Well before August does indeed slip away

this is actually the right hand side of the "bag"I forgot to rotate the pic- sorry gang but am not very clebber with this sort of stuff heck I even took a piccie thats a start normally I shove anything onto the scanne and thats the end of it!!
This is the left side of the bag showing the little "Southern Belle" in her garden of delight. I was a very silly bear I didn't write down who gave me the lovely crocheted Southern Belle - if she's of your work please do let me know so I can give you the well deservedly fabulous naming rights to her. She's so wonderfully made she is just Beautiful. Thank you to who ever did make her and thought enough of me to give her to me.
This piccie shows the beautiful butterfly heading for the flower bed on the right side of the "bag"
so much more to do -I wish I didn't have such a big Bum- then the bag woulda been a lot smaller gggg NEXT time I will go and BUY a pair of jeans and do a small size bag gg ooh well we cant all be size 6's can we??The beautiful butterfly was given to me by the wonderful artist Maria Vialle - thank you Maria she's perfect for this garden bed, and is beautiful!!


Now as you can see that although I have been quite as a little bear can be but I haven't been dawdling over my bed all the time or hiding out in my den - oh no I have been sewing my wee claws to a bone.


I have had an old pair of jeans cut off ready to play -make me into a JEANS BAG NOW! for some time now- maybe some 2 years- well slow is the bears way of coming onto a project. I am having some fun with this project as well- I decided that the ordinariness of the jean fabric could do with some outlandish stitching and so have been going at it hammer and tongs for the past couple of weeks creating flowers hither and 'yond and making one side look like it has flowers overflowing off the bag edges- so much so that when I was hunting through some bits and pieces to add something to the other side I found a crochet little southern belle in my favourite colours and decided that she should be standing in a garden of flowers like on the other side. So this is pretty much where I am up to at present- what to do next well there's an awful lot of beading that is waiting to be done- I began that last night and in doing one flower discovered I had placed another flower on back to front- heck I can really stuff a thing up cant I??- So its on the right way now and the other bits that had to come off t correct the glaring mistake are all back on and the beading can continue tonight. Hope you like it- please please do tell me BUT don't forget this is definatly a UFO at present and does have much more to be done before I think of it as completed

love n hugs Bear xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Has August also slipped away??

hewoo one and all

well it seems that the month of August has also slipped away how could it??- But it has and did- here it is the last day of August (downunder) and its the last day of Winter here as well- tomorrow bring with it not only the 1st day of September but also SPRING - hellallelua!!

I have been doing things I have been nominated by 2 sweeties for the Nice Matters Award- I dont know how to get the pretty picture with the Nice Award on it here but we will make ot it is here- and my thanks to Norma of http://normasneedlez.blogspot.com and also Courtney of http://www.mommasgoodies.blogspot.com.

You are both sweeties and I have to give this award to 7 people I love - out of the many I do love so very much- thats a really hard task cos I can always have so many more then I can write on here darn it!
anyway

Sherry Goshon http://sherrygoshon.blogspot.com/

Linda Fleming . http://thewindowtomylife.blogscom/

Hideko Ishido http://hideko-windfromtheeast.blogspot.com/

Kai Nakoni http://creatingmyway.blogspot.com

Maureen Bond http://crazyqstitcher.wordpress.com/

Jacque Uetz http://www.jacqueuetz.blogspot.com/

and last but definately never least my lovely "other "Linda
Linda Barraclough http://chloesplace.blogspot.com

I have selected obly the seven but so many more are out there whose work I admire or whom I have known and emailed for so long now that they are part of my family, this hard when you are asked to ONLY name 7 I can think of so many more it seems mean to but ONLY name these 7 beautiful people. To those not named- I do love you as well!! U know that I do and will go on forever being part of my online and real family .............
thank you
one and all
love n hugs bear xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Red Roses for a Blue Lady!!

hewoo one and all
My dear Twin Sister (??) well we were born the same day, same month, same year, and almost to close for comfort time wise as well- and considering My Twinnie is on the other side of the big pond- our "Mums" were doing it hard as well. Anyway Kai has been having a very hard run of late and is now gotten herself a very nasty eye infection, so I thought I would make her up one of my blocks and in case you don't know her Kai likes Red, so her roses had to b e red didnt they Kai??

