FNSI and a few holiday pics

'Last night was Friday Night Sew In. I made this little quilt for Cheryll for her Blankets of Love program.

 I made a quilt for my SIL in this fabric a few years ago and thought the soft blues would be perfect for this project.

I found this matching backing fabric in the quilt store in Cowell, South Australia when we were away last week.

The store has recently re-opened and is called Stitchin' Bits. There was a whole wall full of fabrics marked down to $10/metre. I just couldn't decide what to buy!! I settled on this backing fabric, a few cheap fat quarters and fat eighths and this book. 

They have a long arm quilting machine and a great room out the back for classes. As the old stock sells, they are making room for new fabric and gift ware. Very friendly staff and definitely worth a look.

There are lots of lovely old buildings in this seaside town of Cowell.

Weather the first three days could be described as cold, wet and windy.....at times gale force. Oh! I forgot to mention the hail. Mr. 16 and Miss 14 found a 1000 piece puzzle at the Easter markets for $1 and that kept all six of us (even my parents) occupied for a few days. 

We went driving around the countryside and that helped Mr. 16 log the last few hours in his Learner Driver log book. Found lots of places to eat and generally relaxed after the big drive.

The weather improved and my father took Mr Stitch fishing and squidding in the boat. My mum and I took the teenagers to catch crabs off the jetty. 

Success!!

Miss 14 (our friends daughter who is travelling with us while her parents are overseas) was not sure what to do when she caught her first crab.They caught lots of crabs, a couple were big enough to keep..and eat....yum!

Brave Miss 14 eventually learnt to throw her own crabs back into the water if they were too small to keep. In the meantime, she 'helped' Mr 16. He won't be impressed with that photo. That will teach him not to have a silly expression on his face when I want to take photos of him.

One of the highlights for the teenagers was Schnitzel Night at the local pub. They consider themselves schnitzel connoisseurs and were very impressed by the quality and size of their schnitzels that night.

 You just haven't done everything in a small Australian country town unless you go to the local pub, have a game of pool, a good meal.....

...and top the night off by winning a meat tray from the raffle that supports whatever local organisation is selling tickets that night.

Despite the weather, we had a great time exploring. We travelled over 3400km in ten days. As we drove through the outback, we reminisced with the teenagers about our previous camping trips our families made to Central Australia when they were younger. 

It was amazing watching the colour of the soil change from various shades of brown to red. The wild life we saw included wombats, grey kangaroos and echidnas closer to home. As we travelled West, the red kangaroos were everywhere! We saw families of emus and  wedge tailed eagles (such magnificent birds). 

It was great to catch up with my parents and explore another part of our country we hadn't seen before.

Don't forget to pop over to Wendy's blog to see what everyone else got up to last night. I'm also linking up with Finish It Up Friday.