February

Ok.. it's like this! Christmas.. kids.. holiday... trip away..work.... and Audrey... there just hasn't been much time for poor lidlfish!
So craft wise?
I took Something Old, Something New to Narooma. I got most of a block done and all the stems. Still isn't finished though. Those little blue flowers?! Little @uggers.
Still it is a thing of beauty.
I made three more bead necklaces for Christmas presents and have put the beads away for a little while. Spent enough money on that!!

Family? A whole lot of school reports came home and basically you could say that the kids had a sucessful year. Phew. Such a relief.

Michael is home from hospital as I mentioned in December. Still such a long way to go. He joined us all for the family holiday in Narooma. I don't know if you have any concept of what a family holiday in Narooma really encompasses.
We are talking.... grandparents, 4 siblings and spouses, 14 grandkids, two set of second cousins and their 10 kids, 3 sets of sister-in-laws and their 4 kids, second cousin's inlaws, their kids and their inlaws. And Fiona, Kaz, Maya and Emma and their guest!
Oh.. and Aunties Anne and Jane, Uncles Michael and Don.
This annual holiday is a big thing. It's epic. So Michael was nothing but heroic getting himself down there when he had barely got home!

Finally the holiday ended and we all went our separate ways home. So now he and his family are really beginning the new life.

The photo at the top is the Narooma I remember from childhood. I did say this has been a long tradition, didn't I? Our boat house was the one on the far right but Nanny sold it after Puppa died in '87.

Anyway! Audrey needs a boat, just like that one up front. Nice hey? It will park happily beside her light house. You must go look at Audrey's blog! We are having the time of our lives there!

Something old, something new....

I have been lamenting. I felt like I had lost my spark. Too much on this year to have much past an ounce of creativity to light up my sewing.
What seems to have saved me was kind gift. DMIL gave me some birthday money and I let my hair down and bought a big bundle of fabric. With just a little bit of money that was mine to "waste" I felt free to just take a risk and buy it without a plan.

I took advantage of the long weekend and spent some time on the sofa with a pencil, rubber, lunch wrap and paper. Below is the drawing I ended up with and the start of the first block. The drawing is a bit hard to see but trust me! I am sure it is going to be gorgeous!

(Click on it and it will pop up larger)

OK- well maybe only a mother can love her baby the way it needs to be loved... but....I am planning to make it a giant 4-patch centre. This block is 20 inches so of course the pieces are all big and easy (as usual!). Fair bit of dot action. Start saving those 5 cent pieces.
I am planning to give the Mystery Class a rest next year. One of the Hobbysew ladies is going to do a piecing mystery and I will run this without the mystery element so that my ladies can just enjoy watching it grow without the sense of panic!
If you trust me and want to sign up for this now and make it with me, just let me know!

Mysterious Gathering

The most humbling part of my teaching over the last 3 years has been the trust that a group of ladies has put in me as they have continued to enrol in my series of Mystery Block of the Months.
Each year, they pick their colours, with only a scant clue of where the year's quilt will head. Their results have been terrific, I think. I love seeing quilts that are not clones of the class sample.
To celebrate the finishing of a third year we held a Mysterious Gathering. It was a chance to catch up, see some finished quilts and get a preview on next year's Mystery.
This first picture is Michelle Law's quilt from 2004. I love her dusty country colours. I think the suffering she experienced with the stretchy ticking background was worth it!
Next is Jenny's from 2005. it is lovely to see it quilted! She had a feature fabric very similar to Helen's from that year, but her cooler tones made it look quite distinctly different.
Here is Helen with her 2006 quilt. Her last class was only a fortnight before the gathering, so she is forgiven for having only one border on! I love her autumn colours! And her great choice of background fabric. Far more daring than mine.



Then Elaine's quilt with Elaine accidently cut out of the photo. Elaine always comes up with unconventional combinations that always wow us.

Christine, like Elaine and Michelle, is up to her third MBOM.So is Terrie, but I couldn't find her quilts while I was photographing. I think her 2005 MBOM (shown) is my favorite of hers.

The black and white quilt is Joan's. She works with me in the shop and gave herself the challenge of creating a quilt with just two colours. Well done Joan. The fabrics she has chosen for the 2007 MBOM suggests a similar challenge, but in purples.
The next MBOM is going to be the most beautiful. A pretty heavy going one, in terms of quantity of applique. It is going to be MBOM "Seasons". I am having to do mine in blanket stitch just to find time to get it done now that I am working so much. A bit sad :((


Karin's is next in my kind of colours! Deep reds and accent in black.This is the 2006 quilt again.

Next up is Wendy with her 2004 quilt. It looks great finished and she quilted it all by herself on her new janome. I love the colours of her 2006 quilt and can't wait to see it finished.

Finally ( because manipulating photos in this environment is not intuitive!) is Suzanne's quilt. I love it when people make quilts with the fabrics I don't have time to use!

And in case you are wondering, I am the one in a lime shirt at the end of each quilt. Thanks Michelle for taking the photos.

First Post

Ok! I have taken the plunge. Given the scarcity of time, I am not sure a new addiction is a brilliant idea, but maybe a diary is a better use of the spare moment than another game of RIP at
www.netives.com
If you want a word game challenge, give this a go. My best score is 234,000. I only play the free version with time limits. The practice it took to get a score this high is justified. I am sure it is...? I tell myself it is mental health issue.
The quilt pictured is an old quilt that has just come home from its travels in a Canberra Quilters suitcase exhibition. I picked it for no other reason than it was easy to find!
It has taken all morning to prepare this first blog as I had to get the photos from my computer to his computer as mine is too old to cope with blogging.
It took him all morning to get the photos over and then let go of the keyboard. That happened as my mac G3 seized up from too many file transfers.

Quilting plans: I am pondering my quilting options for the backlog of tops that accumulated while I saved for the Mega Quilter. Yesterday I finished quilting the machine trapunto sample that I started in a workshop with Nicole Bridges. This is a big deal as I can not tell you more than one other thing that I have finished that started in a workshop!
Mustn't let this first episode get too long....
Hoorooo