Back home

Well after 7 days in hospital and various tests I am back home for a while. The Dr's think I have Crohns disease, which I am told can be managed with diet and medication. But before the managing starts I have to go back to hospital in two weeks and have a small part of the small bowel removed. Once that is done things should get back to normal.
I wanted to say Thank you for all the good wishes I have received, all the support, I have some beautiful caring friends for which I am very grateful. I received some beautiful flowers  and plants while in hospital, the nurses said I was sitting in a flower shop!!

Beautiful colours here.

These smell wonderful, very gummy and bush like.

A beautiful chain of hearts plant.

I did take stitching with me and managed to get a little done

I also did some secret stitching a challenge with Raewyn...shhhh it is secret!!

I had a walk down along the beach today

it was good being out in the fresh air

This looked like a relaxing way to travel.

Lovely flowers on a gum tree just over the road.

I have laid out some knitted squares I was given to sew into a KOGO blanket, now I am waiting on the motivation.

Think I will go and make a cuppa.

Happy stitching.

Catching up

After the two previous weeks of not being in the best health I have spent this last week in much the same situation, the stomach issues flared again and then I had an allergic reaction to a medication (I think) I was taking and so was covered in itchy red spots....not a nice look I can assure you! I am now on more medication and covered in calamine lotion and  very thankful the spots didn't come any higher than my shoulders.
I did manage to get outside a little

The hoya flowers have opened, there are now 4 big blooms.

I bought a little zoom ball recently so had a play with the hoya flower, it magnifies the centre of what you are looking at, so you have to hold it steady.

On Valentines Day hubby came in from the garden and told me there was no need to buy flowers as he could step outside and get what he wanted!! Not bad for someone who does not believe in Valentines Day.

The strip quilt is finished and ready to send off to Jan Mack for her quilt donations to the fire victims.

The big star quilt came back from Joan last week, she did a beautiful job of quilting it, and it was delivered to the hospital last Friday.

Not such a good photo but we had a heavy rain shower in the week, the galah was on the power lines having a bath in the rain, so cute. I was a distance away but it appeared to be keeping an eye on what I was doing.

I went to Guild yesterday and was given 10 finished quilts for delivery to the hospital, 14 quilt tops and two boxes containing part finished quilts and fabric. The quilt above was one,

the quilting has been done on one block and drawn in chalk on another, very intricate quilting, I don't think I can replicate in  every block, so I am thinking of unpicking.

This quilt had hand quilting in the centre, something I can not do, so I spent 2 hours unpicking this morning, more to do this afternoon , this lady loved very close quilting, her rows of stitching are about a quarter of an inch apart.

You can see some of the quilting on the left hand side. It is a shame to unpick but at least once I machine quilt it, it can be finished and used. I have no idea how to quilt it at present, I am hoping inspiration will strike once the unpicking is done. The lady who made this has downsized and no longer quilts.

I am off to do some more unpicking and maybe some sewing.

Happy stitching.

FNWF

Well my plans for the evening didn't quite go as I have hoped but I still got some sewing done. I trimmed the string blocks Friday afternoon and started to sew them together in the evening

I have one more seam to sew on each row and then the rows need to be joined together, this might need another row of blocks, will see when it is together. A friend rang as I was starting the last row, she had had a few wines and so we had a long rambling one hour conversation, when I got off the phone I heard Endeavour was on the TV so I packed up

and did a little hand sewing while Endeavour solved his latest mystery.

Thank you to Cheryll for hosting our evening, you can see what the other FNWF'ers got up to here.

Happy stitching.

Friday Night with Friends

It is that time once again where we join up with our hostess Cheryll to have an evening of fun and stitching.

Some sewing has been happening here this week, not a lot as I have been a bit under the weather

Some strip blocks, just onto wadding, the backing will be added later.

And the cherry quilt has it's border added, different fabric line but I think it goes ok.

Now it needs backing, wadding and quilting.....maybe next week! This one was originally going to the oncology ward but now I think it might go to Jan Mack for her fire relief collection. We will see when it is done.

Now I am off to decide what to do tonight during FNWF.

Happy stitching.

My Corner of the World

I am linking up Betty to show my little corner of the world, as I have not been anywhere I went out into the garden and took some photos there

These Naked Ladies have sprung up and produced flowers in what seems like a few days

The fig tree is laden with fruit, I hope we get a few this year, I have to devise a way to cover some from the parrots, possums and fruit bats.

Something very special is happening, we were left this hoya plant when we moved into this house, the previous owners said it was a weak plant and we could throw it out if we didn't want it. Well it got some more potting mix, some water and worm wee and it is now having flowers!

A bit hard to see but here are flowers coming all the way up the plant. Very happy with that.

The plum fruit had rotten looking spots a few weeks ago and I thought we had lost the lot, but when I looked today there were ripe fruit the birds had not yet found, so they came inside with me. Will go and check again tomorrow.

You can see where others have been over at Photographing New Zealand where others have linked up.