Gisborne Retreat day 3

We had another busy day of sewing and chatting, I managed to get in 2 short walks

More stitching is happening on the hexie quilt

Christine has gathered squares from the throw out box here on retreat and has this four patch top ready to be sewn together

Maria has her Peas In a Pod quilt top together

Carleen has started a Zig Zag quilt, you start with a pentagon and add pieces ro each side and then trim back, is going to look  very effective

Judy has pieced another top from pieces left over from another quilt

Sue has cut and gathered hundreds of little circles and is now applliquing them to little squares 🙄

Maxine is adding more blocks to her Zig zag quilt top

For dinner we had baked potatoes and for desert we had pavlova, my favourite.

Off to do a little more sewing.

Happy stitching.

Gisborne retreat day 2

Lots of sewing and fabric appreciation has happened today

my blocks are all finished, tomorrow they will be sewn together

Tonight's dinner, will have  to fix the photo at home

Maxine's show and tell today, a beautiful quilt top she is still working on.

Maria has made a heap of progress with her quilt top started by her daughter 20 years ago.

Margaret has been making children's quilts to go to Jan Mac for children affected by the fires...front

And back

Another Margaret quilt, front

And back.

Maxines wall hanging, it is now finished.

The back of another Margaret quilt, I missed the front. I have managed to have a walk morning and afternoon today so made my daily steps, pretty happy with that.

Time for bed for me now, more tomorrow.

Happy stitching

Gisborne retreat day 1

Scrappy strips made by me, more to be made tomorrow, they will have different centres as I have run out of the orangey/red

Maxine is working on her zig zag quilt top, a little unsewing has happened as some of the blocks jump around the wrong way 😉

Christine is putting these blocks together, loving the colours.

Maxine has been also working on this wall hanging.

Off to bed now to get up the strength to sew up a storm tomorrow. 

Happy stitching.

Progress and catching up

 I am having trouble believing it is February already - January vanished so quickly!

I have been having a few walks, I try to go out most days

Indented Heads today

St Leonard's a few weeks ago when the bush fires were happening down the Otway's and Great Ocean Road

Back at St Leonard's

The flowering gums are doing their thing at the moment, the bees are very happy and out in large numbers. Sorry about the finger in the photo 😊

The shirt quilt is finished, I used trimmed off backing to bind.

and the Peas In a Pod is also finished, I used left over fabric for the binding.

In the bag of shirt pieces I found a nearly complete shirt, it had part of the fronts cut off so I decided to try and rescue is and make it mine

I added some fabric to the back just under the collar

and two pieces either side of the fronts, they were not cut off evenly and I didn't even them up just added the fabric I wanted. I am going to add more but have not decided what else to do yet.

I finally got my act together and hot glued thread to the back of the shapes to be added to Glad Tidings Christmas wall hanging, now I need to add buttons. This is going to a new home in April so I will get moving.

I have been spending some time with this little man

he enjoyed painting (with water) the screen door one hot day, until he had had enough and threw brush and container over the edge of the deck! Game over!!

He loves the camera and spent ages taking selfies with my phone until the battery went flat! You can't get your phone out as he wants to use it straight away. We deflect with kicking the soccer ball and playing cricket. Usually indoors which is getting dangerous for the house!!

I have been stitching away on the Under the Sea quilt, I am slow and it is taking a while. This was started in a class with Kathy Doughty last year, the challenge was to go big...think I failed, but I am happy with it.

This is a cushion that goes on a couch Beth bought for the office of her new business. Adam and Beth's Dad went to get it and part way home it blew off the trailer. Luckily someone stopped by them at the traffic lights and let them know, so back they went and there it was in the middle of the lanes of traffic, luckily it had not been run over by a truck! The end was ripped and not much fabric was missing thank goodness so I was able to sew it back together. I sits towards the back of the couch so will not be too obvious. 

Life has been a bit busy of late, we have finally managed to get David in to a Parkinson's support programme at a hospital in Geelong, he has had two interviews so far, the third one is in a week and a bit. today was the "Speechie" and OT, next time is the physio and maybe another session with the OT.  We came away pleased with todays sessions, I think it will be really good for David in the future.

Ok enough from me and it is time I was cooking dinner.

Some progress

 I have been stitching away n the evenings and have finished two unplanned projects, I think Lou sent her squirrels over here!

I bought this bag one day poking around on Temu, It cost about $4, thought it would be good for going down to the beach and then one day looking in my scrap bag I decided to try and cover the bag with fabric and this is the result

one side

the other side

all sewn by hand except for the top edging which I did on the machine and then hand sewed the inside bits that missed  😀

Then while I was in the scrap bag I decided to do this

machine sewn, oops this is the fabric layout

and finished. machine sewn to hold all the fabric pieces in place and the end pieces hand sewn in to create the pockets for the book cover to slot into.

I found PixxiBook on line and printed up last years blog, the covers are hard covers and the pages really good heavy paper, they have made lovely books, more expensive that I am used to getting but I am very happy with them.

I have books for 2024 coming in the mail, they have been done with IntoRealPages, slightly less expensive, soft covers, I did have a lot of trouble getting their page to work for me with with a lot of help from Jo, we finally got there. My main problem was that my book was showing from Dec 22nd on the first page to Jan 1st on the last page.....we could not work it out. I emailed the company, they said it can happen when there is a break in the transmission and the data gets muddled. They fixed it all up at their end and I checked to see all the posts were there, it is in the mail and due to arrive later this week.

I am happy to say I have finally finished my Temperature Tree

Is not perfect but I am very happy with it, my first attempt at Cross stitch. I have yet to decide how to finish it off. Thank you Susan for the motivation!

We had a special occasion on Saturday, Finn turned three!!

His birthday present from Nanny and Pa

His birthday present from this Grandmother ( he loves rabbits and has a large collection)

his birthday cake made by this grandmother

he was fascinated by the things on top, he also loves cricket!

Getting to eat one of the gummi bears players. We had a wonderful afternoon, Adam cooked a great roast dinner and then we headed home. 

I had better go check the sprinkler I left going on the garden and check also on the bike battery and see if it is charged, I was planning on a ride today 😁

Happy stitching.