Colour My Winter

A lovely Sunday morning welcome to all you lovely lovelies♥

Of late when Old Man Sun has been hiding behind grey threatening clouds, I have been colouring  my wintry days; embellishing many moments with splashes of beauty, pretty colour and smiles. Yes indeedy, I have been playing with pretty ribbons, lush velvets, ribbon flowers, french laces........all for pretties that I want to fashion further down my rambling path. I am thinking I am in need of a new bag.....or two. Also, I haven't fashioned a cushion flourishing with floralicious delight for a very long while. As my ribbon flowers are as scarce as those real 'breathe-in-the-golden-sunshine-so-that-photosynthesis-can-occur', type flowers; I thought I should perhaps twirl and whirl  ribbons around and around, coaxing them this way and that way until  blooming beauties appear. I like to have a smattering of ribbon flowers on hand in readiness for a cushion, or indeed some other pretty that is in need of a ribbon flower.

Here are pretties for a new bag. I know......a tad flashy, but then I am not a plebeian, one-bag-suits-all-occasions, kinda gal. I love to step out and about with a bag overspilling with embellished gorgeousness. Do you know, I really cannot remember when last I purchased a carryall. I have been fashioning one-of-a-kind Kim Sharman bags for years now.



Upon crossing the threshold of a most glorious fabric establishment on Fashion Avenue in the Garment District of downtown New York, (I was blessed to visit this most amazing city last year) a velvet fabric gushing with gorgeous detail caused me to stop dead in my tracks. To tell the truth, many...... oh all right, every bolt of fabric made me stop so that I may linger over each one, drinking in all the exquisite details. The forest green velvet  oozing with beads and jewels and pops of turquoise and black patterned velvet is stunning. I must say at this juncture, I am a little pea green with envy with you lovelies who live in New York or indeed, are only a short air flight away. Seriously, I thought I had stumbled upon the pearly gates of fashion heaven when I strolled down Fashion Avenue, where shop after shop wooed and cajoled and enticed me. With the quote of  that luminary character, Oscar Wilde, in mind....."The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.......I can resist everything but temptation", I succumbed and walked out the rather posh doors with this sumptuous velvet and a few more in hand, but the other pretties are for another post.

Ahh......New York!! How I love thee so!! This book toppled from the shelf of a book store the other day, so I had to, had to take it home with me.

The author and photographer of this breathtaking book is Georgianna Lane. Georgianna's sublime photos and gloriously lyrical words which dance off the page has caused me to pick this book up over and over again, drooling over every page. Page after page of gorgeousness spills over with the floral beauty of NYC in the springtime, interspersing throughout with photos of the exquisite botanical details found in the city's iconic architecture. If ever I should visit this magical and exhilarating city again I must do so when Central Park and the surrounding metropolis are buzzing with the beauty that only Spring can bring. To see the "hundreds of thousands of bulbs donated annually and planted by residents and volunteers for the Daffodil project, as a living memorial to those lost on September  11", in the New York Botanical Gardens, would be a show stopping and poignant experience; or indeed, to walk along paths lined with flowering magnolias, crabapple and cherry trees, all blooming profusely would make my heart skip a beat or two. Then, to drink in the hundreds and hundreds of roses in the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden, where arbors and trellises peep from behind  the climbing roses, would be an explosion of all the senses. Indeed, a walk through this utopia would be a perfumed paradise. Between the covers of this beautiful book there are so, so many glorious flowery experiences to be wowed by, during springtime in New York City. If you were to ask me, Georgianna's beautiful book New York in Bloom is a must-have-addition to your library. Georgianna has published several other 'eye candy' books. Paris in Bloom is on my to buy list and when her book London in Bloom is published, this too  will be finding it's way onto my coffee table.

But I digress yet again, let's get back to those fabrics.

There have been a few days where there has been no illumination by the sun, hence the need to play  with pretty, french-wired ribbons, hand stitching them with a stitch here and there to form flowers, hence cheering up a gloomy soul on a dark and sinister winter's day.

