Some Christmas Fun.

 At a meeting yesterday we were introduced to 3 fun little projects for Christmas.  I love the little mouse above!

                                            The other side of the little candy cane mouse.

                                This is a little box of Smarties cunningly disguised as a 'house'.

                                                Below is a side view of the Smartie House.

 Take 2 pieces of felt, place a pencil between the pieces and  adhere them together with something sticky.  The pencil should have been wrapped in ribbon but I ran out of time.

 Sew or glue 'ornaments' onto the tree and then sew tiny bells to the ends of each branch.

I ended up with glue in a lot of places where I shouldn't have, and didn't get time to sew on the bells.

Hunting for Potatoes.

 Little Miss 3 loves to help in the garden, and today was the day that we emptied out a huge plastic pot in which a few potatoes had been planted. What fun to hunt for potatoes in the emptied out soil!

                                               Then of course we had to scrub them clean.

Gorgeous Native Fringed Lily.

                  I have never seen so many Fringed Lilies out at once, they are everywhere.

                           They are so pretty with each of the petals beautifully fringed.

Cactus Flower.

            This gorgeous flower is huge, and with it's pink and deep green throat it's really beautiful.

Blackbird Eggs.

Although they are very pretty, these Blackbird eggs are not a welcome sight. Blackbirds are not native to Australia and definitely should not be seen in the bush.

Soaking the Fruit.

What better thing to do on a wet Sunday morning than make the Christmas Cake. Having soaked the fruit all night in brandy, I was all set to go today when it was predicted to be nice and cool for having the oven on for 3 hours. I didn't expect 40mm of rain, but how welcome it was!

That's All Folks!

                      All finished, and that means that I have made a start on Christmas for 2014!

Done but Not Quite Right.

I decided to add a beaded 'tail' to the bookmarks, but how I wish that I had made the lower end come to a point rather than squared off. Anyway, they're done, but if I should make more I would definitely reshape them.

Matching Cards.

 While I'm thinking about the tassels, I decided to make some matching cards to go with the bookmarks.

I have a duplicate card of the Hippeastrum, as the colours are so Christmassy that I might even use that design for more cards, minus the bookmarks.

Not Sure About These.

 The photos that I printed onto fabric have been backed with Vilene then stitched randomly over the front with toning plain or variegated thread.

I added a backing of hand dyed toning fabric and satin stitched the edges. Although the edges look uneven and wavy in the photos, they are actually straight edges. Now, do I add a beaded tassel, a plain tassel or not tassel at all?

For a 4 year Old.

As I'm often a passenger on long country drives I always like to have some knitting on the go to do in the car. This is for next winter, a fun jumper for a 4 year old girl. I love knitting with variegated wool as the effects are so easy to achieve! Unfortunately I bought the plain purple wool first, otherwise I would have knitted the whole jumper in the variegated one. Still the combined effect is rather nice I think. As I have already complete the back, front and almost the first sleeve, it won't be long before it's finished.

Christmas Gifts?

 Looking for something simple that I could make as Christmas gifts I thought about bookmarks. I went through all my flower photographs and chose a few that I thought might work, resizing them to fit the format that I had chosen for the bookmarks.

I transferred them to fabric, one didn't transfer properly, so I have 2 nasturtiums which is good as I will need one to experiment on as I'm not quite sure what I'll do next.  A bit of machine embroidery before adding a backing and finishing the edges I think.

Great Sighting!

Spotted a Sacred Kingfisher while out walking this morning. It was quite a distance away but I managed to get a telephoto shot reasonably well in focus.

More Wildflowers.

                                                                       Chocolate Lily

                                                                         Native Clematis.

                               I think that this is a Tiger Orchid, but I have yet to check it out.