Silver Threads & Golden Needles!

 Last Friday, Silvia (my sister-in-law), 

Sharmayne (Country Fragrance) and I headed to 

Sovereign Hill in Ballarat to attend the 

Silver Needles & Goldren Threads retreat 

hosted by Chrissie's Timeless Treasures.

  

Our venue in Sovereign Hill was the Charles Napier Hotel.

 

 All set to start the first of three days of stitching! 

Hector the Hairy Coo came along with us.

  

This was our first project we received. 

There was a Paris theme happening.

 

 Hector helping out with hexagons!

 

 While the bag was lovely, we decided it wasn't for us. 

We redesigned our bags and got quite a lot 

of comments on what we came up with. 

I'll use my Paris stitchery in another project.

  

Between all the chatting, eating, shopping 

and exploring Sovereign Hill, 

we actually managed to finish our bags.

 I think Hector the Hairy Coo approves!

  

The front of my bag.

  

And the back. Simple but elegant.

  

We received another two little kits 

plus lots of other goodies.

 Saturday night we went back to Sovereign Hill 

to see the Aura Light and Sound Show

about the Eureka Stockade.

 

Arriving Sunday for another fun day.

It was also my birthday so 

 I got to celebrate here again like last year.

 

Silvia and Sharmayne surprised me with

Devonshire tea at the New York Bakery.

  

We went out to dinner at the 1853 Craig's Royal Hotel.

 

 It is such a beautiful building.

 

 Cheers!

  

We all had the pumpkin risotto and it was delicious. 

I can highly recommend coming here.

 

We had such a fabulous time 

and all too soon it was over.

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.