7 More Sleeps!

It's been a fortnight since I posted and as things are still quite hectic at home with Howard and Christmas preparations, I have found that one day has blended into the next and my brain is turning to mush (even more so than usual).  I have been reading all your blogs but have been really slack in not commenting.

We have had a little bit of flooding in our town.  The drought has well and truly broken here and we were told the other day that there will be NO WATER RESTRICTIONS this summer Yay!!!!

This picture is of a road I travel on almost every day and usually has a little creek running under the bridge.  This creek runs right through our town and the afternoon it flooded, every road that travels over it was impassable.  I have never seen the water run over the road like that.

This is the same creek over a different road.  My son usually walks his dog along that footpath.  The Murray River at Albury burst her banks due to water being let out of the weir and I can tell you, it has been a very very long time since we have seen so much water.  

We had our Friday Girls Christmas Lunch at Jan's last week.  Look at all those presents under her tree!  They were all for us!!!!!

We had the best day together, celebrating our friendship and exchanging gifts.  Here is just a small sampling of the goodies I received.

This is Jan's little table beside her armchair.  Don't you just love that little quilt!  It's "A Patridge in a Pear Tree".

Now I haven't done any sewing that is blog worthy so I will just leave you with a few pictures of some of my favourite Christmas decorations.

This just happened to come home with the shopping the other day, nothing like a bit of retail therapy.

If I don't post before, I just want to wish you a very Merry Christmas and a happy and safe New Year.  I want to thank you all for making me feel so welcome in blogland and I feel very lucky to have made so many wonderful new friends,  I love you all!!!

Sue-Anne xxx

I Lost November & 21 Days Till Christmas!

Well, I have totally missed November and there is only 21 days till Christmas! 

My husband became ill and had to be admitted to hospital on Melbourne Cup Day.   After spending two weeks there, he finally came home but there have been a couple of hiccups with his recovery, due to his disability.  I am happy to report though, that he is much better and will just need lots more time for total recovery.  I have been really slack in catching up with what everyone has been up to and thank you especially to those who have emailed to see where I have been, I treasure your friendship.

*To Bronwyn in Sydney - Thank you so much, time has got away from me but you are in my thoughts and I will be in touch soon. 

The one positive from sitting at the hospital every day was that I got to applique the centre of Swan Lake.  The centre is quite plain so as not to detract from the border which is definately the Star of this quilt.

The flowers were a little challenging though and I am pleased to have them completed.  Now all I have to do is cut out and applique down 44 flower stars????

I have also completed a couple more rows of my clamshells.  I really really love working on this and although I got lots of stitching done while Howard was in hospital, I have not been able to do much since he came home.  This is perfect to pick up when I get a few moments and need to destress.

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My Mum has made the plum pudding every Christmas since I can remember.  This year, she decided that it was a bit much for her so I was given the job.  Having never made one before, and having to live up to my mother's pudding reputation, I very nervously took on the task last Sunday (note the phone in the photo, I made several calls to mum whilst making it.  It smells ok and now we just have to wait till Christmas Day to see if it tastes ok.  Fingers crossed.

I finally got the tree decorated yesterday so now it is starting to "feel a lot like Christmas"!

Sue-Anne xxx

Happy Halloween!

We don't seem to embrace Halloween here in Australia like other parts of the world but in recent years the marketing has been getting stronger and this year I couldn't resist getting into the spirit when for the first time I saw these Jack-o-Lantern pumpkins at the supermarket.

After watching numerous Youtube videos, I went to work and was quite pleased with how "Jack" turned out.

And finally, I have a use for this Witch I made several years ago - don't you just love her lace-up boots!

I received this beautiful parcel from Nadine.  The fabrics are from Provence and were selected by Nadine whilst she was there on holidays.  There were lots of little treasures in the parcel and I felt really spoilt when I opened it - thank you Nadine.

I have a couple more photos of Quilts in the Barn to share with you but please go and click on the badge on my sidebar for much better photos of all the quilts that were displayed.  I just wanted to show this one.  Look at all the detail with the different layers of fabric to create this beautiful bird.  This level of work was indicative of almost all of the quilts displayed - amazing!

Here is Sarah Morrell, made using a pale blue background.  I am so in love with this quilt!

One for all the hexie lovers.

I have made the centre of this quilt.  It has been in the cupboard now for a couple of years and I may just have to get it out and finish it???

This is called Drayton Hall by Di Ford and I came home with the pattern for this one. 

I also came home with this chair for my sewing room - yes we went to Ikea after visiting 3 patchwork shops.  As I said in my last post, we had a very big day out.

Fabrics purchased from various shops and,

this beautiful little book.  If you love cross stitch, go have a look at Jean's, from Linen & Raspberry, latest post.  You will be in cross stitch heaven!

I have been working on Swan Lake and "Hooray for Me" I have finished the fourth border!  In saying that, I still have 44 star flowers to applique down the mitred borders once it is all joined together - won't that be fun???

Now I don't have too much to show for Clamshell Club this month but I have been working on them.  I ran out of clams so I have cut lots more and have been turning over the tops in readiness to applique down.

Here is my Buddy boy.  Just had to share this pic I took of him.

Sue-Anne xxx

Quilts in the Barn Exhibition

I left home at 6am Friday morning and after picking up Helen, Jan and Michelle, we headed down to Wonga Park, Melbourne to the Quilts in the Barn exhibition, with quilts by the Secret Sewing Sisterhood.  We arrived right on 10am after a fairly intense drive down through the hills towards Yarra Glen and Lilydale in probably some of the heaviest rain I have driven in for a while.  Let me just say that it was well and truly worth the effort.  Above is Deb's Quilt, The Poppies, designed by Di Ford.  It was magnificent!

