FNSI Winner

Thank you to everyone for their wonderful words of encouragement and well-wishes….it has meant the world to us and dad’s progress is onward and upward!  Just know I’ve read  every comment and I appreciate each and every one of them….please excuse me if I haven’t responded…..I will try to, but know my heart is bursting with the love you’re sending us!!!  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, just doesn’t seem enough! Dad has two drains in his abscess which wont go until the cavity of the abscess shrinks, and a scar about 12 inches long around his torso.  But he’s off his red button for self administered pain relief now and only has tablets when he needs it.  The number of tubes going in and out of him is reducing and he’s actually up and out of bed for his meals and even walking a short distance every day.  The doctor tells us he will remain in hospital for 2 weeks to a month depending on his progress. Hubby’s sisters have arrived from down south and have given us a few days to return home to make sure the house hasn’t burnt down and to see our boy…..we’d almost forgotten what he looked like!!   He’s been sick with the flu too, so couldn’t come up to see his Nonno!!!!! It has been difficult without good computer access……it’s amazing how much you DONT realise how much you rely on technology and although the IPhone is good, and the tablet is good…….it just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to writing a post so excuse me if I’m babbling but at the moment I feel like I’ve just been let loose in a candy store!!!!!!! Well, I better show you what I’ve been up to since I’ve been stuck at the hospital for the past 3 weeks….. ….I’ve been working on a new project I’ve designed for Patchwork and Stitching, involving quite a few hexies and some stitchery on linen…. some more blocks in my Quilty Sampler Stitch Along I finished the stitchery part of Vicki’s Autumn Rose Table Runner and did some more stitching on my ‘The Street’ by Smee Designs I really like the foils in her hair in this block!!! and funnily enough, it’s at Jenny’s hairdressing store!!!!! lol Grandma, in her pink fluffy slippers and fashionably matching pink handbag, is finished too…. but there’s still lots to do………without a machine for 3 weeks, I’ve been in withdrawal….guess what I’ve been doing!!!! LOL So sorry about the late posting of our FNSI winner…..I was a little distracted!!!!!!    We had 48 of us sewing together on Friday night…….. I was working on my Quilty Stitches cross stitch sampler at the hospital and if you visit my last post, you can visit all the links to everyone who joined in to see what they got up to! Mr RNG helped out again in drawing the winner (he’s so good at being ‘random’!) and he picked….. who is…….. Vicki from the UK and the prize is even a surprise to me! Congratulations Vicki………I’m sure you’ll love it, whatever it is!!!!! I know that sounds weird, but my wonderful friend Marilyn has offered to host the prize for this month whilst I’ve been away……she is just adorable and such a sweety……make sure you pop on over to her blog and look at all her lovelies.  She’s a new designer too……I’ve showed you my sewing bag that I got that she designed and her patterns have been selling like hotcakes.  photo courtesy of:  http://mardimeanderings.blogspot.com.au/ here she is with the bigger version.  You can link to her and buy the pattern too…..I absolutely LOOOOVE mine and use it all the time!  there’s mine, on the left in the picture below! photo courtesy of:  http://mardimeanderings.blogspot.com.au/ Babbling enough……I’m off to do something with those hexies…….I’m on a deadline!!!!!  Sugary hugs :o) xox

FNSI Winner

Thank you to everyone for their wonderful words of encouragement and well-wishes….it has meant the world to us and dad’s progress is onward and upward!  Just know I’ve read  every comment and I appreciate each and every one of them….please excuse me if I haven’t responded…..I will try to, but know my heart is bursting with the love you’re sending us!!!  THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, just doesn’t seem enough!

Dad has two drains in his abscess which wont go until the cavity of the abscess shrinks, and a scar about 12 inches long around his torso.  But he’s off his red button for self administered pain relief now and only has tablets when he needs it.  The number of tubes going in and out of him is reducing and he’s actually up and out of bed for his meals and even walking a short distance every day.  The doctor tells us he will remain in hospital for 2 weeks to a month depending on his progress.

Hubby’s sisters have arrived from down south and have given us a few days to return home to make sure the house hasn’t burnt down and to see our boy…..we’d almost forgotten what he looked like!!   He’s been sick with the flu too, so couldn’t come up to see his Nonno!!!!!

It has been difficult without good computer access……it’s amazing how much you DONT realise how much you rely on technology and although the IPhone is good, and the tablet is good…….it just doesn’t cut the mustard when it comes to writing a post so excuse me if I’m babbling but at the moment I feel like I’ve just been let loose in a candy store!!!!!!!

Well, I better show you what I’ve been up to since I’ve been stuck at the hospital for the past 3 weeks…..

….I’ve been working on a new project I’ve designed for Patchwork and Stitching, involving quite a few hexies and some stitchery on linen….

some more blocks in my Quilty Sampler Stitch Along

I finished the stitchery part of Vicki’s Autumn Rose Table Runner

and did some more stitching on my ‘The Street’ by Smee Designs

I really like the foils in her hair in this block!!!

and funnily enough, it’s at Jenny’s hairdressing store!!!!! lol

Grandma, in her pink fluffy slippers and fashionably matching pink handbag, is finished too….

but there’s still lots to do………without a machine for 3 weeks, I’ve been in withdrawal….guess what I’ve been doing!!!! LOL

So sorry about the late posting of our FNSI winner…..I was a little distracted!!!!!!   

We had 48 of us sewing together on Friday night…….. I was working on my Quilty Stitches cross stitch sampler at the hospital and if you visit my last post, you can visit all the links to everyone who joined in to see what they got up to!

