July - where did it go?

July was a weird month for me. I was very busy with work for the first week, and then busy with holidays. Does that make sense?  Anyway, life is back to normal now with my boys back at school, and me working from home again.  Here's what I've been working on during July:

1.  Fandango Sky

This is a canvas work design by Laura J Perin. Laura's designs combine variegated threads of different textures, metallic threads and even tiny beads.  I love how she combines colours and textures.  I took this to Melbourne because I knew the lighting in hotels is never great, and if I don't do something in the evenings I just fall asleep in front of the TV! The canvas has big holes so it's great to stitch on in poor lighting.

So here's where I'm up to now:

Fandango Sky

I've made other designs by Laura J Perin in the past and they now hang on the wall in our bedroom:

Starry Nights

Jewel Box - I changed the colours on this one

2.  The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery

Have you heard of this company? They design very cute cross stitch patterns and seem to be taking the world by storm. A lot of young women are being drawn into cross stitch by their very cute patterns.  They sell the patterns online as a downloadable pdf to print at home, and they really are very cheap at about USD12 per design. They have a website and are on facebook. There's even a facebook group for those people stitching the designs.

I'm not finished Part 1 yet

I've just downloaded the first of four patterns in A Very Merry Christmas Town, which is their mystery Christmas design for 2015.   There will be one part of the pattern released each month for four months and I should be finished well before Christmas. Although it's a mystery, they do tell you the size of the design so you won't run out of linen!

I bought some sparkly linen when I was in Auckland, and fortunately had all the threads I needed in my stash! (with a few very minor substitutions)

This is my version of the 2014 Christmas mystery sampler from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery:

3.  My Scrappy Bear Paw quilt

I've been trying to fit in a bit of hand quilting each week to keep this quilt moving along.  I've quilted 5 of the 9 stars so I'm past half way.  I haven't decided on the binding yet, but expect it will be some combination of black and white.

Here's a reminder of the whole quilt top.

4. Haunted House - last one I promise

I've started to assemble my Haunted House. It's on my Finish A Long list for Q3 and I know it will take weeks, so I made a start at the weekend. I'm determined that it will be neater than my Bakery last year, when I forgot that the building should be symmetrical, and cut each side independent of the other sides. I can't redo the Bakery, but I can learn from that and make future buildings more balanced.

Here are my other buildings, all designed by Thea Dueck from The Victoria Sampler in Canada and stitched by me over the last 3 years.

I know you're all thinking that there's nothing wrong with the Bakery, but I know the Haunted House is going to be even better.

That's all for now - I wonder what August will bring?

And the winners are..

Just sneaking this in first. I finished my Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery Christmas Celebration Sampler last night.

It's been lovely hearing from so many of you over the past week. I didn't expect to receive so many entries. What a wide range of foods people eat at this time of the year. Some of the more interesting favourites were:
fried pumpkin
broccoli
beetroot
manderins

Then there were all those who liked:
sugar cookies (many variations here)
gingerbread
chocolate coated cherries and strawberries

I didn't do any analysis on the answers, but I'm pretty sure sweet foods out numbered savoury and vegetables.

I was surprised at the number of people who are No Reply Bloggers. Some of you know you are No Reply Bloggers and kindly provided your email addresses, but a lot of people didn't. I suggest you follow the instructions on this post by Adrienne of On The Windy Side if you're not sure. Often it's due to Google+ and that's a trap I fell into myself until some kind person pointed it out to me.

Anyway, before I announce the winners, I want to tell you that I won something myself some weeks ago in the Online Bloggers Quilt Festival. I won a random prize of 4 large spools of Aurifil thread, and they arrived last week.

They are quite neutral colours so I expect to start using them soon.

I've never used Aurifil because it's not easily obtainable in New Zealand, but those who have rave about it and tell me I'll never go back to normal cotton, so I'm looking forward to trying it. Thank you to Amy Smart for running the festival, and Aurifil for providing the prize.

Now, onto the important bit. The winner of the red fabrics was:
Deb who said:
Definitely love the REDS. I like to eat coconut cake at Christmas....my mom always made fresh coconut cake every Christmas, and my dad would hammer nails in the coconut for the milk to flow out. I'll always remember that. 

And the winner of the green fabrics was:

Mindy who said: 
Hello from Canada! I would be happy winning either set! The reds are beautiful (that quilt is amazing) but maybe I'll lean more towards the colorful bunch because I have a little girl who would love them. And at Christmas I love everything pumpkin! 

Congratulations to Deb and Mindy. I'll be in touch shortly and your packages will be in the post asap.  Thank you to everyone who entered. As I said, it was lovely to hear from so many people and to have so many new followers now.

I'll post a proper post about quilting this upcoming week, but I know everyone is getting busy and the time we all have to read blogs is at an annual low. I'll keep it simple and full of pictures so you can just whiz through and not have to read lots of words.

Possum Magic update

I haven't been doing much quilting lately, as you'll probably know if you're a regular follower.

There are three reasons for that:

1. I promised I'd finish my "Your Place or Mine?" wool felt applique top before the end of the year. I haven't made much progress on it, but I have avoided starting anything else quilt related. So I think I get a half tick for that.

2. I've been seriously distracted by all the yummy things I see on Instagram. I made the crochet mandalas and now I'm doing my first Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery project. It's a four week mystery stitch along which I'm really enjoying.

The down side to this project is that it's taking me forever because I chose to do mine on green lugana ,rather than the sparkly gingerbread linen that they suggested. I already had the green lugana, and thought it would look Christmassy, but now I have to make some thread substitutions because of the green background.  I'm getting there though, and after tonight there will be no more unpicking.

3. Work!!  Yes, I have a part time job, and for the last three weeks it's been really busy. Our annual conference and awards dinner will be held in Auckland this Friday. I've organised everything from the registrations, to the hotel, to the dinner for 100 people.  I'm looking forward to next week when life will be more back to normal.

When I do get free time, one of my first projects will be Carla's Possum Magic quilt. I can't wait to get started on this. I have an idea and I have the fabrics - I just need some free time. I love all the lime green in this quilt. It looks so fresh and summery.

Carla's Possum Magic quilt

The lovely Art Gallery fabrics I'm going to use

the ladybirds Rebecca paper pieced

There are updated photos on the Possum Magic tab at the top of my blog. Check out what the others have done lately. Here's a sneak peek:

Alice's quilt

Sharon's quilt

my quilt

Mine really isn't quite that vibrant - it must just be the way the light has caught it.