Its hot, hot, hot, budgie!

While it has been hot, hot, hot here, this morning some light rain and a drop in temperatures has been appreciated by everyone in the family....including our new (first ever family) pets!

Welcome Snuffleupagus (grey boy) and Emily (green girl) Budgie.  There are lots of words related to patchwork that the spell checker questions me about, but apparently Snuffleupagus is a word, cos its in spell checker!  Our six year old son named the budgies and in case you didn't know Emily is a green female train from Thomas the Tank Engine and Snuffleupagus is a large hairy mammoth like creature on Sesame Street!  

Right back to quilty things - this is my box of scrap blue fabrics.  It was compressed into 2 zip lock bags of A4 size when we moved house - but has grown since being released into a box!  While it has been hot I have been ironing (argh) and cutting (bliss, love my Go cutter) the larger pieces into triangles and squares.  See my new box...loving Kmart fishing section!

The partitions are really deep in this box.  There is literally one green triangle and about 40 in each stack of the blue.  The question is - should I use the triangles to make my leaders and enders blocks OR

should I make something new!! Like Ocean waves???  

Sigh.  I am a little ahead of myself...no white triangles yet! 

BUT I do have lots more log cabin blocks, 83 to be exact.  This has been a fun project during the heat of the day.  Hmmm except I am about to run out of the red I was using for the centres.  

SO 

I either make the blocks bigger (currently 5.5"unfinished)

OR 

I start using different reds for the centres?

I want a big quilt!

Happy quilting, Sue.

Log Cabin quilt commences

I have been setting up my sewing space into a more function workplace.  That included borrowing all the extra picture hooks from the walls of other rooms, so I could hang all my quilts.  Correction, hang the quilts that I liked.  The ones that are out of favour are still sitting in a pile! 

I have also been using my new Go cutter and new 1.5" die to cut strips from my reproduction fabrics.  This seemed like a good idea at the time because a) my reproduction fabrics are in mainly housed in that cane basket in the bottom right corner of the above photograph (e.g. I knew where they were)

b) I have always wanted to make a log cabin quilt and c) I had a new book and magazine with log cabin patterns in them.  This is my progress 39 blocks so far!

 I am still thinking about the splash of cheddar, black and light blue and I think that I will just continue the way I started.  Which was to pull out the smallest pieces and cut them up, followed by the colours I was missing.  I had cut two prints which I thought might read as lights - a cream with green print and a cream with coral print.  However in this photo I can see that they read more as darks and I wont continue using them.  These blocks are making me very happy and have been a good way to spend a couple of very very hot days...days where friends were being evacuated, we could smell smoke in the air from fires far away and all the news reports were about bushfire's.

We picked apricots off our tree two days ago.  As you can see from the twenty cent piece they are not huge, but they sure pack a punch in the flavour department.  We ate some and lots got made into jam.

Mum came around and deliver a hands on class in jam making 101.  Mum is a dab hand at making jam after 40 odd years of experience, every summer!  It was stinking hot (eg 43C) outside and slightly better inside, as the air conditioner struggled to keep up.  Confession, I sewed log cabin blocks and Mum made the jam.....I did help with the cutting and odd stir, but basically she made it! 

Happy quilting Sue.

Farewell 2014!

I love lists, but they do hold you accountable!  My finished project tally for 2014 was;

 4 mini quilts, 2 wall hangings, 12 cot quilts, 2 lap quilts, 3 single bed quilts and 2 double bed quilts!  

Not too bad if I don't say so myself!

There was lots of dreaming about I would make in 2014 and this wall hanging was top of my wish list.

Bittersweet briar -  was on the wish list = completed!

On my wish list I managed to make 4 out of the 8 desired projects...so while that isn't great, I take comfort in the fact that one "wish" was to make a charity quilt and I ended up making 3!

 

Leaders and enders from wish list = I managed to make four blocks!

On the UFO list....well not so good there, there are currently 9 items unfinished, four of which I started in 2014!  

...but I did finish this ancient UFO, finally in December!

All Aussie creatures great and small, a pattern by Millamac.  

This is a sneaky finish as my friend and long arm quilter Elaine Kennedy custom quilted it and returned it to me weeks ago and all I had to do was sew the binding, label and hanging sleeve on it.  I ended up going back to her house to use her domestic machine to sewing the binding on before we moved house, but to date it is still without a label or hanging sleeve.

I was going to gift it to my boys for Christmas.  I found them snuggled up under it watching TV, post Christmas.  I had completely forgotten to wrap and present it, but they found it anyway!  Elaine had lots of fun with the quilting, adding extra animals and insects, plus loads of details to the existing animals.  I love it and very happy it is done...one hanging sleeve coming up so it can go on the wall pronto!

Happy quilting Sue.

Our new house part 2

  Our new kitchen is very spacious, needless to say I have filled most of the cupboards. Except that this morning DH found one more box of kitchen stuff in his shed!!  The removalists accidentally let if in the wrong spot and he had only started unpacking his shed since Christmas.

 The day before Christmas I was busy in the kitchen.  I made gingerbread men and a gingerbread house, which the kids helped me decorate, which was lots of fun, I was just happy I got the darn thing to stand up!  ; )  Shay this photo is especially for YOU!

I have a lovely corner pantry, with loads of space.  The oven goes well and cooked the roast turkey and vegetables to perfection on Christmas day.  After lunch my Dad and brothers played cricket against my boys and DH, the kids were thrilled to win, so you can be sure they will ask for a repeat game next year!  

 This is the dining area off the kitchen and family room.  The view is lovely out this window and the kitchen window, those are camellia bushes outside and beyond those are some native shrubs that the birds love to dart around.

