Since

Returning home life has been busy, appointments for hubby and myself,  grass to cut, gardens to weed, house to clean, all that stuff, plus tone to be spent with this young man 

Who has discovered what you can do with his Grandmothers phone!! 

I have finished one of the Christmas quilts to go to the special care nursery at SJOG 

I have sewn together one of the charm packs I found at the Albury (I think) quilt shop Raewyn will correct me if I have the wrong place 😉 plus some batik fabric

It looked a bit bland so I added a purple border and then used up the rest of the batiks

One patchy quilt top done.  Happy the top is sewn together and the fabric hasn't taken up residence on the fabric shelves! 

We have had some lovely days this last week

We had some visitors to the front deck one day recently 

This one let me hand feed it for a little while , it enjoyed the seed cereal topper.

I am off to Gisborne next week  for a retreat  8 of us to sew up a storm!! 

Happy stitching

End of the month

 This is the last day for the #1 challenge for the Chook shed Stitchers challenge.

as seen in my last post the scrap quilt top is done, 840 two and a half inch squares, plus op shop fabric plus fabric from the scraps box at retreat.

The scrappy batik strip quilt top is done, mainly at retreat, all from strips left from other projects.

a scrap cushion cover is in production, this has left over piano key border pieces from last retreat,  I think I am going to try big stitch quilting on this one

and this cushion is finished, my first with a zip in the top. Made from scrap strips of Japanese fabric.

One of the ladies at Guild has asked people to make a cushion to enter in the Geelong Show in October, so this is my effort!

I am happy with my results for this months challenge.

Wonder which number we will have for the month of August?

Happy stitching.

Retreat and Churn Dash along

This week I am in Gisborne for a quilty retreat. One quilt top is finished, scrappy batiks, lots of left overs in this one

the ladies have been busy

Maria is making piano key borders for her scrappy quilt, using up fabric from a friends estate

Judy is also using up fabric from a friend's estate and making blocks from bits and pieces

Just has finished another quilt top,  I will try and get a photo later.

Carleen is making a table runner in Aussie fabrics

Maxine is making her fpp blocks

she has to concentrate to get the pieces in the right place and in the right order.

The squirrel came to visit and so these left overs were joined together to create more blocks

We have a huge bag of strips still to work through so are going to make green blocks, it has been started 😁.

Home tomorrow afternoon and back to unpacking and sorting things in the house.

Happy stitching.

PS I forgot the Churn Dash blocks 🙄

That's better.

WINNER

 of the birthday giveaway was Fiona of BubzRugz. Congratulations Fiona, the winnings will be in the mail to you next week.

That includes the pattern for this quilt

the bag underneath and one of the jelly rolls on top. Fiona can you let me know please if you would like the batik or non batik jelly roll please.

Thank you everyone who commented on the Giveaway post.

Happy stitching.

Oops I forgot!

When I did the post yesterday I forgot that I had a finish! How did that happen!! Vague brain striking again I think!!

I finished another block of the Old Time Kaleidoscope, happy smiles. That was finished Wednesday night and on Thursday another one arrived n the mail, I am still three behind I think, so need to get cutting.

Last night I also stitched another five hearts.

It is a beautiful day here today, calm and sunny, have been for a walk along the beach which is not peaceful as the guys building the new boat launching ramp are using a chain saw! Not to worry is was still lovely to get down there.

Now do I go sit and read in the sun or return to the sewing machine??

Happy stitching.

Happy mail

Yesterday was a day of opening lots of happy mail!! It was my birthday yesterday and being in two fabric swap groups I had wonderful envelopes to open.

I requested batik fabric for the swap and here are the lovely fabrics I received in the Fat Quarter birthday swap

And more lovely fabric from the other swap

My special person in the Fat Quarter Birthday swap was Illene, she made me this beautiful block holder..love the fabrics she has used, Illene also included some lovely batik fabric and some tiny scissors. 

The lovely Michelle sent me this beautiful panel and matching blue fabric, a beautiful put your sparkles on mirror, tape measure in a tin and beautiful card, plus some fabric to use in the Aussie Hero quilts. Thank you very much Michelle.

