Daily life!!!!!

Busy embroidering my new diary

A great selfie of daughter and family on a
beach in Port Alfred. Had a great holiday.

Block completed!

This is the extra block l have embroidered for my best friend of over 30 years. She is the one that likes to push me out of my comfort zone on my embroidery journey!

Update on Crazy quilt!!!

Here I have done a joining seam with
white daisy trail and also some blue
french knot flowers.

Uhm just got carried way with this one and
added lots more cream embroidery to these roses.
Now its looks so nice and full.

Its amazing that I still come up with these embroidery stitch combinations
after the many years I have been working on this.
I am trying to get this crazy quilt done now and working on it as much as possible.

Now a wonderful blessed creative 2014 to all of you!

Wow still embroidering!!!

Wow still embroidering slowly but surely. It is very hot here and temps are over the 40*C daily here and its is a bit warm under all this fabric on my lap.
 I am trying to work something in the mornings. Hubby and I were chatting this morning how just more and more ideas of embroidery possibilities are still coming in my head for the finishing of the crazy quilt. I have decided that I did not want the separate blocks to show but will embroider over them to have a nice overall crazy quilt. Here is what I am doing. Using some of the embroidery that I did on the blocks and taking it further over the other blocks to form a nice overall flow. 

Here is where I have added more of the same embroidery
over the seams to have a continues flow of
embroidery and not block by block

Here I joined the blocks with a lovely bright green leave and
shades of pink french knots. The leaves came out great.
I did a long stitch and then went over that with a chain stitch
and then using the weaving technique I wove these lovely leaves
through all three legs.
uhm thinking I will have to make some more of these in the rest of the
quilt as it was so nice and easy and also fun to see that the leaves
did not all turn out to be exactly the same. 

Here the 4 seams come together just to show that
I am now embroidering on the seams after joining
my blocks together

Joining at the new seams

Last but not least, at last I have now wrapped all

the Christmas gifts and just hoping the grandsons will

enjoy them. 

All in a weekend!!!!!!

 A seam done

a filler done

one whole corner completed, this was my
very first block and now I am going back
and filling in.

the House of Embroidery thread is the orange one and this
is just to show how nice the shaded area of the orange
flowers are.

The last block done!!!

 Well now I have done all 25 blocks and have them pinned to a huge sheet. Now I am going to go through all the blocks and fill in all the empty spaces. I need to use much more of my threads and goodies.
Then the huge task begins of putting all these together into a likable quilt and more embroidery to combine all the blocks together. Am just loving this and now need to get it all done. I am so proud of the huge crazy quilt and the completion of it. It did take long but I worked on it day by day and also got to enjoy all the memories behind all the work.

Just had to add some lovely pearly beads

This is a daisy 

Just had to have something nice and loved doing the pink flowers
in my special threads from "House of Embroidery" I was lucky to
have bought the whole range of nr 8 perle and am
having such fun with threads.

Block 22 done and block 23 nearly completed!!!

This is block 22 done

Just close up of a heart in block 22

This is a favorite of Benjamin our oldest grandson
and he just loves John Deere tractors
at this stage of his life! Must say
on second thoughts he has not swapped
his likes in life very much so far.

This is Liam the youngest grandson, favorite "Cars" also at this
stage of his life, which I am sure will change
a lot.

This is Matthews, which is the middle grandson
and his favorite at the moment,
before that it was snakes. I remember
that he loved frogs for many years
and also tortiouses and and, I am sure
that this will also change a lot.

This is the photo that I chose for the
crazy quilt. It was taken in Durban 2013.

Well now I am nearing the end of this journey I am very excited to say

that I now have only two more blocks left and then I will be joining the

whole lot together. I cannot believe that these have taken a lot of my time now for nearly three years now. But must add that this has taken my into my own life journey with lots of healing while embroidering away at the special blocks. The next stage will be joining them together and then embroidering over the blocks to make it into a whole quilt look. Also in the process my best friend Anna is going to help with the outlay as she has inspired me all the way through this journey and also thanks to her for all the inspiration behind making this crazy quilt.

My country living!!!

We have a huge problem here in South Africa,
Lots of elders are being murdered
and someone decided to do something about it
in using a protest march and it was
decided that to do the march on an old holiday
that was removed from our calender by the new
failing government. It is
named Red October and will
be a unofficial holiday in future!
I was not able to attend and
after starting the day with a down feeling,
I saw the postings coming in from fb and they all
used red balloons and red t shirts I got my inspiration
to complete with this little banner.

This is what I have been working on and its was
not easy working from a picture and
trying to get it look right.
Well after a lots of undoing I achieved this.

A bit more seams done

This is a very special flower for me, its
the beautiful violets, not those we know as african violets
but the ones that Louis Leipoldt wrote in his poems
of this area, these are what the real traditional
ones look like and I just love the colors in this
color chart and had to make new curtian for my
guest toilet. Well its a bit dark now but hardly
gets used and I like it anyway. Still have to crochet
the toilet cover.

We spend another day in the veld around this area and there
are always lovely flowers to see. The yellow is the "waboom" protea
and the lovely red ones I have no idea what their name is.

These are (not sure how to spell these) tjienkeretjies in
 our garden that are now flowering
and they are around our small piece of lawn in our garden
and hubby has been pampering them so that they
become more and make a lovely border.

Lots of embroidery done today and just life!

Did another broad seam.

Did a bit of organza stitching.

Another filler done

Had to add some beading

More seams done, just love working on
the black velvet fabric.

Seam done

Charka annoyed with me

Nice chilly day for "waterblommetjie" stew made by hubby with
a local sweet wine.

Another filler done.

Lots more embroidery done.!!!!

Got a few seams in yesterday!

Its winter time here and we have had a lot of rain
in time for all the wild flowers to share their beauty.

Still working away and really enjoying the journey

Busy crocheting this stashbag from
a group challenge just have
to work away the ends and add a
lining.

Here is a close up of a bit of seam that
I finished yesterday.

Embroidery and and busy!!!

Have been very busy these past few days.

I have now started my stashbag for all my wool that I am using for a project and this bag will have to have a lining otherwise I will loose all my crochet hooks.

Embroidery inspiration has also struck home and am now busy trying to get some more blocks done. These pieces have come out very nice and even got a border or two done today. I have added some beads to my gloves and now they look really great to me. Very antique-ish.