Keeping busy....

My son gave me an awesome book last Christmas, Quilt & Sew Country Style by Anne-Pia Godske Rasmussen, published by Search Press. Find it, its worth it!!! I have had great fun as you can see.

Some cats.....

A bird to brighten my daughter's desk at work....

And rooster to crow over her new kitchen...

 (sorry about the dark photo below)

 And another bird for a friend's birthday....

And I haven't even made half of her beautiful goodies.

From my window......

Or should I say 'on' my window:)

From my window......

I have a new camera (yay!!) and have been clicking madly from my window....

Fellowship of the Flowers

As I mentioned a post or two ago, I LOVE Michele May's blog, The Raspberry Rabbits.  This is one of the reasons I do.... Fellowship of the Flowers.

I have been following this series of hers this year and I have to say, I cant wait every month for her new project to come out!  They are all fun, so pretty and incredibly inspiring!

Although I haven't been able to keep the pace and do all of them, I have made two of the candle holders as gifts. I plan on doing the rest sometime soon. My photography skills leave a lot to be desired, But take a look....

This blue one was for a dear friend, and this pink one for my sister-in-law as a house warming gift. Sorry, no details on this one!

You can see all her projects on my Pintrest page 'Fellowship of the Flowers' but you should go and check out her blog as well, you won't be disappointed and if you love what you see, you can join the Fellowship of the Flowers any time this year! -www.theraspberryrabbits.com.  

An Extraordinary Journey

One of my very favorite bloggers of all time is Michelle May of The Raspberry Rabbits.  I love her work and already have her first book, 'Briarside Lane', which I treasure very much.

When I heard her second book, 'Fabled Fusions', was due out last year in October, I quickly pre-ordered it to make sure I got it come hell or high water!

She was due to post them out at the beginning of October which she duly did.  When I hadn't received my copy by the end of November, I contacted her to find out if she had some kind of a tracking number so that I could try and find out what stage of it's journey it was on..... Michele was horrified to find out I hadn't received it yet as by this time it had been received all over the world by her other customers.

We decided to give until after Christmas to see if it was just the 'Seasonal Post' clog and the take it from there.

To cut a long story short, it still hadn't arrived by Christmas and Michelle, being the amazing person she is, made sure another copy was winging its way to me on the 27 December. A whole month later on 27 January 2014 my book finally arrived!  Imagine my complete astonishment to discover that it was the first book, the one that had gone astray! Four months later it had finally arrived.

Sadly to this day, the second book has still not arrived!

If you look carefully you can see the postal date!

The book is amazing and the projects are sensational.  Do yourselves a favour and visit her blog, the raspberryrabbits.blogspot.com. you won't be disappointed

Congratulations Michelle!

From my window

It always a pleasure to see the Banded Mongoose feeding busily on my "front lawn"!

From my window

Before Yves left, we decided a family weekend was in order.  We all went off to Diggers Cabin in Pennington on the south coast and had a fantastic weekend.  These photos are all "from my window" there.

At last

As I sit at my computer, recovering from a bout of pneumonia, I find myself looking back on the year.  It has been a BIG year for us and the end part of 2013 has been fraught with distractions.....

We are moving to France shortly and my beloved husband, friend and confidant left on 28 November and I am adjusting to living without my rock and foundation until I can join him.  The most difficult part was being sick without him to reassure me and cuddle me when I was feeling sooo ill.

We re moving to Quimper in Brittany and I cant wait for this new chapter in our lives to begin together, he is doing all the spade work ahead of me and I can't help but long to be with him to go through all this together. But circumstances dictated differently.  Yves is French so language for him is not an issue, but I definitely needed some brushing up so my children and I went along every Saturday for 5 weeks to Alliance Francaise to do a course.  If you ever need or want to learn French, I can recommend doing it this way.  We had such fun!
Anyway, enough of feeling sorry for myself, but this is why I have been so quiet for so long.

Back to business ... more postcards.  Our year of sharing these is over now and these are the last ones.

Sent-Bubbles

Organza is the pits to work with!!!


Received - Bubbles

Thanks Faith, I love it!


Sent - Landscapes 

Received - landscapes

Arlene, it is stunning!

Sent and received - Hexagons

SENT - September's challenge for our postcard group was hexagons! I decided to "hexagon-ise" my hungry little worm, this is how he turned out

 

  



RECEIVED - Then much to my glee I received these crazy little hexagon cats.  You know me and cats!!

 

 

Thanks Rene xxx

 

So I decide that since I am having so much fun making these little delights, I would make one for one of my best friends in Australia!  Hope you liked it El!

 

 



 

 

 

Anyway, that's Friday done and dusted!!  Happy stitching and have a fantastic weekend! 

Some things that made me smile!

This has been a week of ups and downs, the up, my husband is back from France, for a little while. The downs, various reasons.  So I looked for things that would make me smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside.  Look what I found!

We made a trip to the French consulate in Durban and on the way home stopped by my brother's office just to say hi.  Right outside his company entrance they have this amazing, huge pond with wait for it......Egyptian Geese, of all sizes and plenty of babies.  I have always love these birds!

 

 

I would have loved to get closer and take better photos but of course... a) I forgot my camera at home b) Mommy goose hissed at me !!!

Another thing which I enjoyed was seeing this beautiful cat that my husband took a photo of and who belongs to a friend of ours in Brittany. 

 

 

I would have loved to scratch that big, soft, fluffy tummy! His name is Felix

 

Did any thing make you smile this week?

 



Quiltable Quotes -

Don't you just LOVE Dr Seuss???

More Postcards -

What can I say, they are addictive.  Once you have made one and received one, the bug bites! The possibilities are endless and it is just such fun!!  Here are a few more.

SENT -

August was crazy patch month.  Here are some details.

 

 

This one was to Caroline who sent that amazingly beautiful one that I have featured before

 

 

 

 

My dear friend Devi has just become a Grannie to a beautiful little boy.  She loves bling, so I blinged this one up to congratulate her and the proud parents.

 

 

 

 

 

RECEIVED - Well I think I'll leave those for another day! hehe!  Pop back on Wednesday to see the beautiful ones I have received!