September 1

I really wanted to put this post up yesterday while it was still August ... but I just ran out of day. So September the 1st it is! Hello Spring, I'm happy to see you!

This is the time of year when I'm spending a lot of time working on secret squirrell projects, but I do have some bits and pieces I can share with you - today I finished working on the applique block I will use in my Sarah Morrell quilt. I'm pretty happy with it:

I did some embroidery around the edge of the broderie perse flowers at the top as I wasn't satisfied with the edges, and I quite like how it looks - so I may do some additional embroidery at some point. Next up I'll make up a wreath style block, and beyond that I'm not sure. The little bits of broderie perse weren't too daunting, maybe I'll get more comfortable with it as I go along and ultimately make up some whole blocks. 

Recently I rescued a stitchery project from the archives. I had purchased some perle cotton with the gift voucher prize and this was what I thought I could use it for:

The flower and the lettering was all I'd done so far, so the ovel shape and the green box were what I did recently. It was just a fun little thing to work on for a bit, but I need to put it aside again so I can finish with my 'must do' projects. Mum and I are travelling to Europe next year, and this is what I'll take with me to work on on the plane and on train journeys. We're having fun with our planning, and I simply cannot wait until we head off.

I've also been putting more stitches in my wholecloth quilt - as I mentioned on Instagram, it won't be finished this year, and probably not next year either. But if I keep working at it, my wholecloth will be ultimately be complete.

This weeks fun news was that my Lily Rosenberry quilt has won another ribbon at the Royal Adelaide Show:

I never tire of seeing Lily hanging with her ribbons. Unfortunately my schedule means I'm not going to be able to get in to the show to see Lily in person, but I very much appreciate my friends sending me pictures to enjoy.

The last picture for today is Rowley-centric. We love taking him on long walks, and here is one from last weekend:

He's such a happy boy, and will happily head out for walkies two and three times a day. It's hard to wear him out.

Well, that's it from me for today. Hope you're all doing well - I'm off now to check for any comments I haven't responded to - I really have dropped the ball in that regard. Chatter soon lovely friends!

July 13th

Well, this has been the most exciting of weeks! As you know I finished my Lily Rosenberry quilt recently - I was working really hard to have it ready for our guild show. Tuesday was the day to hand the quilt off to guild committee, and I spent an anxious evening wondering if I'd remembered to trim away any stray threads, had I missed any dog hair etc. You know, stuff that you can't do a darn thing about ...

On Wednesday evening I got a call to ask if I was coming to presentation night as my quilt had won a prize. Ohhh my goodness I was so thrilled, and still kind of anxious. On Thursday to help with all that nervous energy I made myself a cute skirt to wear to presentation night - mostly to keep my mind busy. I sent a picture to my sister-in-law as she's getting into sewing ... here's what I made:

I love the big houndstooth, and I've got extra for some fun cigarette pants. You see Rowley there bottom right - he really wanted to get in on the picture too:

Sweet boy, he always wants to be in on the action. He's bugging at me to go for a walk right now ... it's late, and we'll drag him out shortly.

Anyway, I won't keep you in suspense any longer:

I was gobsmacked when I learned that my quilt had won 1st in Professional Applique, Best Hand Quilting, and the Retaining the Tradition award. And then I was rendered absolutely speechless when it was announced that my quilt had won Best of Show. Ohhh my goodness, I feel so lucky!

I spent Friday and Sunday at the show standing with my quilt chatting with old friends, making new friends and generally having a lovely time with the folks at the show. What a great weekend!

The major sponsor for our show was Bernina Australia, they're always incredibly supportive, and my prize for Best of Show was this darling Bernina 570QE machine.

Thank you Bernina Australia!

And the cherry on my sundae was learning that my dear friend and quilting twin Zara Zannettino had won runner up to Best of Show. I was so thrilled to share the stage with such a wonderful person and huge quilting talent.

