Was this a good way to spend 4 days of my life?
I think so! I hope the 6 recipients feel the same way.
I am also still stitching away on the Advent Quilt.
In the meann time though, I am having a bloggy break for a month. Make sure to check back on the 23rd of January for the quilt reveal and of course a giveaway will start then also.
I wish you all a wonderful, happy and blessed Christmas with your friends and family.
Enjoy your creation!
Rosalie xx
As promised, here is the next sneak peek from the "Advent Angels" quilt......
This little Angel is feeding the reindeer. All of the Angels are doing their best to get ready for Christmas Eve. I can't wait to reveal the whole quilt. I really like all the cute little pockets ready to fill with christmas surprises. It should be ready for stores to order when my distributor comes back from the summer break on the 11th of January.
Now for my early Christmas present... The postman brought a large parcel filled with the 43 different fabrics from the "Old New Fabric Collection-30's" by LECIEN. I LOVE IT!!!!! I am itching to start working with it. Sit back and enjoy this...
Have you ever seen anything so yummy????
Rosalie xx
Hurray! I finished my designs for my second fabric range with LECIEN today! It feels so good to have it finished and to be thrilled with the way it turned out. I have had a favourable response from the "powers that be" (yes, gratuitous "Angel" reference!) I mean that the people I am dealing with in Japan are happy with the new designs. This makes me feel much relieved! My DH often talks about "the dreaded second album" when referring to musicians. It can be quite difficult wondering if you have lived up to your first major project. I am very pleased and excited to wait for the first paper "proofs" to return to me in the next couple of months. The whole process takes quite a while and I think it will be six month before I am holding my fabric and nine months before it will be released.
Anyway, I had a few emails from people wanting to see my Christmas decorations, so I thought I would show you one of my vases of candy canes.
Hmmm..... I am sure that the smaller vase was FULL a few days ago! You can't see it on the photo but there are small fairy lights and fresh ivy entwined with silver and red Christmas garland. It looks very nice at night with the lights on.
It has been quite an Angelic week this week. Firstly, I have been stitching the next few angels on my Advent Angels quilt....
And yes, there are also boy angels in the Advent Calendar quilt.....
I have just started another "boy angel" block which I think is the cutest of the quilt so far. I will show you in the next few days when I have stitched it. The second angelic reference is that DH, myself and my son have been working our way through all the "Angel" series. We are currently watching Season 4 and have another season to go. I am afraid I am a huge Buffy and Angel fan. They just keep getting better. The third and last angelic reference this week was going to see my hugely talented step son playing the Angel Gabriel in an hilarious Christmas production last night. It was fabulous!
I hope you too are enjoying the Christmas count down!
Rosalie xx
I seem to be blogging a little less at the moment, which is due mostly to a very uncooperative computer. I know that some of you can relate to having a post almost ready to go when the "Blue Screen of Death" appears on the computer monitor. I think perhaps we need to have someone come look at the computer or maybe we should just compost it or something!
Anyway, on a less frustrating note, I thought I would share some of the fun things that are coming up in the next while. As you know, I have been busy on my "Advent Angels" wall quilt. You guessed it, it is also an advent calendar! It is looking so cute and will make a fab project for 2010. I will share more photos of this soon. I am also currently choosing the colours for my second range of fabric with LECIEN. The designs are done and I LOVE THEM! The colouring is so much fun. I have loved playing with colour since I was a little girl. In fact the first award I received in primary school was for mixing paint colours in Art class. It is amazing what some positive encouragement can mean to a young child. I grew up believing I was good with colour because of that wonderful Art teacher. Who knows what impact those words have made on my chosen creative path. I am very thankful for those words.
I am also proud to have been asked to participate in Quilt Fabric Delights "Bagalicious Club". Check this one out, as there are some fabulous designers involved.
I will also be participating in Quilt Aid again next year. It was great to be involved this year and I believe that the donations made through World Vision for treatment of fistulas in third world countries made this project so worthwhile.
Leanne and I will be teaching in Townsville, Toowoomba and Nowra this year, as well as hopefully in New Zealand. I hope to catch up with some of you there.
I almost feel like I need a "Nanna nap" thinking of all the things that are coming up! In the meantime though, there is Christmas with friends and family and a beach holiday with Melly to look forward to!
Enjoy!
P.S. Have I ever told you how much I love Christmas candy canes? I just think they are the cutest things. I have just arranged several vases full of them in my Christmas home decorating. I think their red and white stripey-ness is sheer perfection!
Remember those gorgeous cosmo threads I showed you earlier???
Well, I'm putting them to good use on a gorgeous new christmas project called "Advent Angels". I have always found it difficult to design Christmas projects at any other time of year than November/December. This can be a problem as it is too late for you all to make the project in time for Christmas. I have however turned a problem into an opportunity by creating a detailed design which can be worked on throughout 2010 and ready for Christmas 2010! Here are some sneak peeks...
I am having such stitching bliss as I work on this project and am looking forward to sharing more with you as Christmas approaches.
Enjoy your creation!
