News about This month’s FNSI

Oh dear me....this month is just about through and FNSI is upon us again...but I’m certainly not ready (as I suppose you can tell).    

I haven’t given you details about my wonderful cruise and  one of the reasons why is I returned home with a ‘good’ dose of influenza A with an inner ear infection, sinus infection and a touch of pneumonia just to make it a bit more interesting! 

 Honestly, was it payback for having such a fab time?  I don’t think so despite the girls at work telling me it was!   That took its toll, I certainly had no energy and didn’t feel up to doing anything let alone blogging.  There was one day I truly thought I was going to die....this latest strain really is dreadful.  I honestly recommend getting the flu needles this year as there have already been 40-odd flu related deaths this year.  I’m going for mine tomorrow after work to cover the other strains of flu.  But thank goodness I have been on two lots of antibiotics and herbs and it seems to be under control now.  

I returned home and found my boss had resigned after 6 years as store supervisor.  It was her last day on Friday so between her finishing up and the new store supervisor starting in two more weeks, I’ve been official shop caretaker/supervisor until she arrives.   With my regular Saturday stint as well, it makes a long week.   

Just to throw a little twist into the mix, I have a position at a polling booth as the Officer In Charge on Saturday at our federal elections.  I’ve been doing training sessions and organising staff and resources so what little time I have had has been focussed on that.  So I had lost track of FNSI until a couple of diligent FNSI’ers asked me if it was still on tomorrow night or if I had forgotten  (they know me well!).

Sooooo, seeing as it is a five week month! I thought it wouldn’t hurt to hold FNSI next Friday night....as long as you don’t mind?    I thought it might be a nice time to give you a little gift too, seeing as it’s my birthday month.   I’ll have to find a fun design of mine to share.....I hope that takes the sting off not having FNSI until next week.  

Until then! I’m off to study my Electoral Procedures Handbook.  

Happy stitching :o)

Xox

April Easter FNSI sign ups

Wow, I'm back from my crafting cruise, and WHAT a cruise! (which I definitely will share with you....how could I not?!)

 I had the best time, met some amazing women who I now have the honour of calling my great friends and I've now come home and brought a sinus infection, along with an ear infection with me!   Oh well....time to relax  and stitch up some of my new projects while I rest and recover.

I hope you can join along at some stage over this long Easter weekend for our Friday Night Sew In?

I've been working on my Sashiko table runner I started on the cruise....now just to stitch up the border and quilt it. Thanks to Jane at BeBeBold...it really was a fabulous learning experience and plenty of 'smiles'.

Sign ups are below......if you are traveling away for Easter, safe travels and Easter blessings to you and yours and hopefully you'll get some stitching in somewhere!

xox Sugary hugs :o)

FNSI sign ups

Late again, I know., but I only just flew in from Melbourne after our annual Let's Get Stitched event and boy....what a time we had!  I've lots to show you but before I go to work here are the sign up details for this month.

Looking forward to stitching with you again this Friday
xox Sugary Hugs

FNSI ... sign ups for February

Oh my goodness !  This ‘time’ thing is still moving way too fast this year isn’t it?  Thank the Lord for Maria who reminded me we are FNSI-ing tomorrow night. Sorry for the late sign- ups but I have been distracted with the weather issues and such. All is good here now though!

So let’s not waste any more time. Sign ups are below   Let’s have some Friday night fun!

Xxx Sugary hugs :0)

FNWF and a Lucky Find

It's been a bit damp here with monsoonal rains so staying in and stitching has been a plus.  Friday night I joined with other ladies  and our lovely hostess Cheryll for our monthly Friday Night with Friends.

But before I share, I have some good news......I got a phone call last Tuesday from our local council.....someone had handed in my beautiful girl to the pound!  

It was hard at the start as Milo had forgotten who she was and she was just an 'intruder' to him...she smelt 'funny' and he was not impressed.   It took a few days but now they are the best of friends again.  Mocha has been seen by the vet who said she had been looked after well so after just over a month, they decided she wasn't keen to stay with them and wanted to come home.  All I can say is thank God for microchipping...that's how they found who she belonged to as she had lost her collar, who knows when?

Told you 2019 was going to be an awesome year!

This wet weather has given me lots of catch up time so Friday night for me began early.  I managed to catch up on the second last block of Foxley Village.

I'm keen to put this one together with only one block to go.    I also put my hand up to join the 'Bloom quilt sew-a-long' with Chez.

 I was a bit behind but managed to get the first two blocks prepped and stitched down as well.

Some more progress on "It Takes Two"....

...and even a hexi for our group swap.....

All in all, quite a productive Friday I think! 

The week saw some treacherous weather in our parts with the monsoon hovering over our area and flooding a nearby city so much so that the dam had to release water at 8pm last night so its banks did not burst.  The timing coincided with the tides so the impact would be as 'minimal' as possible, however this put its residents at risk and with around 2000 megalitres pumping out per second *eek* about 20000 homes were flooded. Today is predicted for more rains and already the area has been tagged as having a 1 in 100 year event that is the second largest flood in Australia's history. You can see some of the devastation HERE and HERE.  And here is a photo from the end of our street.  

