A Faerie Friend For Red Pixie

Hello again friends, and thank you all for your interest and lovely comments left on my last post - you are all so encouraging and I am really appreciative of each and every message, and of you!

I have been trying to keep up with all your new posts but have been a bit higgledy-piggledy of late! Although everything is fine now I was having trouble typing for a week or so as I burned my left hand - yes, I'm left-handed - and the bandages made things a little bit difficult! Nevertheless, we're all mended and the old skin has peeled off to reveal brand new healthy pink underneath, for which I am very grateful! It was an extremely painful process at the time and I spent a whole night with my hand in iced water - oh, and I must add here - the hospital staff's advice is to never have the water too icy or you finish up with 'freezer burn'! Same difference I suppose when it comes to pain!!!

Another lesson learned - don't lean your hand against a burning hot chimney flue! Have you done any daft things lately?

But, I have not been idle either before or after that nasty incident, so here's a little bit of what I've been spending my time on:

Red Pixie needed another friend besides hedgehog so I set out to see what could be done to remedy his loneliness! Meet Red Faerie, who is very happy to have Pixie as 'bestest'!

I found her in a book which has been on my shelf for quite some time, but I changed her face and hair and then added all the surrounds. I see now that it would have been better to use a lesser thickness of thread for her features - and I may change that yet - but otherwise I'm quite happy with her AND the main thing is that Red Pixie is happy with her! Can you see that she will be a good friend to him?

I also tried out another couple of projects with needle and threads:

Mr Owl is from Aimee Ray's Book: 'Doodle Stitching, Embroidery and Beyond', and Blue Cat was inspired by an ornament my sister gifted me many years ago! I think I'm not happy with the little add-ons around her feet and may make some changes there but thought I'd show you anyway so you know I'm not slacking off!

And we had some excitement recently too! Our elder daughter Tracy had a birthday and our son-in-law arranged tickets for Jeff and I to fly up to Perth for the weekend! It was a total surprise for her and involved a few tears I can tell you! Paul must be congratulated on keeping such a secret - she had no idea whatsoever! We had such a wonderful time together - a bit of a whirlwind of course - but wonderful!

So, whilst up in the big smoke we had a visit to the famous 'King's Park' and took a couple of pics! King's Park is an absolute  must for visitors to Perth - not that we are technically visitors as we lived there for a huge number of years, but it has been a few years since we were actually in the park. Progress is continuous up there - always new plantings, buildings and changes - the staff up there do a tremendous job!

I don't actually have the name of this plant but it looks like it may be related to the Leucodendron.

And the next two pics are of the 'sky bridge' (which is new to me), where you walk over from one area of the park to another; there are glass sides to that particular part of the bridge in the second pic, so the view is not obstructed in any way! Now I have trouble with heights - so - I didn't waste any time in getting from one side to the other! It would have been good to take a couple of pics from up there - but .. ... ... !!!

The next pic is taken from Reabold Hill, which is the highest point on the western coastal metro plain (it's within running distance from my daughter's home - she does it on a regular basis, and it's STEEP)! In the distance you can see Rottnest Island which is a lovely family  holiday destination. The ferry takes about 30 minutes or so from Perth. 

The pic below that one is part of our cityscape taken from King's Park.

Have a look at some of the clever decorative touches at the cafe where we had breakfast on the Sunday morning! They do great food too!

Now then - more exciting stuff! Last post when I spoke about my little embroidery venture and introduced Red Pixie, I received a message from Rachel here and she mentioned Sublime Stitching by Jenny Hart. At the time I didn't know whether this was a book or a site and hadn't got around to checking it out, and then the next day my daughter Tracy mentioned the same thing and sent me a link to the actual site - and yes, there are beautiful books as well! So thank you Rachel and Tracy cause I followed it up and am now the proud owner of Jenny's beautiful threads and some of her other accoutrements! It didn't take long, did it! The order was here in just over a week - what service! And Jenny's site is just wonderful - if you are into this lovely easy stitching style then you might like to take a look here . Look at these wonderful colours and thank you card as well as nifty free gift! You can't beat the personal touch, it's just so lovely!

Before I go let me just show you a lovely parrot  enjoying our back garden a week or so again. Isn't he beautiful - but they do get destructive - they snip off the flowers and just leave them lying there most times!

Wishing you all happy days until next time!

❤Joy xo

A Red Pixie!

Hello friends - I just wanted to do a quick post to let you see what I've been up to these past few days!

I know that many of you are familiar with Chrissie's blog, but for those of you who aren't - I would urge you to have a look here. Chrissie did a fantastic review recently on Caroline Zoob's beautiful book 'The Hand-Stitched Home', which really got me excited - so much so that I went out searching for the book, with success - only difference being mine is the paper-back copy - it has the same content but a different cover!

So, jump a couple of posts forward and Chrissie then showed some lovely work she'd been doing from the Doodle Stitching books by Aimee Ray! This time I thought I'd better hold the reins a bit tighter on my 'pocket money' but, lo and behold, just happened to be in a book shop - in the creativity end - and found the latest in the series, entitled 'Doodle Stitching Embroidery & Beyond! Well you know what comes next don't you! I couldn't resist, and it was so reasonably priced too!!!

So I've been quite busy trying out, what is for me, a new style of 'stitchery' and just loving it. It's so free and easy and relaxing - which is such a good thing I think! You want to see?

