Chaos

 Rearranging my fabric storage.

5 hours later, still sorting.....

Out and About

Hi there, last Sunday I went to see the Quilts in the Barn exhibition in Wonga Park with a couple of my patchwork friends.  Here is Susan, taking a photo of me taking a photo of her.  I won't show any more photos of the quilt show cause the Quilts in the Barn blog has photos of the whole exhibit.  I have been going to this exhibition for quite a few years, its always an enjoyable day out and Linda and her helpers put a lot of work into making it a great show.  

We went to The Patchwork Teahouse

 in Warburton next and had a really lovely lunch.  We had a really nice day even though we discovered our favourite antique/homewares shop had closed down.  

I haven't done a lot of work on my crochet hexagons lately but I think these blocks should be enough to finish it.  Then there is the border to think about.  Haven't decided what I'm going to do about that yet.  There's an awful lot of ends to sew in too.

Isn't this owl the cutest?  She had to come home with me last weekend, I had a memory lapse and forgot about downsizing and the fact my shelves are overcrowded already.  I have a nice collection of owls now, maybe they remind me of my night owl tendencies! 

We had a lovely spring day today, a perfect day to wash some quilts.  This one was an old Country Threads pattern I think.  I do remember that it was one of my first attempts at needle turn applique and I thought I'd never get the hearts finished.  The main fabrics are all early Robin Pandolph fabrics.  I was in love with all her early ranges and I still have most of them in my stash as I thought they were too special to cut.  Now they're practically vintage.

I have been busting to use my kitchen table but my son has been using it to study for his exams.  He does have a desk in his bedroom which he can't use at the moment cause its covered in clothes etc.  What is it with teenage boys and messy bedrooms?  We have endless discussions about tidying his room, its like beating my head against a brick wall...

I've tried being patient but I keep thinking about all the things I can't do till I get my table back.  Today I decided to get out my fold up trestle table and take it outside to work on.

It was great, now that the weather is improving I might do this more often.  I wanted to work out the applique borders for my Jubilee quilt and the trestle table was perfect for this.  I couldn't pin my vines down until I drew out my applique shapes but at least I got a start on it.

Why couldn't I do this on my own sewing room table you might ask?  Cause it's covered in too much stuff!!!

Its time all us night owls were in bed.

Bye for now.

Debra. 

Hand Quilting and growing veggies.

I can't believe September's over already, so here is my final post for the 1 hour a day stitching challenge that Bonnie Hunter here was hosting. 

I didn't make it last week cause I worked a full week, I usually only work 2 days so my routine was out the window.  Needless to say I missed a couple of days of stitching.  I did try to make up the time when I could so I think I did fairly well. 

Because this quilt is so large I hadn't spread it out to check on my progress since I started in the first week of September.  I was surprised today to see that I've got half the blocks quilted.  To tell you the truth I was a tiny bit disappointed as I'd hoped I might have been close the finishing them all. 

I tried to get a close up of the quilting pattern in the hourglass blocks, it doesn't really show up very well though.  I have to mark the rest of the blocks using the quilting template, not my favorite part of the process.

I'm not very happy with some of the quilting, some of the straight lines look like the thread has pulled too tight and there are a few wrinkles in the wrong places but I hope when it is finished and gets washed it should look better.

I'm going to try to keep up the quilting, it will still be a couple of months till the weather heats up so I should by able to get a lot more done.

I decided I wanted to try growing some herbs and vegetables.  I'm no gardener but I really would like to be able to pick some fresh herbs to use when I'm cooking and some salad veggies would be great over summer.  I didn't want to get too carried away to start with so I bought some Coriander and Continental Parsley and a Tomato plant and one Strawberry plant, and some Cat Grass.  I thought the cats can have a special plant of their own, they're supposed to like eating it.

My parents came over yesterday and my Dad helped me plant the seedlings and gave me lots of advice on gardening it was very helpful.  I'm going back to get another couple of plants tomorrow.  We had big discussions about snails and Dad insisted that the sugar straw would keep them away cause they don't like crawling on it.  It worked last night I went out about 4 times during the night and there was no sign of snails but earlier on tonight I went out to find a snail in the middle of the Coriander and a slug in there as well.  There was another slug and a couple of snails on their way over.  I don't want to lose my plants before they've had a chance to grow.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I was very excited, this flower on my Strawberry plant appeared after I brought it home it is very pretty.

I'm hoping I might find time tomorrow to mark the rest of the blocks on my pink lemonade quilt, if I'm not on snail duty.!!

Happy Stitching,

Debra.