Sunday, October 20, 2013

A day off work



I should be at work today but I injured my knee in a fall last week and as my occupation involves a lot of standing and walking I am unable to go to work, so I must spend my time recuperating and quilting (sigh).
We are still in the midst of some rather nasty bushfires, this was the view of blue sky from the front of house yesterday,


And this was the view from the back of the house, can hardly see to the next ridge through the smoke.



Today this beauty arrived in the post, Andover Jo Morton IQSQ Birdsong.




It is intended to be the backing for this when it is finished.




The blocks are made from one inch pieces so I think it will take some time to complete.


This is my quilt for car and train trips, it is always good to have some portable hand piecing.

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Holiday



Last post I promised more holiday photos.

We had a lovely lunch at one of my favourite wineries Chandon at Green Point, where my favourite wine is made.








We also had lunch at another favourite place the Yarra Valley Dairy, where they make the most delicious goat cheese.




We also had another delicious lunch at the Kinglake Pub, I forgot to take photos as the food as I was too busy tucking in.  We did take photos of the trees, still not recovered after five years. This is from Kinglake looking towards Melbourne.


We also visited Marysville where the fires were even worse.



 For the last few days it has been hard to settle to anything as the smoke from bushfires swirls around.


Today was a bit cooler and not too much wind so I have been working on my Trip around the world using  the technique on Pomegranate and Chintz 



Tuesday, October 8, 2013

A few days away

Had a short sojourn in the beautiful Yarra Valley a week ago, which conveniently coincided with the Quilts in the Barn exhibition of beautiful chintz quilts. We arrived on the Friday morning at about 10.30 am but the crowd was so large had a quick look around and decided to return the next day. On the Saturday of the AFL grand final and the crowds had disappeared.
I loved the chintz quilts, especially the elephant quilt




Inspired by viewing the quilts I purchased a piece of the Petra Prins chintz and also the wonderful Quiltmania book - Chintz quilts from the Poos collection, which I had pre ordered with Linda so that I should not miss out.
Di Ford Hall quiltmaker extraordinaire was behind the stall selling the Petra Prins fabrics, I am hoping to use this fabric when I attend the Threadbear Applique School in March next year. Di Ford Hall and Margaret Macdonald will be teaching a variety of techniques  in applique, Broderie Perse, fussy cutting and hand piecing. Di is a very thorough and generous teacher, I am so looking forward to this.
I will also be in Castlemaine on the weekend of the Castlemaine Applique Group's inaugural exhibition which should be outstanding.


Mary Koval and her husband had travelled from the US with a great stash of antique quilts and fabric pieces and blocks for sale. I particularly liked this blue and brown quilt



I purchased a small piece of chintz fabric dating from circa 1830, that I hope to use in a quilt somehow, some day!
Not sure if I shall use it whole or as broderie perse. Notice the great sheen of the chintz.
Quilts in the Barn was a great experience, very well organised by Linda and her friends. It was great to meet Linda and also Meredithe, I follow their blogs and it was a pleasure to meet them both.

I somehow managed not to take many photos of the quilts, (I get  a bit overwhelmed with the experience of looking at them) there are some great photos on these two inspiring blogs that I follow Hilda and Carole.
More holiday photos to come.



Saturday, September 21, 2013

Small Quilts

One of the blogs that I follow is Quilts in the Barn, in a recent post Linda has photographs of her wall of small quilts. This inspired me to look at some of the small quilts that I have made (and forgotten about) and think about displaying them somewhere. This may be difficult as there is not much free wall space in this house!



This is a doll quilt from The Civil war sewing circle by Kathleen Tracy.



These are from the Little quilts books and patterns.


This is a very old one! These Bow tie bears are still appealing.

Small Quilts

Monday, September 16, 2013

A little bit of sewing

As yesterday involved gardening and cooking and no sewing, I tried to make up for it today.