This is Georgetown Circle by Di Ford.  This quilt is also stunning and unfortunately my photos have not done the quilts any justice.

I didn't catch the names of the above two quilts but they are the same pattern made by different quilters.  It was so interesting to see the different colourways for the same quilt and there were several examples all throughout the barn.

The famous Sarah Morrell quilt was there in all her glory and I got to see her close up!!! 

And of course I had to get my photo taken with Linda, our wonderful host, and Di Ford, the designer of all these wonderful quilts.  Can you see in the background to the right?  It's Phebe!!!!  I also got to view  her up close and personal too!!!!

Corliss from Threadbear was there with her shop and I bought the most beautiful cross stitch book.  I will have more pics for you next post.

Please go visit Linda's blog, Quilts in the Barn to see lots more photos of the quilts.  There were around 90 quilts on display and they were all amazing.  She is putting together a slide show for those of you that couldn't get there in person and hopefully, if you like what you see, you can donate something to a breast cancer charity - she will have it all explained on her blog - and it can then get added to the total of the monies raised from the Exhibition.

After Quilts in the Barn, we went shopping, of course!  More on that next post.

Sue-Anne xxx

Clamshells & Armchair Stitching

Well I am more than a couple of days late with my clamshell report.  I have had a terrible chest infection/flu and it has really knocked me about.  I thought I was really lucky to not have caught it all Winter and then bang, it arrived late with a vengeance.  I have managed to complete 3 rows for the month.  This photo was taken with my iphone and I was mucking around with an app I have for photos.

I have also been busy cutting out shells and tacking over the edges so they are ready to applique down.

I have finally started the last border of Swan Lake.  Luckily I had all my hexagons covered and I was able to just sit in my chair all day and stitch them down as I haven't been good for much else.  When I vacuumed the floors yesterday I was thinking how filthy they were, then I realised I had not done them for exactly two weeks! 

This is Irish Circles, a BOM that I am doing through Patchwork on Stonleigh, designed by Karen Cunningham.  This is the centre that goes with the two blocks I showed on my last post.  I just couldn't leave it alone!  I had a lot of trouble picking the perfect fabric to frame the circle and not being able to make a decision, I decided to just leave it and concentrate on other projects.  Of course, that didn't happen and I finally made a decision and kept stitching until it was done.  There are a lot of little appliques to go around the blue circle but I can relax now that I have that centre done.

I also made some blocks for Lizzie (see my last post), and below are some flowers that have started to bloom in my garden.  

My lilac is finally starting to have some decent sized blooms, 

My big pot of pansies that are lasting a lot longer than I thought they would,

My first rosebud for the season,

and this magnificent Iris.  The colour is a deeple purple/brown colour with a pale yellow.  I was given a few different plants from a friend that had divided hers and it has been fun to see what colours they open up to.  I have never seen this colour before.

I haven't been spending much time on the computer over the last couple of weeks but I have been reading what everyone is up to and will slowly get back to commenting when I am feeling 100%.

Is anyone going to Quilts in the Barn next weekend?  Jan, Michelle, Helen and I are going on a road trip next Friday down to Wonga Park and then onto a couple of quilt shops in Melbourne, before heading home and stopping at our favourite Chinese Restaurant for dinner on the way back.  Just click on the link to read all about Quilts in the Barn.  I am really looking forward to seeing all the wonderful quilts from Di Ford and her friends from the Secret Sewing Sisterhood.  Maybe I might see some of you there.

Also, what is going on with Blogger!!!!!  I have had to upload my photos several times.  They seem to have changed the format for uploading and won't hold them.

Now I am going to make myself some lunch and sit down and continue to watch the big race - Bathurst.  There was a huge smash this morning on the first lap where the car rolled several times and virtually disintegrated around the roll cage and it was amazing that the driver got out and walked away.  There was also a kangaroo hopping across the track in front of several V8 Supercars bearing down on him.  Thankfully he got away and hopped back over the barrier without incident.

Sue-Anne xxx

What's Been Going On This Week

I just had to share this photo of our eldest son, Christopher.  I was on Facebook the other day and clicked on him to see what he had been up to and saw this photo.  This is him playing at Falls Creek a few weeks ago.  Pretty good hey!

And of course, this is middle child Nic, getting ready to put "The Black Pearl" (his name for it, not mine), on the car trailer yesterday for 3 big days down at Winton at Performance Car Mania.  He has been working on this beast every spare minute he has had for the last couple of months in readiness for this weekend.  He put a bigger turbo in it and has had heaps of trouble - it caught on fire the other night while getting tested on the Dyno so I hope he comes back safe and sound.

And seeing as I have mentioned the two boys, I thought I had better mention our youngest, Kellie.  She has been too busy to come visit her dear old mum so here is a photo of her/ours now, cat, Milo.  Max and Milo fight over a cane basket that we keep on the pool table.  A friend of ours gave us this gorgeous basket for Milo but the only way I can get him in there is if I tempt him with food.  As you can see, Max is quite happy to sit in front and eat the food and Milo isn't game to hop out in front of Max.  It is a never ending circus in this house full of pets!

I have been doing a bit of sewing this week.  These are two blocks I have handpieced for a quilt I have started.  These are the easy ones and I am building up the courage to start the centre soon.  Will show more as I get going with it.

I have also finished border number three for Swan Lake - Yay!!!!  Above is the first three hexies I have made for border four.  The black fabric in the top right flower was given to me by Marg, isn't it gorgeous.  I still haven't got very far with the centre but at least I feel like I am on the home stretch with the borders.

Lizzie from A House in the Country needs some help to make a quilt for a special friend who is not doing too well.  Please click on the badge above and read her story.

Have a lovely weekend everyone.

Sue-Anne xxx