More books

This time from the local library. Material Obsession 1,2 by Kathy Doughty and Sarah Fielke and Making Quilts the promise of joy by Kathy Doughty. I just happened to stumble upon one of these whist returning some books and with a little more investigating borrowed all three. I really like the way that for each quilt they have explained the fabric choices and how they contrast with each other, it means that anyone could apply their own fabric taste and using the guidelines keep the contrast in the pattern. The quilts are all bright, busy and fun, with lots of large scale prints, stripes and spots, I'm not sure I could be that bold with my colour choices but it might be fun to try!

This is one of my favourites Optical Illusion- Kaffe Fanfare from Making Quilts. I love the way a traditional pattern has been given such zing with modern fabrics. Might have to try this one even though foundation piecing isn't my favourite thing to do.

These Dresdens are given a big WOW factor with bold colour choices, again I'm not sure I could be this bold, but what a lively quilt. First off to finish the quilt on the quilting frame, then maybe I can look at one of these!

School Holidays

Are over in the blink of an eye and everyone is back to school, we were blown through the holidays with huge winds, heaps of rain and cold temps, just right for our trip to the beach! Out of the 4 days we were away we made it to the beach three times and each time had to make a run for the car when rain squalls came through. We only managed 1 sand castle and that was on the last day! However we did pretty well considering we had 12 kids and 3 adults in one house for 3 of our 4 days. The kids got on well and spent their time between a very old xbox, singstar, playing pool and a very odd card game where they had to stick out their tongue. The weather was that bad I didn't even get a photo! Of course once we were home the weather improved, so we have been out getting the veggies in ready for summer.

Here's Lewis and the girls helping!

Quilts 1700 - 1945

No I'm not lucky enough to make it to Brisbane for the show but I am lucky enough to have a lovely friend, Brenda who did get to Brisbane and lent me her book to have a drool over.

This simple hexie quilt was the one that caught my attention, created by the girl guides in Changi prison for their guide leader it was made from scraps in secret.

Most of the other quilts are much older than this but I think that's why this tugged at the heart, these girls were only 8 to 16 years of age at the time and they would now be about 10 years older than my Mum which somehow made it more real. The Rajah quilt is there too, which I would love to see, amazing to think it was sewn in the bottom of a ship.

The other quilt that stood out for me was the  George the 3rd coverlet and it's pieced circles and round applique panel, made in 1803-1805.

It was very interesting with lots of the quilt's histories were known even a very utilitarian quilt which was made from offcuts from the pajama factory! If you're lucky enough to be in Brisbane it's a must see.

Friday 13th

And blogger wouldn't let me post, 2 days later and I've managed to get it to work through firefox, but I'm not superstitious which is just as well as the weatherman (husband) flew home from Tassie on Friday here's a pic of his ticket

Yep it's Friday 13th in seat 13A boarding at 13:05, needless to say he made it home safe and sound. When they booked his ticket they asked if he minded traveling on Friday 13th.
On to crafty things my spring stitchery in the celebrate swap arrived from Wendy and once again she has outdone herself, she does the most amazingly fine and even stitches I'm thinking I may need some granny glasses to improve mine!

With three fat quarters from the new Lynette Anderson range in pretty mauve and grey to match, now what to make up with it?
I have posted mine off with a small hiccup, I lost it....and found it again, when I was about half way through stitching a new one, greatly relieved I quickly packaged it up and sent it off and forgot to take a photo again!!!! But I did get a photo of my new quilt, I'm almost up to quilting, which I'll have to do without the quilting frame as it's not square, on purpose of course!

I guess you'd call it a stretched octagon, I think the quilting will be rather plain as it's a fairly busy pattern.
Happy stitching.

Party Time!

Lewis' first birthday party on the weekend and boy did he have fun, lots of friends and presents to open and cake, he does love cake!

Talking of cake here is the 10 minute masterpiece, well I should say 20 minute, 10 minutes on pinterest and 10 minutes decorating. I loooove pinterest!

I have been doing some sewing too. I forgot to take a photo of Wendy's birthday gift for Mrs Martins Let's Celebrate swap, but you can pop over to Wendy's where she has kindly put some photos on her blog.

More Birthdays

To say the least we are over endowed with birthdays at this time of the year since we've been back from holidays (has it been 4 weeks already!!!) we have had Tulley's 4th birthday

At the Diamond Valley Miniature Railway, a fantastic place for kids of all ages! All the Dads and Grandpa's got a tour of the sheds and works yard. Then over the weekend we have had Jordan's 17th and my Mum's birthday, after looking madly through all of my photos I have realised all the photos of the cakes we made are on Meg's phone so they will have to follow later. Then next week is Lewis' first birthday!!! Yes where has that year gone!
We had a lovely meal out for Jordan and Mum's combined birthdays and so this morning I felt compelled by too much cake, to take Rosie out for a run walk, the sun was shining, the only time this week, and we had an accompaniment of kookaburras and even a cow mooing at us as we passed.

The wild flowers are out and they may not be as flashy as Western Australian wildflowers but they are very dainty and add a splash of colour

prickly moses this is a small rather prickly wattle that the blue wrens like to hop around in

white heath, Rosie got bored waiting for me to take photos and wandered through the background

and pink heath, yes it really is quite a startling pink. Must get back to some stitching I have the next swap to post off tomorrow.

Stormy Night

I did get a bit of sewing done on my Friday night with friends. We had a windy stormy night but in between waiting for the power to come back  on I did some quilting, then some binding and indulged in some rhubarb sponge, while watching the Hawks win. Couldn't get much better than that!

I can't show too much as this is off to NZ on Monday for Wendy but I did try using masking tape to mark some straight quilting lines, it worked well and didn't leave any residue, however I did use a good brand of painters masking tape and I removed it fairly quickly. This probably wouldn't work for my bigger projects because I tend to procrastinate once I get to the quilting stage and it might not come off so easily after a year or two!

Today was bright and sunny, such a change from last night, so I got outside in the garden to start to reconfigure my veggie garden before spring. I moved the rhubarb and a grapevine so I can realign the fence and put an extra gate in, this will make the access so much easier and I'll be able to get the wheel barrow in there too. Hopefully there will be nice weather tomorrow and I can restrain the fence and hang the gate. I also had a wander around and took a few photos of some of the bulbs.

Hope your Friday night was as good as mine.