Hexie 25 finished. Eddie's favourite.

Yesterday I sat with my husband Eddie in Kalamunda Hospital and finished the edging on Hexagon number 25.  He had been transferred to Kalamunda Palliative Care Hospital and Hospice earlier in the day from Royal Perth Hospital and was much happier to be in a place of quiet calm instead of the frenetic pace of a large public government hospital in the middle of a big city. Kalamunda is on the eastern edge of Perth suburbia, it is leafy and shady and surrounded by tall gum trees and the hospital is built around a quadrangle which has ferns, trees and a pond and fountain with gold fish........a lovely place to be. We could hear the sounds of Kookaburras and Magpies and Eddie could lie back and feel peaceful knowing that he is in a much better environment. His room is light and airy with an en-suite bathroom, the nurses are much more patient-friendly and he looks out onto the open garden area. Hopefully, if the doctors can do something about controlling his pain levels, he may be able to come home for a while, if not, then he couldn't be in a nicer place.

While he lay back and relaxed either on the bed or on a large comfortable chair, I stitched and when this hexie was completed, Eddie reckoned that it is definitely his favourite by a long way. I think it is the colours which are very light and Summery - whatever the reason, this one will always be special to me now.

The Princess Dress fits the Princess!

Today my step-son sent me this photo of his daughter Alyssa in her princess dress.  Considering that I guessed her length, it fits really well.  Now, if the two fairies fit this well, I shall be happy. I don't know what she was doing with her hands - flapping or clapping them probably!

Hexie 24 is finished.

My DH Eddie didn’t get a wink of sleep Saturday night because of uncontrolled 10/10 pain despite a morphine pump going into his stomach plus a load of oral pain-killers. Hopefully the radiation that he is scheduled to have today will work on the pain levels............fingers crossed.

In the meantime, he slept for over three hours yesterday while I sat next to him, stitching hexie 24. It wasn’t on my agenda to finish it but because I just sat and concentrated, here it is. I trialled lots of different coloured backing fabrics, thinking that lime green would be the best.........yuck! way too much lime green. After several trials and errors, I finished up (to my own surprise as much as anything) with pale sky blue. I’ve let a few of the beads and buttons go over the edge of the backing rather than stop short of the edge of the hexie leaving a bare bit along the seams.

 I'm not happy with the fold over the left hand side, I'll have to unpick that bit and re-do it. In the flesh, it is not noticible that it is crooked but in the photo it really shows up. Comes from sitting in a darkened room with the blind down, curtains drawn around DH's hospital bed and the door shut.
 

Finally - the Princess Dress is finished

With only six days to go before Christmas I finished the princess dress for Alyssa, who is six in January.  This has been a real chore in the end because I am spending every day, all day, at Royal Perth Hospital with my husband Eddie who is suffering from advanced cancer.  I have been going out to the sewing room sometime between 6 and 7 in the morning and sewing for an hour and a half, maybe two hours, and then going to the hospital where I do the hand-sewing.  This dress is the same pattern as the other two fairies, frankly I am sick to death of this pattern now.  Anyway, here is the Princess dress.......BTW, both sleeves are the same size, the way the dress is hanging on the hook makes one sleeve look bigger than the other........believe me, it isn't......

Hexie 23 - Lilacs

Here is hexie 23 which started off with the picture of the vase of Lilacs. I thought the Lilacs looked too flat so covered them in French knots using 3,2 and 1 twists but keeping the colours as close as possible to the original photo. At the moment I have a stiff neck and can't turn my head very far to the right as a legacy from keeping my head in one position while doing all the French knots.......duh!! I also thought it would be hard to find a suitable backing but this mustard yellow was perfect. It is not one of my favourites but I'm happy with it.

Hexie 22 - a Frosty Winter block

I enjoyed working on this hexie although I struggled when choosing a colour for the edging. turquoise and aqua were awful, mustard and cream killed it, red was just plain revolting so in the end I settled for this pink which matches the colour of the little girl's cheeks. I bought a bag of hundreds, maybe thousands of those snowflake sequins from China and never knew how to use them until now - they really went well with the frosty, icy theme of this block as they catch the light beautifully.  In the end, I am happy with the block, pink binding and all.

Two New Hexies - Numbers 20 and 21

Hexie number 20 is the Thanksgiving one with an old Thanksgiving postcard as the centrepiece. I enjoyed working on this one because of the colours - in Australia and England, we would call this my "Harvest Festival" hexie.

Hexie number 21 is a pretty, feminine Summery one which was also fun to do and very relaxing. At last I found a home for that huge sequined and beaded butterfly which seems to shimmer in gold and mauve.

Juliet's Lolly-pink Fairy Dress

Two down, one to go........this is the pink fairy dress that I've just finished for my granddaughter Juliet. I hope she didn't mean pastel baby pink because I went for the brightest pink that I could find. The wings are multi-coloured but contain the same bright pink and her tiara and wand are silver with pink plastic "jewels".  She is a 4 1/2 year old blond bombshell - she'll love it.

I took photos of the dress in two different lights because I was trying to catch the sparkle of those spots on the tule skirt which didn't happen. The dress has four skirts - a soft white tule skirt so the stiff net skirts don't scratch her legs, two stiff pink net skirts and a hot pink with sparkles skirt over the top.