Royal Wedding mantle

Well this has definitely been my most ambitious mantlepiece to date & definitely the most fun to do. I’m ‘really’ pleased with it because it’s cute & because it’s reawakened my love of miniatures.

I’m not quite sure when the street party idea popped into my head, but once it did I knew that’s what I had to do. Everything is done 1/12th scale & what I didn’t already have, I made.

Here it is the night before the wedding, bunting & lights in place.

The day of the wedding & it comes alive!!!!

 

Pinky sent me this cute little mug years ago, it usually lives in my miniature quilt shop. I must post pics of that one day.

& the beanie bear Royal couple. Something tells me ds will think they will make a nice addition to his beanie bear collection. I don’t think so. :-))))

The car is from dh’s collection & I picked the cute teapot in an op shop a few weeks ago. In fact that’s where the street party idea might have come from…….

Anzac Day

My Dad

Dad joined the army during WW2 when he was 16yo. They finally worked out he was too young, after he’d seen plenty of active service, & sent him home. On his 18th birthday he joined the Air Force (RAAF). This picture was taken in the 60’s when he was a Squadron Leader in the RAAF. He’s actually using a car phone, petty cool for the 60’s. Dad always marched on Anzac Day, had a few beers & played 2-up. He passed away in 1987.

Lest We Forget.

Pinky’s Gift

I really enjoyed making this little wallhanging for my friend ‘Pinky.’ We met online 14 years ago on a quilt list & just clicked, it was her off the wall sense of humour that grabbed me. :-) Pinky then started a new list where we can talk about anything, my kind of quilt list!!!! Pinky lives in the US so chances are we won’t actually meet, but we will continue to ‘have a laugh.’

Luckily, the conversation turned to favourite pies on our list recently, & Pinky mentioned a love of chocolate meringue pie so I included some & the sweet peas are April’s birthflower.

I asked Pinky for her fave colours & she said, anything, so I used all my current fave fabrics & colours. :-)

Easter/Eostre Mantle

Dd Emma gave us all lovely Easter goody bags, lots of ‘loverly’ chockie & my bag also had the beautiful red velvet rose in it. :-)

I think it will come in very handy for my next mantle.

An Unexpected Grand Day Out

Friday night I had a phone call from my friend Lynne, ‘Would I like to go to the Australian Quilt Convention in the city the next day?’ I knew the show was on but had ruled it out as too far away, ugh I hate agoraphobia!!!! Anyway Lynne wasn’t going until midday, which is far more doable than early morning for me, so I said I’d think about it. I woke up the next morning & thought bugger it, I’m going!!!!

I drove up to Lynne’s & her dh drove us into town & dropped us at the door. First up I couldn’t believe how gorgeous the building is.

I took lots of pics of the quilts & here are a few of my faves. I hope the owners don’t mind me sharing them.

I loved this quilt & took close-ups to see the detail.


What a work of art!!!

I guess our veggie patch triggered my appreciation of this lovely quilt.

As always I was drawn to the pictorial quilts. There were also some beautiful quilts with pictorial blocks but I couldn’t do them justice showing a tiny pic.

Of course Lynne & I also forced ourselves to look at all the quilt vendors. :-)))))

I’ve been drawn to the ‘Bliss’ range of fabrics. I’ve seen quite a few projects using them on other blogs & I really, really wanted some so I was on the look-out. I asked at a couple of likely stands but they’d sold-out, then I got lucky. A lovely 10 pack of fq’s & a jelly roll.

Plus this yummy little charm pack.

I also bought this beautiful book I’d seen online, & I managed to pick up a couple of Quilting Arts specials at bargain prices. All in all a great day.

Thanks Lynne :-)))

Goodies

The other day I was surfing around looking for something, I can’t even remember what, when I came across a cute idea for hanging necklaces. It was quite small & actually had the word ‘Necklaces’ cut out of wood. Way too much work so I needed to come up with something that would suit my needs & be quick & easy, so thinking cap on, & I came up with this.

A scrap of pine, painted, with lot’s of nails 1” apart.

I also decided to hang my earrings & bangles on it. I hung them all in colour order, to make life easy, (& because I’m anal, lol), with the earrings to match the necklace hanging above, & voila!!

In the words of Sooty ‘Easy peasy lemon squeezy!!!’

It also looks really pretty as an ‘art’ work. :-))

Op Shop Find

We’ve been checking out the local op shops so ds Rowan can look for records to add to his collection. Of course while I’m there I usually find a treasure. :-)

I nearly always find a book or 3 to add to my collection & quite often a pretty glass dish or bowl. We were just leaving the Salvos the other day when i spotted this.

Dh was suitably unimpressed, lol, but even he had to admit it was quite nice after I washed it. It was a bit dull but it turned out it was really dirty & after a gentle handwash it came to life.

I’d recently thought I’d like to start collecting knitting needles so I’d been keeping an eye out for some in the op shops. I hadn’t had much luck then a friend posted a gorgeous pic on her facebook page of her knitting needle collection all beautifully displayed in her antique (electric) jug collection. This spurred me on & I picked up a few needles. I mentioned my latest interest to Mum & she said she had some knitting needles a friend had given her & she’d send them down. WOW!!! look what arrived!!!!

This certainly kick starts my collection. Note the gorgeous bundle of tortoiseshell needles!!! Now I need to find some pretty containers to store them in. Maybe some fabric covered tins would be nice………….

I put the rubber bands on to sort them into colours but I won’t leave them on as they’d deteriorate & stick to the needles.

April Blocks finished

I love stitching the blocks for this project, it’s just lucky I have so many things on the go or I would have kept going & finished them all. :-)

You can check out all the others working on Tis the Season wall hanging here:
http://stitch-a-long.blogspot.com/

Veggie Patch Update

Everything is doing well in our veggie garden.

Carrots & onions,
 

silverbeet & beetroot,

  & cauliflowers.

A little hard to see the leeks,

 

& more caulies with a random tomato that came up in the front yard.

 
& my lovely polyanthus are doing well &

my first flower!!!

We planted broad beans, garlic & peas last week.

Colourful Friday - Hexagons

One of the many Kaffe Fassett hexagons I’ve hand pieced for my 50th birthday quilt. Ok so I turned 50 last July, I didn’t factor in moving interstate when I set my deadline. :-)

I’ve made quite a few.

I tried, unsuccessfully, to work out how many I‘ll need. They will have aqua triangles between them.

A Sashiko table centrepiece I designed & taught.

Stained glass hexagon I also designed & taught.
Christmas deckies, I designed & taught. I also made them for a Christmas swap. I also popped some in with my Christmas cards for Christmas 2009.   My first hexagon bag made with lovely Japanese fabrics.

The hexagon bag I made for Mum’s birthday last year.

I started another one a couple of years ago that I really must finish!!!

I made these so many years ago to be appliquéd to a double bed quilt that is sitting waiting to be finished……………….

The printed hexagons were to make a quilt for my doll house, you can tell how small they are by the size of the cotton reel. I gave up & I couldn’t find the few hexies I actually made.

 

The hexies I added to the Stitching Round the Block round robin I was in.

Well I ended up with far more hexagons that I’d expected!!!

If you’d like to see some incredible hexagons click here:

http://www.venusdehilo.com/2011/03/a-year-of-hexies/

Please check out the other ladies joining in for Colourful Friday here:

http://daisyquilts.blogspot.com/