You can see the block flooding and the drain is just about at its limit.  But we are nowhere near the devastation Townsville has encountered.  They have had around 2000mm of rain in the past week whereas we (about 80km south) have had about 1000mm  It's predicted we'll get another 1500mm in the next 10 days...we're hoping and praying not, but time will tell.  Mr B had to 'relocate' this Eastern Brown snake who managed to sneak in under our back door and take refuge in our lounge room!  I can tell you we've both never moved so fast in all our lives as these are in the group of  most dangerous of all snakes in Australia, if not, the world!  

Talk about freak out!  This one was a juvenile and about 3 ft long but mighty fast!  We locked the cats in the bedroom and did what we had to do.  Needless to say, there are multiple towels piled up against the back door, hopefully sealing it from unwelcome visitors.

Don't forget to go and see what other friends got up to as there are some beautiful crafty people in our groups.

for now, I'm sending big sugary hugs and loads of love and thanks xox   :o)

FNSI Results

Well, this week started out like last year.....where did it go????
Started Monday with work.....Tuesday I had to go and visit a new little great-neice...…

Welcome little Madelyn Rose to the world...here she is...24 hours old...isn't she gorgeous?

Such bright eyes, and a gorgeous shock of dark brown hair.....looks like she's been here before, doesn't it?  She was my Tuesday distraction!  Wednesday I had to run errands around town and Thursday, back to work again.  This afternoon I'm headed to the big smoke (Townsville) for a check up for Mr B's eye operation and seeing if they can do his other one.   He had a cataract removed and a lens inserted in his eye.....no pain whatsoever and it's been such an easy recovery for him, but I've had to play nurse with drops every day, 4 times a day and he's not allowed to do anything except rest. (When I die, I'm coming back as Mr B!)

Last Friday we had our first FNSI for the year and I promised I'd get organised with prizes and draws.  Before I show you, here is what I got up to.....

I was reorganising my sewing space to fit in my new toy......

never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd every own one but I saved and saved and saved and here she is, my sweety.

I added table risers to the legs of my cutting table so I could fit my shelves underneath and now it's at a more user-friendly height so that made me even more happy!  As you can tell though, I haven't had a chance to try her out but as Monday IS a public holiday, I might just have to give her a spin! 

I chose fabrics for my 'Bloom Sew a Long" with Cheryll .  We're following Lori Holt's original sew a long plan from 2016.....it's never too late and keeping true to form, I've picked my fabrics and got my templates but I haven't started yet (I WAS distracted a bit!) .   

Then we'll link up on Cheryll's blog the second and third Saturdays of the month sharing our progress.    I'll do catch up over the weekend!

I did get a little hand stitching done though.

I finished off the embroidery on this block, now to add the pieced blocks and then I'm up to the last one....getting close to finished. 

Now to the important part....our winners!  We had lots of fun with our Friday Night Virtual Stitchers and lots of  'work' was done.  You can see it all HERE.

I had Mr Linky randomly choose winners for November, December and January and here's how it went....

November winner 1:    Karen's Korner

November winner 2:  Rike@flickchensquilt

December winner :    Cheryll from Gone Stitchin'

January winner:         Nancy from Joy for Grace

  

Congratulations to all you wonderful ladies....thanks for joining in this month and beginning this year off with a bang! Send me your postal details and I'll get a little something off to you pronto.

Remember, lock the third Friday night of each month in for your FNSI fix.  You never know when your name will be drawn as a winner.  Regardless, we're all winners as we have so much fun stitching virtually with so many wonderful stitchers from around the globe...and we get more of our projects done!  Winner, winner!

xox Sugary hugs :o)

tidying up 2018 and signups for our first FNSI for 2019

Welcome to 2019

.... better late than never and yes, that is me and how I roll!  I'm well known for being late to the party and I'm trying to address this but in 2019, I'm accepting it, embracing it, taking ownership and not stressing over it.  I will attempt however to be more visible and less "where did she go?".

I must say though, in my defence, 2018 was the year of yuk for us....our son was in hospital 5 times and suffered with loads of debilitating illnesses, my adored father in law was in hospital suffering with dementia and finally passed away in September, we lost our much loved Burmese kitten, Mr B being out of work for 3 months due to the wet weather and I slipped on a tile floor and damaged my back....but there were also loads of positives so I'm not complaining, just explaining.

So here it is, a new year for FNSI and Sugarlane Designs.  I'm still not convinced I know where I'm headed with the designing bit as Craftsy aka Blueprint made us all take a tumble and reassess many designers' paths in a very short time frame  

The beginning of the year is pretty full already for me with Mr B getting eye surgery this week, I'm preparing for the annual getaway with the girls -  Let's Get Stitched in Melbourne this year in the first week of March and I"ll be heading on a craft cruise around New Zealand in March-April, thanks to the wonderful people at Universal Magazines who produce Homespun and Quilters's Companion Magazines and Travelrite .  So I can see the designing part will be most likely relegated to the second half of the year where I can sit and concentrate, but that's not saying there won't be some sneaky designing going on in between! *wink*

In the meantime I have some loose ends to tidy up from 2018 FNSI.

Seeing as last year was such a disaster for me, this first FNSI will have a recap of winners from mid 2018 who have yet to receive their prizes to the present January winner of FNSI....starting the year off with a clean slate.  I'm hoping 2019 will be our biggest and best yet!

So, without further ado.....here are signups for the first Friday Night Sew in for 2019.....share it around, let your friends know, social media is a wonderful thing to join us all together in spirit when like minded friends can't be all together in person...….stitching up a virtual Friday night Party is the go!

Onwards and upwards in 2019
xox Sugary hugs :0)