A beautiful birthday gift sent by Christine from the Friends in Stitching group. Christine's town starts with P, so she made me a pillow (ever so lovely!) and sent me pens, pad and pattern (love Rosie's red christmas stitcheries). Thanks so much Christine and FIS!

 A surprise parcel in the mail from my friend Kylie...gorgoes Etchings charm pack, spring strip to make a purse/small bag with, and a gorgeous zipper purse/bag. Thanks Kylie!

This is the purse that Vicki made me in the Friends in Stitching purse swap. Gorgeous isn't it! I love it, thanks so much Vix!

I made Vicki the same purse, LOL! However I didn't photograph it before it was posted so you will have to see it on Vicki's blog. This was a fun swap and it was great to make a different purse to what I had previously made.

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It seems like four weeks have slipped by rather fast. I have been quite sick for all of them and then some, with a terrible terrible flu. This has kept me pretty well bed/lounge bound with minimumal housework being done. Slowly catching up on that now.

The children are all well. JessieGirl has knitting up a storm, she is a great knitter and well on her way. She finished her first (and long term) project of a scarf, and now I have her knitting a teddy bear which is half done. She has also been incubating eggs in our incubator, hatching chickens and attempting to hatch ducklings. She is enjoying this. MrZ did this a few months ago and loved it as well. He has been told to cut down on the rabbits or get them breeding so they can pay for their feed, so we should have some babies  in the next few months. Miss Busy is now full time assistant to JessieGirl with goat milking, chook and pig feeding. Both girls are early risers; I wish their brothers would be too! MrL is offically 'at school' now and proudly showed the Board of Studies Inspector how he can very speedily shimmy up the verandah posts without shoes and then run about on the roof.... and Mr A informed us the other day that he doesn't want his cot anymore but would like a fire engine bed in MrZ's room (LOL probably so he can get into all that lovely lego!).

I have also been studying part time, and this has been taking up sewing/copmuter time. I doing a certifcate IV in Accounting which will qualify me to do book keeping work, which I can do from home. I am enjoying the course so far but am a little worried about my first exam as I haven't done exams for quite a few years!