Finally some sewing!

With the disruption to power, having trades persons in the house and the general upheaval of having the contents of the kitchen distributed across the entire house I have not been sewing!  The kitchen is in, but still not finished.  We are waiting on the glass splash backs (always put in after the kitchen, so the measurements are exact), so that delays the fitting of power points in those areas and of course the painter needs to come.
Here is a sneaky shot, of me making good use of my new bench!  The colour is a bit over exposed, but the bench is a very pale granite look laminex.  I finally finished the quilting on the last two stars of the Transport Ohio Star quilt (the majority was quilted at our last All Day sewing session in April) and made the binding.  I sewed the binding on, but haven't joined it yet....small problem that needs to be dealt with first!

These are the lovely shirting's I brought at The Sewing Sanctuary, during my groups shop hop two weekends ago.  I plan to use these in the Seven Sisters quilt

This is the butterfly print I brought at Aldinga, but the Christmas table runner kit is from The Patchwork Cow - their own pattern.  This is the first kit I have ever brought would you believe!

And finally here is the Bugs in a Bottle quilt, with its final two borders I sewed on, a lovely brown spot I had previously brought at my local shop (Tricia's Discount Fabrics) and the butterfly print from Aldinga.  I had totally forgot about the brown spot until I got home, but was determined to not waste it, so also cut and made the binding from it.

So a few projects are closer to being finished and one tired blogger off to fit more "stuff" in her gorgeous new kitchen cabinets...let me assure you that you can waste lots of time reorganising the pantry!

Happy quilting Sue SA.

Mothers Day Weekend

 Without a kitchen it seemed pointless spending the weekend at home...well that was my excuse for an extended Mothers Day treat!

 We drove to Clare and the boys enjoyed multiple rides at the miniature railway, delighting in the freight train cars carrying precious cargo at the back!  We also enjoyed a family bike ride on a small part of the Riesling Trail.  We didn't visit any wineries, but the bike track is great asset to them and there were plenty of people just enjoying it as a bush/heritage walk.  Being able to ride with the kids in the bush was fantastic, especially for their traffic shy (been years since I rode my bike) mother!

 DH stopped to let me take this photo ... just the most perfect building to house a quilt shop / studio ... don't you think?  I just love the old farm buildings and stone house ruins dotted about the countryside...neither of which you witness if travelling in Victoria or New South Wales, because timber doesn't stand the test of time quite so well.

 That gorgeous curved roof really intrigued me.  I wonder if it was added many years later (when corrugated iron was invented) to add extra storage space?  We were in the Clare Valley but I can only assume this building was a barn rather then a wine cellar, as the attic would have been too hot of storing wine, especially in summer.  Perhaps hay for the horses, in the days when Clydesdale's were "horsepower"?

 My extra special treat was visiting Martindale Hall.  The photo above is the Carriage House!  Yes this grand building with its beautiful front door was basically a garage!  Nobody mentioned stables...just carriages, so not sure if the horses got a bed in here or not.

 Martindale Hall is grand on a scale that you only imagine in England.  Bring on Downtown Abby!  Unfortunately no photography allowed inside, but as you can see it was grand and beautifully original and defiantly well worth a visit if you are holidaying in South Australia.

A whole weekend away and I didn't visit one patchwork shop!  Happy quilting, Sue SA.

Kitchen renovation - before (part 2)

I have a spare 10 minutes this morning and keen to get a post in, as it has been so long since I was in blog land.  This is the main area of my kitchen, after the builder ripped all the cabinets out, fixed the floor tiles and plastered the walls where the old wall tiles were.  Please note the big grey "hole" the electrician made on the right...unavoidable he tells me, but my problem and $ to fix....AFTER I have already had the plasterer in! :-(  Dont feel too bad for me, as my wonderful plumber has some great contacts!

