February birthday giveaway!

With all that's been going on these past weeks I'm sure you'll forgive me for not having this month's giveaway post published on time. 

In case you missed the news earlier in the year I am having a giveaway on the first Monday of each month through 2019. February was delayed a week and half by the monsoon and subsequent clean up, but you know what they say, "It's better late than never!" and I do think this little bundle of February goodies are worth the wait...

In keeping with my homemaker heart and  this year's Gentle Domesticity book study and theme, I have for the winner this month -

* a gorgeous 50's style Simplicity tea towel

* the prettiest 1930's style Simplicity tape measure

* a carded length of vintage cream cotton lace 

* one pair of vintage style embroidery scissors

* one vintage style floral fat quarter

Would you like to win this bundle of vintage inspired loveliness?

It's easy to enter the giveaway.

Just leave a comment below and make sure I have a way to contact you because if your name is drawn on February 21st (my birthday!!) and I can't get in touch with you then another winner will be drawn. 

Good luck everyone!

I should also remind you to download the free February project pattern. The freebies this year will be offered in the first Gentle Domesticity book study post each month.

Are you enjoying the study? 

Honestly, I am learning a lot through the comments shared and the blog link ups each week so I encourage you to scroll back through the blog (or check the popular posts in the sidebar) and have a read if you've missed any. 

This month's free project is Small Things, Great Love which includes the pattern to finish the stitchery as a cute sack pillow.

You'll find the download in THIS blog post.

We're slowly getting things back to normal here. Mr E has been shoveling a lot of sand and dirt to fill in all of the ditches and extra pump basins he had dug during the monsoon to divert water away from the house, and we've been scrubbing mould with every ounce of leftover energy.

Still waiting for an electrician and a builder (we need the electrician first) but my beloved has a tarp over the hole in the ceiling for now and we've bought rugs to cover parts of the bare concrete floors in the bedroom and his study. 

The air conditioners are loaded with mould so we're incredibly blessed to have found someone who can come on Friday to clean them all - and believe me, in this extreme heat wave having cool air again will be a gift indeed. 

The supermarkets have fresh food on the shelves again so I'm making healthy meals with plenty of vegetables and herbs to build up our immune systems. 

Unfortunately I have developed an allergy to mould so my eyes are red and painful, nose is running and my throat is dry and sore. Our doctor has given me drops and spray, and has also supported us using natural treatments as well. In his words - "do everything you can and expect this to take a while to settle down"

How did you go with the Alphabet Pincushions Stitch-a-long?

Did you stitch them all?

I was asked by a few people to share a photo of all my pincushions together so yesterday I took one...

...though there are a few missing as they'd already been gifted. In fact even little Cully May has one! I'd made two versions of the C pinnie and she wanted the biggest one. Can't wait till she can sew with Blossom and I.

Over the rest of this year I plan on gifting many more of the pincushions, though I shall be keeping "Sew" and "Quilt" for myself. 

All the alphabet pattern sets (which include the pincushion diagrams) are here in my shop.

There's not been much sewing happening here lately, naturally, but I was able to finish another block in my upcoming BOM, "Phyllis May's Kitchen". 

Here's a wee peek...

I thank the Lord that life is quickly returning to normal at home.

Mr E and I will be heading off to the nursery for a few new plants on the weekend; Blossom is providing a Tiramisu for my birthday next week and bringing Cully May and Rafaella over to play; and I shall finally get to catch up with the girls at sewing group again on Tuesday. 

Life is a gift, never take that for granted. Enjoy each moment, love your family, help others when you can, and be humble enough to accept help when you need it. 

Thanks for hanging in with me during this stressful time but sorry for so many flood posts; thank you for all those heartfelt prayers; and thank you also to a dear friend overseas (C - you know who you are) who sent us a most appreciated love-gift.

hugs

Small Things Great Love free pattern and a pause in the book study...

Due to the extreme weather event we are facing right now I'm pausing the Gentle Domesticity book study until next week.

We are safe. 

It seems living right near the dam is a blessing as the river is straight and parallel to where we live just down from the spillway, and though the river is high with waves and is breaching it's banks considerably, the dangerous place is further down river where it begins to turn corners and has caused extreme flooding which is still rising. 

There are two types of flooding here.

Rain and river.

