North Carolina

Blog friends of Shell from The Rasberry Rabbits, will be pleased to hear they have gotten through Hurricane Irene! Everything is a mess and they'll be without power until Thursday.

Dear Shell we wish you all the best in the clean up!

Hurricane Irene as it bears down on the East Coast

(Photo credit: Rasha Entertainment)

Trinkets

Remember my very first pattern called "Trinkets"

well Online Store Ollie and May has the last 3 copies available to purchase. I won't be publishing anymore so if you've been thinking about getting it you better be quick!

You can also see it made up here in another gorgeous colourway by beautiful stitcher Lisa.

Red and White

I love Red and White and after seeing Jenny's polka dot collection I thought I'd show some of my sweet things in my craft room. I'll start with the spots!

Cute Tilda Snail softie made my me and a little dress made by Clare

my little polka dot case with a tiny tea set inside, I just had to have it!

Some of my storage solutions in red and white

Some twine and ribbons for wrapping, bit of pink in their too

 of course their has to be fabrics with dots of various sizes

cute trinkets

Special photo of my Dad and a poppy

 name tags from Gatherings

and lastly a banner from my lovely friend Fee, she knows what I like!

So this is just a small glimpse into my red and white world I call my craft room. Soon I'll be relocating into another room so there'll be no more boring brown and plus I'll be able to heat it so there should be alot more craft happening throughout the year.

What colour scheme is your craft room?

Missing my Mojo so I'm Doodling Instead!

 My stitching mojo is on walkabout again so to get the creative juices flowing I decided to give art journalling a go, here's my very first double page spread

I'm no Pablo Picaso but it's fun trying!

My pages incorporate paint, images, water soluble wax crayons, black pens for doodling, stamps, rub-ons and scrapbooking paper. The quote was from this inpirational art journaller .

and I have to show you this photo from when we were in Melbourne recently.

These fabulous gold bees are on the side of the Eureka Tower, they are huge!

Fee and I didn't go upto the skydeck but I hear it has awesome views of the city.

I just love Melbourne's Art Installations!

Memories of Maria, our neighbour

When we moved into our home five years ago a little elderly neighbour yelled out yoo hoo! over the fence and introduced herself and handed us a homebaked cake. Her name was Maria, she was Polish and her english was not fabulous but it was good enough that we could communicate. Maria had left Poland during the war and migrated to Australia with her two children. She remarried in Australia and had lived in the same house and raised her family there.

Maria's husband was in a nursing home and had Alzeihemers, he died that same year we moved in. Maria's daughter Jenny had moved in to help Maria around the home.
Maria has the most amazing vegetable patch which she worked daily and we'd often find a bag of vegies hanging over the fence or our son would come inside with a zuchinni from her.
Maria loved our dog Lucy and Lucy loved being picked up so she could get a pat. She always told me Lucy was a bit fat.
Maria always had a smile on her face and on weekends we'd see her walking to and from the local church, about 500 metres down the street.
In the past few months Maria had become very ill and in the last few weeks was in home palliative care, sadly she passed away on Monday. We'll miss Maria, she was a beautiful neighbour. My deepest sympathy go to Jenny and her family.
RIP Maria xxx