Roses...

The Plant and Garden Expo was held nearby last weekend so on Sunday my beloved and I went for a wander through the displays and sat in for two classes. Mr E was keen to attend the bonsai class and I was excited to learn about roses so we both came away more informed than when we arrived.

The best thing about attending these talks was that the advice given focused on growing in our 'dry tropics' climate. Mr E now knows the best trees to bonsai in Townsville, and I know which roses will thrive year to year. In fact, the gentleman giving the talk about growing roses in the tropics had brought in a beautiful display of blooms from his own garden and offered a rose to anyone who'd like one.

One rose stood out to me, the St Patrick's Rose. He said this one loved our climate and would be perfect to plant if you're new to roses, so as I stood back and waited for the milling crowd to choose a rose to take home I silently prayed the St Patrick's bloom would wait for me. 

And it did. 

Such a pretty full yellow, I carried it close to my chest, gently keeping it out of harm's way as we completed our walk around the Expo. Half an hour later we were home again and my single yellow rose enjoyed a cool drink from a vase.

I should have taken a photo on Sunday but here it is today (Wednesday) still lovely...

 Just as I thought the yellow St Patrick's Rose was the 'pick of the bunch' on Sunday, so too my sixth design for next month's Stitchery Club features someone plucking their own pick of the bunch, but this time it's daisies...

I did however add some roses to the design, my own Rosedaisies to be precise...

(Stitchery Club members will receive the six "picking flowers" September patterns on the 17th. New memberships are open here until Sept. 16th)

 What's your favourite flower to pick?

hugs

"Heartstrings" - a Tilda Club design...

In Australia most quilt shops stock a new Tilda Club pattern & kit set every second month, and each one is designed by a fellow Aussie designer. These kits are very popular and many quilt shops even post overseas for our offshore sewing lovers!

This time the newest Tilda Club pattern & kit release is one of my own designs! I've been keeping this a secret for a few months, but today you finally get to see "Heartstrings - a Sewing Room Mini Quilt"...

My mini-quilt features a sweet embroidered pocket at the top for storing embroidery hoops...

...a scissor keep and needle-book, plus 3 more pockets along the bottom for holding a rotary cutter, tape measure, seam ripper and other odds and bobs!

For those who would like to see my original project it will be displayed around Australia in the "Tilda Trunk Show" at the quilt shops listed below.

You'll also see a second of my projects on display at the Trunk Show, something I'll show here on the blog next month ( and that one will have a pattern you can purchase from me no matter where you live in the world!). 

Aaaah, the secrecy!

Each of these stores also stock the kits for my Mini-Quilt, but if you're not in their area simply Google the name of the shop and give them a call to purchase one!

"Homemade Stitched With Heartstrings" is something I live. After all, there's nothing quite like homemade is there?

hugs

A lamp to my feet...

The Bible is my road map, my guide through the highways and byways of life.

I'd be lost without it, really lost. 

Left to my own inclinations you'd see no evidence of Jesus in my life, only a thoughtless woman who seeks after her own desires with little concern for others. That may sound harsh, but I know who I was before I met Jesus Christ, and I am still reaping a sour harvest of decisions made back then when I scarcely gave thought to God or eternity. 

But He is faithful. He is good. He is forgiving. 

And He called me to be His child many times, never giving up on my lukewarm indifference, but patiently calling until one day I heard and I listened.

On the night I accepted Christ as my Saviour my silent prayer at the altar was to have God give me a Bible of my very own. I so desperately wanted to know Him, to learn all about Jesus - not just the baby in the manger and the one who fed the five thousand, but the Son of God who believed I was worth dying for.

A woman was standing behind me, praying whilst I knelt broken and weeping on the concrete floor of the newly built church. 

I can still remember the soft jingle of tiny bells she wore on a bracelet. 

Unable to speak audibly, my heart did all the talking and I cried out to God for a Bible.

Getting up from the floor this lovely young woman grasped my arm, hugged me tight, and walked me back down the aisle. Just as we neared the foyer she stopped suddenly and said, "You want a Bible! God wants me to give you a Bible! Wait right here." 

Away she went, disappearing into the congregation, and I started crying all over again...but all the while I was crying my face was beaming with a smile so wide I thought people would think I was nuts. But I didn't care. 

I'd asked HIM for something, something that mattered deeply to me, and He'd heard.

A few minutes later Terasa returned, a white Bible in her hand. "This is yours, from Jesus."

Friends, I have never looked back. Twenty five years ago Jesus captured my heart and I've never had it broken, not by Him. 

His Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path - always, every day, never failing.

Want to know Him?

Ask God for a Bible. 

Bless you heaps,

 PS: That woman? Two years later she became my sister in law. I was extra blessed!

Alphabet stitcheries....

In 2014 I released a set of 26 alphabet designs and complimented them with two tutorials...

I actually get a lot of emails and messages about alphabet patterns because they are very popular as embellishments for hand-stitched gifts, so today I thought I'd share photos of some gifts I've made from the Rosedaisy Alphabet for family and friends. 

All of these, apart from the J, were framed...

A tutorial for preparing a stitchery to include blanket stitch applique is here.

A tutorial for colouring a stitchery before adding embroidery is here.

If you'd like this 26 pattern set (every letter of the alphabet is a different design!) I have it on sale until September 5th:

in my Craftsy Shop here 

or my Etsy Shop here,

Each letter when stitched will fit inside a 5 inch square. 

Stuck for a gift idea for birthdays, Christmas, weddings or a christening? These are perfect. 

I'm about to stitch an A and a C for my granddaughters Cully and Aminah. I'll be sure to show you when they're done!

Hope you have an ABC kind of weekend!

a...absolutely fun

b...blessed

c...calm and relaxing

hugs

Marriage...

