Joyous January!

First, a sneak peak at one of the challenges I've been working on!:

Detail

Detail

It's all finished now and I'm ready to send off photos for the deadline!

January has been wonderful! We’ve had so much rain that everything is lush and green and thankfully it hasn’t been too hot; we had a weekend away at Bellingen on the motorbike (we didn’t get wet this time!) We stayed at Casa Belle which is a wonderful piece of Paradise in the Bellinger Valley just inland of Coffs Harbour in the north east of the state of NSW! This is our 3rd stay in 3 or 4 years and we just adore it! If you’re planning a visit to Australia or are in Australia and looking for somewhere to stay in this area, we can highly recommend it!

We went on another organised bike run yesterday - a perfect riding day; I had a shopping day in Newcastle (about 4 hours drive away) with my eldest daughter (Kat) last week and bought some much needed clothes, shoes and underwear!; My youngest 2 children have arrived home from Christmas hols with their father interstate; and on top of all of that I’ve been busy working on challenges! Not so much studio cleaning and redecorating happening yet but the year is yet young! I'm harvesting Button Squash, Lebanese Cucumbers & 'Jack Be Little' Pumpkins (soooo cute!) from my vege patch (seeds were all from Eden Seeds - non hybrid, old traditional, open pollinated).

Here is the first of my ATC swaps. I'm not 100% happy with it but it's growing on me! It's just so different to the other entries posted so far- which are all divine!

Here is the link to Lenna Young Andrews Creative Swaps website with updates on this swap.

This is a little piece of needle weaving in situ on a piece of black felt that I did in front of the telly the other night. There is a photo and tutorial of the technique on this lovely blog: Creative Dabbling I came across the other day! Click here to go to the tutorial.

Needle Weaving on Felt

Needle Weaving on Felt

I couldn’t immediately lay my hands on my embroidery hoop to weave onto fabric and I was itching to try this sooooooo I decided to use the felt as a base instead with very successful results. The instructions are for a brooch but I may turn this one into a necklace (I’ve been doodling ideas for fabric necklaces in my sketchbook and jumped on this technique when I saw it!) Thank you Erica for wonderful instructions!

Erica dabbles with lots of different techniques (like someone else I know!) and I'm enjoying her blog. I've just 'met' Erica and realised it is her selvage quilt on the front cover of the latest Down Under Quilts magazine! Congratualations! Click here to go to Erica's blog entry about the cover and a further link to the article!