Green Tea & Sweet Beans go traveling

What a week I have had, I have made lots of progress on

Green Tea and Sweet Beans

I had my haircut off and now its uber curly

I travelled to Nowra for a soccer meeting,spent the night

in a lovely motel and got to visit Spotlight 

Some hotel room sewing

I had to redo this block because i cut the background the wrong way

my first mass drop purchase

Pink Clover wonder Clips

today I am doing a Working with children check webinar

can I just say its really really really boring, so I am 

multitasking and cutting blocks out for the next

section of Green Tea & Sweet Beans

I will also be packing a suitcase and my sewing ready

for tomorrow, when I fly home to see my daddy and to help

my brother celebrate his 50th birthday on Saturday night

I'll be home on Tuesday, and I am very excited

Green Tea and Sweet Beans

Was a BOM offered by Amitie Textiles way back in 2008/2009

I was very new to the quilting world but I knew that

one day I would have to make this quilt.

Early last year I was alerted to the fact that the

GTSW BOM patterns had been made into a 

retail pattern booklet and it was on sale

I jumped in and bought the pattern, once it arrived I had a 

read saw that it was a hand pieced mammoth and filed

the pattern away into the way to hard basket, as there was

no way I was going to be hand piecing a whole quilt

unless it was 100% appliqué.

Over the weekend, I found myself home alone (very unusual 2 on a cub camp

the other at a birthday sleepover, the hubster at golf) and as I had spent my

morning decluttering, cleaning and scrubbing, I wanted a new

hand project to work on, my options were 

Gossip in the Garden by Annie Downs

or 

Green Tea and Sweet Beans by Jen Kingwell.

I phaffed around unable to make up my mind,  then while

dinner was cooking I decided the GTSW was it, so I prepped 

appliqué block 1 and voila

 Block 2

Block 3

Block 4

Arrrgh hand piecing time, I had a practice and made a 4 patch

block so I was certain I could do it and yippee those little 

pinwheels are last nights achievment, the bottom one

does need a press.

 and the reverse side

here is the start of the day lily block

and that is where I am up to, I am trying to get a few of the blocks ready 

to stitch because in 2 weeks I am off to see my daddy and 

my brother, my brother is turning 50 and that is a milestone

I need to celebrate with him. He doesn't know I am coming

we told him that it was just too expensive 1 month out from

Santa visiting, but we would be thinking of him, 

but my daddy knows and I can't wait to see his face when 

we arrive at his party......

(I have been collecting text prints for the backgrounds, and it

will be made up from my stash, I may or may not

buy some different lush fabrics to add in)

11/4" hexagons are on the way so are 3" clamshells

they are looking like great things to stitch while

flying.

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.