What a week!

What a week, DH has been in NZ for work and while he was there he experienced two small earthquakes in Christchurch.  I thought he might have some interesting photos of the big earthquake they had last year, but instead the camera was loaded with pictures of weeds and agricultural products suffering disease... work stuff!   

So while DH was away the kids and I were going to Horsham, until the waters started rising in Victoria.  So we stayed home, watched the TV reports and rang my parents daily to check they were OK.  Then after the river peaked (Tuesday) and the water only got up to the driveway of my parents home, we all let out a big sign of relief.  After my change of plans I had agreed to host a morning of cutting fabric for the charity quilting group I belong to, so my parents travelled over to see us instead.  It was great to have a visit and lots of productivity occurred, but not much sewing.  I am still waiting to hear from some of our friends in the Wimmera as I suspect that they may have got wet feet and certainly I know that their harvest will be adversely affected.  And I am sure that there is more potential flooding to come for those people who live and work alongside the Murray River as the flood waters from Victoria come down. 

 This is the pin cushion I made as part of a sewing set to be sent to people affected by the Qld floods.  The pattern is from the book Quilt a Gift by Barri Sue Gaudet.  I haven't worked with felt a lot, but this was perfect for hand work in front of the TV.  I have made the front for the accompanying needlebook but it isn't finished yet.  I have also made  a Couch Companion (pattern by Leanne Beasley but completely stuffed up the binding and need to fix it up.

So before the floods started this is what I was making, a sewing machine cover and matching mat and thread catcher, designed by Roslyn Mirrington of Bloom and featured in Homespun Vol 11. No 11 (machine cover) and Homespun Vol 12. No 1 (machine mat, thread catcher and a matching pin cushion).  As you can see it already takes pride of place in my sewing room.  I must say that the interfacing lining and I had a love/hate relationship, but I ONLY brought the beige stripe fabric, the rest was from my stash!  Of course that meant using the interfacing that was in the cupboard and it was a bit too stiff.  Ironically I had 2 metres of the tape measure cotton tape in my stash, 1 m in imperial measurement and 1 m in metric.  I had brought them mail order from Hatched and Patched last year, while I was on a mission to find crushed walnut shells (for inside pin cushions) and I am yet to use the walnut shells!  The thread catcher is suppose to have tape measure around it also but I didn't have quite enough to go right around.  Still I am very happy with the look and I used up heaps of scraps.  Bloom used matching buttons and what I call fresh modern prints (e.g. Hope Valley range by Denyse Schmidt for Freespirit) in her project, but as you can see I went with the country look in fabrics and used as many brown buttons out of my grandmothers button collection as I could! 

I had better get back to finishing my sewing kit projects for the Qld flood appeal, happy quilting, Sue.