The worst are floods due to swollen rivers because you cannot pump it away - it rises around you and there is nothing can be done to stop it. You have to leave and wait for the flood waters to subside and emergency services to declare the areas safe to re-enter. 

The other flooding is by the extreme rains we have had for nine days now. That's us. As long as we keep these four pumps running, the water kept under the door and the storm drain out front can carry it away then we have saved our home. 

Everything is wet, mold is growing all over the place (so we have to toss those things outside for permanent removal once the monsoon is over) and right now my husband is ripping up carpet from his study where the water has come through a crack in the concrete slab our home sits on.

Then he'll remove the carpet from our bedroom as the odour is hard to cope with and sleep is made even more difficult. Staying awake and alert to keep pumps running takes its toll so when there's a weather break we try to sleep for a couple of hours.

The rest of the house is tiled, praise God.

Internet drops in and out so this blog post has taken a while, but we've not lost power even though those up the road have. I'm not replying to emails or messages so please don't be offended - there's enough happening and a blog post answers questions far easier. 

Keep praying for everyone affected by this catastrophic flooding which is still not over. 

And also pray for mental health, physical health, and recovery time afterwards. Just imagining that once this has cleared people will be expected back at work means a lot of mentally and physically weakened lives will be stretched even further.

Blossom and Ross opened their home to a family who had no power and were surrounded by flood waters; a sole man we saw at the dam this morning was filling sandbags for anyone who needed them because he 'needed to do something'; people everywhere are offering food, shelter, clothing to those in need.

They are just a few of the many good stories from around here.

You know, the world is overloaded with sad, hateful, frightening news...

but we need to hear more about the everyday heroes, the simple folk doing small things that mean more than they will ever know. We need our hearts lifted when they are heavy and our eyes drawn towards that which is kind and gracious and brave.

I still have this month's free pattern ready for you to download and make, and the message fits right in with what I'm seeing and hearing about in our town right now. 

Normally I encourage making gifts for others, but I think this is one message we all need close by so how about stitching this for a frame in your home, or complete it as a small sack pillow as I did. The sack pillow pattern is included with the stitchery.

'Small Things, Great Love' is a free download HERE until March 3rd.

We'll keep plodding along today trying to clean up the various areas inside and out between the storms. Reports are that until midnight Monday there will be no easing of the flood surge from the dam and river so many thousands of people will not be able to access their homes the way I can. Blessed does not fully cover how we feel.

Monsoon at the top of Australia, bush fires at the bottom.

God bless YOU wherever you are, whatever situation you're facing. I'm praying and for sure thousands of others are too. 

hugs

Monsoon update and a chat...

Might seem strange but I just felt like having a chat with you tonight, as though we're sitting at the kitchen table with mugs of hot coffee and thick slices of fruit cake to enjoy, birds chirping outside and a cool breeze stirring the curtains as we gaze out the window into the lush green garden. 

One day I'll relive that scene, but right now we're in the middle of a once in a hundred year weather event, our town declared a natural disaster area, and rain that won't go away. 

We've now got four pumps in the yard (two out back and two out front) doing their best to keep the rising water from getting inside the house. Today we had a good break from the rain where it eased right off and during those few hours the four pumps moved a lot of water out of the yard - 65,000 litres an hour to be exact. That number just does my head in to be honest because that's how much water is being pumped out of our yard every hour. Add that up over 24 hours and it's astounding that we still have the yards under water. Mind boggling.

The laundry ceiling which my husband fell through on Thursday is getting worse and there is mold growing as the water continues to seep across it. Being the tropics it's still warm and very humid (96%) so mold is rampant in these conditions. I scrubbed the bathroom with bleach this morning to keep it under control in there and we have the ceiling fans running flat out in the rest of the house.

Our home is a small 3-bedroom with a huge yard. One bedroom is ours, one is my sewing room and one is hubby's study. The house is low set and built on a concrete slab...which is why we are concerned about the fact water is rising up through the slab and slowly spreading across the carpet in his study. 

We discovered a sink hole down the side of the house when I was walking through the water to check the outside drain...I put one foot to the ground and it was getting sucked into the mud and down so I quickly pulled it back and tried a little further on. Same thing. 

Nothing we can do about these things while the monsoon continues to deluge us with bands of intense rain. 

