Midnight at the Oasis

After rearrange my sewing room I decided it was time to get back

to working on my Midnight at the Oasis quilt, the hubster 

gave it to me for Christmas last year.

this is where I was up to when I had to put it away due to other

commitments, and it sat on my sewing chair all weekend waiting

for the sew-jo to strike

I started with one little churn dash block on Tuesday afternoon

which quickly grew into 7 little churn dash blocks by

Tuesday night 

they are so sweet and little, 5.5" unfinished

last night I had 46 of the 52 needed made, today I am hoping 

to get those final 6 made.

This weekend my quilting group is holding a quilt show,

it is also my little towns annual Whale Festival, so here is my

pile of quilts ready for me to take down for some show & tell.

To be honest I am not sure I am a good fit for the group, I am the youngest,

the oldest is almost 90, its a very eclectic mix of people, so I think after

this weekend I might just hang  up my hat, wish them well and leave.

I need to get out, it's an exclusive club that you are allowed to join

but only if they 'approve' of you and what you are doing!!! Just sewing

hexagons without a plan in mind is not acceptable

and for that you will not be invited back! Yes, that has 

happened, true story

I need to be involved with a group of like minded women, who have a laugh

and a good time, who are supportive and welcoming and are 

pleased to have newcomers join. 

I need to move towns to find that.

*Sigh*

So I have a question for you

If you are a member of a social quilting group or a quid

do you have any expectations when you join??

Change is as good as a Holiday

After a loong hiatus from blogging (5 posts since Jan 1) I have decided

its time to get back into my normal ways.

So this will hopefully be the first of a twice weekly blogging session, ok

maybe it will be once a week, I guess time will tell.

So whats been happening in the life of me, not to much to be honest

I am still stitching away, but have been producing much more hand

work than machine work of late. I have been busy sample sewing for 

another lovely Australian designer, its lovely to think that

someone thinks my sewing is good enough and are willing

to pay me to make up their designs……

The girls and I baked up a storm on Saturday, we made

Chocolate Coconut Slice,

mini quiches for lunch

and an apple cake which I forgot to snap a picture of

and of course I continued with my 

'project in my head' project. The centre of this

will be made up of 169 EPP flowers and as of 

today I have 30 left to baste and sew.

I also moved my sewing room around today, I was just sick of the

layout and the mess, so I swap the drawers for my cutting table 

cupboard, and purged and cleaned and re jigged and found treasures

BEFORE

AFTER

These walls will not be bare for long, I have some delicious

mini quilts to hang there, I promise I will share when its

done.

Henry has a basket to sleep in now

You will have excuse the floor as I haven't vacuumed yet.

I visited Canberra with 2 friends and went to the Craft show

in August, I didn't buy too much, I did purchase this little 

sewing case, found some 1/2" hexie papers in my mess

and I managed to cover it so it now looks like this.

The Zebra is my favourite and no fabric has been used

twice, it was a great scrap busting project

My fingers were so sore when I finally finished stitching the

hexies to the case, I am sure a curved needle would work 

so much more

I've been working here and there on Aunties Greens Garden, this picture

isn't 'current' as I am working on the bottom floral borders.

I have a question that I hope someone can answer,

Blog Lovin, do I need it? what does it do and how do I get it??

Dilly Bag Along

Well here I am again blogging after a long absence. 

This time it's for gnomeangel a Dilly Bag Along. 

I choose to use a charm square pack I had of the CUTEST fabric for mine, 2 layer cake squares for the base and some text print and a gorgeous stripe.

I was a bit naughty and forgot to take photos as I went though Doh!

My finished bag

this is a huge dilly bag, and perfect if you have caught the hexie bug like me

No template plastic available……. I used 4 laminating sheets, laminated them together a voila

template plastic 

I have made mine for a friend, shhhhh don't tell her 

Sea Breeze Mini Quilt

Tap, Tap is this thing on....... I haven't visited here for quite a few weeks (oops)

Hi Everyone, 

today is my day to share my Sea Breeze Mini Quilt with you all. When gnomeangel 

put the call out for peeps to take part in the quilt-a-long I couldn't resist in putting my hand up calling 'pick me, pick me' hence you are here now.

So without further ado here is my Sea Breeze Mini journey

As soon as I had the pattern I started to consider fabrics, but, like the pattern I was drawn to the solids for this mini, and this is the first quilt of any size I have made just in solids. 

I chose Michael Miller Cotton Couture which I bought from the gorgeous girls at polka dot tea Danielle and Jeanette are amazing and will happily put together a bundle of whatever you are needing, I especially love the MM Cotton Couture, its so soft and so nice to work with. 

at the end of day 1 I had all the blocks cut and the first 4 blocks sewn together

Day 2 I shared a sneak peek on instagram, day 3 and 4 I just admired

it from afar  

Luckily I was sent a reminder that today was my day to share, I came home from

assembly for the big girls and got stuck into quilting my mini. I choose to stitch

1/4" each side of the seams, then I accentuated the triangles by stitching 1/4' on the white

this photo shows the quilting a bit better

we have a happy little visitor staying with us at the moment, sadly

Henry isn't as keen as we are on Annie Dog, today he choose to 

'help' when I stitched the binding on

TA DA my finished Sea Breeze Mini Quilt

(it is actually straight IRL) I LOVE this mini and cannot wait to hang it up

in a permanent spot

I am now planning on doing a bit of size experimenting because I think this would make an

AMAZING QUEENSIZE QUILT

in the same fabric I used for my mini.....

