10 Days on...

I think you had better get a cup of tea or coffee as this post has turned out to be WAAAY longer than I intended when I first started writing.....

10 days ago I fell down some steps.

There were only two of them but the lower one isn't as wide as the top one; I step off towards the side to avoid the big mud puddle that sits in the middle at the bottom of the step. AND because I am a sparky's wife we have lights in the sheds but NOT outside. It was night when I fell and my poor little boy was in my arms at the time. He was quite shocked to have his mummy suddenly fall screaming to the ground. Aside from the shock he was fine. I was not. LOL.

Somehow I made the long and painful trip into the hospital, funnily enough there was another patient in the emergency room (our hospital is small) with his ankle bound up in bandages and crutches near by! Good news, the Dr said he would eat his hat if I had broken bones in my foot and sent me home on crutches.

Crutches are not fun to use, especially in my circumstances. To leave the loungeroom/bedroom part of the house I have to go down about 7 very narrow and steep stairs (no railing of course); then negotiate about 25m of postholes (waiting for posts), uneven ground and lots of mud. This the only way to get to the bathroom and kitchen at present.

I can now hobble to the bathroom without the crutches almost causing another accident, which is much better.

Where the icepacks sat on my foot I only had mild yellow bruising come up. Amazing stuff that frozen water! The rest of my foot was not pretty. In the photo below the bruising has cleared up alot since it first came out.

Now I am hobbling about and helping more with everyday things but it will be another week or so before my foot is back to normal and pain free.

A few days ago my second youngest son, who is almost 5 yrs old, suddenly had a bad foot like mum. I found him lying on the lounge with pillows under his head and his foot, complete with ice pack!

Paper Bag Swap

I am making for Peg in the paperbag swap that with the Friends in Stitching webgroup that I involved with. She has sent me a stitchery (beautiful, as everything is that Peg makes!), two fat quarters, two buttons and some gorgeous ricrac to make SOMETHING for her!

I have no idea what yet, any ideas? Don't you just love how she decorated her paper bag? Just beautiful! My bag, that I sent to Leanne who is making for me, wasn't decorated nearly as creatively - sorry Leanne.

Part of the swap was that you had to put in something chocolate for your partner. Peg put in a couple of my favourite chocolates and some for the kids; but they aren't in the pic's as they were enjoyed last week when I was lounge bound. This is the back of Peg's gorgous bag.

While I have been laid up; between handing out extra chores and schooling the children; I have done some stitching. I already had the two little stitcheries done, and part of the house before my accident. Weeding the Garden should be finished tonight, all things going well. So when I am able to sit at the machine again I will have three blocks to put together for Gardeners Journal.

One day last week I had had enough of the stitcheries and decided it was high time that I got this pincushion made for DDs upcoming birthday. It is made from wool and was just divine to stitch on. DD went back and forth to the iron and did the pressing for me. LOL, a couple of pieces have a slightly brown tinge to them! So far she has forgotten that she asked me ages ago to make this for her.... The yellow pin is a pintopper, gorgeous!

Last of all Mr Busy has started to paint the house. I take ages to pick paint colours. He was in a rush and not happy because I hadn't decided. He didn't want to paint it mid to dark blue like I wanted so I told him to pick a colour. He chose violet from a traditional colour scheme, but I told him he had to have a darker colour as our windows, roof, gutter and fascia are all light in colour and we needed some contrast.

So the house is Intense Purple. I love the colour. I am not sure if it is right for the outside of the house though. Maybe I have been too used to seeing the white undercoat for the past four years???? Once the verandah sides are done I will be able to get a better idea of it. The only side painted at present doesn't have a verandah off it so it is rather exposed and bare looking.

Don't you love our temporary verandah rails made from sheep yard panels......

Skills

I rarely go in the newsagent these days but last week on a wet day in town I felt drawn to visit my local newsagent. I found this special edition Quilters Companion magazine with dvd. I so wanted to purchase it but struggled as I wondered did I REALLY need a dvd on BEGINNING patchwork as I have been stitching for quite a few years now. I bite the bullet and bought it. Hehehe I was tempted to tell the girl at the counter that I WASN'T a beginner but didn't.

It is FANTASTIC!

I can't begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this dvd; and how much I will get out of it over time.

Beginner is such an inappropriate name for this, something like Skill Builder would be more suitable. The dvd went through basic things like cutters, boards, fabrics, cutting; and things like Y seams, on the point, setting triangles, half square triangles, curved piecing, foundation piecing, machine applique, english paper piecing, partial seams and specialty rulers.

The accompanying magazine has 12 projects that build in difficulty following the dvd. The projects are all designed by different Australian designers and the dvd is presented by Michelle Marvig and Claire Mooney.

It was well worth purchasing and made a cold afternoon lovely, snuggling up on the lounge to watch it.

This is my block keeper that was made for me earlier in the year by Lynda in Wonderland in a swap. I wanted to share how full it is getting!

The quilt blocks I have in here are; Gardeners Journal, Little Macca's Farm, Friends for Christmas, Harvest Home Sampler; and Friends in Stitching BOM. Love it!

Here is block A for my Gardeners Journal quilt, finally! Now I have three blocks done and am only one behind now.

This stitchery slowed me down, I had the table and the tree to go but could not get motivated to pick it up to finish it *grin* all done now!

Little Macca's and Gardener's Journal

I put together block H and block A on the weekend. I have only shown block H here as block A still has a stitchery that isn't quite finished..... After only finishing one block to date and being quite a few behind it felt really good to have more pieced together.

The seed packet stitchery was quick and fun to stitch.

something went wrong with my square in a square block for the wreath and it was smaller than it should have been, also the points got cut off with the seam allowance. I guess these blocks aren't something that I do easily! So I put an wider border around the block so it would fit.

This morning I finished off the last two blocks for Little Macca's Farm. Next to do with this quilt before putting the blocks together is to stitch all the animal sounds on each block (neigh, meow etc). These have been fun, easy blocks to do and after seeing lanalarn's Noah and Friends I am keen to do one too; though this won't be for a while....

The maroon on the horse is flannel, very nice!