Blogger OUT!!

Im hopeless at updating this thing so I have decided to use facebook much more intensively to stay close to friends and family.
My facebook name is Cherie Naera.
I will keep this open just in case i change my mind. In the meantime, look me up on face book.
Happy new year!!
Love Cherry

The garlic harvest

Yes i am still here...just extremely busy. Girls are in Christmas show with Hastings operatic, schools are closing down for summer, vege garden is resembling day of the triffids...busy, busy, busy!!!!!
Enjoy my garlic harvest...Im a bit smug actually i didnt think Id planted all that many!

Christmas at moi house..

As each passing days goes by I sneak more and more of my Christmas decorations out!!!! Some are very new such as the tilda angel and Santa Claus in the top picture.And the Cherry Menlove Christmas stocking swag. ut then there are old favourites like the next two.
My husband keeps giving me dissaproving stares but he knows better than  to say something.!!!
 I am in the middle of a million log cabin scrappy squares right now, I am on a trip to sew all my scraps into quilts. I have been on Bonnie hunters site (she is a quilter who loves scraps). So much choice. My favourite on her site is sisiters choice, but i have already used that pattern with my last venture into "using up all my stash" I hope i get further this time!!! Theres NO room in our closet!!!(More dissaproving stares from my hubby!!)
Short and sweet, much to do, days are long and hot at the moment, kids are in the pool every night  summer is here!!!!

A little bit of this a little bit of that

Ive always said that crafting is a meditation for me. I feel that it really keeps the woves from thedoor so to speak. And so with recent ill health and Docotrs help i have been crafting like crazy. Obviously the magic time of Christmas is closing in and my Christmas spirit is raising to the fore. This is one of two Christmas puddings made. I actually bought a pudding bowl with a lid which is such a pleasant change from my normal ill wrapped abstract sided thing that i usually come out with each Christmas after wrapping in calico and boiling. Last night we ate the second one of these as I hadnt tried the recipe that came with thw bowl . It was nice, sure but i will be tweeking some changes before the next one...and yes i did say the next one. I love making these. The GHIU (gorgeous hubby in uniform loves his Christmas puddings)

 This is a origami with fabric tree. I made up all the little pieces at work but just couldnt understand how it could work out...it did!! It was my second Christmas decoration to go up..

 This was my first. An advent calender from Spotlight which really is totally unlike the sort of thing i normally buy BUT it was at the time that i really needed to sew (My meditation) It has been filled with candy canes in which only a few have disappeared!

Upcoming projects include a Santa and Angel doll doll I am making (Not without much difficulty) by designer Tone Finnanger...gorgeous gorgeous desighner Ive just ordered her Christmas book....

A scrappy log cabin quilt. I have to say IM LOVING this I just cut a million 11/2 " strips and sew them on to the centre piece cutting off the ends to fit as I go. SO easy and So relaxing.

Ive also finished a the Christmas present quilt I made for my brother. Ill post pics soon.

Weather is SO HOT. GHIU just yesterday filled up the pool and the girls have been swimming in it since. Georgia has rather an important audition this afternoon...Im hoping she doesnt cough her way through it..that water was freezing.

Talking of the girls they have just finished the Wizard of Oz production and are onto the Christmas Production at the Hastings Operatic Theatre next.. Ilove that we are back in the world of theatre!!

The vege garden has gone wild. Warm temperatures and a lot of rain has made the garden go bananas.!

Happy temperatures to yo wherever you may be

Love Cherry

A post at last...

This will just be a short post. Its been ages since I last posted but I have been in the midst of a major attack of OCD. I seriously didnt think I could get better this time and thought I would never be able to post again on here. ut time... and little yellow pills and three weeks of work and.. here I am again. One thing I do when i do get sick and am recovering (even though it feels like Im not recovering) is to craft. Its my rehailitation and my meditation, Its the feel goof factor I need if only to feel good about one thing in my life at the time. And so i present to you some of the crafts(there. First up is the Advent calender (we will now have FOUR) that i bought as a panel From Spotlight. A lot of the quilting on this i did in  my lunch hour at work. HONESTLY stitching in the breaks was the ONLY thing that keep me from major panic attacks at work.. Here is a close up below. I was happy to find candy canes had arrived at our brand new Warehouse store (Its HUGE!!) and so I could fill up the pockets. two in each for each of my girls..some have mysteriously dissappeared..

