Silver Threads & Golden Needles!

Last weekend I was lucky enough to spend 

three days in Ballarat attending the 

Silver Threads and Golden Needles Sovereign Hill Retreat 

hosted by Chrissie of Chrissie's Timeless Treasures 

with my sister-in-law Silvia.

 

We received two kits to work on.

  

The first project was a Christmas bag. 

My bag is the one on the right.

 

 The second was a pins and needles case. 

I managed to get the stitching part done.

  

My finished pins and needles case.

 

 In between stitching, we would explore 

different parts of Sovereign Hill.

 My favourite place is the Criterion Store. 

 

There were so many lovely goodies here.

 

 Silvia and I thought it would be fun to 

have an old fashioned photo taken. 

We just had to pose stitching!

Don't think I'd really like to wear 

these dresses everyday!

We also made some little lavendar bags like 

they would have made back in the day.

I celebrated my birthday on Saturday 

and Noel surprised me with a special 

delivery of these beautiful flowers.

 

I was also lucky enough to win this sewing case 

(on my birthday too!), together with a toffee 

apple that are a specialty at Sovereign Hill. 

Mitchell has claimed that! LOL!

Before dinner on Saturday night, we walked 

the whole way around Lake Wendouree.

For my birthday dinner, we decided it 

would be nice to go to 

Craig's Royal Hotel which was built in 1853.

How beautiful is this staircase!

They were booked out for Saturday 

night so we went on Sunday.

Ballarat has beautiful gardens along the 

main road. I really liked these butterflies.

We had a fabulous time.  

There was lots of laughter, chatting, eating, 

exploring and shopping and we even managed 

to get some stitching done too! 

I'm actually surprised with how much we actually 

got done as we kept wondering off.

2024 Scrub Stitchin' Sewing Case

At Scrub Stitchin' retreat in April last year, 

we were all given a Cherish Each Day Sewing Case kit. 

It was designed by Anni Downs especially for us.

I finally made a start on mine!

My plan was to do the embroidery in January. Tick!

Add the wool applique in February. Tick! 

Put it together in March. Tick!

 

 

 All finished.

Ready to take to Scrub Stitchin' 

with three weeks to spare!

Thank you for all the comments on the

 arrival of Kade and my glamorous gloves. 

Here's another photo of him just because I can! 

 

I don't know what's going on with blogger. 

Some comments come through but as no reply 

bloggers. When I do reply with your email 

addresses, a lot bounce back. 

I've also found a lot that are being marked as spam

and were sitting in my spam folder!

Sunday Brunch and FNWF

 

Last week, I went to a Sunday Brunch event 

at Patchwork with Gail B's for the release 

of the new Tilda Sunday Brunch range.

 

Silvia and I had a lovely day. 

We were all given a kit to make a needle case.

 

In between eating, chatting and looking around the shop, 

we managed to get the front of our cases made. 

Mine is the pink one and Silvia's the red one. 

Silvia was very pleased as she learnt some new techniques,

I was lucky enough to win a gift voucher as a door prize.

Monday I finished off my needle case.

Of course I had to bring some pretty 

fat quarters home with me!

They are so much prettier in real life.

Last night I joined the girls for 

Friday Night with Friends hosted by Chez.

I got back to the applique for my 

Cherish Each Day Sewing Case.

We all received this kit at Scrub Stitchin' in Baradine last year. 

My plan is to get it finished before I go again in April!

This is where I finished last night. 

Two chickens and a snail added!

My Sewing Tin

 A few people have been asking about my sewing tin.

I bought it a few years ago on one of my adventures with Melody.

The lid is so pretty. It has a hinged lid.

It was originally a chocolate box from the 1950's.

So much nicer than the boxes chocolates come in nowadays.

 The fabrics were what caught my eye. 

I just loved the colours.

I kept going back to it and the box kept saying "buy me". 

So I did!

Two Pin Cushions And A Needle Case

I finished these stitcheries three years ago and they sat in the 

cupboard waiting patiently for me to make them into something. 

This pattern is from Some Kind Of Wonderful by Anni Downs.

Trimming up all those Tilda scraps last week made 

me get them out. The thread I had used worked perfectly.

I also made Week 3's challenge for the Tilda Lovers Club. 

A pin cushion using selvages from our Tilda fabric.

I've been working on the layout of my Lillian Elizabeth's Kitchen quilt too. 

There's just got one more block to embroider as I decided to

personalise the quilt with a photo of my grandmother on it.

 The fabric has now been prepared ready for me to print the photo onto it. 

Hopefully my printer behaves!