Miss Jessie celebrated her 7th birthday in style with her three very best friends last Sunday. This year she had a baking party ... for four hours they measured, weighed, stirred, rolled, baked & giggled while preparing all of the food for the party!

It was a great party theme and they really enjoyed the novelty of baking then eating all of the yummy treats. I made each of the kids apron to keep from the gorgeous cup cake fabric I showed last post. We also put together a little bag of baking tools as favours and they each took home some samples of the treats they made.

I will put together a tutorial & pattern for this apron once the new tree quilt is finished ... for those of you who are interested.


Happy Birthday yet again my dear sweet Jessie!
It has been an eventful couple of weeks which sort of explains my absence ...
My very first workshop came and went and I enjoyed every minute of it ... mind you I couldn't have chosen a better place or group of women to begin this whole teaching adventure with! The day before the first class I designed a new pillow .... Love Grows Free ...

I intended it to be a gift for the students in the class ... but as I was putting it together it dawned upon me that it would be an excellent project to use for practicing raw edge applique & the free motion stitching detail that I use in most of my designs ... so that's what we did on the first day. On the second day the some girls came prepared to get stuck into their Sweet Little Garden pillow ... and others decided to further perfect their newly found skills finishing off their practice project ...


These hands and this project belong to Christine who is now the proud owner of a Bernina 440 from Kates Sewing Centre. Enjoy your holiday Christine!


Debbie put together a lovely version of the practice project on the first day and then wrestled with her sewing machine that went a little feral on the second day ... I hope you have tamed that savage beast Debbie and enjoy your weekend of sewing bliss!!!

Esther focused on the practice project and was sewing up a storm without her stitch regulator in no time! Don't forget to wear your gloves Esther!!!

Kirsty picked it all up quickly ... and managed to even make a start on her Sweet Little Garden pillow!

Jane, a lover of all things blue, also picked up the technique quickly and managed to work on both projects ... don't the blue and green look a treat!!

Last but not least was Anita ... who is also in the middle of putting together Rainbow Lollipops ... make sure you take a peek it is looking fabulous!
Thank you guys for making this new experience a good one! I was lovely getting to know you all! You can see some more photos of the classes here. Next Saturday I'm off to Ballarat Patchwork for a one day class .... brace yourselves girls I intend to work you hard!

Tomorrow (correction today ... it was tomorrow when I started writing this!!) I am spending the afternoon at the North of the Yarra Quilters Guild meeting ... well to be more accurate I am going to be their guest speaker .... I am not quite sure what I am going to be talking about just yet but I'm sure I will think of something. Gorgeous blogless Debbie (featured on the guilds home page) who roped me into this suggested that I should tell a few funny stories ... my husband thought that I should tell that one about the Rabbi, the Catholic Priest & the Buddhist Monk .... but I don't reckon that's quite what Debbie had in mind! If you are a local and would like to come along I would love to see you there! The group gathers from 10am and the meeting starts at around 1pm. I will be talking from around 1.30pm until about 1.35pm ... no only kidding!
A month ago Marie form Moon Daisy emailed me a picture of her version of the Flower Garden pillow... isn't it lovely?!!!

... I feel embarrassed that it has taken me this long to share it with you all ... it has made me realise, though, that I really need to bite the bullet and start up a Don't Look Now Flickr Group ...this will be my job for next week ....
But until then you really need to take a look at Quilts & Threads ... Marie has managed to finish Meg's Garden ... already!!! It looks fantastic Marie ... thank you so much for sharing!
Last week my new edition of Homespun arrived in my letter box ....

Love Birds has managed to find it's way onto the cover!

... and I even have a Melly and Me moment with a half page Patchwork Angel ad featuring my patterns!

Penny still has a collection of my things on show in her Sunshine Coast store if you are holidaying in the sun and are hankering for a bit of fabric shopping!
You may remember me mentioning the Silver Thimble when they began stocking my patterns ... a couple of weeks ago they had a Stitch the Don't Look Now way afternoon .... I wish I could have been there, looks like it wood have been a lot of fun!

I have had several more retailers start stocking my patterns over the past couple of weeks ...
Cow Paddocks is another Queensland store that sounds quite amazing ... it is owned by Julie Latcham. The shop is located on their Beef Cattle property off the Warrego Highway. She runs classes & has a coffee shop on site! She also offers a roaming service to those truly rural women. Julie specialises in mail orders!

Blueberries is located in Wyong on the New South Wales coast they now have a little Don't look Now on their shelves! After lurking around their site for a bit I am convinced that they have a very beautiful looking shop ... which I am going to get to visit next year because I am going to be holding some weekend workshops there!!!! YAY!!!! The dates are still to be confirmed but if you would like to come along please give Jackie a ring or send her an email to let her know you are interested.

Patchwork House in Hawthorn have new stock of all of my patterns too if you live locally ... they are also stocking Lite Steam-A-Seam 2 if you are searching for it.

... there are some more to list ... but I will wait until next week to mention them as the patterns have a long journey ahead of them before they reach their final destination.
I am offering a free copy of How Does Your Garden Grow to the first person who contacts me after buying one of my patterns from any of these three stores ... you will need proof of purchase.

Last but not least the winners from my last posts giveaway ...
First up we have the lovely Linda form All Stitched Up who left the 17th comment ... I love stopping by and seeing the lovely things that Linda is dabbling in!
Blogless Carrie L who left the 31st comment ...
Blogless Anne who left the 70th comment ...
Kim from All things Mum who left the 74th comment ... have fun at the show next week I wish I could be there!!!
Blogless Louise who left the 106th comment ....
Blogless Beate Teale who left the 185th comment ...
Peta from Milly Molly Mandy Loves to Quilt who left the 193rd comment ... gorgeous banner Peta!
Congrats guys I will send each of you a How Does Your Garden Grow pattern next week.

There will will be 8 patterns up for grabs this post! This giveaway runs until I publish my next post. Just in case you are new here and haven't a clue about this giveaway ... you can find the details here ...
Thanks for hanging in if you managed to make it all the way through this post ... which I had the pleasure of writing TWICE ... thanks to our crappy wireless router!!!
Enjoy your weekend guys!
Kellie