Today, even though it is my day off, I had to go in to work and give a talk. So because I could not really setttle to anything, and there was not really enough time to get involved in gardening or housework, I decided to cut out some blocks ready to machine piece for yet another quilt that I am making. I also did some hexagon piecing in the train to and from work.



These are two blocks for the quilt, designed by Barbara Brackman and Deb Rowden for display in the Abraham Lincoln Museum in Springfield Illinois. The quilt is displayed in the exhibit that depicts Abe's early life on the frontier in a log cabin. The quilt is made up of 28 star blocks and 28 sixteen patch blocks.


I am trying to get into the habit of updating my blog on a more regular basis, hope I can stick to it!

Sunday, September 15, 2013

A Day at Home


Today being Sunday and not having to go to work I spent some time in the garden. We had a burst of very warm weather (including bush fires) last week and the cicadas decided that it was time to hatch. These are the holes from which the cicadas emerged.






and then they climbed a nearby tree and left their shells behind.


The weather then changed and the temperature dropped and they are not surviving poor things.


A colleague at work had brought in a lot of lemons from her neighbours very fruitful tree, so I had to make strawberry jam (strawberries are very cheap at the moment).


And then I made a lemon cake (the second one in two days, I took the first one to work yesterday). My sons always ask when I am baking a cake "is that for work?", I feel an obligation to make them a cake now and then.


This is a great recipe and really easy as you just have to melt the butter and add it to the eggs and sugar that have been beaten together. The recipe is from a beautiful book -A Year in my garden by Jenny Ferguson, who lives in Moss Vale in the Southern Highlands.





Sunday night we always have pizza it is a family tradition. Son M makes the dough and then we all prepare our toppings to our liking, luckily we have two ovens so that we can cook four pizzas at once.
This is my pizza, just out of the oven, goat cheese and parma ham.


This is Mr P's - prawn, chili, smoked salmon and feta.


I have to go now and eat my delicious pizza!

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Long time coming

It has been some time since my last post!! My mother has been in and out of hospital, and work and life have prevented me from updating my blog. Luckily life, etc have not stopped me patchworking and quilting, and I have some photos of what I am currently working on.


This  is a doll quilt that I hand pieced some time ago from a Renee Plains pattern, now quilted, bound and finished!

  I have finally started to make a medallion/frame quilt, this is my own design and definitely a work in progress!


These half inch hexagons are to be appliqued in the corners, I have completed two and two to go.


 I have even had time to do some knitting. I had one skein of baby alpaca wool after knitting my mother a pair of gloves, so I began to knit Mum a scarf to match the gloves, but soon realised that I would not have enough wool, so I purchased on line from Ecoyarns what I thought was the same colour, but as you can see it has become  a striped scarf.


I have a couple of other completed projects and will save them for my next post (I aim to be a more regular blogger).

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Purple and green quilt

Still working on my purple and green quilt, hopefully to completed in time for display at the Springwood Quilt show in April. I have now completed 72 four inch blocks, have to make a total of 99 blocks. Recently finished this one - Windmill square (I don't think the photo does it justice.)


Sewed this one this afternoon after work, Cactus pot.




Last week my beautiful mother came and stayed for a few days. We went to Leura to do some shopping and Mum bought me this great little creature.

It is a light in the shape of a tortoise with pieces of glass set in metal, it is like patchwork, very cute.


I had better keep sewing four inch purple and green blocks, I have set myself a deadline of the end of February to have all the blocks sewn.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Morrell quilt

On Thursday I took down my Morrell Quilt that I made as a Block of the Month with the lovely Di Hall, July 2008 to August 2009, machine quilted by Susie Anderson of Leura.


This is one of my favourite blocks, buttonholed broderie perse



(sorry, can't work out how to turn this around.)

This is also a favourite block, it took a whole day to machine piece this 10" block Irish chain pattern


The Morrell Quilt had been hanging in the dining room for sometime and I thought that the fabrics may need a rest. I have replaced it with a pink and brown nine patch that I made some years ago (because I did not label this quilt when finished I can't remember when).


I just remember that it took me a very long time to hand quilt.