Thursday, 29 January 2009

Another cute little visitor

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.

frog

He jumped out of my hands so dh (Paul) gently picked him up. A quick pic & back out into the night.

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Hair today, gone tomorrow.

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.

haircutjan2009

During.

haircutjan2009fin

After. Phew, we put on some music as I cut & there was none of the normal whinging I’ve come to expect.

Finishing off day.

Today I finished my chook ATC’s & my purple postcards.

chook

purple postcards2

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. :-)

Tuesday, 27 January 2009

A lovely surprise!!!

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. :-)))))

quiltcalendar

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……………………….

 

penguinblock

Today, cute!!!!

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Rowan’s ATC’s

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.

 

sewing2

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.

 

rowansatc2

The finished ATC!!!

Monday, 19 January 2009

My ‘new’ Sewing Room

 

I’ve moved sewing rooms from one room to another & I’m reorganising as I go.

door

Ah, the door to my favourite room!

dragonfly knocker

My cute door knocker.

 

work table

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.

 sewing table

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.

 

fabric wall 2

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.

 

kitchen

Being a bedsit I have a little kitchen & an ensuite, so I can stay here all day.

tea

The essentials!!!!

 

shelves

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.

 

thimbles

My thimble collection. A much better idea than my idea to collect antique sewing machines!!!!!

 

project shelves

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.

Our Visitor

 

blue tongue

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. :-)