As well as playing with pretty fabrics and sumptuous velvets, I have continued with a little hand quilting of my pretty basket quilt. Four rows have now been completed. Three more rows to be quilted and then the border. Not long to go now.......famous last words!! Love, love, love all that quilty texture!

Once again, on those sunshine-filled days  I have found a sunny spot and quilted. A little hand quilting in a sunny corner is a most enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours.

Truly, scrappy quilt upon scrappy quilt is a vision splendid!

It is Sunday morning here and I am enjoying a cup of tea in a pretty new teacup. My beautiful friend, Trish, (Holly's mum) gifted me this gorgeous china pretty as a thank you. Isn't it beautiful?? Why, it matches my hydrangea teapot. I wonder......how did my beautiful friend know that hydrangeas are my all time favourite flower. I truly have no idea. =) Oh, by the way, I always take tea in a teapot with both cup and saucer and teapot resting on a tray........don't you?? No?? Me thinks if one partook in a little tea ceremony each day, where one pours tea from a pretty hydrangea teapot into a pretty hydrangea tea cup, with both pretties resting on a sweet tray, well......the world would be a much happier place. Those ego-maniacal leaders who stomp their feet and shake their fists in a tanty, with murmurings of war and other such deeds of chicanery should sit down, take a chill pill and pour themselves a cup of calming tea in a pretty teacup; relax and think upon  all things peace to mankind. After all, is not a cup of tea the panacea for all ills. =)

Before I am up and at it, I might just linger in my comfy bed for a little while longer, luxuriating with my cup of Melbourne Breakfast tea and flowery book as the sunshine slowly creeps over my quilt, engulfing me with its happy beams. Sundays......a most wonderful day of the week, at least it is for me. Love, love, love lazy Sundays. Off to church, perhaps lunch with friends then this afternoon most definitely a spot of book reading and a little hand quilting. More pretty baskets and buds to be quilted. There is sunshine in my soul today ♥ As always thank you, lovely lovelies, for visiting my sunshiny little place♥

Until the next time............

Sharing this week at Kathy's, Slow Sunday Stitching

"Ah! Well away! Seasons flower and fade." Alfred Tennyson

A lovely welcome to my little autumnal little place♥ I would like to say thank you for each lovely comment you gifted me last time you visited. Each one of you truly blessed me with your kindness. May I say at this juncture that my little basket of beribboned flowers will soon be flying over land and sea to the lovely Marilyn. I think I will have to fashion more pretties to give away throughout this year as it is such fun.

Down here at the bottom of the world, Autumn has arrived on the wings of force gale winds, whooshing most of the flowers into oblivion with great gusto. I have no doubt the seeds will appear in the strangest of places next Spring. It is always a delight to see where Mother Nature has dropped her bounty each year. She sows her seeds wherever she will. Some flowers in the garden are still standing, but they are past their best. In one accord the flowers are leaving the stage. The remaining flowers, the Dahlias, Buddlieas, Cosmos..........the Hydrangeas....have strut their stuff on the Summer stage for months now and will soon vanish to the land of repose. I always feel a little sad with the passing of Summer. I love everything about Summer....the warm sunshine, the early rising and late going down of Ol' Man Sun, the vibrant colours of the garden, long, lazy days of activities spent outside; long Summer days that go on forever. But...Autumn and Winter do bring months of cosying up in front of the fire and early morning walks drinking in the joyous sunrises that only Winter can deliver. Then, there is Ol' Man Sun whose rays reach deeper into my home basking everyone in his warm embrace.......so perhaps Winter ain't too bad after all.

The trees' canopy is ever so slightly beginning to change from the verdant brightness to leaves that are dotted here and there in yellow, orange and red tones. In a little while the  dry, crackling leaves will tumble to the ground covering the ground with an autumnal hued carpet.

