Bunny's Late for the Easter Party!

A big hello to all of you - it's been such a long time since I posted but I've been busy trying to catch up, and keep up, with all your lovely interesting posts and hey, that's not easy once you fall behind! And of course there must be time for crafting too, and I'm finding there just aren't enough hours in the day for all I want to do; I figure most of you are faced with the same dilemma! Right? Anyway, now that I seem to have (perhaps temporarily, for you really are a very productive lot!) caught up with all of your news and makings, here I am to share a little bit of what I've been up to!

But first off I want to take this opportunity to let you know how thrilled, touched, honoured and humbled I have felt by all your beautiful messages in response to my previous post! You are all such delightful thoughtful friends and I value each and every one of you most highly; thank you for being in my life and for being so special to me!

Easter has been and gone of course and here in our little town of Denmark, Easter Saturday heralds the time for another 'Market Day', when people fill their stalls with all sorts of crafts and goodies and hoards of people have a great time buying and selling. This year my younger daughter decided to take on a stall which had been booked by a friend who then had to go away, and I joined her there with a few of my projects - mug cosies, washcloths, babies beanies - that sort of thing, while Melissa, who is an artist, hung her paintings, and had gorgeous bags and all sorts of things. We did make a few sales, which was good, but the main thing was taking part in the excitement of the affair and being with like-minded people! Neither Mel nor I had ever done a market stall before so it was a new experience.

Anyway, let me introduce my new friend - I should have had Miss Bunny ready for such an occasion, but didn't, so she's still here gracing our lives and will probably finish up gifted to a sweet little girl somewhere, sometime!

Oh by the way, Miss Bunny was knit up with some of the gorgeous Rowan wool/cotton yarn that I bought whilst in Perth. It's the softest yarn - really luxurious, and such a pleasure to work with, making this little rabbit so soft and cuddly! Now I want more!

Last weekend, without any plan in mind, I mentioned to daughter Mel that if she had any small scraps of fabric that she wouldn't use herself, to not throw them out for they may be useful for my quilting at some stage. Straightaway she gave me a few very interesting pieces and it wasn't until a few days later, on thinking about her upcoming birthday I suddenly thought that she might like to have a table runner made, incorporating some of her own scraps. To cut a long story short, when it was nearly done my Hubby suggested that it should become a wall hanging, so here it is, ready to surprise her as part of her birthday gift!

And close-ups ….. I have used a couple of my own fabric strips in this piece, as well as that used for the reverse side, which you can see in the very last pic …..

I have made table runners again - please don't get bored - and have been enjoying practicing my free-motion-machine-stitching. It's not an easy thing to perfect, in fact I don't expect to ever 'perfect' it, but it is a lot of fun and such a challenge to keep those stitches to an even length all over; I think it'll take me years, but I will keep on keeping on!

The next one I call the Elephant Runner - you may remember this fabric being included in one of the bags I made recently - and it has sold already, so I feel rather flattered!

I know I have made a couple of comments here and there that perhaps I was over Mandalas but really, once we start with these little beauties do we ever break free again? I came across this one in the 'Molly Makes Crochet Book' and couldn't resist it - in the book it's called a doily, and aren't they all glorified doilies anyway for let's face it, doilies have been around for ever! I'm sure someone, or many 'ones' may have shown this one already although I haven't seen it, and anyway, with our individual colour choices, the same pattern can look so different, I'm sure you agree!

A couple of close-ups?

I'd like to mention that I will be linking up with the lovely Hannapat  for her monthly Mandala post which I expect will appear on 1st May or thereabouts, so do pop on over and take a look at her, and other creative folks', lovely examples.

And now just a wee look at the garden from this morning …..

And a closer look at the chives gone to seed - just because I think it very attractive, especially with its promise of new life - eventually!

We've finally had some lovely rain here, and it's been so welcome, but the light has not been the best for some of my pics this time, so for that I apologise - I've done the best I could with them!

Thanks so much for bearing with me to the end! Take good care of yourselves and no doubt we'll all be talking again soon, and I look forward to it!