I've heard women say that they've lost a part of who they once were over the course of their marriage, and I used to think that about myself too. 

Spurred on by increasing social agreement on this matter I would lament for the adventurous, carefree girl I was in my teens and early twenties, and accepted that motherhood and marriage had taken that from me. 

But I was wrong.

Becoming one half of a couple always involves change, even when you promise each other it won't happen.

There's no plan to make yourself more like your husband, or to make him more like you. It simply happens over time, as you draw closer to each other. We expand our heart and lives to include more of the one we love.

So we don't really lose who we once were, we become more than we used to be.

If our lives were a garden you could say we deepen our roots, scatter seed, bloom more profusely and spread our branches. We increase in who we are, having more to give, more to learn and more to be grateful for.

Also like a garden, marriage has seasons. Some seasons are dry and require more time and nurturing than others, but then spring arrives and you reap the fruit of your loving and faithful perseverance.

My husband came home the other night with a bouquet of flowers for me. It's not something he does as a matter of course so it deeply touched my heart and I felt very precious indeed. 

He knows I love flowers and that every few weeks I'll fill a vase with pretty blooms purchased for myself...yet though it's not something he sees as essential, he's expanded who he is through the union of our marriage so that what matters to me, over time, becomes important to him.

That's why marriage changes us.

It grows us to include the best of each other. 

Rather marvelous really.

Have a blessed day,

More flowers to stitch...

Lately I've been pretty focused on getting two months ahead with my patterns for The Stitchery Club because Mr E is taking holidays from work in October and we'd like to enjoy that time together without me working too much. 

It's been 21 months since he took a proper break from his job and hopefully we can chill out, take a few long drives up and down the coast, and hopefully get closer to finding our very first home.

Remember I said the theme for September's Club issue is "Picking Flowers" when I showed you the first two designs (this blog post)?

Here's three more...

The final design for September is almost complete and it's just as sweet as these. I'll show you tomorrow!

Become a member of The Stitchery Club this month and your free gift pattern will be the "Merry Flags of Christmas"...

I don't think it's ever too early to stitch for Christmas, do you?

Have a blessed day!

hugs

Let me brag...

It's a Nana's responsibility to show off her new grand babies, right?

Cully May, 19 days old (Blossom's daughter)...

Austin Knox, 4 months old (Aisha's son)...

Just had to exercise my bragging rights.

Have a lovely day,

Gardening...

My beloved Mr E took me to Bunnings on Saturday afternoon to purchase a couple of gorgeous Azaleas. One for him to take cuttings off for new bonsai (his hobby) and one for me to tend with loving care and delight over. My last one died a dreadful death in the drought ridden summer heat last year, but I shall do all I can to save the new one.

We're only a week away from Spring now and the weather is already heating up again, remembering that during the entire three months of our tropical winter I wore a cardigan three times. Winter here is very mild and we live in t-shirts and thongs (thongs are flip flops for my American friends) all year round. It's also been dry a long time (we're in drought) and the yard around the house shows it. 

On Sunday Mr E raked up dead leaves, trimmed trees, and chopped up our endless supply of fallen palm fronds...

This home is surrounded by over 40 palm trees and as pretty as they are to look at they take a lot of work each weekend because palm fronds, very large palm fronds, fall every day. We don't have a mulcher so my dear love has to cut them all up by hand with secateurs whilst wearing leather gloves.

Some fronds are 12-14 feet in length...

The tall palms out front are weighted with gorgeous chandeliers of seed at the moment. 

These start off green, turn to white, and then if we get some rainfall they burst into brilliant red balls of fruit which bring a variety of bird life to feast upon. Last year there was no rain and they shriveled before getting past the white stage. 

The forecast is for a very heavy wet season this summer and autumn so we may have flourishing bird life in the trees again...

Once he'd finished the yard work (and washed my car - told you he's amazing, right?!) my beloved decided he'd re-pot all my plants on the deck. I admit that since I had pneumonia a lot of those potted plants, as well as the deck area, have been sorely neglected. So while he re-potted the plants I scrubbed the deck and the tables.

The plant on my little round table is a Geisha Girl. It has beautiful purple flowers and I'm hoping it blooms again in spring because it's one plant I've not killed (perhaps it likes me?)...

We juice a lot of pineapples each week so occasionally I plant one of the tops and now I have a half dozen growing very well indeed! I have success with the oddest things.

Our French neighbour, Arnaud, is a marine biologist with a passion for gardening. He gave me this Desert Rose when it had just two leaves and was barely an inch high. I promised I'd care for it, and fortunately for me it's a succulent (like pineapples) so it's thriving in our dry and warm winter. 

Mr E will re-pot it in a larger container next weekend...

My favourite succulents are the ones that flower.

The two Zygo Cactus (Schlumbergera) plants I bought earlier in the year are also flourishing, probably due to their tolerance of our climate and because I've been neglectful with watering. 

Mr E re-potted them as well and now they're happy in our front entrance where they get sunshine all day.

After tending to all my plants and clearing the garden of debris, my sweet man chilled out with his bonsai strikings. He makes up his special mix in the wheelbarrow and then using a single large plant he creates half a dozen or more bonsai.

There's a lot more involved but he's the expert and I'm not so I won't even try to explain all the other steps he takes to create tiny plants.

Last year he chose to bonsai Ixora plants and now we have some real sweeties but this year he'll hopefully give me some tiny azaleas to display in  our 'one day home of our own'. 

That's the other thing we did this weekend (and last weekend and the weekend before...) - we've been out in the country looking for a home. We hope this time next year to be tending our very own garden, and not that of another rental home.

God willing, as my Nana would say. 

Hope you have a lovely week, I truly do.

hugs