Thanks for visiting xx

Whoops Its been a while

7 weeks to the day since I last blogged

whoops

So much has been happening that I don't know what day it is

most of the time.

So here are some snippets of the last 7 weeks

in very random order

my gorgeous dad went to Melbourne and caught

up with my wild child Josh, he is doing okay, very

lonely, but doing ok

my version of the Social Tote, mine doesn't have the gorgeous

little lining due to the fact I may have missed the

cut down the outside instructions

my current project for Lynette, the cat is out of the bag after her

blog post outing me, I stitch Lynette's designs for her to take to

all the big shows and teaching gigs she does around

the world. Very honoured and I still pinch myself

when photos of what I have made pop up in blogland

this is where I am up to with Midnight at the Oasis

I was a pattern tester

this popped up in my emails the other day a write up in the

Australian Operating Room Nurses Journal all

about my mama

I delivered this baby quilt yesterday to the proud Grandma

I've pulled this out to quilt for a friend who has Breast Cancer

and has to have 12 months of Chemo, she isn't a girly girl so

I thought this would be okay for her

(photo taken by Chookyblue at Nundle)

this is 'Waiting for Santa'

(photo by Chookyblue taken at Nundle)

and 'Love Letters'

which was made by me in a bone tiring, nothing else was done 17 days, 

just in time to be quilted and taken to the USA late last year

I am sure there is more but that is all I can think of at the moment.

We are away this weekend for soccer 'yay' 

Its all fun and games here at the moment.

New Beginnings

there are parts of 5 different quilts

on my design wall

FIVE quilts people, what am I doing

In random order the quilt parts belong to 

1 Dancing Grandmas

2 Wagon Wheels

3 Bring Me flowers

4 Dresdan Plates

5 Secret Stitching project, which is very close to being 

FINISHED

Wagon Wheels, 5 more of the wheel blocks to make

to be caught up

the epp bits for wagon Wheels, 13 more to be caught up

Bring Me Flowers, this is month 1

month 2 is waiting for me to get time to work on it

still need to appliqué the flower centres though

Yesterday was these girlies first day of High School

they were so excited  and had a fabulous day

The short one started year 5 and got the teacher she wanted

happy days

and Henrycat who is put out because he has lost

his normal sunning spot due to the chaos in my

sewing room

I am still here

Time flies when you are having fun

there has been a lot happening in my neck of the

woods, with Christmas, school holidays,

NSW Cuboree and now we are at

the final day of the school holidays.

Christmas last year was a quiet affair

just the hubster, the girlies and our son

we had a lovely day I was very spoilt

we ate too much and played lots

of board games, ds girlfriend joined

us the day after boxing day and we had

them here for a week, which was

lovely.

I received a gorgeous iPad pouch in

Chookyblues secret santa swap, I must take a photo

and share it here 

New Year was also very quiet

we stayed home, watched the fireworks 

at midnight and went to bed, no hangover for me

Sophie and Imogen went to Appin, for the NSW

Cuboree, they had a fabulous time and it was a very quiet

week while they were gone.

Since then we have spent our days lazing around

going to the beach, sewing and just being

sloths in general.

Its been fabulous

Sophie and Emma start high school on Wednesday

so last week was a rush of getting uniforms,

shoes and books. Both girls are very excited

Imogen will be in year 5 this year, I can't 

believe they are growing up so fast, and it will be so nice

to have a lovely clean house again, and food in the pantry

for longer than 2 days.

What else has been happening, there have been some

not so nice phone calls from my sister, I have

wiped my hands of her at the moment, she has said

and done some terrible things that I will never forgive her

for, worst of all, she went running to my dad and

involved him (she is 46 not 14) but dad and I are ok,

my brother and I are ok and she can go to hell in a 

hand basket for all I care at the moment.

We've had a flea infestation, that was pretty gross and we still

can't work out where they came from. Henrycat is an inside cat

who never goes outside or comes into contact with other cats, 

and the dog is an outside dog who never comes inside....

but we fixed it, we bombed the house, twice and so far

so good.

Australia day saw us wood collecting in preparation for winter

today the hubster split it all and the girlies and I stacked it,

another 3 ute loads and we should make it through without 

to collect more or buy it.

Sewing wise I have been busy making another quilt for

Lynette, it will be postal to her at the end of next week

I am aiming for 5/2 mailing date.

I am slowly catching up on my Wagon Wheels BOM

I was given Amities Bring Me Flowers BOM for Christmas

I have made 1 little flower so far, with its partner cut out

waiting to be sewn.

DH and the girlies gave me another Amitie textiles

Quilt kit for Christmas

'Midnight at the Oasis' 

which I am BUSTING

to start, but after Lynette's quilt is done, I have

a baby quilt to make by March, and a quilt to finish for the 

Holman Clinic (where mum had all her treatment) 

to raffle so hopefully 

by the end of Feb I can get Midnight started.

Thats my plan anyway