UK trip 1

There are hundreds of photos of our recent holiday on my phone.  Sorting, editing and getting them onto the blog is time consuming and to be honest, not my first priority in life!

We sent the first ten days in London and at a friends farm in England.  London was great, doing all the tourist hot spots, but I let our boys (10 and 12) set the agenda and No 1 Son wanted to go to the Natural History Museum.  As a quilter, you tend to see the world a little differently LOL!

Honestly I didn't think I would enjoy it as much as I did....these are the mosaic floors.  But the ceilings, walls, exterior....I could go on and on!  It is the most beautiful building and the displays were fantastic.  Possibly my favorite was the moving display (with sound effects) simulating being in a shop building during an earthquake!  It was fun and scary....way better then a carnival ride!

And the afternoon tea was divine.  My oldest son has been a sucker for scones, jam and cream since he was 2 and ate my afternoon tea when I was in hospital having our second son.  So scones, jam and cream was the afternoon or morning tea treat he had, every chance he got!

We cruised the Thames river, walked the streets of London, hopped on and off buses and the train - both above and underground.  Oh and yes we saw it all from the sky in the London Eye!

These are door hinges in a gate at Windsor Castle.  The Queen was home, but she had a cold so missed her official duties.  Honestly, I read this in the paper!

This is a post box, built into the building wall in the grounds of Windsor Castle. It was worth seeing Windsor as the buildings are so beautiful. Hubby hadn't been so keen (as we made the trek once already to go to Legoland) but as you pull into the Windsor station you can see the castle, and he changed his mind, as it is so impressive...and did not involve getting on the local bus - which was unreliable!  Legoland was great - perfect time to take the kids, as any older and they would have been too old to enjoy it I think...however I enjoyed it immensely as well!

I visited Kensington Palace and saw the display for Lady Di's frocks, which was fantastic.  And the sunken gardens next door was beautiful.  We also toured Lords Cricket Club, Wimbledon tennis museum (courts were closed as they were setting up), Science Museum and saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.  

Then we escaped London to enjoy the rolling hills of Nottinghamshire to stay on my friend Jim's family farm.  I stayed with the family 20 years ago and it was very special to come back,  

The rest of the family live in village, and the farm sheds are there too, but they were in the process of converting barns into houses, so his parents didn't have to deal with stairs.  This is Jim's house up on the hill, the other side of the farm.  In Australia the farm houses are isolated like this also, so its interesting to see the farm buildings in the little villages.  The crops were only weeks off being harvested and it was lovely to see England in the summer time, especially as the weather was so good/warm!  

The only quilt I saw, through the window of a Royal railway carriage at the York Train Museum. This was the queens bed (not the current queen, think her mother or grandmother's) and the beautiful quilting would have been nice to see in its entirety....but it was a train museum!  There was/is a quilt museum in York, so dreadfully frustrating to not be able to go...they only open a couple of weekends a year and I had missed out by weeks.  Next time I will check their schedule before I book our flights!

Happy quilting Sue.

Is it Christmas?

It feels like Christmas when I get packages in the mail!

No just my lucky day!  First my internet order of Aurfil thread arrived....anyone who knows me, knows I don't usually shop online, but this was too tempting for words.  Totally justifying, for my hand applique!

But best of all..

Ta da, my prize from Quilt Bee, 

a Lemoyne Star ruler!  

The ruler makes stars from 3 to 12 inches, all without Y seams,  so no excuse now, will have to start making some star blocks.

Thanks Marie at Quilt Bee Blog

Happy quilting Sue.

60 degree triangle blocks

 I dont really remember why I started this quilt. But I have alot of strings, especially in blue and green.Not so much in yellow and orange which is why they are combined.

   I also have a 60 degree ruler that was a gift from my mother and I have never used!  So I decided to string piece the strings and then cut out triangles.  Which all sat in a box for a long time since!

 I liked the idea of diamonds, but there is not enough in one colour way for a diamond. 

And of course when I went looking for more strings I got distracted!  Distracted by the colours of Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  

All good, better then the strings and blocks sitting idle in a box, I now have a clear idea of what I want to do with them!

Happy Quilting Sue

Kids quilt top

I have had a meter of dinosaur fabric in my stash for many years.  I found some coordinating brights in my stash and cut them into large half square triangles.  

I auditioned them like this.

But decided I liked this simple layout best.  I have since sewn them together and the top is now waiting for a backing.  

Happy quilting Sue.

Exercise in lights v dark

I needed a quiet distract from the worry of life.  I found some solace in the quiet hours of the early morning reading my quilt magazines.  In the October 2017 issue of American Patchwork and Quilting magazine I found a pattern by Christia Watson for this simple block.

I hate not matching fabrics colours into some sort of theme. 

I really feel uncomfortable with "lights" that are not white or cream.

I love nine patches.  I love scrap quilts....just prefer they coordinate!  

This ugly duckling block looks so much better when you join it with three friends.

I am still cringing over the clashing combination of ugly fabrics used.  But I could not bring myself to throw the unloved 2.5" squares out, so decided they could live here.

These blocks will be leaders and enders and slowly grow over time.  And all that scrap and collection of fat quarters that I have fallen out of love with....its going to find a new home here.

Happy quilting, Sue.

Slow and quick stitching

In desperate need for some quilty gratification I spent the day adding sashing to these I Spy blocks we made back in March. 

That makes for a decent sized quilt for favorite kids charity group, so not adding a border.  Went to Spotty and brought some nice green fabric as backing on sale.  Then at 5 am this morning when I woke up and decided I was going to sort backings to quilts and deliver them to my long armer....I changed my mind.  So stripy backing it is!

The applique all got finished for the four corner blocks this week.  I made a couple of design changes, to these blocks, minor but just made life easier.  

The most obvious one is that I used a star centre on two flowers in pink and a yellow circle on the other two.  Just liked it more!

No motivation to work on this quilt further at present.  I dread squaring up blocks and that is what has to happen next.  So off to distract myself with backings for now.

Happy quilting Sue

Warm regards progress

I sewed more of the Italian Cross blocks for this quilt last week.  Trimming them was not fun, trying to line up the corners and centre.  They are not perfect, but neither am I and just focusing on having fun!

I have made reasonable progress on finishing the applique for these four blocks.  I am just auditioning berries for the tops.  I have two more stars in the centre of the purple flowers to applique on and considering leaving two pink and sewing the last two in yellow.

Raising baby budgies is obviously not as taxing as child rearing, as the mother has gone and laid more eggs, before all the current fledglings are out of the nest!  These are the first three, sorry about the quality of the photo, my phone doesn't cope with distance (the babies like sitting at top of the cage) and the wire causes it to focus on the wrong subject.

Two dozen bottles of Granny Smith apples grown by us have been preserved, with help from my parents.  Mum has all the canning equipment and a nifty apple peeling machine, which made the process quicker. 

Dad turned up the next day with boxes and buckets of Pink Lady apples from his trees at the farm. I have stored some in our second fridge, but giving the rest away.  I still have two buckets of Granny Smiths to decide what to do with.  I predict there is more apple peeling in my future!

Happy quilting Sue.