we once lived here

My camera has flat batteries so cannot take any photos today.

Having a blog gives me an opportunity to reflect on some things that have happened in the past.
This property was one such priviledge, we lived here between 1984 and 1991.
We left this place to go on our grey nomad travelling.
Have been back on visits since as we have many fond memories, the photo of hubby at the pond was taken on our last visit. as were the others.
The palm trees are replacement trees for the original trees which had died and were planted wheb quite small whilst we were living there.

On the quilty front my stay at home round robin that I would like to be larger - the designer Tara has come up with more borders that complement the original design.
So will be doing some fabric dyeing this weekend - well that is the plan, then I can proceed with taking the project up to cot size.

Also have two projects to take out of their bags and give them an airing: 1 is a lilac quilt for Elaine and the other is the start of "Third Weekend in October" usually referred to as TWIO.

Need to see where I got to in Elaine's quilt and work towards getting it finished.

The TWIO will be worked on as an online project in April.

angels and mortals

The Southern C ross Quilters online group have an annual retreat helf in a different area each year in 2007 it was in Bendigo and was the first time I attended, had booked before but I actually got to attend last year - YAY!!! great fun!!

Part of the fun is an angel/mortal swap held for 3 months prior to going , you send a gift each to your 'mortal' all the while attempting to keep your identity secret.

So the swap has begun in readiness for Perth in 2008.
Today I received my pressie from my angel "Becky J"
Now this year there are 'rules' - gifts to be $10 in value and fit in a sandwich bag.

So my angel knows that I need to be better organised ;-))

Must be married to a truck driver, the size of the 'sandwich' bag ... LOL

Now to discover whether the photo uploaded - it was there and then it dissapeared.

QuilterGeek: How to make a Tetris Quilt

QuilterGeek: How to make a Tetris Quilt

Was hoping doing a blog would help to make me accountable and get my quilty stuff finished!!!
But I keep being alerted to patterns like this ....

Now remind me - what are the 12 steps to recovery???

Second thoughts - do I REALLY want to recover????

butterfly round robin

The third border is on!!!

Think will make this a little larger so that it would better fit a cot, then it will be on hand ready to bless a newborn baby girl ... there will be one at some time in the future .. grin

Will dye some fabric on the weekend to continue on with the project.

Visited a thrift shop today and bought some more garments today so hopefully the bargello will soon be a top.

Had a 'funny' experience last night as we were watching cricket - India v Australia in a one day game, and suddenly noticed the numbers on the players' caps - I have never seen them before!!!

I knew from listening to radio broadcasts that they were there but I thought they must be miniscule as I could not see them ...

The joys of modern eye surgery .... yay!!!!!

round robin

Managed to get the second border on my stay at home round robin, just the one more border to add - then what to do with it?

Any ideas?

must admit to being pleased that it used a leftover block and all the fabrics came from stash.

raffle quilt

This quilt was raffled last year in order to raise funds for the Leukemia foundation through my shave for a cure.

Like the raffle quilt below, this quilt was expertly, beautifully quilted by Lisa and Roy of the Blackbird Quiltery, the links to Lisa'a blog and the quiltery are on my sidebar.

Many of the nine patches on this quilt came from participating in swaps.

This quilt was won by Margaret P. who was my roomie in Bendigo last year.

Crazy Shortcut Quilts: Quilting Desk

Crazy Shortcut Quilts: Quilting Desk

This sounds like an interesting and inexpensive,way to create a great machine quilting space - however i don't have enough room, maybe you do.

quilt for raffle

This is the only photo I can find now of the quilt for the Mothers' Day raffle - and I think it is actually on it's side ... I dyed some fabric in green for the binding.

While I was down the street today called into the senior citizens op shop and found 3 more cotton shirts so the bargello will be underway very soon.

Do I want to count and list the UFO's, WIP's and whatever else???? ... nah ... I'll just continue to work on projects as the opportunity, and the mood, arises.

In the Studio: Am I REALLY a Headcase??#links

In the Studio: Am I REALLY a Headcase??#links

My absolute first foray into the wondrous world of patchwork was hexagons, the quilt was never finished it disappeared and I forgot all about it for a very long time.

Never wanted to do hexagons again .. ever .. then tonight I read about this quilt in progress on Christine's blog ...

A good thing that happened today was that I went down the street and when I returned the missing piece for my sudoku mat was on the cutting board!
There had been a visitor while I was gone so my guess is that it had migrated to her bag by mistake when she was here before.
Now that project can be completed - it is just the right size for the 2 person table that we have.

Have the second border ready to sew on to my stay at home round robin so that is inching towards completion as well, though don't know what it will eventually become.

The scrap Irish Chain quilt was collected today in readiness for it being raffled for Mothers' day in May.

sophie junction: Hearts & Sparks

sophie junction: Hearts & Sparks

This diappearing nine patch by Sophie uses pieced heart blocks, there is also a link to a tutorial in her post.
Well worth having a look at - now my overflowing list is getting even longer ...
Did cut the fabrics for the 2nd border on my stay at home round robin today so hopefully that will soon be finished.

These fabrics are the ones I used to create my sudoku puzzle mat which is now together, so wanted to make a mug mat using the small leftover pieces of fabric to create a key for the puzzle - 8 of them are there no worries, but the green fabric on the upper left in this photo is no where to be found!!

Because these are charms I received in a swap I have no more ...

After much fruitless searching am thinking the missing piece must have either got knocked or blown off my cutting mat when the door was opened then sucked up the vacumn cleaner along with all the other fluffy threads and snippets that had landed on the floor.

An almost finished UFO now stalled for the lack of a snippet!!

Another bit of my bah humbug day - which actually had started well, was when I was piecing a scrappy 4 patch quilt and the sewing machine began looping the threads on the bobbin side - rethreaded several times all to no avail.

So here we are in our own home till the morning and I can sew without disturbing others' peace and the Nina is not feeling well...

Other than that cut some of the high dry grass today, so that *chore* is almost finished now, alas I don't do anywhere near enough physical work these days and every muscle and tendon in my body is letting me know they are there!!

So instead of sewing for a couple of hours I will go to bed.

Just remembered another good bit about today, I picked up the no mail round robin which I had left behind last month by mistake so I have it safely in my bag ready to take in the morning.

Copied off the directions for the 2nd and 3 rd borders, the old faithful workhorse Bernina at Trevor's will go into overdrive to get this finished in the next couple of days and at least then something will be FINISHED!!!

coffee anyone? quilt top

these are the cobblestone blocks sewn together - was too anxious to see what they looked like so took the photo before pressing the top!

Started cutting the strips today for the bargello bowl quilt, have been checking out the op shops for cotton shirts - most here are a mixture of cotton and polyester, have found some cotton shirts though probably not yet enough to get sufficient variety for this quilt.

have been playing around with some cobblestone blocks today, coffee and cream.

Think I'll add a small black border followed by a wider cream one.

This will be a donation quilt for the spinal injuries unit.

Did manage to get some grocery shopping bags made from some of the sheeting squares before I went to hospital a week ago.

Progress is slow but slow is better than no progress.