Challenge Update

No pictures today, sorry.
I have been busy this past week, or is it two weeks, cleaning up the study so I could get to the machine in order to start my quilting. I have also been out and about far too much and doing some part time work. All this with the usual trying to keep the house clean, the troops fed and clothed and educated. There just are some times when you wish even harder for those house fairies to visit, and I don't mean those naughty house fairies that cover the floors with toys, clothes, food, and spills either - I don't particuarly like those fairies! Or is it faeries? I know some people spell it with an 'e'.

I have pulled 'Happy Days' from the machine and am seriously contemplating unpicking all the quilting I have done so far, which is about half the quilt. This is sitting aside while I consider.

Saturday I basted the bright purple butterfly quilt and yesterday I started to quilt it, in the ditch with a purple varigated thread. This is going well and as it is a small quilt I am hoping to be finished soon. Then I will get to work on Cinnamon Pie, a flannel quilt.
I have decided to add my 'Strawberry Lemonade' quilt to the list as it has been almost finished for quite some time now but I have only stitched about an inch's worth of binding on! It NEEDS to be finished.

This morning I finished the christmas tree ornament that I made for Christine of Auntie's Quaint Quilts in Sarah's ornament swap. I will get this posted off to you this week Christine so you should have it by next week.
oh, and Fiona, I found your parcel here under some things, this will also get posted this week. Sorry for the delay, things tend to get buried pretty quickly here as I am constantly putting things up out of reach from little fingers.

Now that I have few plans for travelling about I will be posting more often again.
Hubby is late home today and it is getting dark, I had better head off and bring the cow in to milk and get the fire going, and dinner started.....best go round up my 'fairies in training' *grin*
Bec

A Very Busy Week

I should actually say WEEKS. We have been out much much more than usual. Last week some homeschoolers came across from Narrabri, Gunnedah and WeeWaa to visit the Fish Hatchery, a dairy and a park here. It was a fabulous day and I was so thrilled that they travelled all this way to spend the day in our town. The children had a fabulous time. We even had some dads come along which was great, *grin* the only two dads that were missing actually work for the same company!

This picture was taken at the dairy with most of the children that were there that day, and the dairy farmer. He did a great job of showing us about and answering what seemed like millions of questions. He even arranged some flavoured milk 'samples' for us to try from the local milkman, and I am sure he enjoyed his double layer chocolate cake that took as a thankyou.

This was at the hatchery with the President of the Fishing Club. He also did a wonderful job of taking us around and answering just as many questions as the dairy farmer. I got distracted here and totally forgot to get a group shot. We saw some cod fish in a dam, they were MASSIVE - 30 pounds he said!

Honeysuckle Cottage

Finally it worked! Yetserday for some reason I was unable to upload pictures.

On Monday I went to Kim's at Honeysuckle Cottage. dh was home and had the children all day. Twice in less than a week I have been to two patchwork/quilting shops and usually it is 6months to years between visits - so I am very lucky to be able to do so much 'real' browsing.


I think all these fabrics on this wall are flannels, if not then just about all of them are.

Isn't this guy goregous! I bought a roll of the fat 1/16s in the basket behind him. I saw these fabrics on Gail Pans site a while ago. She was making a wallhanging with them and I just LOVED them, so you can imagine how pleased I was to find them!

I also got some bits and pieces to finish off some projects.

I wanted to take a picture of Kim and I together but forgot too. Next time.

Georgia's Quilt

Tonight I pieced a fair portion of 'Georgia's Quilt' in the pastels that I posted on here a while back when I cut them out. Iseem to be in a piecing frenzy!

I have extra fabric to make the two matching pillowcases in the pattern as well.

Sassy Sixteen Ginger Blossom

Today I finished piecing Sassy Sixteen in Ginger Blossom. I only had to sew on one row then the border. I added the bright pink border as I thought it needed it. The quilt is much larger than I expected!

Cottage on the Hill

Guess where I went today; yup to Kerry's at Cottage on the Hill. with my five children. The two older children were busy telling Kerry and Judy about their own sewing adventures. Then they played with lego, drew/coloured in at the table and had a run outside. All in all pretty good behaviour for a two visit.

I had a wonderful time browsing about looking at fabrics and quilts. It's great to see so many hanging and sitting around to look at. I bought a few bits and pieces to finish things off and to help (basting pins). pictured below - with many thanks to Kerry for telling me how to move my pictures about! - is a kit to make 'Sweet Janice' in flannels. mmmm nothing better than to snuggle with a flannel quilt in the cooler weather.

Of course after seeing sooo many bloggers taking their picture with Kerry I had to get one taken too. My first appearance in blog land. and naturally my hair needed brushing - it is always messy not matter what I do with it

then we went to the Woolen Mill in Nundle to get some more 'yukky wool' for my mum. *grin* She was trying to describe the colour to me last night on the phone and the word yucky kept entering e conversation. It's not really yukky, if I got the right wool that is, like a mid tan type colour???? She is a croqueter and does a brilliant job too.

I bought some sock wool and needles, the pattern was free.

The children picked a ball of wool each, not sure what they will do with it yet. They also really wanted the knitting book and I thought it might provide good incentive to keep at learning to knit. One ball of wool for each child; can you guess which ball belongs to the 17month old????

Sheep Quilt

I have put this quilt top together in the last few days; hehehe when I asked dd6.5yrs to stop using the sewing machine for a bit! This is a sheep quit that I am making for ds-almost3yrs. I can't do the sheep appliques yet as I have run out of vliesofix. Lovely bright cheery fabrics!

