An exciting week!

This has been a busy and exciting week, I've had lots of time in the sewing room - I've been working on clearing away things I don't need anymore, so I have more room for things I love - machine work and hand work has been happening also. I've had kitchen time, and also an exciting visit early in the week.

Hand quilting is continuing whenever I have free moments. I'm just loving the texture of the quilting. How I would love to have a few more hours each day just to quilt!

I shared this picture earlier in the week on Instagram - it's much faster to upload things there, so I envisage I'll probably pop things up there more often, but I'll still continue to post on Fridays here. This is just a little more time consuming is all. Anyway - if you'd like to follow me on Insta, click HERE to take you to my profile. I'm seeking to approve followers at the moment, as I get an enormous number of requests from obviously fake profiles - why these pretend doctors and military folk would want to follow a nerdy quilter is just baffling lol. No need to answer that - I know they're potential scammers, and I have no notion of letting them anywhere near my photos of quilty goodness ;-)

I also made some gifts after we chattered last, I got a picture early in the process, but neglected to take any of the finished articles:

I dug into my very limited Kaffe stash for these spiderweb mats - they are so very bright and fun. Isn't that fabric with the pencils just so great?

And cupcakes too - with orange flavoured frosting. Citrus season is just the best - the oranges on our tree are so sweet right now, I could eat them all day long.

And the reason for the treats? I was invited along with some friends of mine to visit with lovely Pam Holland. We had morning tea, and got to hang out in her studio (or Shed as it is widely known). What a delightful time we had, chattering and looking over the projects she is working on, and hearing about techniques Pam uses. It was the nicest time, and as much as I'd love to say I'd taken lots of photos to share with you, it didn't seem right to be taking pictures in her creative space.

To my absolute delight, Pam had a gift for me. She had told me when I met up with her at the guild show that she wasn't using reproduction style fabric anymore and had some in her stash that she'd like to give me. Imagine my surprise when I learned that she had two tubs for me to take home!

I am so blessed! I don't think I can ever thank Pam enough, these are absolute treasures to me. My cursory look through these beauties has found some greens and reds I'll be able to use in Lily Rosenberry right away, and other darling pieces I know will be amazing in upcoming quilts. There are some lovely oldies in the collection - ones from the Smithsonian collections from the late nineties, the Sarah Johnson collection from the same era, and others that I've seen but just was never able to get my hands on. Thank you so much Pam!

Later in the week I set to continuing what I had started in the sewing room - Mum and I headed back to Ikea as there were some glasses there that I wanted, and we had almost made it to the checkout area when I saw some pin-boards on display. We headed back in and grabbed one and some of the accessories:

Marty put it up for me and I've had a quick go at putting a few things on it. Amy and I are heading to Ikea for a third time tomorrow, I'll need a few more trays and hooks so I can set it up more efficiently. And because I was working in the area, I decided to try and clean things up on the cutting table. It's amazing how fast that area can get messy. 

A new cover for the ironing board - and things are starting to be organised on the trolley. Meryl checked in recently to ask what size the ironing board was - I actually remembered to measure it - it's 18" deep and 48" wide. 

This is the view of the ladies lounge when you look in the door right now. My stash closet, library and TV are out of picture on the left, and the quilt shelves and my sewing machine are out of picture on the right. I have some tidying to do around the sewing machine area, and I feel motivated to do it.

Last of all for tonight, I wanted to share my latest macaron efforts:

Though it doesn't show in the pictures well, these are a lovely orange colour. The first pic is the 'macaronage' process - I'm about half way through incorporating the almond meal and sugar into the meringue mixture. The second pic is while I'm waiting for the macarons to become touch dry before baking, and the third pic is the end result. Yumm!

Well, that's it from me for this week - it has been such fun. Things will be a little slower for the next two weeks as some of my activities will be on hold for the school holiday break, and also as I'll be spending lots of time looking after lovely little Mary. Chatter soon! xox