St Leonard's Weekend

Saturday was a glorious day....the bay was calm, the sun was shining, what more could you want?...

maybe just a quiet place to sit and sew...those hexagons need to be done......and

I got to avoid the painting...actually DH was happy to be left to his own devices, didn't need a gopher today! lol!!

Chowdy was resting after his morning walk...and being very suspicious of that woman with her camera AGAIN!! But he is so cute!!

Then in the afternoon we went for another walk to look for beach glass, 'cos we know someone who collects it and it is nice to be able to add to the collection! The weather had changed a little, a few spits of rain but not too bad,

a pelican flew past, I was a little slow with the camera! :-)

and this is the quilt I am trying to repair , I am now making small hexies (half inch small mmmmmm... didn't think that one through!!) to go randomly into the large black spaces..I like a challenge in my life!!

I Spy Quilt

I am a bit late with this but last Tuesday I finished the I Spy Quilt, binding and even a label!! It is now ready to be sent off to NZ.

I Spy Quilt

Yay!! I am happy to have this finished and happy that I got my act together and actually did it instead of thinking about it!!

August challenge

Our Wednesday group challenge for this month was to make a quilt no bigger than 24 inches as they are going to be donated to Cheryll's Blankets of Love.
We all  had a go and it always amazes me that we all come up with something different!

Marg made a beautiful quilt from a fat quarter - beautiful colours!

Tracee made a beautiful geometric number!

Tania made a beautiful quit with fabric from her stash

I had a play with charm squares following a tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt company calling Falling/Tumbling Squares

they ended up larger than I thought they would so I made two quilts.

FNWF

Well we had a great night last night, Tracee had the fire going - just as well as we have returned to winter here in Gisborne after having a few beautiful spring days, we stitched, ate, laughed, played with the dogs, looked at Tracee's quilts (beautiful!!) and were shocked when we realised it was 11pm!!
We didn't take photos of the food, but Tracee had cooked a wonderful chicken curry with rice, Marg had made sausage rolls, Tania had a plate of chopped veges, carrot, cucumber, capsicum, dry biscuits and dip and a yummy brie, and I had made jelly with strawberries and blueberries set in it! A feast!

Marg working on her kangaroos, she is  on the last one!!

Tania making hexagons for her new quilt

my hexagons splattered about!! They are for the quilt I am repairing for a work mate

Marg's last to be stitched kangaroo

Tracee busy knitting, and unknitting and knitting, a little woops happened that slowed things down for her.

Isis keeping us company!!

Hexagons under construction.

We had a lovely evening, it is such a treat to get together and sew and chat....many thanks to Tracee for being the hostess with the mostest!

Pinched Marg's photo!!

FNWF

Yippee!! Off to Tracee's place tonight for FNWF, also going is Tania and Marg.  Hope to get some sewing done but just getting together is really good!!

One step closer

Today I finished the quilting on the I Spy Quilt I am making...yay!!!! Next step to trim and bind...I think I will fold the backing to the front and have a nice soft cuddly binding.

I have had a go at free motion quilting, or free range quilting as it is known here!

I am happy the quilt is soft and cuddly

some of the quilting is a bit "free range" I found it hard moving the quilt around as it was so heavy, some stitches are a little big but over all it isn't too bad.

I had a visitor in side the pantry this morning - I opened the door to get some cereal and this was what I was looking at!!!! It looked at me and I looked at it and eventually it moved over to the front of the door, so I slammed the door shut and it scuttled up the wall and now is sitting looking at me from the ceiling above the kettle! Not happy!!!

This evening I managed to get some I Spy Blocks finished for Sharon who is kindly making an I Spy Quilt for a little boy in hospital. He has a face book page Blake's Million Smiles - sadly he has been in hospital for 24+ weeks now.  Last I read his Dad was very sick with the flu as well.  I am sure Sharon will do a beautiful job and the quilt will be amazing!

Wonderful weekend

Tania and I headed off to St Leonard's on Saturday morning, plus dogs, to have a relaxing, stress free, sewing weekend

We stopped in Geelong to give the dogs a break from the car and to take some bollard photos - I love the Geelong bollards!!

Tania in charge of the dogs!

Tupai waiting impatiently!!

Isn't this just beautiful? I so love being near the water and it was a beautiful day.

Walking on the pathway over the water

I think this is a banjo shark, was just cruising along near where we were walking.

Yay!! I managed to finish something!! It was a "huge"job (not) I finally got the label sewn onto this mini quilt....has only taken me 5 months!! Oh boy now I am embarrassed!! And it only took 15 minutes!! Lol!!

Tupai went for a swim in the waves - he wasn't bothered by the howling north wind!

then had a snooze under the table

Ollie snoozed on the couch...while keeping an eye on the strange person with a camera!

I managed another finish on Sunday..my first block of the Farmyard Frolics 2 - now to get on with the next three awaiting some attention!!

It must be jelly fish time of the year...these ones were floating in to shore

some had been damaged, maybe by birds?

some are quite big

the toy voyagers had a lovely time sitting on the beach watching the world go by

this was one of the biggest jelly fish we saw

Monday morning we went for a wander along the beach, we left at 10.15 for a short walk to the Yacht Club and back, then decided to wander along to the boat launching ramp in case we could see some pelicans, we got to see three but my photos are all rubbish!! It was such a beautiful day we were in no rush to go back home, but eventually got hungry and were surprised to find it was 10 to 1 when we got back! We had lunch, then packed up and headed home. I was sad to say goodbye to the beach!!

Some sleepy dogs on the way home!