Wordless Wednesday:

Wordless Wednesday: Love

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A Photo a Week: Comfort

This week Nancy at nancy merrill photography has asked for photos depicting comfort.  I had to think about this one a bit and then I remembered this photo I took about 20 odd years ago of my niece and nephew.  This is my attempts at the grunge look.  I used a very grainy paper before using a sepia tone to get the nostalgic look.

https://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2015/04/08/a-photo-a-week-challenge-comfort/

Thanks for visiting.

The Daily Post: Achievement

Good morning from a grey Hastings morning.  Apparently we are to have a rather hot day today.  Which is not really what I want as I have to quilt today.  The heat isn’t good for my sewing machine.

It is rather apt that I am quilting today for this challenge by The Daily Post.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_photo_challenge/achievement/

Just this week I posted this photo of an antique quilt that I have just finished – it took about 18 months to finish.

So I thought I would show some of my other achievements.

The top photo is a McKenna Ryan quilt which also took about a year to do – it was a block of the month but that took 9 months to get so I could be excused there.

This is a chalk board that I quilted with a special fabric.  My daughter is going to take it down to Wellington next year when she goes to university and moves in with her friends.

My daughter is absolutely nuts about cats.  So I made her bed cover with cats embroidered on it.  Ex-hubby took the kids away for a long weekend so I took advantage of the alone time and spent the whole weekend embroidering all the cats.  I had just brought my first major embroidery sewing machine by Husqvarna, along with the software.  It came with a lot of clip art so I just went through and found all the cats and worked on those.

Some more details.

Even Ruth could cuddle up to her cats with her pillow.

This is Ruth’s achievement.  I taught her to embroider with the machine as well so she made this cute little pillow.

She still uses this, about 7 years later and it is still in good condition, considering it is white.

The next project I did was this Holden cover for my son.  At the time he was crazy about Holden.  He was given a Holden jacket which he constantly wore.  I went to a car show and took photos of the Holden motives and then used my programme to change the photos into embroidery.

Some of the details.

He is so over this cover, but still uses it.

For those who don’t know what I am talking about – i.e. those outside of Australia and New Zealand, Holden is a classic car indigenous to Australia and New Zealand.  It is marketed as Vauxhill in England.  There is a fierce rivalry between Ford and Holden in the Super V8 car races – such as Bathurst.  No I am not a car fanatic but I do have a Holden raincoat myself – it is a really good coat, that is all.

Here is some details of another quilt I did for myself.

Now it will be an achievement for me to actually finish a quilt in a matter of weeks, and not months.

This is what I will be quilting today.  The kitchen table has been reserved and hopefully my children will be out all day and I can do it in peace. This was my first real pieced quilt so I am proud of this achievement, and that I worked on it diligently to get this far.

I will post a photo of the finished quilt.

http://esengasvoice.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://sustainabilitea.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/weekly-photo-challenge-achievement/

http://hopethehappyhugger.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/more-a-desire/

Victory is Mine!

Churchill’s Greatest Achievment

Thanks for visiting and I hope everyone achieves something good today.

Floral Friday: Roses, a Symbol of Love

Good evening from a warm Hastings evening.

Continuing on with my Valentine’s Day theme of roses but this time for another challenge by nancy merrill photography.  The look of love.  But this can also go under Floral Friday as well.

Nancy asks us to show us the look of love.  That I can’t do but then while I was doing my housework today I suddenly thought of a chapter in the book Jo’s Boys by Louisa May Alcott.  Demi is unsure how to approach his sweetheart Alice about her feelings for him.  His younger sister Josie helps him by giving him three roses – a rose bud, a half blown rose and then a full blown rose.  He writes a note asking her to chose what to wear so that he would know what her answer would be.

Roses are heavy in symbolism.  Especially when it comes to love.  I searched the Internet and found out a bit about the meaning of roses.

A single love in full bloom means I love you.

A half blown rose means timid love.

2 roses intertwined means an engagement.

1 rose is love at first sight.

2 roses means deeply in love

3 roses means I love you.

Colours give added depth to the meanings but that would take too long.

I couldn’t quite get the real meaning from the book but you get the meaning.

For those who haven’t read the book Alice then places all three roses on her breast above her heart – which in itself means that she accepts his offer.

So that is how one proposed in Victorian times……….

Check out Nancy’s challenge here

http://nadiamerrillphotography.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/a-photo-a-week-challenge-the-look-of-love/

and here are a couple of other Floral Friday posts.

Floral Friday: Valentines Day The Lotus

http://forestwoodfolkart.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/floral-friday-4/#comment-2729

http://nowathome.wordpress.com/2014/02/14/scadoxus-multiflorus-fireball-lily/

http://floralfridayfoto.blogspot.co.nz