In the past few days our town has received 1,200 mm of rain - that's twice our annual rainfall. And there's a lot more to come yet. The dam was at 62% on Tuesday morning and three days later it sits at 190%.

We've received a council warning this afternoon of possible flash flooding in our suburb (from the dam spillway up the road being opened further and the river swelling like crazy) and though I hate thinking the worst I also don't want to be blase about any warnings we receive. They're given for a reason and though my hopes are that all will be well and the house won't flood inside, you can't be ignorant to possible danger.

Yet we have been blessed. 

As hard as my man has worked day and night to keep the waters from spreading through the house, there are so many in other areas of Townsville who have lost their homes, and there are many who are yet to lose them as the floodwaters rise and rivers breech their banks over and over again. With no immediate end in sight it's heartbreaking to think about what these dear people and their families are facing right now, tomorrow and next week. 

We moved to Townsville just over seven years ago and I didn't want to live here. I was shattered about leaving the small country town I hoped to call our permanent home, yet in order to gain employment my husband had to move us here. For quite a while my attitude was negative, and I held close to my heart the dream that we could return to that little town one day.

I guess it was a couple of years ago that my heart began to turn. I had found a wonderful friend in Rosie, our daughter Blossom had become a mother, and I'd become a member of our city's football club (North Queensland Cowboys). My heart was being given over to this very hot and humid place I'd originally not wanted to be and just over four months ago we bought our very first home, here in Townsville (in a suburb we didn't want to live in)!

But how I love this place now. How I love knowing we'll always be here. And how I love the suburb where we live. 

"And we know that God works all things together for good, for those who love Him and are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28 NKJV)

Now a natural disaster to face.

 I was telling my husband how calm I felt during this unpredictable weather and then yesterday I stopped for a bit and actually noticed  how my body felt. It was tense, on edge 24/7 with the flight or fight response, and I had nausea all the time. So though I was trusting God, am trusting God, my body knows the truth of how I feel deep inside, what state my emotions are in...and that's okay. It's okay to feel horrible when unpredictable events are dictating every hour in a highly stressful time of life. 

There are people going through much worse than we are and in life there always will be those who face significantly more difficult challenges than we will...but it does not diminish how we feel right now. For me today, for my precious husband, we're exhausted from being on alert all day and through the night, constantly going about doing what we can to alleviate the worst of circumstances befalling us. 

So we chose to laugh a lot, make jokes with each other and choose to think of something good...like drilling a hole in the water logged bird feeder and filling it with fresh seed so our dear Cockatoo mate can eat.

Sorry I can't answer all the emails which are being sent, or the comments left in the Gentle Domesticity Facebook group...to be honest, so many days into this flooding event, I'm just too weary. 

So let me say right now, THANK YOU, for your kindness, your prayers, your care, and your concerns. We are indeed blessed that you give them with whole hearts.

I'm finding it good to spend time during the day praying for those in other areas who are facing trials of their own - may the Lord who is our Shelter, our Shepherd and our Strength, be your anchor in every storm.

Hugs

A monsoon, rewind stitching and inspirational blogs...

If you're watching the weather in North Queensland this past week you'll be aware that we are sitting in the middle of a mighty monsoon. 

Rain like I've never seen in my life has been falling for days, with many more days of this endless downpour yet to come. Many have lost their homes, others have been evacuated - the water keeps rising, rivers have broken their banks and the roads are treacherous. 

Townsville has been pretty much a town in drought since we moved here in 2012, with very dry tropical 'wet seasons' and severe water restrictions as the dam fell lower and lower. 

That's all changed now. The town dam is at the end of our street and it's overflowing, the spillway is open and the river just 200 metres from us is rising fast from that overflow. Glad there's all that space between us and it. 

My precious husband has been soaking for days digging our trenches, installing a third pump, shoveling for hours in the middle of the night, crawling through the roof to seal a leak in the laundry ceiling and subsequently falling through (he's fine, thank goodness) plus watching over our neighbour's house (she is away at the moment). We have sandbags at the front and back doors as the water keeps rising and the three pumps cannot keep up. 

Our home is on a water table so once the ground is saturated (it's clay down there) the water doesn't just fall from the sky but it pushes up from below because it has nowhere to go. The things you discover after you buy your first house, eh? 

