Gisborne retreat

Four days of fun and laughter was had at the retreat at Gisborne. despite the hot weather and not knowing how to use the air-conditioning for the first day we got lots done.

Time for a drink and chip

Sawtooth star block

Christine working out what goes where

Maria pieced together lots of hand sewn blocks from Kate

Judy's beautiful quilt coming together

Owl wonky block

And another sawtooth star.

Blogger is not cooperating so we will end here.

Happy stitching. 

Cuteness overload!

I spent a couple of afternoons with Finn last week

we put his pool out on the front deck and played with a little bit of water - Not nuf Ga Ga I was told!!

"Cheese!"

I bought this T shirt a while ago, online, it was supposed to be a cotton linen mix, but is super shiny and slippery and was too tight around the bum! So it has had the chop and now is a bag!

I love the frog and wanted to keep it, so now I have a bag for the cross stitch project.

Next is #10 for the Chookshed Stitchery Challenge, I have moved a project around to fit in with retreat.

I have been wrangling applique pieces, tracing cutting and ironing

A few to be cut out here!!

After a few evenings they are all cut out, now to get the backing ready

Marked out and ready to iron on all the pieces

Done, after an afternoons placing and moving and placing again.

Yesterday I added the borders

This project is called Australian Flora Mandala, Wattle Brush and is designed by Sonya Else.

I bought the kit years ago and as Sonya is coming to talk to the Guild in March I thought I have better get my act together and get it made! 

I am planning to sandwich it and then attach all the leaves and wattle flowers with free motion and that will be part of the quilting. That is the plan anyway!! 😀  I am on retreat next week so will be the perfect time to get a start on it. I am not sure if it will be done this month as I am off the NZ to support Jenny straight after the retreat.

Poor Jens thought she was going to have a knee replacement in Feb but was having terrible pain in her hip, the Dr. said we will do that one first so it was done at the end of Jan, all happened fast for her.

 I have been stitching away in the evenings and was very excited to start on the first branch of my Temperature Tree, I have made mistakes along the way but have unpicked and continued on, I have just realised I have left 4 stitches on the branch with stitches one way 😯 I will fix that soon.

OK I am off now to continue stitching, fix my mistake and hopefully continue without problems.

Have a happy rest of the week and happy stitching.

 

Over the last week or so

 

I have sandwiched the two little quilts for the Guild - you know how you get those days and you are just in the mood to get something done??

The two quilts are now both quilted and have their binding sewn on one side, the hand sewing will be done by another Guild member. I was lucky as there was just enough backing left to make the binding.

This wasgij has been sitting in the cupboard for a long time , so  it came out to play and after about 10 days

I had a finish. The puzzle was a mystery and you had to decide what happened next, I really enjoyed this one.

I have also been sewing and crocheting away of an evening and have two blankets finished for KOGO, have one more to do.

this one had all the ends on the squares finished off, so it got the purple wool treatment 😀

This one had lots of endy bits to play with.

I got talked into doing this

Susan is a very good enabler - although I must admit she didn't have to enable much!! I didn't realise this was a cross stitch ( I obviously was not paying attention) so I have a big learning curve as I have not attempted cross stitch before. Luckily this pattern has clear instructions on the back. Susan started a Insta group and some of the ladies have finished their trees - I need to get started. 😳

I have also started an applique project, one of my challenges for this year, but no photos as yet.

I had better head off and finish the vacuuming, hubby has had his nap so I can make noise again!!

Happy stitching.

Last weekend

 I went by train to Warrnambool, that meant an early morning for me as I had to get the train at South Geelong at 8.13, change at Waurn Ponds and then head to Warrnambool. I managed to sleep most of the train ride there. When I arrived I was distracted by a large number of hot rods and classic card driving past the station, I wandered up the main street and then realised I was right where an Adventure Lab started so decided to do that straight away.

A lane way I passed

I really enjoyed the street art

this one too

view along the street to the War Memorial

Statues at the Art Gallery

Sammy the seal, Sammy used to follow the fishermen in to the wharf and enjoy being fed until the day a shark got him and sadly that was the end of Sammy.

This is called which way to the beach - featuring the penguins.

I then went to look at a shoe shop as you do and got a taxi to the quilt show.

The biennial Southern Right Creative Festival show is held at Brauer College. Once there I started looking around and saw a familiar face - Annette and her friends, so I said hello and had a chat for a while. Here are a few of the quilts I liked

Isn't this pretty?

The Daylesford Quilt by Jen Kingwell, I have seen a few of these, mine is waiting to be quilted.

Tea Towel Party, inspired by Racheldaisy's book. A collection of vintage koala themed tea towels, this reminded me of the tea towel challenge we had at Bellarine Quilters last year.

Really liked the secondary pattern in this one.

Always a sucker for hexies!!

This reminded me of the Churndash challenge from Chooky a while back.

part of the show view. There were about 200 quilts and shops all around the edge of the hall, some shopping was done as I had a Christmas voucher to spend!

a pattern and some beautiful bright fabric from These Clever Hands.

View from the train on the way home.

Right that is me done for now, I am off to Geelong soon so had better go and get ready,

Happy stitching.

#6 is finished

 

This months number was 6 and I am very happy to say I have a finish.

Today I painted over the stitched school motto as the stitches did not show up, they looked great and a good size on plain fabric but the machine did not like the wadded fabric!

I had one number to stitch around but was a bit concerned about the thread on the spool

would it be enough??

it was, but then

as I was finishing the threads I realised I hadn't finished the zero!!

Phew just scraped in!!

I am off to transfer photos from my phone for my next post about the quilt show I went to last weekend.

Happy stitching.