This is called Redwork Embroidery, simple and easy and been used decoratively for generations! I did so enjoy working on this one which is a sampler panel from the Doodles book. See the unworked panel below? I think Pixie and hedgehog friend are so cute sheltering from the rain! Maybe they're in Australia at the moment - we are having plenty of the wet stuff hammering down on us!

The blue teapot and friends are from Caroline Zoob's book, and this was the first that I 'tackled'. Very casual straight stitching!

And the leaves - certainly not perfect, with at least one of the French Knots having jumped around a bit - I swear I didn't put it there! But it was a good practice run before I get a bit more serious!

Looking more closely I can see that the thread has loosened up a bit on that knot - need a bit more practice then? Yes, I think so too!

On a completely different note - my spring onions have gone to seed, and obviously this little bee is loving it!

So there we have it for this time my lovely friends!

I hope that your week has been a good one and that you have some nice plans for the next couple of days or so!

Thank you so much for dropping by and for your lovely encouraging messages - I just love getting them! And special thanks to lovely Chrissie xo!

❤Joy xo

A Hanging Tree!

Hello at last - gosh it seems to have taken forever to get around to working on a new post! I've been keeping in touch with most of you through my visits to your places, but couldn't seem to get around to doing my own little write-up!

I suppose you're wondering about  the title - 'A Hanging Tree' - what does that mean? The mind boggles! Well, it's about this strange looking example of mother nature doing her own thing! We spotted it whilst having a picnic by the Kalgan River, in the Albany vicinity - just yesterday in fact! This clever tree has grown out of the bank of the river - and look at that huge knobbly lump - poor thing is a bit disfigured isn't it! It must have survived for years!

I haven't been idle all this time - here's a little look at what's kept me out of mischief these past two - or is it nearly three - weeks! 

As you can see the hexes are multiplying but still a long way to go! I was enjoying the little circle I showed you last time - just hanging around on the dining table - but felt that something bigger was calling me, so I forge on with them ... ... ...

And in between times I made up a little bunting to hang in the bedroom of two sweet little girls who we are fortunate to have as neighbours - along with their lovely parents of course!

This pattern was in Simply Crochet, issue 4 on page 78, under the title Chunky Knits, but I did them in 8ply so they are quite dainty. It was a day when I just had to have some bright colour so - a little bit of bunting seemed to fit the bill; you know the feeling, I'm sure!

AND I took delivery of some gorgeous new yarn about two weeks ago! The elder of my two daughters - thank you lovely Tracy - bought me a gift voucher, for Mother's Day, to spend on yarn here - and yes, I know it's a few weeks since Mother's Day, but I had to resist the temptation for a while so that I could make progress with some of my UFO's! 

If your home is in Australia then I'm sure you will have heard of Bendigo Woollen Mills, and for those of you who are over the ocean and far away I will just mention that they do ship overseas. Anyway, BWM recently brought out a new yarn which they call Stellar, and it's 50% bamboo and 50% wool - such a beautiful easy to work with yarn - and although they do it in 8ply I thought I'd give the 12ply a try. The results have pleased me for it's such a cosy warming yarn for this time of year and being  thicker, it worked up very quickly too!

I think that the experience of playing around with little crochet projects has given me a bit of confidence regarding colour so I was quite happy to turn this self-coloured pattern into a stripy affair. Notice how adventurous I was in working the stripes for the back differently to those of the fronts! I really love this jacket/cardi! What do you think? Do you think I've become too bold and flashy?

I thought you might like another little peek at our little Pika - this time before and after her clip!

See? From grumpy looking to happy again! Don't we all enjoy a new hair-do!

Now I must say a few words about my new book - no I'm not doing a review on it for if you go here you'll find that the lovely Chrissie has already done so - in fact Chrissie's write-up is the reason why I bought the book: 'The Hand-Stitched Home' by Caroline Zoob - I was so thoroughly impressed with her review and the projects that she has already completed from it that I went off and bought a copy of it for myself. Such a wonderful book but although I don't quite have any completed projects to show you this time, it did start me thinking about a little embroidery thing that I did a few years ago - a good few years ago actually - for my dear Mum who has since passed over! It's a little cover for a telephone number notebook which I 'free-embroidered' on my sewing machine. Caroline Zoob doesn't necessarily cover this subject in her book, but her free style hand embroidery strongly reminded me of my little project. My Mum really loved dolphins, hence this theme! And inside the cover you can see MUM - but I don't claim to have free sewn that - my clever machine does the alphabet for me. Do you know, it's so long since I did this that I can't even remember how I did it. Just let's you see how much I've neglected my lovely machine! Shame on me! But I can't do everything at the one time can I - I'll get back it one of these days!

There is more regarding this little book cover that I'd like to share with you, my dear blogger friends, and it's very special! 

My Dad passed over two years or so ago, so 'things' had to be sorted out - hence the reason for me having this little gift back with me! I had looked at it a couple of times before today and was so pleased to have it, but then this morning when I decided to take a closer look at the little book, I had the most amazing surprise: Dad had started to use it himself and I found, tucked away inside the cover - $50! No, such an amount of money is not a lot these days, but it was like a present directly from heaven for me, and I really whooped with excitement  - I feel very emotional just telling you! I don't know how I didn't see it there before now! I will spend it on a lovely little keepsake I think - what would you do?

Now I will finish with a gorgeous flower - the name of which remains hidden from my knowledge, and wish you all a very happy week filled with all the activities you enjoy best!

❤Joy xo