A full on week!!!

Well i don,t quite know where to start with this post!!!
I suppose i will rewind to Friday 4th Sept when i was lucky enough to be able to attend one of my bosses quilting retreat weekends up in Toodyay, wow, what a great experience:) Myself and around 15 other ladies took over an entire homestead and sewed, ate and drank all weekend!!! I got heaps of sewing done, caught up on my class project ( a cool new bag which i will post pics of later) and manged to actually relax just for a little bit:) If you ever get the chance, go do it, they are just awesome.
Monday saw my darling little Ebonee having heart surgery:( She is a trooper and pulled through well, hopefully when we go back in a month it will still be in the right place and the doctors will be happy not to see us again. Still its a trying time and brought back many memories of when we were there on a not so positive note 3 years ago.
Tuesday my dear hubby has to go back to work, (much to my disgust, he was away for nearly 3 months and only home just over a week!!!) however i consoled myself with my new sewing machine, a beautiful Topaz 30, a sewing and embroidery machine that i have had my eye on for a while:)
So now i have so many projects on the go and nothing for myself, what is it with this quilting lark??
Oh and Wednesday my teenage son returned home after doing some serious time out and fingers crossed he seems to have reformed, well for now he has, he is off back to NZ for a while at the end of the month, so fingers crossed he can behave until then and they let him back in the country!!

In other areas, oh the garden, mmmm, well broccoli and snow peas and silverbeet in abundance, bullants still doing my head in!! Have brussel sprouts the size of houses but no sprouts as yet, same with Cauli and broad beans, oh well i live in hope, it looks pretty good atm, so lets hope they produce the goods:)

Magical herbology course is going well and actually nearly finished, i have a big paper to do before the end of the month and then thats it, i really loved it and if anyone is interested let me know and i will send you the link.
Talking of herbs, yesterday i scored some very lovely patchouli leaves, mmmm, just wondering what i am going to make with them now:)
I also met with a dear friend yesterday who reads coffee cups, soooo interesting and how she can tell a spider from a xmas tree in the bottom of a mug of used coffee grinds is beyond me but she can and she is very good at it too.

Ok will sign off now, throat is killing me so i must be coming down wth dreaded lurgy:(

Much love and blessings

Nik xxx

Eye Spy quilt

So here it is!!

My dear daughters 1st quilt, she was very pleased with the result and i was happy at last to have finished making it so she could sleep with an actual quilt and not just the fabric anymore!!

So now on to the next project, i am off on a quilting retreat this weekend and hope to get a bit further along with my other daughters puppydog quilt, i am also making bags using a great technique called curved, layered, piecing, love it and love the left edge topstitch foot i am using to make it, i will of course blog my pics as soon as they are finished, one is in purple/blue Batiks, the other is in Autumn colours and both are stunning:) Well i think they are anyways!!

So other news, the garden is overflowing with silverbeet, broccoli and herbs of all kinds, i am loving having such gorgeous fresh produce and loving the fact me and the girls grew it ourselves!!!

Plenty of lemons so have made a wonderful cordial recipe and from the same great blogger a fantastic homemade ice cream recipe which got me extra brownie points from my family:)

Hubby alway again next week, Ebz has heart surgery Monday:( Not looking forward to that one so send some loving and healing vibes our way guys:)

Then its back to on our own for a while and perhaps more time to read and post in blogs:)

Full moon tonight so off to give thanks for all i have in my life and perhaps to bathe some crystals in the mothers silver light:)

Blessed be

Nikki xx

Sashiko style table runner

Well here is my latest creation, a Sashiko style table runner using a yarn couching foot.

This will be what i am teaching my class next Tuesday.

Wasn,t as hard as i thought, it helps if you have a wash or fade out pen to draw lines or use a template to draw a pattern before couching it.

I have also done two placemats using gold yarn but have not quite finished yet.

The eye spy quilt for Ebonee is nearly done, i just have to handstitch the binding down and voila!!

I did want it done before she went into hospital on the 7th, so think i have done well in completing it:) Will blog pics when i finish it, eventually!!

In other areas, its been 12 weeks now since my husband went off to work, i am really hoping he is back this week its his birthday on the 28th, his 40th, so would love to have a gathering for him, we have done it tough this time as phone reception is zero and its been up to a week at times that we have not spoken:(

Work is very busy, looks like a move of shop premises is on the cards, more room, bigger classrooms and more classes on the agenda, oh and another brand of machine too!!

