More Easter Gathering blocks

The block at the top of these two was for my friend Mary Lewis. Mary always loves cream on cream so that is what I gave her. The picture in the centre was of a cute little girl Angel leaning on an old cross which was covered in Ivy so I added a little bit of green and gold colours to compliment the cream. I am always amazed at how many shades of cream there are......from yellow cream to greyish cream, whitey cream to pinkish cream........on and on and on......thousands of them!

The bottom picture was Maria's, who had asked for turquoise. I was soooooo far out of my comfort zone with these colours as I usually like either old Victorian colours or bright zingy colours toned down with black. I had heaps of fun trying to match the colours in the old postcard, adding vintage buttons and a gold crucifix charm, beads and sequins. The three flowers on the bottom left were stitched from threads unpicked from a rayon crocheted cardigan (Mary spent hours unpicking that jumper while I was visiting her in Mollymook last October) but the flowers, worked in rows of stem stitch, turned out just right for that corner.

More Easter Gathering blocks

Here are two more of the Easter Gathering blocks. The top one was for Belinda (Bear) who specifically asked for purples. I tried to add as many shades of purple as I could put together but the picture (which looks a bit blurred here) demanded that I add some complimentery aqua and green colours as well. Nevertheless, I was happy with this block and it passed muster with the people I work with who watched these blocks grow every lunch break.

The bottom block was done for Kathy who has had a bit of a tough time of it lately and requested that no-one do blocks for her because she just didn't have the time to reciprocate. Well, Kathy is our friend and we all thought that she deserved to get a dozen blocks anyway. I hope she likes this one when she eventually gets it.

Easter Gathering Crazy Quilted blocks

These are the first two of the block I made for other people at the Easter Gathering. The top one was for Maureen who requested Creams and pastels. Everyone had a silk print of an old Edwardian Easter postcard in the centre of their block and Maureen's picture seem to demand yellows, golds and apricot colours to be added to the cream.

The one underneath was for Catherine. Her picture was of a yellow chicken hatching from an egg and surrounded by very pretty pastel coloured flowers. I loved the colours in this block and skipped from one area to the other adding seam treatments and embellishments with the greatest of east as the block sort of "spoke to me" about what it wanted me to add next.

Easter Gathering of Crazy Quilting friends

As soon as the UK holiday was over, the next exciting thing in my life was the Easter Gathering of the some of the Australia crazy quilters. In the end seven of us plus five husbands manage to get togther at Sandie's place near Port Pirie in South Australia. Pictured here are the other six cquilters. Back row: Brenda from Texas, Maureen from Victoria, Sandie from South Australia. Bottom row: Maria from Tasmania, Catherine from Victoria and Julia from Western Australia. Julia and I plus our DHs Eddie and Reno flew from Western Australia to Adelaide then picked up a hire car and drove to Pt Pirie. We had the best time ever, sightseeing, sewing, learning new skills to use in our crazy quilting, diving in for a Chicken Scratch (I didn't mean to bring home more stuff than I took with me......but everyone knows what happens during a chicken scratch when you see a beautiful piece of fabric that you simply MUST have!) Sadly six other ladies had to pull out for various personal reasons but everybody made a block for each of the others which meant that all of us made twelve blocks to give away and came home with twelve blocks made by twelve other people. Great fun was had by all!!

Flower Fairies

Before we went to England, I bought three Flower Fairy books on eBay.uk and had them posted to my mother-in-law's address so they were waiting for me when I got there. I love the Flower Fairies by Cicely Mary Barker and the little Columbine Fairy is definitely my favourite fairy of them all. I am trying to encourage my grand-daughter Taylia to love them too although at the moment she is in love with Snugglepot and Cuddlepie, just as I was at six or seven yrs of age. I also bought lots of Mill Hill seed beads and over-dyed threads for my crazy quilting on Ebay from UK sellers which were sent to M-i-l's address so it was a bit like an early Christmas for me when we arrived, opening all my parcels.

Scottish Highlands

We also spent a few days exploring the Scottish Highlands around Fort William and Mallaig and stayed in a lovely Bed & Breakfast called "Glenlochie" at the foot of the mighty Ben Nevis. The snow at the top of the Scottish mountains was the only snow I saw the entire time we were away and it was so far away that it looked more like icing sugar on a huge cake. I've wanted to visit Scotland ever since I was a little kid and was egged on by my grandmother whose father was Scottish. Grandma instilled a great Scottish pride in me but sadly she never actually visited Scotland herself....how she would have loved the place! Much to my family's amusement, I played the side-drum in the Perth Ladies Highland Pipeband from when I was twelve until I was fifteen years old and my favourite Scottish singer is Kenneth MacKeller.

View in Wales

We travelled to Wales to spend a few days with Eddie's cousin Rob, his partner Karyn and Rob's 92 yr old mother Aunty Nesta. What a great time we had driving around the Welsh hills with it's patchwork of fields and hedgerows. I asked Rob to stop the car at the top of this hill so I could photograph the landscape. I wish I could capture the view in crazy quilting but that green colour is so peculiar, not at all like the greens in Australia. I think Wales is so pretty and the colours change with the weather.....