Last of all for this week, I managed to get another Morrell quilt block made in the evenings as I was winding down. I had this block about one third pieced on the machine, and I was just so unhappy with how it was going together - with so many Y seams, points weren't meeting as well as I'd like them to, and it was just looking a mess:

So I pulled the block apart entirely, and used all the pieces to hand stitch it together. I'm so much happier with how it looks now:

So, that has been my news over this past week. Honestly, I feel like I'm floating on cloud nine. I'll check back in again soon, though I'm sure I won't have any news to beat this in a good long time!

Hello November!

My goodness, how can it be November already? It seems like the year has only just begun. The month has been busy for me already, so let me share a few of the goings on here so far:

On the day of the Adelaide Christmas Pageant I put up our Christmas tree. It's tradition for lots of families in Adelaide to mark the day in this way - for whatever reason the pageant is a couple of weeks early this year, but that just means we all get to enjoy our festive decorations for a bit longer. I'm sure I've told you all before, it's an all day job for me, and one I look forward to. It's much less fun when it's time to take it down.

And putting away the Halloween display in the hallway meant I was able to put out something else:

I've been hand quilting and working on some secret squirrell business too. And I promise to share photos of those things when they're gifted. But I can share pictures of the table topper I made for my friend for her birthday:

I'm so sorry about the quality of the photos - I clearly took them (especially the last one) in a rush. For this table topper I used my Dresden Christmas Tree Skirt pattern, and instead of cutting away the center circle and opening for the tree, I appliqued a circle of Dutch Chintz fabric in the centre. I do really love that green floral, it's so pretty.

Another recent adventure was meeting Nagee Maehashi from Recipe Tin Eats:

My lovely friend Sonja and I decided on a whim to head to Tea Tree Plaza to meet her at her book signing. We joined the queue just oven an hour before it all began and were so thrilled to meet her and have Nagee sign our books. Her recipes are wonderful, and Nagee is a delightful person. Amy and I are going to make one of her recipes tomorrow after Amy has a sewing session here.

Dog walking has continued. We decided to give the Wynn Vale dam a go once more - we tried it a while ago while Rowley was still very much in his puppy stage, and it was a big overwhelming for him. It's a much busier place with lots of smells and other people and animals to meet. Just a couple of pictures of the dam:

We are so lucky to live in such a nice place with plenty of space to wander.

And the last picture of the day - some cute pompom like flowers that I bought at the grocery store. I wasn't sure what they were, but my dear Instagram buddies tell me they're crysanthemums:

These would be so lovely to grow in the garden, I'm definitely going to look into it.

I have so much work I'd like to get done tonight before I head to bed, so I'm going to sign off here with a promise to catch up on comments tomorrow. Thank you for stopping by, I always appreciate it xox

Hand quilting obsessed!

I've been really inspired to get as much hand quilting done as I can lately, and even though I've got a lot of work to get through in other areas, I've been making time each day put a few stitches in.

There are a few other pictures I managed to snap ... I set up a little corner by the front door for Halloween, and if we have any trick-or-treaters we'll be ready. 

We don't often have little people stop by, Halloween doesn't seem to have really taken off in our neighbourhood. But there was one time that I wasn't prepared and had to give some little darlings chip packets from the pantry - and since that day I've been ready. Just in case.

Something I needed to make this week was a little mat for my bedside table. It won't really be seen, but I grabbed a sweet little border print from my scrap stash and put this together:

The mat is pieced and quilted, and I've stitched the binding on the front. All that remains is to hand stitch the binding on the reverse side and I can put this little mat in use.

Walking the dog is still happening each day, and I try and take pics of our surroundings when I can. We live in a lovely neighbourhood with fabulous walking trails.

I wish I could take pictures that looked as good as my eyes can see. Does that make sense? Anyway I could learn a lot about photography.

Last of all for today, one of my sweet quilting friends had a significant birthday this week, and lovely Norma made this gorgeous fruit flan, isn't it so pretty?

It tasted as good as it looks. I have such talented and lovely friends.

