I went out to look for some blue cotton last night & found this little person on my sewing room door. I brought him inside so Rowan could take a pic of him.
He jumped out of my hands so dh (Paul) gently picked him up. A quick pic & back out into the night.
Well the holidays are over, back to school, so the dreaded haircut is inevitable.
For the before, check out the photo of him making his ATC’s.
During.
After. Phew, we put on some music as I cut & there was none of the normal whinging I’ve come to expect.
Today I finished my chook ATC’s & my purple postcards.
Although I planned to start a journal quilt today it was just too hot to stay in my sewing room so I retreated inside & started piecing one of the 4, Dear Jane Marple blocks I cut out last week.
I’m working on 1, 2, Buckle My Shoe.
Tomorrow I will start on the journal quilt.
The theme is hot, very appropriate. :-)
I’ve been inspired ever since I saw Shnoodle’s blog last year. Shnoodle is a young lady in Washington who used a block-a-day calendar to literally make a block a day, every day last year.
I visited the blog again this year & suddenly decided that although I probably couldn’t produce a block a day, I’d love to have a calendar & perhaps make a block a week. Of course by the time I decided this it was mid January & my chances of finding said calendar were slim. I searched, bought a lovely quilt calendar with a quilt a month but no luck with the block a day.
Anyway, yes there is a point to my rambling. Today a parcel arrived from my #1 son Simon. He’d told me he’d bought me a Christmas pressie & that he’d post it when he got settled again, he’s been travelling around the UK. Now back in Canada he’d sent it. Can you guess what it was, YES a block a day calendar. Did I tell him I wanted one, no, this was totally out of the blue!!!!
Can you tell I’m excited. :-)))))
We’re all a bit flat here at the moment, our much planned & looked forward to move to Berwick (Melbourne) is on hold. This week is low as tomorrow should be ds#2’s first day in his new school, instead it’s back to the same old routine of busruns. I’d planned to frequent the local quilt shops, yes there are two in Berwick, there are none here. We would have been close to our dd Emma & to my dear friend Lynne.
So a surprise gift of something I really, really wanted has cheered me up. I’ve been throwing myself into lots of sewing as a distraction & it’s certainly helped but some days……………………….
Today, cute!!!!
Rowan loves to get mail & it doesn’t happen often, so he was quite envious when I started receiving ATC’s in the post. He asked if he could join in the swaps & kindly Mandy, our list Mum, agreed to set up a kid’s swap. Rowan signed up along with 2 young at heart ladies in our very friendly ATC group.
He did surprisingly well for his first time on a sewing machine, I guess he’s been watching. He wanted to use some of the fancy stitches so he tried them all out on a scrap of fabric & then choose the ones he liked best.
The finished ATC!!!
I’ve moved sewing rooms from one room to another & I’m reorganising as I go.
Ah, the door to my favourite room!
My cute door knocker.
The view as you walk in the room. I now have a work table, a sewing table & a cutting table. To the right is a lounge with two queen size quilts I’m working on.
This was Simon’s room, while he’s overseas I can use his TV, DVD etc.
Finally a designated sewing table, now I don’t have to lift my sewing machine & embellisher off & on the work table. I love the view from this window out over trees with hills in the distance. There is a tree in the neighbours garden & the birds that gather there to be fed are wonderful. Cockatoos, kookaburras, galahs, rainbow lorikeets & magpies to name a few. There is also a family of bush turkeys that live in the street & they come down to be fed too.
Most of my fabric collection, each plastic container contains different coloured fabrics.
The cutting table is waste high so I don’t have to bend. It’s a trestle table from IKEA.
Being a bedsit I have a little kitchen & an ensuite, so I can stay here all day.
The essentials!!!!
Buttons, cottons, my Quilting Arts collection & some fave books & magazines. I also have two 6’ x 3’ bookshelves in my old sewing room full of quilting/craft books & magazines.
My thimble collection. A much better idea than my idea to collect antique sewing machines!!!!!
I’m lining up projects in this set of shelves . Some are started, others I’m looking forward to getting stuck into. I have to keep squashing them closer to fit something else in that takes my fancy.
Rowan is off to camp his 2nd week back at school so I plan to shut myself in my sewing room & sew, sew, sew all day & probably half the night. I will miss him so it’s best to keep very busy.
I got a bit of a surprise when I found this cutie in the lounge room this morning. It scooted under the piano when I talked to it. We managed to get it out & put it back in garden. We’ve had a lot of blue tongues in the garden over the years & a few have come into visit. This one was only young with a beautiful bright blue tongue. Mind you, the box it’s in is 12 1/2” (32cm) long, so it’s quite big. I have to say ‘it’ as I have no idea how to tell the sex of a lizard. :-)
I have been busy this week, just not blogging. I made 3 of these flower ATC’s yesterday for Birthday Swaps.
