Ready for the competition season

Tink now has leotards for all 3 routines that NZ Level 2 rhythmic gymnasts do for 2010 - freehand, hoop and ball.
The ball leotard, courtesy of fairy godmother Sarah's layout and applique skills

Ta da!

the sewing machines are out again...

and the NZ gymnastics competition season starts in a month, so I've been sewing:

A Tinkerbell leotard for Tink - this will be her hoop leotard.

My fabulous neighbour, Clare, is enjoying herself being creative and is currently making Jess' ribbon leo; while the fairy godmother, Sarah, is employing her quilting skills putting applique flowers on Tink's ball leotard.
That  just leaves me to ge to and make a purple & silver hoop leotard for Jess, and maybe something else for her freehand routine.  We scored a lovely one for Tink's freehand at the club's 2nd hand sale last month.

So be warned - there will be videos again...

Awards Season!

StitchitAndie pinged me with both the Beautiful Blogger award and the Sunshine Award.

I did the Beautiful Blogger two posts ago, so I won't repeat that one.

However, here's the rules for Sunshine:

• 
  
  put the logo on your blog or in a post
• 
  
  pass the award to 12 bloggers
• 
  
  link the nominees within your post
• 
  
  let them know they've received it by commenting on their blog
• 
  
  share the love and link to the person from whom you received the award

There's a lot of awards going around at the moment, so I'm cheating - again - and I'm only awarding it to two blogs:

• 
  
  Vickie in China
• 
  
  Cameo

These two ladies are always (even when having a bad day) about being "sunshine" - at least in my view. 

Way to go, ladies!

March finish with deja vu...

Does this look familiar?

Same design as the January finish, but with the colours reversed for the other twin.

I stitched them side by side:

so off to the framer they go tomorrow, woohoo.

Only a couple of weeks late for the 1st birthday....I don't think Kylie will mind, do you?

Belated acknowledgement of an award

Thank you to Barb at MyStitchingTreasures.

I'm very slow at noticing I was in her "pass it on" list, but here it is.

Ok, ten things about me:

1. Like Barb, I love cats (have 3)
2. I love to read
3. I love chocolate, dark peppermint is the favourite
4. My eldest daughter left tonight for 6 weeks in UK/EU
5. I have actually met one of my blog friends (waving at Floss)
6. I am a member of the Yahoo group 2MuchXS
7. I am at SABLE (Stash Accumulation Beyond Life Expectancy)
8. I used to sing in a Cathedral Choir (decani soprano)
9. Yellow is my favourite colour
10. It's my 14th wedding anniversary next month

Blogs to pass the award on to:

All those in my blog list (I know, I'm cheating - but it's late and I do like them) plus  Mez at the Australian Gymnastics blog, the Couch Gymnast, Notes From the Trenches, Frog and Toad Are Still Friends and Daring Young Mom.

Go check them out - I dare ya!

February finish - yay!

I was having a silent stitch-a-long with Rene with this one:

Home of a Needleworker Too!

Little House Needleworks

over one, 22ct hardanger, Crescent Colours as listed.

I've been watching Rene's progress and I think her Crescent colours show better than mine.  Guess that what happens with hand-dyed threads (and maybe the bigger count fabric too).

It was a fun stitch, and now off to the framers it will go.  Tossing up whether to keep it, or give it to my lovely M-i-L who does fabulous dressmaking and alterations (and who admired it today as I was getting it ready for scanning).

Think I'll decide after it's framed.

I think ...

... I can finally deal with this post.

Nearly three years ago, my cat Titchy came to the end of her time with us at the reasonably old age of 13.

She'd gotten skinny and fragile plus wasn't keeping food down, and then didn't come home the day we were going to take her to the vet.

So that Christmas we got a kitten, Boodle, to join the 3 remaining cats.

Boodle was the most smoochy cat I've ever known.  She would snuggle around my neck, sleep on my head at night, and give me big raspy licky kisses. It was like having Titch back, only waaay smoochier. She was always in the garage waiting for us when we got home and never missed a meal - unlike the other 3, who would regularly be late or miss a meal entirely.

Sadly, last November (Guy Fawkes weekend) she failed to show up for breakfast, and then didn't show when we got home that afternoon.  We haven't seen her since.

So when I finished work for the Christmas break, we went to the SPCA and came home with Tui, a scruffy black kitten.  She would lose traction on our wooden floor due to fluffy feet.

To our extreme distress, she too failed to appear when we got home last Monday. 

She was 4 months old.

Tui was still being fed inside, and had never ventured beyond our section and was even more reliable than Boodle at turning up.  So we knew that same day that we'd lost her, too.

We think to a dog.  Our neighbours lost their guinea pig between our two cats' disappearances, and Steve saw a strange dog in the vicinity of our house this weekend.  We haven't had stray/ wandering dogs for quite some time. Plus Burma, one of our other three cats was injured about 10 days ago, we thought in a fight.  Now that she's letting us look at it, we wonder again about a dog being involved.

So now we worry when any of the other 3 don't turn up when expected.