There hasn't been a lot of stitching happening since I last chatted. I have put aside my flower quilt these last couple of  weeks as there are some design decisions I need to think about. I also wanted a break from stitching petal after tiny petal. The Wisteria is next on my to do list and as we all know the Wisteria flower is abundant in petals; many of them itty bitty in size. I suppose I probably should have worked on my 'Buds in the Basket' quilt but a new tarting up project has been gaining some momentum in my imagination.

My attention has been diverted to a chaise lounge I purchased about fifteen years ago. I loved the shape (and still do) and the thought has always been in my mind that I would recover it one day.  Believe it or not it is the comfiest of chairs. No wonder those medical professionals in the know have like-shaped chairs (though I suppose theirs are covered in red leather, in a more modern aesthetic than mine)  in their office for a spot of psychoanalysis......I can imagine they make a patient feel very relaxed and more prone to reveal their deep and hidden thoughts.

As is always the way with me, I was looking at my reclined pretty for the millionth time the other day and I decided to start playing with the covering and see what I come up with. Now is the time to pull out my upholstery tools yet again. For all these years my chaise lounge has been hidden under quilts and crochet blankets which has been fine thus far, but I am tired of it so a little tarting up is required.

The 'parlour' is a restful room where shades of soft blue and white are seen everywhere. This colour combination is and has always been my favourite. It is a room which will be undergoing a little sprucing up throughout this year. The faux wood walls have to, have to go. I mean really, if one is going to put wood on one's walls, please, please cover them with real, ridgy didge, run-your-hand-along-the-grain-and-knots-and-in-the-process-get-a-splinter.....type wood. Oh, and  I will be giving the wooden floor boards a lick or two of white floor paint. I know, I know.....who paints wood floors....well......I do. Yep....I am a, cover-wood-with-a lick-of-paint, kinda girl. =)

There are many pretties that I have fashioned over the years, to be seen in this room. This room evokes cosiness, an aesthetic of a bygone era. It is a room where I spend a lot of time in the winter months, stitching or knitting, reading.....and just dreaming. Especially those chilly, sunless days where the blazing open fire lulls me with its warm embrace. And then there is the view. It is a view that always quietens my soul. I am in no need of a psychotherapist session when I sit in this room.....though of course, those who are privy to the inner workings of my muddly mind may beg to differ.

I want the chaise lounge to have a smattering of fabrics, along the same aesthetics of the chair I tarted up a couple of years ago.

I  have gathered together fabrics in different blue hues and patterns left over from other pretties I have fashioned. As is my style, I will play for a while with no set design in my head and go with the flow.

I am going to incorporate some hexie love somewhere on the chaise lounge. I am  hand stitching hexies in shades of blue and white, with the thought of wrapping the arm in these pretties.

I will play with these fabrics, hoping to work on the chaise lounge in the Easter holidays which are coming up in a few weeks.

May I say, that nobody's back (mainly my husband's) was put out of kilter  during this photo shoot. He is a good man, is my husband. =0

On the flower front I have been filling vases with cut Hydrangeas as very soon Jack Frost will be visiting, touching these pretties with his icy fingers, causing these gifts from Mother Nature to flee. The days here are still warm and sunny BUT the nights and early mornings are becoming chilly. I sense Jack Frost's imminent arrival. The wonderful thing about vases of Hydrangeas is that they fade into the prettiest autumnal shades. All other cut flowers metamorphose into a pongy mass of organic matter after a week, but not the Hydrangeas, they provide pretty colour for months on end.

Aah yes......Happiness with a capital H =  Hydrangeas!

For the next little while I am going to play with fabrics and see if I can transform my chaise lounge into a tarted up pretty.  I am supposing there will be a few problem solving challenges along the way.

As my once summery little place fades into autumnal glory and you up there shine with the expectation of all the bright, happy colour that Spring brings, may I say thank you for your sweet visit today♥ It is a blue sky, sunny kinda day down here at the bottom of the world. I think I might enjoy a little Sunday afternoon hand stitching some sweet little hexies.

Sending each one of you lovelies a little, blue Hydrangea LOVE.

Until the next time.............

Linking this week to Kathy's, Slow Sunday Stitching.