Rosalie xx
P.S. I have been contacted by some stores and told that they have the Cosmo threads. You can get them all at The Quilter's Store, and some of them at Patchwork with Gail B, Foothills Fabric and threads and Tinkers Cart. There are many more stores which are begining to carry them. If you are a store who carries the thread and would like to let people know, why don't you leave a comment on this post to let them know. As you can imagine, it is a difficult job for me to list everyone.
Yesterday I came home to one surprise and one piece of very sad news. The first surprise was a gorgeous bunch of flowers delivered to my door from the beautiful folk at Charles Parsons. They were to congratulate me on the success of Grandmother's Flower Garden and to thank me for helping at the AQM. I wasn't expecting them so it was lovely to receive them. It was very good timing as this week was my Grandma's (Oma's) ninetieth birthday and my fabric range was obviously dedicated to her. As a first generation Australian of Dutch descent, I really miss my family in the Netherlands. I would have loved to be at my Oma's celebrations this week.
I have put the flowers in the Lounge room (formerly known as the Abyss) and they look great with the "new" pieces of furniture and stitcheries from "A Stitch In Time".The wall looks very brown in this photo but it is actually a deep port wine type of colour (got to get me a better camera!)
The sad news came later in the day with an email letting us know that a member of my Breast Cancer support group lost her battle with Breast Cancer on the weekend. She was a young woman with a young family. She and I were diagnosed around the same time and the news is very hard to hear. She was an example of bravery and courage and she will be missed by many. It has been just over three years since my own diagnosis and my life goes on much the same as it did before. News like this brings all the feelings back home. It is with a strange mixture of loss, sadness, gratitude and hope for the future that I write these words. It is also with a prayer for the cure to be found quickly for the sake of all our daughters.
Rosalie xx
In Australia we have whats known as Schoolies Week. It is a week of fun and celebration when final exams of the final year of school are over. I have had the same feeling this week. All my official work and teaching and trade shows are over and I have had my week of celebration and relaxation. Hence no post! Sorry guys! I always love November through January as the designing and pattern writing I do during these three months seems to be very "no pressure" after the rest of the year. I think I do my best work when The pressure is off. Anyway, I promised photos and details of the AQM. It was a fabulous time and I really enjoyed getting to know the Guys from LECIEN a lot better. We spent quite a bit of time together at the show and had lunch together on Monday when it was all over. The next photo is of the set up with Grandmother's Flower Garden fabrics. The colours of the photo are quite wrong but the lighting was terrible.
The following photo is the fire screen which I hadn't shown you yet. I needle turn appliqued the vine on the panel using all my fabrics. It looked great!
You can also see the new version of my "jelly-roll project bag" I made it using the Jelly-roll of Grandmother's Flower Garden".
The next photo is my section of the "Creative Abundance" booth
All in all, it was a fabulous weekend!
Until next time,
Enjoy your creations,
Rosalie x x
Look at all the thready goodness that arrived in the mail this week! LECIEN sent me the full range of their delicious Cosmo multi work two strand embroidery floss on the spool.
Sigh..... I think I am in love! Look at all the delicious muted colours and 88m per spool! I have 74 spools to play with- can't wait.
How wonderful will it be for stitchery to have two strands ready to go at any length??? I think this is what I will be playing with over Summer. I will let you know how it goes but if its anything like the rest of the Cosmo range I'm excited.
Less than a week till the AQM and the furniture for display is going well. Check out the blouse chest
I know that it looks great but you don't want to look too closely! There are some bubbles and this is totally devastating! The amount of work that went into getting it right and now I have some bubbles!!!! Feeling sorry for myself- sniff...sniff... I knew that watching the Lifestyle channel was going to get me into trouble! The question is - Should perfectionists attempt DIY furniture projects with no idea of what they are doing????? I think maybe not! The Mrs Perkins brigade don't seem to mind though
Till next time- enjoy your creation!
Rosalie xx
Tassie was fantastic! Deirdre and Leonie sure know how to put on a beautiful sewing day! Here is the hall all set up and waiting for the ladies to arrive
Here they all are having a lovely day of sewing, chatting and eating. It was such a lovely time and Leanne and I were thrilled to teach ther
The Quilted Crow ladies had also set up a beautiful store with all sorts of sewing goodies including my new fabric range which had just arrived in time for the day
It was pretty cool seeing all the bundles of my fabric wrapped up so beautifully
We were staying in the Historic town of Richmond which had some amazing shops and also the oldest bridge in Australia
On the afternoon when Leanne took the above photo, we went walking around the town and found an old catholic church which meant we could wander around the graveyard (I know, a bit weird but an activity I really do enjoy!) It is quite amazing what can be learned about the history of an area while walking around the graveyard.
Well, we are home again now so back to work! Here is
the photo I promised you of the screen. I used the teal house fabric from "Grandmother's Flower Garden" It looks great. It will be all ready for the AQM. I am working on the rest of the furniture and some projects using the PVC coated fabric. I am really looking forward to the AQM next week as several of the girls will all be staying in the city in a lovely hotel. I think it will be heaps of fun (a bit old for pajama parties???)
Till next time,
enjoy your creation,
Rosalie xx