That's it from me for today, my days continue to be super busy, but I hope to check back in with you in a week rather than the two weeks I've been stretching out to lately. Chatter soon friends! xox

I'm obsessed with hand quilting right now.

Seriously, I am! There are other things I need to do, but I'm finding myself drawn to the quilting hoop in any spare moment I have. I even laid the quilt out as best I could on the dining room floor so I could see how far along I am:

I'm further along than I thought I was, but there is still a long way to go. As long as I keep putting stitches in, it's all progress right? I do love how this quilt is coming along, and I know I'm going to love it when it's finished too.

And just a quick side note (and scroll on if you're not Instagram inclined) I seem to find time to pop a picture on Insta more regularly than I do here - it's just so much faster. So if you do want to see something more than my irregular posting on here, do pop over and have a look. There's a link in my sidebar.

Dog walking continues unabated. Every day actually, and sometimes twice a day. We're seeing a lot of our neighbourhood. 

My pictures never look as nice as we see in person, but I'll persevere. Also my friends in far places do like to see the landscape. Rowley continues to grow large - hopefully he'll stop growing soon - he's a lot of dog to walk. Especially when he sees something he wants to investigate.

My parents and brother were on holiday in Europe recently, and while checking on my parent's garden I found Mum's beautiful clivias in flower. The orange ones were abundant, but this much rarer yellow one caught my eye:

I'm trying to grow the orange ones at the moment - my green thumb hasn't really formed yet. When I have success with orange, I'm going to add yellow to my collection, they're so pretty.

And you know that I don't have very much exciting to share when it's newsworthy that I caved and finally bought an air fryer:

I haven't used it yet - it was only delivered yesterday. If I'm honest, I'm a little nervous of it, though my friends and family tell me that it's a life changing kitchen appliance. We shall see.

Painting bead heads for the mmmCrafts ornaments has continued apace. This past week amongst other orders, I had one sweet lady order 28 Mrs Claus heads so she could make ornaments for her friends. What a darling gift to make!

They were fun to work on, and because it's now school holidays here, I'll be able to do more stock replenishment over the next two weeks. We're heading for the busy season in my Etsy store, and I love it!

Last of all today, the sun in the sewing room caught the quilting hoop just right, showing the teture of my Lily Rosenberry quilt. I tried to capture it, but once again my eyes see things my phone camera lens just cant. This picture will give you an idea anyway.

I never grow tired of gazing at, and running my hands over my hand quilted projects. My sweet friend Jean says it's like there are little pillows between the stitches. And to me, that sounds just about right.

That's it from me for now, and I promise to check in and chatter again soon xox

Little things ...

Hi friends, this past fortnight I've been working on some little things, and plugging away on some big projects too.

I've hand quilted a bit more than normal, and I'm out into the border on Lily Rosenberry. In fact, since this photo was taken, I've moved right into the corner of the quilt:

It's so nice to have time to spend on hand quilting, it doesn't seem like I get a lot done, but when I spread the quilt out, it looks so good and I realise all the quilting adds up. I'll try and get a photo of the quilt spread out so you can see how far along I am. Hopefully the detail will show.

It was Nanna's 95th birthday today, and I went with some of the family to visit with her. She just loves when the babies visit especially, her eyes really light up. I made her a little something to have on her side table, I hope Nanna enjoys using it:

I see more of these little mats in my future, they're fast to put together, and fun to quilt. A good Christmas project I think.

And the last picture of the day, Rowley on a recent walk refusing to perform for the camera:

Rowley is about 18 months old now, so still officially a puppy. He's a big boy though, at 34kgs (75lbs) - sometimes onlookers could be forgiven for wondering who is walking who.

Off to bed shortly here, I've just spent some q-time with the hubby watching the F1GP while working on some more lodestar ornaments. And tomorrow I'll get busy painting bead heads to replenish stocks. Hope you've all had a lovely weekend, and chatter soon!