Anyway me and the pooter have been arguing for a day now cos it for some reason kept scanning this block in MB's instead of a small size so there in lay the problem and it refused to resize so I wound up exporting it out of one program and into another and then another to get the darn piccie to resize. GRRRRRRRRR well a bears allowed to growl every now and then otherwise I wouldn't be a self respecting little old bear now would I??? Anyway finally I have gotten the darn thing to resize and now hopefully Kai can get a look see- this is going to be her burthday pressie from moi- and last night I asked her did she want a surprise or did she wanna see it now?? Being so alike I KNEW Kai would wanna see it straight away- I find it hard not being allowed to not look at something which is suppose to be a surprise - hate it in fact. Ah well here it tis Kai- hopes you likes it, and sorry its taken me so long to get it up but I had nuffin but trouble with this one darling
with much love and biggest bear hugs
your Weela xoxoxoxoxo

While July went past

Hewoo one and all

I did do some other things as well while the July month went missing for me, I completed the last of my gathering blocks and then I also made a block for myself -I have never made a block just for me so I figgered it was time -I am really wanting to make more now and maybe join them and for heavens sake make a CQ Quilt up out of them all- Heavens wot am I saying here?? Me quilting oh nope that's not my scene - well maybe it is I love making these CQ blocks up and they aren't like sane quilting where I HAVE to do this or that and I cant really change things cos as all keep saying with CQ there are NO rules - yup that's me lets face it I am not a lover of too many rules so I can see me doing a few more of these blocks- actually wanting to make some bigger blocks- the 6 and a half inch block doesn't give me a lot of space to play around and I really want to play around and I want to be able to do more seam treatments etc and by the time I do the roses etc there's not a lot of room for anything else to go on- so I can feel me trying out oooooohh lets see may be I will do some 12 inch square blocks. BUT even more worrying is I have been looking at sane quilting with an eye on maybe making at least one sane quilt oh did I say that?? Surely not bears' going quite insane lets not worry to much - that could be just the belt of spring weather we had last week getting into the blood and scaring up some of these silly feelings ggg CQ yup but sane quilting oh Bear You are a worry!!



The first in this set was made for Rowdy aka as Catherine of the Garden - Catherine gained the nickname of Rowdy from her "noise" factor when the girls attended the Gathering at Sandies' hacienda at Easter. Apparently Catherine is not the quiet demure little sweetie we all assumed she was. I am glad she's not the quiet and demure little sweetheart cos lets face it Bear can be as noisy as the next one and would be in good company with Rowdy. Anyway enough of that nonsense Catherine loves Purple and so I found this little patch I have had forever( another one of my Linda B's generosity to me when I was a beginner CQ'er ) and as the fairy also had little garden bits surrounding her I thought that Catherine might like this, the unfortunate thing is that I couldn't get a clear image of the fairy ---it is very sweet in person and Catherine has told me she liked it so I am happy bout that!



Then this one of Purple on the black background is the one I made for me. I have adored this combination of colours ever since I saw a Block that Julia C made for our Sandie- and Julia made her "Sandie Gathering Block" in these colours but Julia used much brighter purple ribbons then I have and it was so much prettier then this block. I am not so dissapointed that I wont use it but I did learn lots from making up this block and will dye some more ribbons and make sure they are of a brighter purple hues then these are. Sandie sent me the lovely black and white picture and I used some of my pencils to colour in the "pink" roses and green leaves in the girls hair - I am happy with that effect and would use that again.


This pink/ Burgundy block was one I made up for ??. I had these ribons etc left over from the other gathering blocks and I figgered it could be made up nicely and I think it came up a treat. and Hopefully the lass receiving it will think so. I love these little angels I have been using along the way - They came from a competition win and I really have had a lot of fun using them- I also used them along the way with some of my hearts. I don't think I have had one person say they didn't like the little angels. It goes to show we are all quite similar in our tastes sure we might like a few things differently but then there are some things that most enjoy ie angels and fairies and gardens etc. I really have enjoyed making the gathering blocks and when I next post I will put up all of the blocks that the Ladies of the gathering sent me

but

For now Bye all and be careful but enjoy the day for what it is a new day full of promise

lotsa love n big hugs Bear xoxoxoxoxxo

Wot happened to July???

