So I have a good excuse for missing my Friday post. My husband's grandmother passed away last weekend and we traveled to Sydney for her funeral. While it was sad, she has been sick for awhile and in the end passed peacefully surrounded by family. Nan was an incredibly talented woman - she painted, knitted and made beautiful Faberge style eggs. Our family is lucky enough to own several of these items as you can see below.
These are two of Nan's cards that she painted. We also own a lovely frog done as a wedding present, but it is still packed up waiting for the house to be built. Nan loved Australian native birds, animals and plant life and these things featured heavily in her art. The main aim
of her back
garden was to attract the native bird life and she was frequently visited by rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, magpies and an assortment of others.
The parrot card was given to us at Nan's funeral. My equally talented mother-in-law made sure everyone who attended got one of these cards with a lovely photo and poem inside. It is a lovely way of remembering such a special lady.
Our children have been showered in knitted gifts from Nan - blankets, toys and jumpers.
Kira loves this jumper, she calls it her tail jumper. You can see the bunny rug made for when
Luke was baby
follows a similar theme
.
Nan also knitted gorgeous toys for our kids. The first picture is of most of them, with a few missing. They are on another blanket made by Nan for Kira when she was born. The two Mickey's belong to Luke. The one on the right is the "original." It use to look like the one on the left! When I realised exactly how much Mickey was loved, I asked Nan to make me a backup!
This is probably one of my favourite Nan toys. It's a reversible doll! Turn her upside down, pull her skirt down and you have a new doll. It just think it is soo clever.
Lastly, the eggs. Leigh and I were given one each when we got married and the kids were each given one when they were born. They are highly treasured.
As you can see, I wasn't joking when I said she was a highly talented lady! She will be sadly missed.
of her back
garden was to attract the native bird life and she was frequently visited by rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, magpies and an assortment of others.
follows a similar theme
.
This is called Star Struck and was designed by Sandy Gervais. I only just realised the instructions give the block name and designer!! The first one was called Cross Stitch and was designed by Brenda Riddle. Very apt I feel given my other passion is cross stitch!
I've also bought my fabric for the EB Doll Quilt swap. I figured there were enough people in the swap who mentioned brights that I could post a teaser without giving too much away!
I had a great time choosing these fabrics and actually changed my mind about three times before I settle on this combination. One of the fabrics actually isn't for the quilt, but I've left it in anyway.
The view from the top of our camp. We could sit up on the sand dunes and watch the kids although more often than not we would be down on the beach as it was protected from the wind and warmer!
One of the friendly locals. This guy would scare us regularly by flying through the middle of the camp, under the tarp. He would then sit in a tree and laugh at us. He thought it was a great joke.
Breakfast around the fire. We would go from being dressed like this...
...to swimming in the space of about 2 hours! My gorgeous boy having a ball boogie boarding.
The friends we went with bought their beagle, Olly. Kira loved him and spent most of the camping following her around. She is possibly the most placid dog in the world!!
Leigh got some bait fish last night that he took down for her. No building until her babies hatch.
Adds also sent along some lovely extras - a Patchwork and Quiliting mag, a stitchery and two rolls of gorgeous polka a dot ribbon.
Once again Adds, thank you. I love all of it!