Our Very Special UK friends

Nothing is nicer than catching up with old friends especially when we only see them every three or four years. This particular evening we went to a pub for a meal and a quiz night which was a lot of fun. Marlene on the left is married to Ron in the centre right while Vic at the back on the left is married to Rosalie on the front right and that's me at the back in the black jumper. These are special friends who are always there when we land in England. Ron and Marlene have been to Australia to visit us once but we are still working on Vic and Rosalie.

Blog Catch-up time.

I am so ashamed. I haven't had time to add to my blog since last November. So much has happened since then that I need to go back to November and start at the beginning. In December, Eddie and I went to England to spend Christmas and New Year with his Mum and his extended family. Here is my favourite photo of the two of them together, standing in Anlaby Road in Hull, Yorkshire. My lovely mother-in-law certainly doesn't look 84 years old in this trendy outfit!

Inside the studio

At the moment, the studio is still a bit of a mess until the walls and ceiling go in but that won't be until the electrician has been in next week. I thought of every reason why I'd need an electric plug - sewing machine, commercial overlocker, domestic overlocker, light box, iron, kettle, lap-top computer ........so I ordered four double plugs, which will get rid of having to use power boards or double adaptors. That extra power point is bothering me - please, can someone think of a good way to use it?? 

Another view of the studio and signal

This is another view of the studio showing how low the patio roof is compared to the wall of the building - it will have to go - this shot also shows Eddie's railway signal which is the reason I got the studio in the first place. I wanted to move to a bigger house with a bigger sewing room but Eddie just couldn't bear to go through the hassle of moving his precious signal which a fully restored, fully working 1911 West Australia Govt Railways signal. The post is solid jarrah and took eight hefty blokes to move it from the car trailer to the backyard while all the metal bits were imported from England. When we have a bbq, all the blokes think it's great fun to move the lever which moves the arm, which changes the colour of the light from the lamp from red to green and which also makes every dog in the neighbourhood bark like crazy! We saw it in the back garden of a house which was for sale on Great Eastern Hwy. It was the day that runners were taking the Olympic flame through Guildford so we there to watch. The agent came out and asked "Are you interested in looking at the house?" I said, "No, but how much do they want for the railway signal?" A month later we got a phone call to say, "$500". It was in a pretty dilapidated state but Eddie thought $500 was really cheap, so it's been in our garden ever since. Actually the signal makes the studio look like a signal box or some other station building - I hope Eddie doesn't want to use it for a model railway room..........nah! It's mine - I've waited years for something like this....

Side view of Studio

Another view of the studio frame although it doesn't look very big in this photo. The long window is on this south side looking into the garden while the door and smaller window face into the patio. 

Studio - Work in Progress

I took this photo from our patio at 6 o'clock this morning to show the work in progress on the studio from when the two guys arrived at noon and left at 5pm. This photo shows the proximity to the end of the patio so that I can walk out the family-room door and into the studio without getting rained on. The back wall has been insulated and cladded so I guess the other walls and roof will be done today. This is so exciting after the long 6 months wait.......at least things are moving along quickly now. 

Day One of my Studio

The two guys got to my place at lunchtime yesterday and this is what they acheived in just half a day. It was so exciting watching the girders and framework being put together. They arrived back at seven o'clock this morning and the sliding door is in place and they are working on the front wall. These are photos which I took early this morning before they arrived.

My BIGGEST UFO quilt

This would have to be the BIGGEST UFO imaginable. I started making the hexagons in 1995 while on a plane between Australia and England and took lots of cut-out paper templates and pre-cut fabric shapes with me to work on while on holidays. I made the mistake of measuring the quilt from the floor on one side of the queen sized bed, over the top and down the other side to get the width, then I measured from the floor at the end of the bed, up the length of the bed and over the pillows (in this photo, a lot of the quilt is tucked down below the camera out of sight), and over the pillows to get the length. Then I stitched enough hexagon flowers separated by calico hexagons to finish the whole of the outside edge, thus committing myself to this HUGE size. One momentous day about four years ago, I finally reached the middle and therefore last flower and my hands shook so much I could hardly sew. Each hexagon flower has a yellow patch in the centre surrounded by two dark, two medium and two light colour co-ordinated ones. Every hexagon was hand tacked to the paper then top-sewed with tiny slip-stitches to it's neighbours. There will not be one single machine stitch in this quilt but I have to admit that I have been procrastinating about the actual hand-quilting, even though the quilt, wadding and backing is all sandwiched together and held with quilter's safety pins. It is awkward to manipulate and hand-quilt because of the sheer weight of it all and also because I am using a large hoop to keep the fabric taut. This is my UFO to finsh next year in Sandie's UFO challenge. I intend to finish it off by sewing a wide border to the backing fabric, bringing it through to the front, tucking it under the last row of flowers and then using the applique method to stitch the flowers down on the border, making a straight edge. 

