Life Is Sweeter...

Ah, the weekend has arrived, and after an early morning coffee at the beach with my beloved Mr E I'm ready to do a quick tidy of the house before settling down to some menu planning, reading, and stitching.

What's on your agenda this weekend? Hopefully something relaxing and fun!

Yesterday I was at Blossom's all day playing nurse while her DB was at work. She's like me you know, not kept down easily and preferably 'doing' rather than 'resting', but with pneumonia rest is the best thing so that's what I made sure she had.

By the time I left she was a little bit pinker in the cheeks, but Blossom has a way to go before she's over this nasty illness. Today her daddy and DB will do some clearing away around her house and she can keep resting. It's hard with a baby due next month, but if she takes it easy and lets us help I'm sure all will be fine. Thank you for your prayers, you are blessing our family and our precious girl!

 As you know I've been a Flower Sugar World Ambassador for Lecien Fabrics over the past year, but recently I chose to step down from this role to devote more time to my family, The Stitchery Club, my blog, and a wonderful Australian venture.

I do find it hard to work with a company in the USA when I'm all the way Down Under and have no desire to leave my shores, but I have to say that Yoko at Lecien is a delight and has made things as easy as possible for both of us this past year given that we're working half a world apart. It's been a privilege to design with their beautiful fabrics and I'm sure I'll continue to do so just for my own pleasure.

This month I completed my last design as Flower Sugar World Ambassador, a pretty mini quilt to make you smile!

"Life Is Sweeter" is 14 1/2 inches square and the fabrics used for the applique and borders are Lecien's new Flower Sugar Carnival. 

I love the white lace doily detail behind the floral sprays...

...and the tiny spots and rose bouquets which were perfect for some fussy cut appliques in my centre stitchery block.

I added a simple border to the block in order to highlight the fabrics, but also to let the stitchery shine...

"Life is Sweeter" now hangs on my office door, a happy cheerful greeting when I walk in there each morning!

The pattern is my welcome gift for all new members of The Stitchery Club but if you're already a current member, or you would simply like to have the pattern, it's available HERE in my Craftsy Shop and also in my Etsy Shop over HERE.

If however you'd like the pattern as a gift simply head HERE to The Stitchery Club for details.

Well, I must away to give the house a bit of love before I settle in for a relaxing two day break. 

Have a good time too, okay?

hugs

 

Sewing with Doc Martin...

Are you a fan of the British series "Doc Martin"?

Blossom and I love it!

We've watched the Doc since the first episode (around 2005 in Australia) and I think I'm ready to go back to the beginning and watch them all over again, especially as they'd be perfect for keeping me company during the afternoon stitching hours.

My other go-tos for stitching company is Monarch of the Glen, Poirot, Midsomer Murders, any Kirstie Allsopp craft show, Lark Rise to Candleford and Miss Marple.

What do you watch when you're creating with needle and thread?

On Monday afternoon I prepared this festive pretty for sewing during the rest of the week...

After carefully fussy cutting shapes from three of the aqua, red and white fabrics inside my bundle of 'Flower Sugar Holiday' I appliqued birds onto a white linen background and made some sweet little paper pieced hexies...

I know it's early in the year for Christmas patterns, but there's a lovely joy which bubbled out of my heart as I began to stitch this and I think that's rather lovely, don't you?

Do you make Christmas projects all year?

I haven't before, but things could be changing...

May you be blessed with a delightful day, 

hugs

New fabrics and a recipe...

You may remember that I'm one of fifteen Lecien "Flower Sugar" World Ambassadors and every so often I receive a parcel from Japan, overflowing with not-yet-released Flower Sugar pretties to play with.

This week not one, but two bundles of floral and fancy came to bless me...

Flower Sugar 'Holiday' will be waiting at your local quilt shop in June, in plenty of time for Christmas sewing!

Before then I'll share a free festive pattern with a list of materials required which you can print up and take with you to the shop. There's a design wafting around my creative space you see, and it could be the perfect choice for a Christmas project.

For now though, let me show you the two prints I love the most from the FS "Holiday" bundle. Do they make you giddy with delight too?

The other bundle is just as delicious! 

Flower Sugar "Sweet Carnival" will debut at Spring Quilt Market in Salt Lake City, USA, and will arrive at local quilt shops by October.

I have ideas for these too...so many ideas, but which one to choose????

I may even host a little giveaway...stay tuned for that one. 

Every week, Monday to Friday at 7am, without exception, Mr E and I have breakfast together.

It's a special time of the day to chat, share a healthy meal, and pray.

Saturdays are different though, because he starts work 30 minutes later. 

On those mornings I pack a 'finger food' breakfast I've baked the day before, some cheese squares for our Merri-dog, and after picking up coffee from our favourite drive through cafe (Zarraffas) we head down to the beach, sit back under the palm trees and enjoy the morning view across the water.

It's a very special start to the last day of what has become a rather long working week for Mr E.