Scrapbooking has been HARD Oh so hard since Mum passed away and then a few weeks later it HIT me..but over the course of four days I managed to complete a kit I had purchase from Hastings Ruber stamps. I still find it heartbreaking to scrap Mum and Dad But I think Im slowly getting my mojo scrapbooking love back...slowly...

Arnt they gorgeous. I miss them SO much..

 And now here is a quilted origami Christmas tree. As I made this up I could not believe it was going to actually work out. To my utter amazement it did. Hurray...Im not doing another in a hurry tho..

Im also making a Kiwiana quilt for my brother for Christmas. It is completely handsewn. I took it to work as well for the brak times and it too got me through. Im at the quiltingstage and Im enjoying using a larger needle than the betweens and using a heavy thread. Its quilting up so much easier than normal.

So that is all for now. We are currently in the last week of the school term. Two weeks off.

Georgia and Alex are both in the operatic thatres production of the Wizard of Oz in the holidays. Eight weeks of rehearsal is going very fast. Maybe because I had to open my BIG mouth and offer to sew costumes..i never learn..

e happy whereever you are and if you are not then do as I am doing and reread Loise hays excellant anniversary book

Love Cherry

Life in my winter farmyard

Vege garden No 1 and 2



Urkkk a sqelch skurge here..

And a sqelch skurge there..can you see my newly potted raspberry orange canes, some new compost in the tub and two lots of hidden doggy doo compost in the tyres..

No Ginge!!! Not by the little baby brassicas..Bad boy (our neighbour who is growing tulips has had to net then as they come up she said our cat is not always welcome!!!!)

Christmas: Head chook and proud of it

The girls enjoy the old brassicas I pulled out this morning

Sad chook who is three by now enjoys some reprieve from the mud and squalor

Aforementioned mud and squalor

The GHIU (Gorgeous hubby in uniform) answer to mud and squalor...le chateau du corrugated iron..

Impossible to contain the muddy back yard with giant golden paws galloping all over it..

So that is a quick foray around the "farm'. I enjoyed taking these photos today. I sat down with the chooks for ages taking photos and talking to them. Christmas left everyones company to brood a bit in the box but it was all a SCAM as I checked after and there wasnt a egg and she was there for a good twenty minutes. The last two days have been extrodinary with five eggs each day. As most of the chooks are now over two, one or two in moult, feeling the cold etc etc we have been well down, so ten eggs in two days is fantastic. here comes some more bacon and egg pie methinks! The farm is just so muddy and sqelchy and gumboot only territory. I look at it this time of the year and despair a bit but then i think of all the things that await in the next few months. Im not sure if we will see this summer here as we are hot on the trail for a property and have decided that if we have to go up country then we will down grade the car to a cheap 1.5 or so and learn to live within our petrol means. The GHIU has a company car as he can have callouts and odd things and so it will be running only one car.
Last weekend I thought Id found the property. it was 2 acres on a napier road, and had pig pens (On concrete) 1/4 acre of not bothered about asparagus, two pet ducks(who lay), a pet goat(Not a nanny unfortunately) , a huge chook area and shed, and enough room for this bloke to bring on some calves each season. GHIU would not even comprimise as it was on a very busy road (The main Napier/taupo road at the begiining and the traffic and trucks would drive him mad) I thought we could comprimise for now as it was AFFORDABLE...but no. He promised me that he knows there is the perfect property for us and I have to trust him as he has uncanny and excellant esp skills..or what i call his woo woo abilities.
So while we are here I am thinking of the potato plots i have been working on, the strawberries i have just planted out the front, the lettuce garden I will plant out in the wine barrel full of delicious compost and also some more fencing to protect this all from the marauding chooks when i free range the,. Despite my elaborate fencing system they still managed to get into the vege garden the other day. Hokey is the worst. She is one of our young ones and she stalks the fence lines forever looking for a place to make her escape..including into the neighbours. Her "sisiter" Pokey is the sweetest little thing in comparison. Hokey will be a future leader I think if she ever gets the chance to stage a rebellion, shes just that type!