Hexagon quilt UFO

This is another view of the quilt from the side of the bed. This photo shows the small area where I have begun to hand quilt each hexagon. It's not particularly hard work, just awkward because of the large ring I am using to hold the quilt taut while I quilt. The quilt measures 11 feet x 10 feet in total with each hexagon measuring 2 1/2 inches across. 

This is the meccano set which hopefully, one day.........sigh.........might become my studio. At the moment it just consists of the welded wall frames and roofing trusses, roofing metal sheets, weathertex slats for the sides, gutters and downpipes and a box of bits which bolt it all together. This all arrived three weeks ago but because the sliding door and two windows hadn't arrived, it wasn't possible to construct it. Well, three weeks later, the door and windows have still not arrived and if they are not here by Monday I am going to lodge an official complaint against the company with the Ministry of Fair Trading. It has been nearly six months since I signed the contract and all we have is a concrete slab covered in meccano bits. It's dragging on far too long now....... 

Morning number one of our Holiday

We conned the man at the Mercure Hotel in Rosehill, Sydney, to take our photo. He took so long fiddling with my camera that Mary went to sleep standing up - no, not really, she closed her eyes just as he finally clicked the camera. Unfortunately we didn't realise at the time so couldn't get him to take another one. Not to worry, we were about to start on two wonderful weeks together........

My very first sight of a Waratah

We don't have Waratahs in Western Australia so it was with great excitement that I spotted this bush growing across the road from the Three Sisters lookout in Katoomba. I always thought that the flowers would be hard and wiry but they are actually quite soft and more pinky-red than bright red. I am not used to taking photos of flowers so this was a real hit and miss attempt and for a change, it was a hit!! 

Viv the tourist.....

Mary picked me up from the airport and we spent the first night at the Mercure Hotel in Rosehill near Parramatta. It was fabulous as our twin share room had two DOUBLE beds in it. We shared the first of several nights of giggling and crying like silly school girls at a Brownie Camp!! The next morning we drove from Rosehill to Katoomba via every Op-shop on the way. Mary photographed me doing the tourist bit at the Three Sisters lookout at Katoomba where we stayed the second night at a Bed & Breakfast. I saw my very first Waratah in full bloom and took lots of photos of it........VERY touristy!! 

Viv and Rick Rutherford

This was one of the highlights of my holiday - meeting my favourite magazine author, Rick Rutherford. Rick started out writing "Australian Country Collections", then moved on to writing "Rick Rutherford's Country". Now he is busy working on a web site and on-line shop which can be found at www.rickrutherford.com and he stocks all sorts of country items from quilts to wooden angels. Rick took Mary and me to a lovely little French cafe in Leura and treated us to coffee and tiny cakes. What started out as a serious conversation finished up in total hysteria as Rick and Mary both have the same wicked sense of humour. It was like the "Rick and Mary Show" for an audience of one, ie. me. I have to admit the laughter was getting a bit loud for such refined surroundings by the time we left. 

Mary's Tatting Lesson.

Mary learnt to tat last year at the Nowra CQ Retreat and she picked it up really quickly, however it still didn't stop her getting all tied up in knots at the Mollymook Embroiderer's Guild meeting! I was experimenting with tatting using two colours and managed to complete an inch of tatting before making a mistake and having to start again. I was happy with the result though - pink clovers joined with green chains. I will blog it once I get past the 1 inch mark....... 

Mollymook Embroiderer's Guild Meeting

During the first week, Mary took me to her local embroidery group, the Mollymook branch of the NSW Embroiderer's Guild. It is held in the Uniting Church hall and on this particular week, the ladies were making that beautiful silk ribbon embroidered evening bag on the table in the foreground. The group was so friendly and made me feel right at home immediately...........come to think of it, I didn't see Mary's bag???? 

Sharon Boggon and Annie Whitsed

We had a fabulous time in Canberra with the Canberra Crazies. Annie Whitsed very kindly offered us beds in her house which is a veritable museum of yummy collectibles and crazy quilting goodies. We were really impressed by her storage method for her beads, shallow trays with tiny vials of beads, all coloured coded of course! After a lovely lunch on Saturday provided by the Canberra Crazies, we went shopping at the Canberra Needlework Shop which is where I took this photo of Sharon and Annie. Saturday night was great with a meal at Mama's Trattoria in the Canberra CBD where me met Maria and Jos Vialle for the first time. 

Mary and Peter

Well, here they are! Mary Lewis and her husband Peter Gilberd. They both absolutely spoilt me rotten for the whole fortnight - their home was my home and I hope that in a year or so they will be coming to Perth to spend some time with Eddie and me and we can spoil them in return. They have a beautiful home on three levels going down a steep hill and which has views across the trees to the ocean. It was so different to what I'm used to over here in Western Australia, even the birds were beautiful - Rainbow Lorrikeets which I'd never seen before either. Needless to say, I can hardly wait to go back .