My cutting and piecing isn't the best now that I have looked more carefully at it - does this worry any of you? Do you take lots of care to get it perfect or do you jest 'get it together'? I try to take care but it doesn't always look it.

My mum told me yesterday that there will be a patchwork class run about 40min drive from me soon. I am interested in joining the class. Need to polish up some skills. I attended patchwork classes 6 years ago, and then only managed to attend 6/8 due to use moving. I have had a few years offsewing in that time so could do with some guidence.

I also needing some guidence with needleturn. Boy am I making a mess of that.

Recent Stitching Adventures

I have finally cut all my Ginger Blossom FQs and have them mostly stitched together. I am making 'Sassy Sixteen' quilt pattern with them. Normally I try to have some some of pattern or arrangement in my fabrics/quilts but this time I could not be bothered with the worry of sorting them all out and rearranging; I just wanted to get stitching! So dd 5 yrs put them into a random pile (with some of my help so I didn't end up four fabrics all together!) so I cold get stitching. I'm a little nervous awaiting the final result of my scrappy look quilt, but excited too!

I also cut out the Sheep Quilt for ds-almost3yrs. lovely colours in this one. Kookaburra Cottage. dd6.5yrs sorted out the squares last night so I was able to stitch together the first stage of the nine patches. I will press these this morning and hopefully finish putting this quitl together today, apart from the applique. I am making the quilt a bit bigger, by one set of ninepatches wider and taller (terminology???). I would like it to be a bit bigger again but have no more of the wheat pinstripe left.

Late last week I worked on my christmas ornament for Christine of Aunties Quaint Quilts http://auntiesquaintquilts.blogspot.com/ . This is an ornament swap that was on Sarah's blog http://sarahsprimtreasures.blogspot.com/ . I have most of it done, but need some help with a final stage. I hope Christine likes it; this is my first swap.

Can anyone tell me how to post hidden? links instead of keying out the whole web address???

I am still halfway through quilting 'Happy Days' in Fresh Cut fabrics. procrastinating a bit here; mostly due to not feeling like I am doing the quilt justice with my quilting. So rather than rush through and be unhappy forever I am leaving it until the deisre to quilt it comes; I am expecting to be at it again in the next week.

Bec xxx

Quilt Show

On the weekend I went to my first quilt show. It was only a small but great to see all the quilts - mostly large! - and different ideas.

The first quilt in the pictures was made by the craft guild and is their raffle quilt, stunning colours. dh really liked the tumbling blocks quilt but didn't like the yellow in it.

The Noahs Ark quilt was made by a boy (his mum is a quilter) and has been featured in Australian Homespun; sorry I didn't take notice of which issue. Not sure of his age, maybe about 12???

The cream quilt with the big star is an Amish quilt that was bought in the US by a local. As expected stunning handquilting on this one....

In fact ALL the applique was outstanding - I need some help with my needleturn, it's atrocious!

In the corner of one picutre is a shaggy quilt; this is what I made my mum for her birthday and forgot to label it and take a final picture - that's how late it was getting to her! I will remedy this one visit.

Sorry about the quality of the photos; silly silly me didn't check the camera and it was on action setting......

oh dear, will have to put some of these pictures in another post. :-) Bec xxx

PS i just saw chookyblues blog and she went to a quilt show too, a much bigger one. Lovely photos chookyblue!

New sewing area

I have been arranging a room in our old house for some stitching as I have been feeling rather hemmed in and too messy in our study. Basically not enough room for all my bits and pieces! We designed the study for the office on one side and sewing on the other side. A wonderful set up; just not for quilting. It was designed this way for sewing not quilting. The bench is too narrow and low for cutting; and it builds mountains with projects that I am working on which leads to procrastination because I don't want to sort through the mess!

Our old house has a limited life span (it will be ocming down in the next few months so we can continue building our new house) but I have decided to make better use of it while we have it. I have nabbed two old desks; one for sewing and one for cutting. DH put some bricks under the cutting one so it is a MUCH better height for cutting at. I am stoked. These are a GREAT size. I had to put the old computer in here so dh could practice his typing while I sew/cut - the programme doesn't run on our newer computer. Having the computer here will also keep the children busy too....

This room, was part of a bedroom. The space is approx 3m x 3m. That is my old machine set up here; new one is in the study, but I don't think I will be using it much now. dd.5yrs has been helping me to arrange fabrics for quilts and wanted to use the machine yesterday. Well she had her first go last night and now I can't get her off it! She is sewing some srcaps together to make a dolls quilt, doing really well. Too grown up! I am just as excited as she is, with her new found skills and passion!

Bec xxx

Little Alec's Farm

Yes I changed the name! I like to add/change things I make to personalise them where appropriate. I am doing Little Macca's Farm by BOM. After hand appliquing the sheep I tried my hand at machine applique. I am sold! much faster and neater than my handwork. I still enjoy handstitching; just not through the vliesofix so much.

I have another three blocks that I am in the process of piecing/appliquing. The large sentre block isn't completely appliqued yet; I do a bit at a time depending on which colour thread is in the machine. Slowly getting there. The letters take a bit of fiddling to do. Little Macca's Farm is by Kookaburra Cottage, they have some great patterns.

Recently I came across Amy Bradley Designs. http://amybradleydesigns.com/ She has some cool looking dog and cat quilts. her dog quilt was originally intended for her husbands vet clinc but has only spent about a week there out of 4 years!

I am always on the look out for appropriate boy quilts and things; having three boys. Girls things are easy to find so my two will most likely end up inundated with heaps!

I will have some more bits to show tomorrow, off to get the rice custard from the oven....mmmmmm

Bec xxx