Photo1 is the front of Rhi's dress, the second pic is the back and the third pic shows a close up of the smocked area and the embroidered bullions roses.

This pic is the front of Scarletts dress, the second is the back of her dress and the 3 pic shows the back of her panties and the 4th the front of her panties.

Hewoo one and all

well wot did happen to July ???- mmmmmm I was ill with the current Flu bug doing the rounds of South Australia and laid low- and then Dad was admitted to hospital 3 weeks ago and is still there - he has a very nasty Staph Infection in his knee that he had a replacement knee operation on and its a very nasty and stubborn infection- he is on Intravenous antibiotics and will be even when he is up to coming home for at least 6 weeks so the Dr is saying at this stage. Anyway we will see I guess what the upshot of this will be later on- last week he went down for his second arthroscopy and washout and the orthopaedist is happier then he was after the first one and has said to DOD that its up to the Infection Control Dr now as to when he is happy to let DOD out of the Hospital- Its will be nice to get our lives back to a wee bit of normal living. Sad to say both Colin and I are starting to feel a bit worn out etc but hey he could b e home this week and then we may b e paying for that gggggg

In the meantime I haven't just been sitting here doing nothing - I have completed two little smocked outfits for a dear friends grandbabies. Rhi is now 4 years old and so I made her a sundress no sleeves but it does have a frill around the neckline and lots of backsmocking a wee bit of geometric smocking and then some of my favourite "grub" roses across the bottom of the smocked area. Its in a lovely summer weight poly/cotton and should be okay to wear even on the hottest of summer days - I am also hoping that both outfits fit gg. For the younger baby Scarlett who's about 12months old now - so I made her a dress and panties outfit- the smocking on this was just a geometric pattern - only a few rows on her dress and then there were some bullion daisies in various colours going across it- her panties were in the same material but had 3 rows of frill across the back of them and are (well I think they are) real cute gg Cos she is at the crawling/walking stage I made this up in a poly/cotton seersucker material so that should wash like a rag and shouldnt need to much ironing if any. I remember not wanting to iron much way back when the kids were younger and I am sure Em (the kids Mum) is no different.

well all I can hope for is that they fit the girls and that the girls and their Mum like them etc -I know their Gran does (- Hi ya darling.) I had such fun making them- yeah right bear!!! doesn't something always goes wrong for me - yup no different this time I had picked out this lovely material to make Scarlett's dress in and all went well until I removed the smocking threads and started to block the smocking- that's when bear realised she didn't have the smocking squared and to make matters worse- most times this wouldn't be a big problem) but this time the floral actually formed lines going across the material- oh and nocticeable - it sure was! wot to do wot to do- I was nearly in tears but I explained the problem to my darling man and he quietly asked wot do U want to do and I said begin again --go and get another piece of material and start over - the darling man piled me in the car and 10 minutes later the smiles had returned to my face. BUT sometimes things work out for the best (when all seems dark and gloomy ) I realised after doing the second dress up that I loved the material much more and also it wasn't as heavy (thick) as the first one and for a summer dress the second one would be much more to the liking of the wearer so maybe it was meant to be. Whatever alls well that ends well. Wot am I going to do with the first dress well I have tried to square it up etc and its in some shape and I will at some time in the dim future finish it off if only to show myself that I learnt a lesson that all floral's don't make good choices for smocking if they are not totally squared off in the beginning -seems to me I heard that before- maybe the lass who taught us to smock and showed us her example of what can go wrong gggg so I am not the only one to make this blunder I guess and I learnt a lot!! I hope I remember the lesson well and don't do THAT one again!

The patterns for both outfits came from the "Smocking and Embroidery" magazines published by Country Bumpkin right here in good old Adelaide, South Australia

lotsa love n hugs bear xoxoxoxoxox