This fantastic bunch of goodies came from the wonderful Donna, a beautiful chowchow calender and bag, how special is that!!

The beautiful Tracee gave me this gorgeous pattern and backing fabric. Love the dragonflies. 

Thank you to all the wonderful quilting and blogging friends who have sent me fabric, goodies and  good wishes, I am feeling very loved. 

Jenny has been out shopping over in NZ...I love this Great Barrier Island hand cream, so she went and found lots... it has manuka honey in it and smells divine.

I have been doing a little sewing, these bugs in a car we played around with on Sunday, Susan from desert sky quilting (i have to find her blog address later) sent me the pattern. Some unsewing happened as my lid didn't sit right on the jar, and being extra careful with cutting and quarter inch seams....need to have another practise.

We are off to Torquay this morning to take the laptop to the fixer, we have a virus and it is very unwell. Fingers crossed we don't lose everything!!

Happy stitching.

Retreat day 3

More lovely things to share today

We had a walk down to the beach this morning

Was lovely and calm, just a little breeze

My quilt top is done..happy dance!! The second half went together much faster then the first.

Margarets Caswell blocks coming together

Linda's beautiful  paper pieced block

Carleen's blocks for her grandsons quilt

Maxine working on her beautiful applique

Maria is making a quilt with amazing flying geese

Abd Linda is now making lovely batik paper pieced blocks.

I am joining bias strips to make the bias ribbon for the Doing the Rounds quilt

This is a learning curve for me but I have lots of help here.

Had better go and do some more.

Happy sewing.

Today

has not gone as I had planned, nothing drastic, I had planned a day of sewing and as yet have not managed one stitch!! But the washing is done, the carpet is clean, the dust has been moved around, the Supervisor has been to the vet and has had a needle for his arthritis and survived.

We had a stop at the beach on the way home to recover!!

My birthday celebrations continue, I am so lucky, today in the mail there were more goodies 

 this cute card from Jenny, and how true it is!! Woops, I have accidentally deleted it, will have to go back to the tablet and find it again!!

Second time lucky!!!

This lovely bunch of goodies came from Michelle

And these from Anthea

These wonderful people must have known I am doing a class next month and need green fabrics and other fabrics I can add to them, these are perfect.

I also have some beautiful fabric from Asta but that is on the other camera so will have to add that later.  Now it is later!!

Love the pin cushion and threads too.

I stitched the flowers down yesterday and had planned to get to the leaves today, but maybe that will happen tomorrow! !

Off to find that other photo!

Happy sewing.

Happy day

Yesterday I caught the train into the city and met up with wonderful friends and finally got to meet Fiona in person!! I met Fiona and Shez at Southern Cross, we caught a tram, after some stumbling and coffee spilling ( no names will be mentioned!! Lol!!)and met the other ladies at Flinders Street Station.

we met up with Christine and then Mel

then Marina arrived.

we had a look around Southbank...Christmas is coming!!!Then made our way to PJ O'Briens for lunch

Great food and wonderful company!! And a very obliging waiter who took many photos!!

Cheers!!

Marina sampled the Guinness....

and sported a Guinness mustache for Movember!! 

Christine and I wandered across the bridge heading back to the city...and we suddenly realised we  had lost the others....then they appeared...

slowly, slowly they caught up with us....obviously serious discussions were under way that made walking impossible!!

Shez decided to decorate herself with the toyvoyagers.....so they could get a better view of the city she said!! Lol!!

Our final port of call was Luccello's...who can walk past there and not call in???

Is very  hard to leave this shop without some goodies....

a nice little collection here that jumped in to my bag!!!

this little reindeer decoration just had to come home with me...

and look at these lovely Batik fat quarters and stitched decoration.....a beautiful gift from Shez.

Thank you to all, Shez, Christine, Marina, Mel and last but by no means least, the lovely Fiona.....it was a treat to meet you in person Fiona and enjoy a wonderful day out with everyone. Let's do it again soon!!

Happy sewing.