All I Needed Was A Deadline

It's been so long since I put up a post. Unfortunately I have not been whisked away to some romantic tropical island by Mr Stitch to lead a life of leisure. The sad truth is I just got out of the habit of sewing. 

 

I have hardly sewn a stitch due to a  series of events in my life the last few months. So much happening, so little time....just too tired, but mostly too many hours spent on the road. It seems sewing is a bit like exercise. You are either in the habit of doing it regularly or you're just not. Once out of the habit, it takes a special event to get me started again.

 

 I needed a deadline to get me back into the swing of things. So two weeks out from Christmas I decided I REALLY needed to get started on a stocking for my nephew's first visit from Santa. As they live far away, there was the chance it could get held up in all of the Christmas mail.

Here it is.

 

 

Fortunately it arrived in time.

 

Just a panel I quilted by machine, but a start.

 

Then three days out from Christmas I was still stuck for gift ideas for my boy's partners so I thought I would 'just whip something up'.  A jewellery roll seemed appropriate and I had made them before, so no time waisted trying to work out the pattern.

But you know what those days leading up to Christmas are like.

Amongst the business of cooking, cleaning, visiting relatives popping in, wrapping gifts, watering the garden in the 40 degree heat (that's 104 degrees Fahrenheit for those of you who measure on the other scale), I managed to complete one of the two jewellery rolls. The pressure was off slightly in that we won't see our eldest son's partner until the New Year. Have a few days grace on that one. It's stared, but not finished.

 

Evening of December 22rd, choose fabric and cut out pattern. It's hard to see in the photo, but the lining faric is a micro dot.

 

Afternoon, December 23rd, commence sewing.

 

At 11.39pm December 24th....item completed. So lovely to sit and sew again with Carols by Candlelight on the TV to set the mood. Our family usually turn all the lights out and light several candles to make us feel like we are there too. This year it was Carols by Candle/Craft Light.

 

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas day with their family and friends. Have a safe and happy holiday. I am off to enjoy the cooler weather in the garden, top temperature today only 31 degrees!!

Then a bit more sewing on that second roll.



Two Rivers Retreat post....finally.

 

If you would like a place for a small gathering of 'quilty' friends for a weekend, can I recommend to you Two Rivers winery in the Upper Hunter? Several weekends ago we made progress on lots of projects while enjoyed  the view and the serenity, not to mention great company. Below you can see almost all of us watching the sunset over the valley, we carried our wine and nibblies and our sewing up to the lookout. It was lovely, we sat there until it was too dark to see our stitches anymore.

 Cardygirl was there for a while working on this beautiful creation.

So was Fairyfloss working on some really cute bags. 

,

I just love this red and white number Kylie worked on.

Julie (can you believe STILL NO BLOG!! ) was there making this lovely quilt from her dad's ties. Sadly he passed away last year and he was a man of many, many ties. A lovely project to remember him by.

 

A close up for you.

Bags were a popular project. Caron and Susan finished some lovely bags made form French General fabric.

What did I work on?

Well I raw edge appliqued 'Oh Christmas Tree!' you saw in my last post. I also caught up on Toes In the Sand BOM.

Here is block 5....

 

and block 6.

 

 

Today I finished block 7. So now I am all caught up....again!

Lots of cutting in this one. Took ages to complete. There are 86 triangles and hexagons of varying sizes to make those two triangles.

 

Hot, dry and windy here today. Fingers crossed for some rain soon. My grass is now brown AND crunchy. I will leave you with a bit more of the scenery around Two Rivers.

 

 

 

FNSI and Finish it up Friday

 

 Last night I joined in with Friday Night Sew In and this morning I am linking up with Finish it up Friday.

 

I know...it's been a while since my last post.

 

Last night I finished a project that has been in the pile of WIPs for about...oh... four years now. I finally finished my 'Oh Christmas Tree' quilt last night. The background looks very 'limey' in the photo, but you will get the idea.

The tree is raw edge appliqued. I completed the applique last week at a retreat and finished the beading last night.

 

You can just see the little silver seed beads on the background.

 

It's hard to see in the big picture, but there is a little white peeper around the edge.

 

 

 

Here's shot of the back so you see that I did actually stitch it and not just iron it on.

 

Will fill you in on the retreat in my next post.

Don't forget to pop over and look at other FNSI and FIUF participants have been stitching.



Star Flannel Pieced

This morning I got up bright and early and finished my Flannel Star Quilt. Now I can link up to Finish It Up Friday.

This quilt measures about 85 inches square, so there should be no complaints from my sons who are over 6 foot tall that:

 

 "It's not long enough, my toes stick out."

I left a few of the layer cake pieces whole so I can quilt some eight pointed stars onto them with perle thread.

 



I am off to spend some time with my parents for a few days. Can't believe I had time to sew, post on my blog AND be packed on time ready to go. I'm usually not that organised.
 

Enjoy the weekend.