This little detour from the weekly routine helps make each Saturday quite bearable for my beloved, so I like to give extra time to planning and preparing our 'picnic' brekky.

This week I've played around with an old recipe to make it dairy free, wheat free, and sugar free.

Seriously, it was delicious!

In fact, we taste tested so much that it disappeared rather fast, so I'm glad he has a 4-day Easter break and no work on Saturday.  

(Although, I will make more cause we'll still go down to the beach - some routines are too good to miss...)

Would you like to try it?

I've shared the recipe over HERE on my 'cooked simply with love' blog where there's a link for you to download and print the recipe for your own files.

Do you eat fish on Good Friday? There's nothing yummier than macadamia crumbed coral trout in my personal seafood menu so I'm off now to buy the fish and some salad trimmings. Then I'll work on that Flower Sugar "Holiday" design...

 May you have a blessed and faith filled Easter!

hugs

 

"LOVE" : free for Valentines Day celebrating...

Mr E is not the Cary Grant 'hollywood' romantic type but because he loves me he 'indulges' my  romantic side, so over the last little I've been slowly stitching a Valentines Day table setting for us, something I can bring out on that special February day as well as on our wedding anniversary each year. 

I chose to use some of the cheery Flower Sugar fat quarters Lecien sent me last year...

...and then I thought you might like to use the L O V E templates and the little bird and heart embroideries for a project of your own?

My set is a simple table runner with two matching napkins...

You're welcome to download my free 'Valentine's LOVE' pattern sheets HERE.

What will you make with them?

 

Happy Australia Day! 

We've got the lamb ready to make kofta balls and a whole day off work to relax and unwind. 

I'm sure we'll kick back and watch the tennis later so I'd better trace something to stitch between points, and  maybe bake some yummy rock cakes for that afternoon cuppa...

Hope your day is relaxing too...

hugs

All you need is love and flower sugar...

Being named a Flower Sugar World Ambassador by Lecien Fabrics definitely has some perks - like playing with fabrics that won't hit your quilt shop shelves till next May. 

Sorry you have to wait that long while I'm here already cutting and sewing and having a thoroughly good time!

When I was planning how I'd use the 28 totally sweet fat quarters that Yoko from Lecien had sent me there were a lot of ideas rolling like tumbleweeds through my mind.

But one stood out.

Remake and update  some of my older patterns.

I've been designing since 2009 and over the course of these last six years there have been over 300 original Jenny of Elefantz patterns published either in craft magazines, my own e-zine (which ran from June 2011 till early 2014), as PDFs in my online shop, freebies here on the blog, or through The Stitchery Club - so I have plenty to choose from. 

And I guess that would be the hardest part, but then I decided to omit the quilts and single stitchery patterns and only choose remakes from what remained.

So here's my first Elefantz/Flower Sugar remake.

Original inspiration was the "all you need is love" mini quilt from July 2011...

....and freshly inspired as a "Love" pillow (in the making).

I've omitted the wording, redrawn the hearts and flowers, turned the 'e' right side around, and put the word LOVE inside a square instead of as a line across. 

These fabrics are sublime...

Thread choice wasn't as easy to make, especially the right blue...

...so I gathered three and will probably use them all.

When it's made I'll show you the finished result. 

I'm seriously going to enjoy remaking my old designs!

hugs

Being an Ambassador...

Something rather lovely happened recently.

I'm sure you know by now that I've had a long time love affair with various Lecien fabrics? They tend to crop up regularly in my designs (Sweet Tweet was dedicated solely to Flower Sugar - see it here) and over the next few months you'll be seeing even more because I have been named as...

I am one of 15 creative gals who were asked to be World Ambassadors for Flower Sugar! 

Each of us were sent a fat quarter bundle of the May 2016 Flower Sugar prints to play with and mine finally arrived from the USA in yesterday's post. Delicious is my best description of these 28 lovelies...

My mind is awash with ideas.

That first cut will be hard 'cause they look so pretty all bundled up in string...

...but I must bring out the big shears and the rotary cutter very soon. 

Perhaps today.

Watch this space over coming months as I share with you some creative uses for Flower Sugar 2016.

Over the weekend I got to spend some time in the sewing room 'just for fun' and brought my vision for framing The Stitchery Club's "sweet home mini" block inside a few Lecien 'Petit Fleur' charm squares...

 The addition of buttons gave the pillow a padded effect, something I'd not done before but shall be doing more of in the future as I love it!

There's a few 'home' themed pillows scattered around the house now, reminding me to share more regularly about what's happening during my year of gentle domesticity.

One thing I know for sure is that this year broke ground and prompted me to build new foundations under my desire for a life of gentle domesticity. Next year will be the building up phase and dedicated to The Simply Gentle Domestic Life; in fact there will also be a free BOM with this theme to share with you.

I hope you'll join along. 

The stitchery pattern for "sweet home mini" is just $2.50 as an instant download HERE in my shop for the rest of the year. 

 Have a blessed day,