While there are some things I can do outside, they are minimal. Hubby is doing 95% of everything out there and I'm on standby to fetch and carry, brew hot cups of tea and make peanut butter toast when he can take a break. He tells me, "you go about your work inside, sweetheart, so I don't have to worry about you". Love that man.

Our drains are about to go under as well and the gurgling in the kitchen pipes is most definitely unsettling, especially when water shoots out from the kitchen sink. 

The third pump (blue one below) has a double length fire hose and then a long pipe to pump from near the back door to out front close to the storm drain. It's definitely helping to keep the water just under the back door. 

Sandbags at the back door offering more protection from the rising water...

...and the front door which has been pretty safe until this morning when the water rose higher out front and up into our front entrance.

The pump out front is under that green square to the right. 

There is an 8" drop over the edge of the front entrance way, which is what has kept us dry near the front door for days, but now its not enough. The photo below was taken just before hubby put sandbags across the doorway. 

But we are so blessed!!

All those pumps and my husband's ceaseless labours have so far kept the water from breeching our house and God willing this will continue to be so during the remaining days of this monsoon.

This is all new to me, so excuse me if you've been through this before and have greater knowledge and experience of these kind of conditions. xx

Following my husband's advice to stay occupied inside and because I needed something to do between heeding his intermittent calls for assistance and keeping myself from the anxious moments which too often build as the water rises, here's what I finally got around to setting up yesterday...

Let me tell you all about it...

The Rewind Stitchery Club runs for one year from the day you join.

During that year as a member you will receive 12 monthly issues which each contain five patterns to stitch. These are emailed as a PDF file directly to your email inbox on the 5th of every month.

The patterns I've included in the 12 monthly issues are my favourite choices from those I designed during 2014-16 and are not available elsewhere.

Each pattern includes step by step embroidery instructions, photos, all material and thread details, full size pattern sheets for printing and usually some small lessons or tips about each design.

(NOTE: If you were a member of my original Stitchery Club during 2015-16 then this is not for you as you'll already have these patterns scattered through those 24 monthly issues.)

The first issue will be emailed to members on February 5th...

I've also created an independent web page for the Rewind Stitchery Club and I'd love for you to head over HERE and have a look at it!

All the information about joining this 12-month Club is on that web page, plus photos of the patterns inside the first issue and the pretty gift pattern members receive when they join.

This new Club is bringing me joy already because if you read this blog post the other day you'll appreciate that it's one of the ways I am "using what I already have".

The cost is $7.95 AUD per month (around $6 US per month at the current exchange rate) and after twelve months your membership ends.

After I unraveled my first attempt at the Sweet Pea CAL blanket I began again with a larger hook and careful reading of the instructions. The lengths I unraveled are now wound onto pegs as they will be perfect for future granny squares. And besides they look so pretty. 

I am also back working on my next block of the month, Phyllis May's Kitchen, which will look rather different than I had imagined at first...because it IS different to what I'd originally planned. I doubt you'll guess how different?

I'm also finishing a one-off Phyllis May pattern which I hope you'll love as much as me, but photos won't be shared today as it's become quite dark inside the house and not camera friendly. Hopefully very soon.

I shall sign off today with...

Some nice blogs with wonderful and inspirational ideas to share.

I'm going to take inspiration from Julie who has recently made some beautiful and functional changes to her sewing room, which she tells me is the same size as mine - so we both (as women who sell our wares) appreciate that small spaces can be made far more functional with wise planning.

You might already know of Julie's blog, My Threadbear Life, but if not let me encourage you to pay her a visit soon. She's a wealth of inspiration!

Annabel of The Bluebirds Are Nesting has begun a new series on her blog, The Tuesday Afternoon Club, which encourages readers to share how they have utilised the skills or supplies they have on hand and/or saved money for the household. I love the variety of ideas on her blog!

One of the ladies in our Gentle Domesticity Facebook group, Teresa, shared this blog link the other day for a wonderful tutorial and free template for making bobbin cards for storing lace. The blog is Queen Bee Cottage and you'll find the tutorial here.

May your own circumstances, whether they be fire, flood, snow, ill health or outside pressure which is filling you with anxiety, be made less stressful by our wonderful God who loves each equally and without restraint. Let your requests be made known to Him and then rest as He cares for your needs in a way you cannot do for yourself. 

big hugs