I finished off my ‘The Seasons’ postcards & posted them off today.
My ‘Alice in Wonderland’ ATC.
I tried to represent as many elements as possible.
The white rabbit’s watch, the Cheshire cat, the Mad Hatter’s tea Party & the red hearts for the Queen of hearts.
I’ve made 2 prototypes for the purple postcard swap & I’m not happy with either. I’m halfway through my ‘chook’ ATC’s. They’re looking cute & I still have to make “my Favourite Movie’ ATC’s.
I’m not sure what year I started these blocks but luckily they were always meant to be a long term project. I’m glad that chat has turned to Dear Jane on the QDU list as I’m now very motivated to add some more blocks to the collection. After all, I was looking for something else to do, the ATC & postcard swaps plus the several dozen ufo’s & wip’s I have aren’t keeping me busy enough. ROFLOL.
When asked what I wanted for Christmas I said more time but I think an extra pair of hands would help too.
Now the ‘Dear Jane Marple’ was the brilliant suggestion of Vikki on QDU. Vikki is also working in 30’s prints & came up with the idea while watching a Miss Marple movie. I’m a big Agatha Christie fan & have always had a soft spot for Miss Marple, so from now on they are my Dear Jane Marple blocks. Thanks Vikki, for a great idea :-)
I keep my blocks in a display folder, the one with the plastic pages to keep then neat & clean. It’s also nice to flick through for motivation.
I think I’ll buy a set of these folders so I can put different colour blocks in each folder, then I might not end up with 200 blue blocks & 3 yellow, lol.
My blocks so far. I draft each pattern & all are handpieced.
I’m not necessarily going to do all the original Dear Jane blocks.
I’m adding blocks I like & drafting them to size.
A cute butterfly I pieced years ago, I may incorporate it into the finished quilt.
These are my very first ATC’s. I made them in a workshop taught by Patricia (Pokey) Bolton from Quilting Arts magazine. That was a real thrill. She is a lovely lady, very friendly & down to earth.
Here are the ATC’s from swaps I’ve been in with the Oz Scquilter’s ATC group.
Hearts! You would never have guessed :-)
Mine is bottom left.
The two similar cards are mine.
I’d assumed it was a 6 swap but was only a five so I had an extra.
Christmas Trees, mine is bottom middle,
the wonky one with the red Cardinal.
Christmas Crazy Patch. Mine has the waving teddy.
I posted off my Alice in Wonderland ATC’s, I won’t put a pic in case one of my swappers is a visitor.
I’ve nearly finished my Four Seasons postcards, then I have to make purple postcards & I’ve designed my fave movie ATC’s.
These little cards are very addictive & lots of fun.
My lovely Simon, who is currently in the UK, but headed back to Canada soon. He’s been living in Ottawa since last January.
My sweety Emma on the left with her friend Lisa.
This was taken 20 years ago!!!!
I will scan in her Year 12 formal photos, the last I have as she is camera shy!!!
Rowan at his Year 6 Farewell Dinner Disco in December.
Wow, what a swish night, they didn’t do
anything like this when I was at school.
Oh dear! I sound like my mother, back in the old days………………….
When I first walked in I thought they were hosting the Logies!!!
It was brilliant, the kids came through the arch of balloons on the red carpet with their best friends to be presented.
The tower of cakes!!!!
The theme of the evening was ‘The Stars of 2008.’
Last day of Year 6.
My baby starts High School this year!!
Another passion!!!! We’ve had 8 but are now down to just 2,
as old age has caught up with them.
Tabitha (left) & Basil . Aunty & nephew.
Our dear Tom, we lost him to cancer.
He was always on hand to help with my sewing.
The girls, Sybil & Tabitha, with their dinner guest.
He/she comes nearly every night to share their dinner.
We are often tempted to get a kitten or puppy but I don’t think the girls would be impressed. They are 15 & 16 now, aunty & niece.
I’m a bit of a bag lady. I like to make them & to buy them, so I thought I’d add some pics of a few I’ve made.
This is a bag I made for Rowan’s friend Becca. It was one of the quickest bags I’ve ever made.
The pattern is on one of the Quilting Arts DVD’s.
One way to use some of my many Japanese fabrics.
I’ve made another set of hexagons of Harry Potter fabric that I need to actually make into a bag.
I made this bag for a friend.
It has a pre-printed stitchery panel set into it.
I had to have a purple bag!!!
This is a bag I made for magazine a couple of years ago.
I did a lot of outline quilting on it which I enjoyed doing.
Here’s Sybil giving it the sleep test, it passed.