Mr RNG helped out again in drawing the winner (he’s so good at being ‘random’!) and he picked…..

who is……..

Vicki from the UK

and the prize is even a surprise to me! Congratulations Vicki………I’m sure you’ll love it, whatever it is!!!!!

I know that sounds weird, but my wonderful friend Marilyn has offered to host the prize for this month whilst I’ve been away……she is just adorable and such a sweety……make sure you pop on over to her blog and look at all her lovelies.  She’s a new designer too……I’ve showed you my sewing bag that I got that she designed and her patterns have been selling like hotcakes. 

photo courtesy of:  http://mardimeanderings.blogspot.com.au/

here she is with the bigger version.  You can link to her and buy the pattern too…..I absolutely LOOOOVE mine and use it all the time!  there’s mine, on the left in the picture below!

photo courtesy of:  http://mardimeanderings.blogspot.com.au/

Babbling enough……I’m off to do something with those hexies…….I’m on a deadline!!!!! 

Sugary hugs :o) xox

It’s a catch-up post

Wow…it seems like it’s been forever since I’ve posted..I was going to do a post while I was on the Gold Coast but for 3 of the 5 days we were there, my mobile broadband was playing up  and on the other days I was measuring eye drops and medicines and visiting family and bloggy friends (Hi Joy and Marilyn!!!)  Time goes soooo fast when you’re with special people! Thank you sooo much to those who have been sending good wishes and prayers for DS’s eye operation….it was much easier than either of us expected…the explanation we were given of the cornea being scraped back, whilst still awake but locally anaesthetised, scared us more than you can imagine….I was like the pacing father outside of the birthing suite…except I was the pacing mother outside of the surgery!   I must have asked a dozen times if DS had asked for me….I think they took pity on me and let me sit in and watch…..DS was soooo calm, I couldn’t believe it!  It wasn’t until we arrived at my brother’s house at the Gold Coast that the local anaesthetic wore off….that was one rough night! A few days of a closed and weepy eye then we were back for review. But there was a bit of spoiling in between, with a favourite lunch on the agenda….. …the biggest kebab you have ever seen!!!!…..but even that wasn’t enjoyed totally as the sunlight caused all sorts of havoc!  All went well though, apparently…now just a blurry eye for up to two months when we return to Brisbane for another check-up. So I made sure I had plenty to go on with whilst I was there….. stitching the February block for our SIF finishers….. …finishing the stitcheries for month 2 of Fee’s framed hexagon Club …and catching up on block 10 of the Long Time Ago in Bethlehem stitch-a-long in Homespun…… before I allowed myself to be led astray by these two rascally blogging buddies….. We must have looked like middle-aged techno-heads with our texting and sending photos left, right and centre….after all, we didn’t want our bloggy friend Teresa, to miss out.  She would have been there too but she had eye surgery on the same day, at the same surgery, by the same doctor as DS…we had such a laugh when we found that out! After a yummy morning tea and a looooooong catch-up, Joy had arranged for us to visit her ‘work’ (I could handle HER ‘work' !!!) where I indulged in a heavy dose of ‘retail therapy’ with very little prompting *hee hee* from Joy and her merry band of work buddies!!!…..put it this way….being asked …..would you like fries with that??….tells me I’ve probably got more than enough!!! Just had to have these….they were on sale….50% off!!! and these gorgeous chubby birds will make a lovely block holder…maybe??? some beautiful RED teacup fabric that knew me by name *heehee* and some essentials that Joy said I reeeeeally needed!!! But I do like the quick-unpick you can see at the bottom of the photo in the plastic casing…..if you look closely, you can see it has a grey ‘rubber’ on top that you literally wipe across your stitches once you’ve unpicked them and it cleans them away!!!  And these cute little USB sticks….I can put all my crafty downloads on these and clear up my hard drive!!!!!  Yay!!!! My credit card was feeling all bruised and battered…it hadn’t seen this much action since…….well, since……last week???……and Joy took us to visit the lovely Nikki Tervo.  Nikki has lots of fabrics as well as her beautiful handcrafted buttons she makes….my first thought was…where do I begin?? I started amongst the Tilda fabrics which you can see here but then my heart skipped a beat when I found all the Robyn Pandolph fabrics….this one just jumped into my arms, for no particular reason… …along with these gorgeous fat quarters and lacy goodness….. and I don’t know how, but these patterns found their way home too… Nikki was so kind…she gave both Marilyn and I a copy of her Girly Gear Bag pattern and I just couldn’t resist signing up for  Nikki’s simply gorgeous Plate Quilt stitchery BOM (do you see a pattern happening here??)  But I figure I couldn’t walk past $10 a month!!! Before we knew it, it was 5pm and time to go….the chef at the Cleveland Lighthouse restaurant very kindly took this photo of us…I daresay he wasn’t a photography buff as it’s not an Elvis hairstyle I’m sporting…our newfound chef-y friend didn’t think a very windy day would make a difference to the photo!!!! I went home with a whole lotta bloggy love and these gorgeous gifts Joy and Marilyn made for me….. Joy’s hanging teatowel….mmmmm, coffee…I love these..so practical and I never seem to have enough, along with a takeaway mug hug and a special Joypatch pen and Marilyn made me this wonderful project pouch.  You can see the plastic zippered side, so you can see what’s in it…. and then the front says….. well, 89, but who’s counting!!??  (do you think Marilyn knows me all too well???? ) Sugary hugs xox :O)