Reading wise i am having a lot of personal bookings atm, psychic parties are getting busy too, i have had some fascinating clients recently, the ones that you could just sit and read cards for all day!! Email readings are going well too, and it still blows me away when i "see" for these people and i only have a photo and a name to go on!!

We are looking at doing some more psychic development workshops soon too and there are plenty of house cleansings and investigations coming up which i love doing:) The Live Magically website is quiet but my colleague Talia just moved house so i presume when she gets her internet back up and running we will fire up again.

Had a wonderful morning in the rain taking my daughters riding at a friends farm, was great, i even got back in the saddle and have been thinking about getting another horse for a while now as well as a pony for the girls.

Garden wise i have lettuce, cabbage, bok choy, and broccoli in abundance atm, i have a lot of lovely herbs growing and am waiting on the broad beans to start soon!!

Cos lettuce, rocket, beetroot and peas are all doing well but still a while away from a harvest.

And so that concludes my news this week, will be back next week with more pics (i hope) and news of my husbands return, (fingers xsd!!)

Blessings and love

Nikki xx

Craft Fair!!

Well today was the first day of the Perth Craft and Quilt fair, i am working on the shops' stand all weekend:)
It was very busy there today, we have a hands on workshop happening and lots of people booking in to have a go on the new Topaz 30, a very popular machine.
I was kept busy keeping 2 embroidery machines busy and giving demos to people interested in a new machine.
Too busy to have a llok around but around 3pm it starts to quieten down and we all start going off for little walks!!
Lots of yummy quilts to look at, new gadgets, scrummy fabric, oh dear, another dent in the bank account!!
Working at the craft fair is very tiring, lots of talking an on your feet all day but i love the hustle and bistle, the people you meet and the energy and buzz that a craft fair brings:)
If i am clever enough i will take some pics from the quilt display and post them, watch this space.
Oh and hopefully i will be the proud new owner of a Topax 30 next week, yippee i am so excited i love this machine and the possibilities it can offer me.

Love and blessings

Nikki xx

Karma Award

Monday 27th July 2009
Karma Awards



Faith from http://nutbudquilter.blogspot.com/ has gifted me with this award. I must pass the award onto some of my favourite blogging friends. In turn, they can copy what is below and pass it onto other favourite bloggers.

As a newbie to both the world of quilting and blogging i am inspired by the lady who sent me this award and the ladies i have given the award to, thank you and many blessings and happy quilting to you all:)

The wording for this award is as follows:

The Karma Award: These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kinds of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to some bloggers who may choose more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

So, I would like to pass this award onto:

Emma http://sampaguitaquilts.blogspot.com/

Amanda http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/

Cylie http://sewwhynot.blogspot.com/

Quilt As You Go Placemat

This is my next project for my foot club which i run in the shop every month.

I enjoyed this as it was extremely easy to do and good for using up scraps.

The side panel i used to do some decorative stitching and machine candlewicking stitches but i will allow my class to freehand whatever they like in there.

Born too Soon

A sad post today as i found out on Thursday that a very dear friend of mine had given birth to her darling baby boy at just 19 weeks .
It has come as a huge shock to many and its times like these when you feel hopeless as to what to do, what to say and what support to give.
I find from my own experiences that at these sad times in your life when you want to give up you will always find others who want to pull you up and carry you for a while, and that when this happens it is for a reason, and usually the reason is to listen and accept the help no matter where it is from, it can do no harm to share a burden or let another do something to help you, what would the world be like if no one offered to help each other??
In my opinion we are so damn stubborn a lot of the time that we insist we can and will do it ourselves, however to share a load is to lighten a load and whether you are a giver or a receiver it all contributes to making this wonderous planet a much more beautiful place to live and in which to raise our future generations.

I would love to make a quilt for this dear friend but am not sure where to start or what to do??
Any suggestions would be welcome:)

Much love many blessings

Nikki x

The 9 patch quilt

I was checking out the latest blogs and noticed a 9 block challenge.
Ideal way to use up a lot of scrap fabric and get me motivated, so i started and have made already 9 blocks, how many i will make is another question!!
Will post pics up later:)

Much love many blessings

N xx

Welcome:)

I just saw a blog tonight and was so inspired i thought right, thats it, its the way forward!!
So here i am, hoping i am doing the right thing and saying the right words, i have no idea what i will put in here but it will eventually be a treasure trove of work, ideas, patterns, potions and such, fingers crossed.

Much love many blessings

Nikki xx