Hot pink for St Valentines day!

I did drop a hint, but DH completely forgot it was St Valentines day.  In his defence he normally remembers and I forget until he presents me with flowers.  Instead of romance I worked on finishing the pink chevron quilt, by adding a hot pink border.

Hot pink is not my colour, but its for a primary school aged girl, so figure that this was a no brainer when it came to borders.  The finished quilt measures 151 cm x 223 cm (or 59"x88") and I have recently found out that she has a king single bed.  Does anyone know what the measurements are for king singles?  It fits nicely on my son's single bed, but I am now worried it wont be wide enough.

You may have heard Adelaide has gone from being the hottest city in the world, to having a big wind storm and now flooding rains.  Oh and bush fires, except the big bushfire was a few hours north of Adelaide.  My boys like to watch the weather each night.  I think the animals are now taking shelter from the rain (and hoarding food on the roof?) ...that could be the flood coming in the background!  We are all safe n dry and luckily my husband cleaned out the gutters before the 90 mm of rain arrived...that's 3 1/2 inches in the old scale!

Sugar Block BOM January's block - already made, just for comparison with ...

February's block.  I tried to get the lovely waratah print in the centre block, but the print was a bit large.

 I finished off my St Valentine days sewing with some new star blocks.  Yes, this is a new WIP!  Because I had a gazillion blue 5" squares left over I cut some 3" white squares for flippy corners.  I am not not sure what I ever had against solids!  Two down, ??? to go!

Note to self, do not try and make dessert that involve melting chocolate when humidity is 200% and definitely never try and put Brownies back in the oven AFTER you have cooled them and discovered they are uncooked in the centre.  Further note to self; throw out Brownies recipe, go on a diet. 

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

Friday night sewing, I wish!

Again I am late for linking up to Friday Night With Friends  run by Cheryll.  

 I achieved this on Sunday.  One table, without umbrella - had to find a shifter to achieve that!

Covered in one old double bed fitted sheet...to protect it!

One batting smoothed out, trying to ensure one end doesn't drag in the dirt.

 One backing, smoothed out, the corner aligned with the batting.

 Flip the corner over and spray baste the batting.  

 Worked my around to the last corner, spray and smooth, all while making sure excess batting stays off the ground.

Trim excess batting.  Concede defeat.  Can of spray is empty and shops are shut.  

I intended to sew Saturday and I kind of did in between;, hosting my sewing mother (visiting from Victoria), caring for my two boys (DH is away for work), making lunch for a non sewing girlfriend...who I then convinced to stay and learn to make a Union Jack pillowcase. I did help her to make half of a Union Jack, use a rotary cutter and sew a quarter inch seam.  All the while hosting another non sewing girlfriend and her daughter - who were voluntarily evacuated from their house due to the catastrophic fire rating for the hills and the fact here were two fires burning in the hills.  And hosting another quilting friend, who pretty much luckily entertained herself!  And then after the two non sewers left late in the day, my quilting buddies hubby and daughter turned up and I cooked BBQ tea.  Phew!  

Tomorrow I am going to buy basting spray.  Perhaps I might get to sew next Friday? Sorry for the boring photos, but whats a post without pictures?

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

PS we still have our Southern Boobook owl in residence, despite the 40C temps on Saturday and a steady stream of visitors looking at him.  I am very pleased to have a residential mouse eater, lets hope s/he stays!

Unexpected presents!

A few weeks ago a good friend dropped in and gave me this lovely bag.  It has a special pocket inside which includes a pen and notepad.  I had forgot to show it off, because I am too busy using it!  I think this lovely print (purchased in Africa)  helped the revived interest in Zebras at my house!  Although I don't think any more poor zebra have been sacrificed to feed the lions...I found the lions drinking milk...from the "milk tanker" out of the Thomas train set!

On Sunday I enjoyed a lovely afternoon sewing with a few friends, one who had recently cleaned out her stash.  I have plenty of novelty prints in my stash, but happy to take a few more on board, just to help out a friend of course!

Then on Monday a parcel arrived unexpectedly, with presents for me - a cute key chain purse,

 followed by some magazines and lots of matching fat quarters!  These cute kids prints are going to make a great quilt!  Can you see the great butterfly pattern I have already ear marked, I don't do enough cute girls cot quilts and I had seen a picture somewhere in blog land of this butterfly and now I have the pattern!

 And there were presents for my two boys, two super cute pillow cases each - all from my friend Karen.  The boys loved their new pillow cases and we had to immediately put them to use ; )

Then tonight DS2 told me he needed a library bag...apparently library day is tomorrow! He requested lion and zebra fabric, and surprisingly I had some that fitted the bill!  

So this is my first finish for February.  But I have been enjoying everyone else's hard work and generosity!

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

We have a feathered visitor

Our yard had lots of tall, establish trees when we brought the house and a host of bird life.  This is the first owl we have seen, but I suspect he is a little bit lost and we only saw him because my husband was washing the car under this tree.  This is a juvenile Southern Boobook owl, which according to the Birds in Backyards website, is the most common owl in Australia, for more information go here.  I hope he hasn't lost his Mummy and I hope he is going to be OK in the 40C+ heat we are suffering!

 Meanwhile we were avoiding the heat and staying inside, happily playing - me on the sewing machine and my darling boys were playing African safaris again,  plotting escape routes for the zebras!  Its hard to keep a straight face when they are discussing in earnest how to outsmart the lions, those smart zebras split into two groups and crossed the river - outwitting the poor hungry lions!