 These are the first batch of minced pies I made. which sadly will be fed to next doors chooks...I forgot to put sugar in the pastry...the sweet mix did not make up for it, they were awful!  Luckily I had time to make a second batch successfully

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with your families and everyone got home safely.  We are enjoying the post Christmas quiet period, while the kids play happily (mostly) with their new toys and I continue to potter around organising things (eg pack up tree, unpack recently discovered box and usual domestic stuff) and contemplate my sewing area.  Honestly I had plans for sewing from 26th Dec, but they haven't eventuated into action.  I am quite happy reading, making Lego, receiving visitors who are dropping in to see the new house and just relaxing.  When I find my sewing mojo I will let you know!  Happy quilting, Sue.  

Our new house

This was the sized truck we needed to move!  Lucky that we have a big front yard, they were impressed they could park off the street!  

I thought I did a good job of decluttering and re homing things we no longer needed. 

But given I am still unpacking and trying to find a home for everything, I clearly did not throw enough stuff out!

 We have spent one week in our new house and have enjoyed every minute of it.  Well perhaps not about 3 hours yesterday where I was madly running around trying to help DH move a very large book case, so we could put all the books away and  get the spare room ready before his parents arrived to stay.  Anyway this is the view from our family room of the fernery, not a good shot of the lovely plants inside as the jasmine hangs down to shade them from the morning sun.

 This is the other side of the fernery, the little bit of lawn out back and the clothes line.  You have never seen such an excited woman as me hanging out three huge loads of washing on day 2 of life in our new house....and there was plenty of spare room on the line!  I wanted to do another load just to see how much it would hold...but I was in danger of running out of pegs before that happened!  Believe me I did have more washing to do!

My in laws like to sleep in (fair enough my FIL is still working full time) so I can only show you a few rooms, as they are still in bed!  Obviously this is our bedroom, walk in robe and en suite.  I have never had a walk in robe before and was impressed with how much crap  stuff I could store in there!  Please note as per the pile of pictures in the corner we are yet to finish all the things on my moving in list!  If I just could find a hammer I would be hanging those pictures myself (loving plaster walls v brick ones we had in Adelaide), but poor DH's shed is only 5% unpacked.  I have hung things everywhere there was an existing hook, but also trying to hang my Christmas wall hangings up.

This is the lounge room, recently abandoned by our boys to eat breakfast -hence recliners still reclined and quilts in action...they are now back in there with full tummies, watching cartoons under their quilts, waiting for Pop to get up and play football!  

Can you see my lovely "new" oak cabinet, full of quilts!  I am very pleased with this Gumtree purchase, it was a bargain and I will be on the hunt for something similar.  Because....

...this is my sewing "room", the back half of the lounge room!  And as you can see still half unpacked.  The reason it is half unpacked is that 

a) we only installed the bookcase yesterday (it is so big DH has to secure it to the wall first) and there were books and magazines in some boxes 

b) the kitchen dresser I was using to display and store sewing items on is now in the kitchen (duh!) and

 c) well I have no storage!  

Yes, I let DH (formally primary breadwinner, now sole breadwinner) use the previous owners custom built sewing room....as his office!  Did I ever mention that DH works from home full time?  Yep, well the downside of that is that he needs his own room full time.  The upside is that  his boss doesn't care where he lives and hence we have moved back to my home town, the town where we met : ) and where all my family still live AND which is only 3 hours from his family v an 8 hour drive from Adelaide. 

 I have been sewing, but its all packed away now that my in laws are visiting.  But in order to do any more sewing (and find anything) I need to buy/acquire some storage system/furniture.  

So there you have it, a quarter view of my new house and all the reason I haven't been blogging!  

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

Pack it, move it and quilt it!

This is what my sewing/guest room has looked like for the last month or so since we sold the house.

 Packing boxes became a daily habit.  And we moved into our new house on Friday, so now I have to unpack them ;( .  Once I have unpacked a bit more then the basics (beds, fridge and crockery) I will show you some shots of the new house....don't expect it to be decorated!  

Somewhere in those boxes will be this cute fat quarter I got as at our Christmas break up from my quilting group.  And the lovely batiks at the same break up from my Kris Kringle.  I can feel another red and white quilt coming on.  The batiks are ear marked for a different project...batiks are new to me, but I have a plan!

The lovely Elaine Kennedy finished long arm quilting my scrappy blue 9 patch quilt and I sewed on the binding before we left Adelaide.  She used a baptist fan pattern at my request, it is a favorite of mine and I felt it was fitting as I had used so many reproduction fabrics.

I caught my DH in our old garden long enough to get a shot, but we really needed a second pair of hands to hold this double bed size quilt.  

Happy quilting Sue.

  

Boys I Spy Quilt

Ta dah another finish using stash and scrap!  Sorry folks there has been a bit of deception going on here.  I quilted this big lap quilt in October, but only just put the binding on.  So please don't think I am superwoman, I am just craving some sewing and binding is as close as I am getting to my machine at present.

 I used all my previously cut up novelty scraps.  But as I had previously found them a bit busy if I randomly pieced them together, this time I sewed them into four patches, matching them by their background colours.

Then I used a great idea I found on Pinterest - this jigsaw quilting pattern.  It was easy to do - basically straight lines down the quilt with a bump outwards.  Then you quilt back up the other way and do a bump inwards!  And I didn't have to mark lines I just eyeballed in the middle of my blocks, too easy and super cute on a kids quilt!

So there you have it.  It has just struck me that I lack fabrics with purple and pink backgrounds, but given I have just made some cot quilts in those colours I guess I must have used up those scraps...well a girl can only hope!

Happy quilting, Sue.