As you can see they didn't remove the old orange wall tiles like I had hoped.  In this section I will have a pantry, office nook and a appliance cupboard.  The wooden cupboard above goes to the highest point of the ceiling (we have raked or cathedral ceilings) and is great storage space - it also runs almost the length of the house! Hence it is staying, besides they don't do cupboards to the ceiling any more, so why pull it out?  You would be surprised how many people have asked me if we are keeping it though!
**readers think...hoarders space galore!  Well that's what they should have put in the real estate ad!**

This is where my new bench will be, housing the sink, dishwasher and built in bin.  I am excited about two "girl gadgets", the built in bin and my new pantry...which has a light that comes on automatically when you open the door! :-)  And yes I have lots of doors in my house, these two both go outside, but there use to be a wall between them (way before we brought the house) when the kitchen, dining and family room were three small separate rooms.  I am so glad we didn't have to do that reno!
Happy quilting, Sue.

Kitchen - before (part 1)

This is my kitchen...before!  I was going to clean up before I took "before" shots, but I ran out of time and care factor.  Please note that my DH took all the doors off so he could remove the handles and magnetic catches.  One of the firms who quoted to us (but we didn't accept), they listed the cost of new door handles as a separate amount, an amount that was frightening and slightly obscene.  DH hasn't been able to tell me what he is going to do with the old handles and catches, but who am I to call an hoarder when I have five boxes of scrap fabric!

In this shot you can see the special door less shelf I kept my chopping boards and trays in...I liked this so much I got another one in the new kitchen, but with a door.

You can see part of the old range hood here.  It was simply enormous and despite being hidden behind cupboards was grotty, just disgusting!  We have cathedral ceilings, so while I had lots of cupboards, most of them were too high to use and the other half housed the dirty big rangehood.

These are the cupboards I used for my food, I am getting a big pantry and cannot wait!  Also looking forward to never seeing these orange tiles again, although everyone else seems to think they are "trendy", "nice" and "back in fashion".  DH removed this cupboard himself, it now resides in his shed.
Happy quilting Sue.

The first week of May

I have been planning, researching and talking to tradesmen about a new kitchen for a few months now.  The BANG! CRASH! POW of removing the old one starts next week and my weekends and spare time has been consumed with packing boxes of kitchen equipment and trying to stash stuff out of the way.  ONE reason there has been little achieved on the sewing front.  I did make these two extra string blocks, in pink and orange on Monday.

My Mum came for a quick visit and showed me this gorgeous cot quilt.  She had the animal fabrics in her stash and some of the sashing, so it didn't require much to make it very pretty. The top was originally half quilted a few months ago, but the wadding was dodgy and she wasn't happy.  So decided to start again and made a whole new top.  Then decided she liked this one better and sat down and unpicked all the machine quilting she had done!  Then re pinned and quilted, a true dedication of time and a whole lot more patience then I have.  The end result is worth it.

I have just a sneak peek of the Celtic quilt which is back from the long arm quilter, Elaine Kennedy.  Leigh opted to have an all over rose pattern which looks lovely.  Now I just have to trim the edges, cut and make binding and sew it on.  Another UFO nearly finished!

I hadn't put my machine away from All Day Sewing (last Saturday), but took it on Thursday to DS1 primary school and stitched his classmates surnames on hats and jumpers. This was an interesting way to spend the afternoon, but it was frustrating knowing there was an exciting parcel from quilting & blogging friend, Karen  of Sewing Tales waiting for me at home!

Thank you so much Karen, the cowboy fabric is so cute and there is so much I am going to be able to make a great quilt!  The quilting magazines have already been well read, as Mum read them first and then I got to enjoy them yesterday, when I came down with the lurgy and was fit enough to do anything productive!

Sew now I have binding to make and lots of ideas for a cowboy quilt, all of which is on temporary hold, while I finish getting the kitchen packed up.  At least the machine is back in the Horn cabinet, ready and waiting for me.  The sewing room looks like a bomb hit it as there are piles of kitchen gear stacked everywhere.  The kitchen will take a week to finish, but they don't pull the old one out until Thursday, so that leaves me with a empty hole all next weekend....happy mothers day to me!  I guess that means take away instead of cooking and more sewing time!
Happy quilting, Sue.