With my love,

❤Joy xoxo 

Big Announcement and Celebrations

Well, it's lovely to be back and saying hello to all you lovelies once again after my very enjoyable break, and also to be saying a big thank you for all your good wishes before I left! It's also very nice to be coming back with a lovely new header that my lovely daughter Tracy has designed for me - what do you think of it?

Some of you may have heard me hint, both in previous posts and in comments I've left on various blogs, that I may be one of the oldest craft blogger around - maybe even THE oldest - and you probably didn't take me seriously anyway . . . . . well I'm here today to tell you that the reason Jeff and I went off for a wee break was to celebrate our 50th Wedding Anniversary!!! No, that's not a typo, I did say 50th and now you may be thinking that I must be around 70 years of age and you'd be quite right for I was almost twenty when I married and will be 70 on my next birthday in May.

When I was a youngster it was quite normal to look on seventy as being quite ancient, but now I've almost reached that milestone I'm quite happy to say it's not old at all and although I don't quite know how one should feel at seventy, I can say that I don't feel too much different to how I was at fifty! Please don't think of me as being old for I'm so young at heart as to be quite childish at times and I have no intention of growing up in a hurry!

I have so much to show and tell this time that I hope you don't feel bored by the time you're half way through . . . . . let's have the little bits of craft first shall we? Not a lot this time as you would understand! This is another of Wink's Mandala patterns but I changed the last couple or so rounds as an experiment just to prove to myself that I could . . . . .

Then there's the little pink heart: I really fell in love with the gorgeous hearts on Sandra's blog, specifically the post entitled 'The Most Precious Gift', and although my little attempt is not exactly the same, that is where the idea came from, thanks so much Sandra!

Now would you like to have a little look at our beautiful city Perth? First the night lights, taken from the balcony of our hotel room which was gifted to us by our lovely family for our five nights stay up there! Talk about being spoiled!

And below are pics of the same buildings taken from near the water's edge in daytime - from the South Perth Foreshore . . . . .

In the same area still, this is where you can catch the ferry to take you across the river to the Barrack Street Jetty on Perth side.

Now if you were to turn your back to the water and look across the street you would see 'Cocos' restaurant, which is where we were so nicely treated to dinner on our special day - I haven't included a pic of it as there was a building project going on in the area at the time and I would just hate to detract from the beauty of the actual building that houses Cocos! Fair enough?

Next we travel to Fremantle - most people would be familiar with the name in connection with the America's Cup all those years ago - there are so many wonderful buildings down there and this is just a small example of them . . . . .

And the Fremantle Boat Harbour

We met with our eldest grandson at one of the popular cafe/restaurants - The Kiosk at Floreat - for breakfast on Sunday morning and that was so nice for we've been missing him since he moved to the big smoke several months ago! Isn't he a handsome young man!

Later that morning we joined our daughter and SIL and took a drive up the coast in, would you believe, the pink Thunderbird - well, in fact Jeff went with Paul, and Tracy and I travelled in her gorgeous sports job (both vehicles are two-seaters) - and you wonder why I claim to be still young at heart? My family keep me young!!!

The casual cafe where we ate that day at Hillary's boat harbour provided us with a table number when the food was ordered - and what was the number you ask? 50!!!

The Moet wasn't provided there though, that was another surprise that Tracy arranged in our hotel room for our return after a day out sight-seeing - did I mention that we were spoiled? What a wonderful family we have!

There is one more pic to show - how could I be in the metro area and not visit Calico and Ivy at  Glyde Street in Mosman - with Tracy of course! I was so tempted by so many beautiful fabrics but opted for some gorgeous Rowan wool/cotton yarn instead . . . . .

What a break - such a fantastic time from start to finish, and so many thanks to both our daughters and spouses for all the wonderful treats, surprises, and celebrations!

And now my friends I thank you for sticking in to the end of this long post for I really wanted to share with you about the wonderful times we had! And by the way, my dear hubby keeps telling everyone he has a medal coming as big as a frying pan for putting up with me all those years, but I say it's coming for me - what do you think?  

I am way behind in blog following and have been really missing all your posts but will catch up soon! In the meantime I wish you all well and send you very best wishes for happy days - 

with my love,

❤Joy xoxo