 

On Sunday I took an excited car load of teenagers to Sydney. During this school holidays, they are heading off to South Korea with their Principal and one other teacher for ten days. First stop Seoul for some sightseeing, then a flight to Jeju Island. Next a two hour ferry ride to Chuja Island where they will stay with host families from a school of just 37 students for about four nights. Our local high school has been participating in a student exchange program with students from South Korea for about 6 years now. We have hosted three students in our home so far and it has been such a wonderful experience. Yesterday our youngest son flew out on his adventure.

Here he is with a few of the girls..

 

 ...and a few guys. Eight in total.
 

They washed cars to raise money for their team shirts, it was easier to identify each other in a busy airport.

 

A few of the mums are of a quilting disposition. I suggested that as the children were catching an early flight, we could 'patchwork shop hop' our way home. After all, we would be at least a little sad to wave our children good bye and perhaps some retail therapy would cheer us up.

 

I just have to digress here and say that getting him packed up to go was much more stressful than actually waving him off to visit another country far, far away from his mother. An example of what I mean? Well, I could sworn I spoke English when I said "Go and pack your bag, you fly out tomorrow." Some how was interpreted as "Go to you room, sit on your bed with you iPad and chat to your  friends on Facebook for AT LEAST an hour." While the girls in the photo have sent their mothers detailed messages and photos of the trip so far. I  discovered he had unfriended my on Facebook AGAIN. The message I finally received when accepting my friend request?...'Hi Mum'. That's it. Mothers of boys out there, I know you feel my pain.

 

Anyway...back to the shopping.

 

With TomTom securely attached to my windscreen, we navigated our way through the city on our own adventure.

First stop...Quiltsmith. They have SO much fabric!! My friends Sandra and Mandy (no blogs for these ladies) made some lovely fabric purchases. Just a new thimble for me.

Next stop...and this is where Kevin will be jealous...Material Obsession. (Check out Kevin's blog as he starts his own Soul Searching journey.)

 

When we pulled up out the front of the shop, we were greated with this wonderful sign !!!

 

 

I purchased wadding for my current Star Flannel Quilt project. Backing for my next flannel project. Yes, there will be another one after the Star Quilt...not sure what it will be and not untill next Winter. But I couldn't resist the lovely Woolies flannel MO stock when it is half price. I am becoming a bit addicted to flannel fabric.

 



I'm not sure why I needed this fabric other than it caught my eye on my last visit and it was now half price.

Finally...

 

 ...bags of scraps were just $3. So I got one of those.

On my to do list this holidays...sort my fabric into one central location so I can start making some scrappy projects from this book...

 

 

...and another I am anxiously waiting to arrive in my letter box any day now. I am in my collecting phase at the moment.

 

It was very inspiring to see the quilts hanging downstairs in this shop and those made by the peope who were attending a class while we were there. You can see them on the Material Obsession blog here.

 

All of this shopping made us a bit hungry so back in the car. 'Sat Nav' programmed and we headed for Killara where there is a lovely cafe next door to the Crewel Gobelin.

This store is under new ownership. The lovely helpful ladies who used to own it have been replaced by equally lovely helpful staff. No patchwork fabric here. Just lots and lots of embroidery thread, linen, aida, embroidery and cross stitch patterns.

A couple of new (little) projects and some linen for projects already on my to do list.

Even though I was weary from my big day, I couldn't resist starting this one last night. Forty count linen, definitley need my glasses for this one.

 

To finish off (sorry, should have warned you this post was long) an update on my Star Flannel Quilt. Hopefully finished tonight and ready to quilt tomorrow now that I have wadding.

 

Bye for now.



Cassilis Quilter's Get Together. (Plus the lengths a blogger will go to)

 We had a lovely day at Cassilis yesterday. There was lots of 'Show and Tell'. Above you can see Julie (no blog...still!! ) with gifts she has made for her new born niece. Will definitely address to 'no blog' status she has this school holidays.

This is one of Lea's new projects. Lea had more to show, but I was a slack photographer....sorry.



Susan had LOTS to show.

I worked on my Legacy From Violet Quilt. STILL working on that large hexagon border..this one will take a while.

It was a lovely day out with good food at the Plough Inn and good company. Unfortunately poor Kylie was unable to attend due to illness.

The countryside was just lovely on the journey over. The canola fields were such a vibrant shade of yellow that we just had to stop and take a picture of the little 'fixer-upper' we saw barely standing in the paddock amongst the canola.

It was interesting to see the lengths a blogger will got to if they want to get the perfect shot with their camera. First a drive down the track.

Here is Lea, wading through long grass, risking snake bite, possible broken ankle falling down a rabbit warren and torn clothing to get to the highest fence post to get the ideal shot of the house.

Once strategically balanced...she could take the photo she was longing for.

  And what was is that she was trying to capture?

This was the shot taken in the morning. Once we were back on the road, we realised that the best shot could be taken from the main road. Can you believe it??  So....of course we had to stop on the way back in the afternoon to see how it would look in a different light.

Hope you're enjoying the weekend. I stayed up till something (?) past midnight on a new project. Here's a sneak peak.

I just love how you can do that during the holidays. Hope to finish it tonight and quilt it while the evenings are still cool enough to require a quilt on your lap.