 I found more pre cut squares in my stash, these are all cowboy themed.  I cut some red horse shoe print to try and pull the different colours together...I not sure I achieved my aim?  Either way a single bed size top is finished and when this is quilted it will keep a little cowboy warm.

This square quilt was made with the rest of the cowboy left over fabrics.  Karen sent me most of these fabrics a few years ago and I have been struggling to know how to put the left overs together.  In the end I made several types of blocks, which looked awful together, but somehow look better with sashing.  At 54" square I am happy with the size of this quilt and there are very few scraps remaining.  The light blue and red border fabrics I had brought myself, so there is a bit of yardage to use up in backings and that potentially will be the last of the cowboy themed fabric!

Happy quilting, Sue SA.

Opps, another top!

Double oops, where is that UFO to do list I am suppose to be sticking to!  I promise I tried, but after tearing the sewing room apart I could not find the 4 patch leaders and enders I had started.  No idea where they might be hiding.  But in the process I found the remnants of a project from last year - pink and green chevron baby quilt.  The baby quilt has been delivered - and the baby girl has safely arrived!

However the leftover fabric, or should I say the fabric that didn't make the cut (ha ha) was still in a bag along with plenty of white.  AND more importantly lots of already cut strips - 3.5" wide.  Now these were cut in error as the cot quit strips were 3" wide, but I couldn't see any point in them going to waste.  So I cut some white strips and started piecing.  And really it didn't take long to come together....and its all from my stash!  This is a good single bed size, but already I am wondering how much hassle adding another row to the width would be.  I have plenty of most of the fabrics, but not all of them.  Will see how I feel next weekend, as this week will be too busy for more sewing...kids are back at school tomorrow!  Oh my where did six weeks disappear to!

DH had a little stash project going as well today.  Using some of the excess tiles (from kitchen/family room) the previous owners kindly  left in the shed.  This our "front door", which is never ever used as a front door,  it leads straight into our lounge room.  But we hope to remedy that soon, having re done the wooden external door and surround garden, we just need a nice tiled entrance and some new carpet.

Frankly carpet shopping is boring.  You can get cream, beige, tan, latte or chocolate.  There was probably also grey, boring!  So while I am yet to make a choice DH has laid the tiles.  Grouting is next weekend!

I also finally got around to a job, that I have been putting off, for no particular reason.  Last year when I attended a class run by the South Australian Quilters Guild, they had these handy strips with just the prickly Velcro on the underneath, to reduce the trip hazard of extension cords in the classroom.  I made up two for DH to use in his home office, as the cords run right across the doorway!  I only used bright yellow because I had some scrap, that wasn't quilting quality...waste not, want not!

I hope you all had a lovely long Australia Day weekend, happy quilting, Sue SA.

I was wrong...

I wasn't 10" short of the star fabric when I did my math calculations...I was one 2.5" square short! Those two 1.5" squares on the right  were all the leftovers I had, even after I scrounged around on the floor hunting for "lost" pieces!

I ignored the new fabric I brought and rummaged through the scrap pile to find a suitable 2.5" scrap.  I did prefer the middle option (lots of tiny black stars) but ended up going for the black dots on the right.  Even though they are larger and darker, when you cast your eye over the whole quilt, that odd square doesn't stand out.  

I had decide to amend the overall size of the quilt I was aim for and spent yesterday afternoon, chain piecing.   I did not unpick the lovely soft blue and yellow wattle fabric, because it is so quintessentially Australian.  And it is nearly Australia Day after all!

So here is - now single bed size (43" x 76") and I am very pleased with the end result!

Happy quilting, Sue SA

All I seem to discuss is the weather...

...because it is hot, hot, HOT!  After a week of 40C plus during the day and 30C overnight, all anyone wants to talk about is how hot it is and when is the cool change due!

 

Some plants are just not designed for South Australian summers.  Don't worry I did watered this poor hydrangea!  Hydrangeas remind me of my paternal grandmother, so I planted some knowing they would need TLC.  Surprisingly the three I have in pots are doing much better then this one in the ground.    

This sunflower was given to my son's from friends Elaine and Wayne, who are very good at gifting "little" things that kids like!  The boys have enjoyed watching this grow taller and taller and now after a week of heat it is finally blooming!  Being school holidays, my boys have been stuck inside all week.

They have done a great job of self entertaining.  But even they were panting in the heat, as the carpet became the African plains and the animals had to cope with a heat wave.  Please note cows = water buffalo in this game!  An unlucky zebra was feed to the lions because he had a wonky leg, the 7 yr old explained!

I have done some unpicking, cutting and lots of piecing.  I also stopped to do some maths.  The result is I am 10" short of the white print (white with small brown dot), if I make this quilt the large single bed size.  So I went down the patchwork store and just brought the next closest fabric,  a white with black dot - who cares in this heat!  But looking at this photo I might just ditch the blue with yellow wattle fabric, as I can see three 5" blocks in the last row and now one of them reads as blue in this photo!  I have plenty of blue fabrics and now plenty more white, so this quilt might just get a whole lot bigger!

Spare a thought for the firefighters (volunteers and paid) out battling blazes around Australia, and my friends living in and around the Grampians - which are alight, I hope your homes are saved and that the cool change come early and without lighting strikes.

To everyone else, please stay cool and stay safe.

Happy quilting, Sue SA.