So, good Christmas and New Year? I had an awesome at home holiday with the Mrs. It helped by the addition of a new fur kid. Yep we now have 4 fur babies. Well and truly outnumbered. Meet Gossip. She's a 4 year old Pug. We purchased her off a breeder who was retiring her. She is totally adorable and so so cute. If you have a pug or have had one you'll get it. They are the sweetest, funniest, most stubborn little snorty critters. All the other critters like her, well, are getting to know her, but no major dramas which is a relief. If you've been on my flickr or instagram you would have seen her. But if you haven't here, let me bore you with my fur baby.

Aside from that not a lot else, just movie and TV watching, going to the gym, still, yep. Oh and cross stitch.

Oh and I've joined a swap, but don't tell the Mrs, she thinks I have enough on my plate...sssh.

Shannon does commissioned portraits so I figured it would be a great Christmas present to myself and Sondra. I gave her a vague brief about tail sucking kitties, a little fat dog, that the Mrs likes to dress like a 12 year old skater boy, though recently she's been dressing like a "laaaady" and it suits her. She's cute.

Anyhow, it was pretty vague and this is what she came up with. LOVE IT. Only thing I forgot to say is Sondra is shorter than me, but it doesn't matter. She hit the nail on the head. Thanks Shannon!

Sondra as a "laaady" she looks so cute. The best bit? See those peep toe shoes? She only painted the first 2 toenails, love it. She looked so pretty and it was awesome to see her feeling so good about herself, we've both been working hard at the gym!

I've been crafting. I'm back into cross stitch. Trying out waste canvas on linen and I bought a couple of Lizzie Kate patterns.

I got new sneaks. Love them.

It's finally becoming summer here in Perth and this is how Miss Piggie sleeps when it is hot. She has a fuzzy guts and the best kitty trousers.

I finished my pillow for the Pillow Talk Swap 6, this is a bad phone picture, I have some decent pictures in my camera I'll post another time. So much fun using all the Heather Ross prints I had. I had some hesitation at first about cutting into them, but once I got over it, it was a blast. My partner loves it so mission accomplished. Free pattern from Where the Orchids Grow.


I inkjet onto linen for some tags for product. Pretty straight forward, had a couple of jams but managed to save it. Grab your freezer paper, trim it to the paper size you need for your printer, get your piece of linen, iron it to freezer paper, trim edges make sure there are no stray threads. And print. If you wanted it to be waterproof you could try using bubble jet set, but I wasn't fussed, I just heat set it on a hot iron, no steam. Once it was dry it was good to go.

In tech news :) I got an iPad for my 40th. LOVING it. And if you haven't tried Flipboard for your iPad and just recently your iPhone, do it.

Phew. Next the Son and I are planning our Christmas gift baking. I'm thinking I'm going to give salted caramels a go this year.

I've become obssessed with embroidering and cross stitch and crochet edging. Excuse the lack of ironing.

See more. I want to crochet all edges of all things.

I ripped my palm. I guess it's a crossfit rite of passage.

You can't pee in peace, this is my pee buddy.

See, cross stitch. Itty bitty apple about 12mm high. I blame Mrs McPorkchop.

Here's my mosaic for my partner as inspiration for me.

1. Fresh Lemons Spools, 2. home sweet home quilt, 3. Japenese x and + quilt 114, 4. house cushion, 5. five teapots so far.., 6. + & X blocks Quilt, 7. My block ~ Ringo Pie Bee, 8. potholder swap 2010, 9. Baxter Quilt

I have done some random crafting, like knitting this hat. Details at Ravelry.

Which brings me back to instagram, a very cool photographic iPhone app (and android I think??).

You want to see my instagram pics but you don't have a smartphone? Try webstagram. Or want to share your pics online, try Instagrid or Inkstagram.

Then I was looking at other cool stuff you can do with instagram pics, like get your images printed onto 2x2 inch tiles at Teeny Tile! There's StickyGram to turn your pics into very cool magnets. Some of these would make awesome Christmas gifts and stocking fillers. At both Keepsy and Blurb you can print a book of your instagram pics. Or coming soon, Instatee!

Want to download and backup your instagram pics? Try Copygram. Then there's Instadrop which let's you connect to your Drop Box and everytime you upload to instagram, it copies your pics to a folder on Drop Box. Pretty darn cool.

For those of you that like stats, yep Statigram. Think that's it for now, love to hear of any other products/apps that hook into instagram.

And, Pinterest. I'm here sporadically. Totally love it. Here's me for those interested.

I've just made my apple pincushion pattern available as a pdf download at the shop. It's immediate delivery. You purchase and you'll receive an email straight away with the link to download.

And I'm working on a "totes" good tote bag pattern that I'll have available for download and in kit form at markets.

Happy crafting!

I have been around on twitter, pinterest and flickr, so not totally AWOL. What have I been doing? Well you know we started personal training twice a week last year and decided it wasn't enough and are now attending Crossfit classes about 4 times a week as well as personal training once a week. So that's eaten up a lot of blogging time. I haves been making stuff in between the day job, crossfit and market making but there ain't a lot of energy left for creative thinking these days. Saying that I have a million quilts in my head I'd like to make, maybe I'll start being a crazy quilt top maker?!

I had grand plans to do blockapalooza to make a quilt that's way overdue as a housewarming gift....Yep, you guessed it, I started the first block, decided that I just did not have the patience or the time for the cutting, so have abandoned it. I'll turn that block into a cushion cover I think. So then I found Kate's lovely Geometric pattern that is based on the traditional log cabin (one of my favourite blocks) and decided that's what I'll do, less cutting for this lazy lady!

So um, that's it. I'm not promising I'll be back again soon, I'll try. Happy crafting!

* Of course, being a child born in the 70's, I am referring to Madonna's version of this.