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.

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.

Tuesday

Recent bird visitors to our garden are Gang Gang cockatoos, they are grey with red top knots and sound like squeaky doors. There is a family group of parents and juveniles that come to our garden to eat gum nuts and drink from the bird bath. They are very shy, and it is difficult to get close enough to get a good photo. I used the telephoto function on my camera, but as it is a point and shoot Olympus the quality is not fabulous.

Our male ragdoll cat attracts the female cats from around the neighbourhood, here is one of his 'girlfriends'

Sunny decided to be noncomittal and do a little gardening.

Some cooking

Not much quilting but some cooking today, son M made some caramel popcorn using a recipe from Taste.com.au so yummy and so easy, but a bit deadly for the waistline.

We have a rather large male rag doll cat, this is him stretched to his full magnificence on a two seater lounge

This is the face of a happy cat,

Summer storm

On Saturday we experienced a thunderstorm with lots of thunder, lightning and even hail. We often get hail in summer and the hail is usually small, this time it was larger about the size of a twenty cent piece and did a lot of damage to the garden.

 Quilts have uses other than keeping warm, they can also protect the sun roof of son R's precious car from hail damage.

 Mr G's precious jalapeno chillies that he has been carefully nurturing suffered from the hail and the one large chilli that had formed was chopped off by the hail.

On Friday, travelled to the city to visit the Martin Browne Contemporary gallery to see an exhibition by my nephew Simon. Simon sold this painting on the opening night:

and this one:

I am a very proud auntie!

Birds in the garden

Yesterday was a bit of an upset because we thought we had lost our cat. At 5.30 am yesterday morning the LARGE dog from next door broke through the fence and chased  our cat Sunny. He ran off and was not seen all day causing our family much distress, fortunately a very subdued Sunny turned up at 11.00 pm much to the relief of all.

Still working on the purple and green quilt, sewed this ocean waves today, but I think the contrast is too low and that I will have to redo this block in different colours.

There were different birds in the garden today, we have a group of sulphur crested cockatoos that visit now and then  and they love Jatz biscuits (a type of cracker). They sit on the clothesline and call for attention untill I go out and give them some Jatz.

Still working on my purple and green quilt, I have now made 39 blocks (not The Thirty Nine steps by John Buchan that is a great read and there has also been a couple of good movies made of the story, the most recent I think with Rupert Penry Jones).

One of the blocks completed today is Louisiana (this was one of the blocks  in the Civil War Block of the Week program run in 2011 by Barbara Brackman. I made all of the blocks but have still not put it all together).

As if I need any more fabric, but this wonderful bundle of purple fabrics arrived in the post today:

They are part of the new collection Rebecca by Mary Koval for Windham fabrics, and the purple check is from Blue Hill.

Birds in the garden and some cooking

Yellow tailed black cockatoos often pass through our garden and eat the pine cones on the Radiata pines and we usually only see them high in the tree tops, but today one came down to drink from the bird bath and they are such large birds!

Especially when compared with a magpie drinking at the same bird bath

Well today I also managed to take photos of some cooking - white chocolate and raspberry muffins, I usually only add raspberries, but I had some white chocolate that I wanted to use up. The muffins tasted okay, but a little too sweet, so I don't think that I will add the white chocolate when I make the muffins again.

Then  more birdlife in the garden, almost from the sublime to the ridiculous or the very large to the very small with the visit of a superb fairy wren and his mate, you can just see him on the pergola.

Some thoughts on blogging

Quilters can spend a lot of time reading blogs of other quilters and not actually quilting, though I do admire regulars bloggers such as Meredithe at Pomegranate and Chintz and Kathie at Inspired by Antique Quilts who both manage to find time to make wonderful quilts and write interesting blogs. I have called my blog quilting and cooking because they are my two favourite past times (along with eating) though I have yet to get aroung to blogging anything about cooking and not much about quilting, so I may have to consider changing the name of my blog to Procrastination is my middle name (as my mother has often said to me!).

Meredithe at Pomegranate and Chintz had a link to a tutorial on an easy technique for a trip around the world quilt by Bonnie Hunter
I have already made one block and will soon make some more.

At the moment I am working on a purple and green quilt that I hope to finish in time for the Springwood Quilt Show in April!!

These are four inch blocks, it is always good to have a deadline to work to!! Well  I am aiming to blog more frequently and I may even include some posts on cooking.