Progress

I thought I'd take the opportunity to write a blog post as it's quiet here at the moment-Ron and Caitlin are at Pedal Prix practice, Luke is in his room, and I have got a chance to sit down and have a coffee while I catch up on reading blogs.

I've made some progress on a few craft projects.  My Christmas stitchery  got some time.

I started my hexagon quilt-I'm still experimenting to find my preferred thread/needle combination, but I've got one 'flower' done.  I'm going to prepare more hexagons so I can pick up this project and stitch a little on it each week.  This will be a long-term project I think.

Finally, I started knitting on a scarf.  I picked up this yarn from my local yarn store.  They don't have a huge stock as it's more of a small town craft/haberdashery/school uniform shop but I try and meet up with a local knitting group there each week.  The yarn is Panda Sashay and you can see a picture of the pattern I'm knitting on this page-you just need to scroll down a little and look on the right hand side. 

I also added a couple of things to the stash.  I picked up a fat quarter from Spotlight, and also nabbed a ball of Patons Jet from an op shop.

I must apologise for the pictures-they're taken with my iPod Touch so they're not the best-I will get the camera out next time.

It's one week until the 1/2 marathon, and I only have a couple of smaller runs to do before then-here's hoping we get lovely weather like today-but maybe with just a little bit of cloud cover in the morning.

Tap, Tap.........

....is this thing still working? I knew I hadn't blogged for a while, but I really didn't realise how long until I popped back here. I've changed the name (it really needed something snappier than "Leonie's Blog"), template and header, as well as updating things in the side bar.  

So, what's news?  Well, today is my daughter's 13th birthday-I now have two teenagers, although I think that's been the case for some time-this just makes it official.  We are going out to dinner tonight to celebrate, with cake at home afterwards.  Due to it being a week (and school) night, we have postponed the viewing of Harry Potter until Saturday.  

I also received my race bib for the half marathon here in Adelaide on 28th August-the fact that it comes in a plastic sleeve reinforced the fact that the weather may be less than ideal. Training in the Hills should stand me in good stead-I'm hoping we don't get a day that is too warm!  This is my first half marathon, so I'm feeling a little apprehensive, but I've had a good training plan, and only had a mild virus to interrupt my training, so I'm sure I'll be fine (sore, but fine).

I have been crafting here and there-but just at the moment I've got the quilting/sewing bug.  Not that I have much experience in this area, but still...........  My current project is actually a stitchery block which will become a small wall hanging-I started this some time ago with thoughts of doing the whole quilt, but have since shelved that idea.  

I've got some more ideas for future projects, including a larger quilt/wall hanging for Christmas, and several projects from this book.

Actually, there aren't too many projects I don't want to make from this book-I may change a few things here and there, but I love the bags, needlecase, and quilts especially.  

Another project that will be in the pipeline is a Hexagon Quilt.  It's made using paper piecing, and is hand stitched, so I should enjoy that as it's portable and not so far out of my comfort zone.  You can also use scraps, so I can use stash for it.  I have a surprisingly large fabric stash for someone who hasn't really quilted or sewn much before ;)

 I have also been knitting, but as it's a gift for someone (who might read this blog), this is all you get to see for now-the project tucked in it's travel bag.