Chookshed Stitchers 2024 Challenge - January

It's the first of February and I'm a bit late to report on our 

Chookshed Stitchers 2024 Challenge projects.

January was project #6 which I had listed as Mystery Project #1.

 

My January project was for my soon to be daughter-in-law, Paris.

Now that I gifted these to Paris at her 

Bridal Shower I can share photos.

 

I made Paris a covered hanger for her wedding dress. 

It is made from the same fabric that my wedding dress 

was made of. My brother and I made my wedding dress 

and I still had left over fabric. I would have happily cut 

up my actual dress to make the hanger as having three boys, 

no-one was going to want to wear it!

I also made Paris a garter to wear on their special day. 

I couldn't find a nice charm so added the drop pearl bead.

My wedding headpiece (above) was also handmade 

using some of these beads so again I 

have added a touch of our wedding to Paris and Austin's.

 

 Deana has now announced our February project number.

Number 2 on my list is Mystery Project #2. 

You may have now guessed that it's something to do with 

the wedding so you'll have to wait a bit to find out what it is!

I haven't forgotten about sharing our amazing 

two month trip to Scotland and England. 

After hours and hours (and hours), 

I have finally got my photos sorted into order. 

When they uploaded, they were all over the place so I manually 

went through my phone and renumbered everything in date order. 

All 4342 of them!

 

Hopefully it won't take me too long but as the wedding 

is in three weeks, I might be a little busy!

Wedding Napkins!

 

Chelsea and David's wedding reception was held in 

the Grand Ballroom at the Windsor Hotel. 

It was such a beautiful room. 

Weeks prior to the wedding, Chelsea, her mother, 

David's mother and I'm not sure who else, 

were very busy making special napkins for the day.

On each napkin there was a brooch or scarf clip attached. 

These were a gift from Chelsea as a memento of their wedding day. 

Chelsea had spent months going to markets and second 

hand stalls to purchase them all. 

There were floral napkins for the women and navy for the men. 

I was cheeky and brought some home. In fact I brought six home, 

three of each. I asked Chelsea what they did with

 all the napkins. She said some people took theirs home and 

she will use the others when holding high teas at home. 

I gave her the wrapped bag and laughed telling her I 

was one of those people too and that I took six!

I made fat quarter bags with them. 

One for Chelsea and one each for Karen and Luba, the two mothers.

I lined them with the navy napkins.

I thought they could put some wedding things in them.

Chelsea is going to put the trinkets that were on the bridal table in hers.

While I was taking these photos in the sewing room, 

the dogs started barking. I looked up and there was 

Mr Fox walking past! 

I ran out and chased him down the driveway. 

Didn't want him out the back with my chickens

although the dogs would have chased him out there.

A Bridal Shower

  

The lovely young couple next door are getting married 

in a couple of weeks (after having to cancel their 

wedding twice due to lockdowns!). They only moved in last year 

and we have become friends with Chelsea and David. 

We were thrilled to be invited to their wedding 

and last weekend was Chelsea's Bridal Shower.

 

I made Chelsea some trimmed tea towels using Jennifer's tutorial here.

 

It's very hard to get a photo with the true colours. 

The blue is so pretty.

Of course I had to make Chelsea some of 

Fee's Glamorous Gloves here.

I think she liked them!

A matching shopping bag.

 You can roll it up and pop it into your handbag.

There was a colour theme for the shower 

and we were asked to dress in pinks, golds 

or turquoise, any or all. 

So my new dress I made was perfect to wear.

The room was decorated with bunting made with heritage lace.

It's a pity you can't see it close up. It was beautiful.

Last week I also finally got to catch up with Melody. 

After many cancellations due to Mel's ill health, 

it was wonderful to see her looking so well. 

I also got to meet the newest member of her family, Daisy.

A Little Getaway and Some Lavender

Noel and I headed up to Beechworth for a few days. 

We camped at Ian (Noel's brother) and Beverley's place. 

We wanted to test out the solar and other things that we 

have added to the camper so we will be able to go off grid.

We took Mum with us. Here we are enjoying the sunset.

Along with some wine and nibbles.

 We went to Stanley for some delicious scones 

with cream and homemade jam.

The trees are all changing colours.  

There were lots of orange and gold ones too.

  I needed a small birthday gift for Beverley 

as we were there on her special day.

Beverley loves chickens and lavender. This Tilda Little Farm 

fabric was perfect for making lavender sachets.

And because he's just so cute, here's Ralph enjoying 

some special doggy Easter treats!

Gifted Hand Towels

 

Now they have finally been gifted, I can show you these

hand towels I made with my lovely Tilda fabrics. 

From the Bon Voyage and Old Rose ranges. 

Maple Farm range. Not too sure why but I cut these bands wider! 

I just added some lovely handmade soap ready for gifting.

You may have noticed my panorama photo under my header

 has gone. I was updating the photo and somehow I hit the 

wrong button and deleted it. Now I can't add another one as the 

"add a gadget" is gone. I am so disappointed and 

could kick myself from not being more careful! 

I've had one up there for eleven years!

A Birthday Gift

 

A special little girl recently had her 3rd birthday. 

She loves dolls and I found this cute one at the post office. 

Instead of a quilt, I decided to make 

a sleeping bag for Madelyn's doll. 

It was a big hit with Madelyn.

A Surprise Gift and OPAM For September!

On Wednesday, we found a lovely surprise in our letterbox. 

 A Community Jar of Joy!

 There is a group on Facebook who have started dropping 

jars of joy at houses. The idea is you (if you want to)

then refill a jar and pass one onto another stranger to brighten their day.

This is the post they put up when they dropped our jar into 

the letterbox. And why mention "Where's Wally"? 

Can you see Wally on the sign? Shops and houses around 

Diamond Creek have Where's Wally pictures in their 

windows for children to find. As you can't see our windows from 

the road, we put ours on our MacDonald's Patch sign.

 

Haha. Our letterbox is now their cover photo!

This card was in the jar, along with some biscuits, 

a coffee sachet and tea bag. 

Maybe you could do this where you live. 

Here is the link to the Community Jar of Joy page.

Now for my OPAM report. Six tea towels.

Glamorous gloves.

Folding shopping bag.

So that's 8 finishes for September.

 

Thanks to Kris for keeping us inspired.

A little side story. 

My lovely friend Jennifer of Elefantz recently 

told me she couldn't read my blog. Her Nortons security 

was blocking my blog telling her it was a dangerous website! 

Very strange as Jennifer has been reading my blog for years.

Anyway, I submitted a review of my url to Nortons. 

This is their response - "Based on your recommendation and 

after careful evaluation of the Web content submitted, 

a Web Content Analyst has recategorised this URL as Personal Sites. 

I wonder what they had me classified as 

and why it was changed to that!