Bright things on Thursday

I love roses, don't you? I picked these from the garden yesterday and they look so nice on the table in the family room.

It would be nice to know the variety, but I'm no green thumb and they were in the garden when we purchased the house. It has the feeling of an old fashioned rose, but I could be just guessing. We have five standard roses down the side of our drive, and that's it, so I'm definitely no expert.


And for the fabric portion of today's viewing - this is a kit I'm just dying to get my fingers into.

Cameron spotted this quilt in a Fons and Porter magazine while I was browsing thru one day, and because he loves the book, begged me to make the quilt up for him.

How could a Mum say no? I had loved the book as a child also, and the fabric is just like the pictures in the book. The kit was ordered quick smart, and it travelled home from the US with us.

How fun! :-)

Another quilt kitted ...

My wonky banner is really bugging me - but I'm going to have to wait until Marty has installed Photoshop on my new laptop before I can fix it. Ohhh it's hurting my eyes - we'll have to live with it a little while longer. I'm just not computer savvy enough to take care of it for myself.

Here's a little more eye candy. This is another quilt made by Golden State Sewing Center from one of my patterns. It's called Flower Basket Medallion and the second of the quilts that they made into kits. I love the fabrics they've selected, and it was also in their booth at the Pacific International Quilt Festival.

And in other PIQF news, the most exciting thing happened - I bumped into our dear friend Ms Jan near the Bonnie Blue booth. You can read about it (and see it) here on her blog. It was so much fun to meet her, and I would love to be able to spend more time with her - she's just darling.

I have a pile of patterns to prepare tonite before bed, so I better get moving - the girls just had a big win at netball, so it's been a great nite! TTYL :-)

Playing ...

I'm just playing around with my blog template ... so if things look odd for a little while please don't panic - hopefully I won't have broken it!
:-)

Update ... I like the template ... but need to play with the banner - I'll fix it after netball tonite .... thanx for your patience!!

Mixed feelings

I have just had my feelings stung, and I don't really know how to deal with it. I just discovered one of my 'pay-it-forward' items listed on ebay.

I guess it's the individuals item after it leaves my hands, and therefore they can do what they like with it. However the thing that bothers me most is that it's really not in the spirit of the whole pay it forward concept - maybe if they didn't like it, they could have paid it forward to someone else.

Disappointing, and actually - it kind of hurts.

Memories of Kathy's 40th (20th Sept. 08)

You know a great time was had by all when:

1. You can't tell the women from the men

2. People are violently ill in the front yard

3. The police are called

Good friends, good times, great margaritas :-)

BTW, wax much??

Followers

I'm not one of those 'early adopters' and have just noticed the 'followers' thing on the dashboard page of blogger. Just for fun I added it to the main part of my blog - do you see yourself there? I've put it just above my archive ... how fun is that!

:-)

Fabric Fun

A few random fabric happy snaps here for you today - witnessed - received - purchased and organised. Not necessarily in that order :-)

First up - a happy snap from the Pacific International Quilters Festival. Linda's favourite fabric store Golden State Sewing Center had purchased a huge number of my patterns before I went on holiday, the Sisters Choice Medallion being one of them. They cleverly created this very cute quilt from the pattern and kitted it up. How I wish I'd come up with such an adorable colour combination. The kit sold out very quickly - how fun!

And here is my fabric stash after I spent the morning folding up and putting away all my fabric purchases and acquisitions. I had to find new homes for my bins of strips as I needed the shelf space, and I did a little sorting to get the fabrics somewhat into colour groups. It's looking so much healthier than it did last time I shared a picture, but still not nearly as impressive as the stashes of some of my USA friends!

This adorable collection of green fabric was sent to me by our wonderful friend Karen. Thank you so much, it is greatly appreciated. I'm always looking for the perfect green, and I love all of them. Isn't it fun to have mail arrive from the other side of the world?

Last of all is a kit I ordered shortly before we headed off on holiday. I saw it in the Hancocks of Paducah catalogue, and I was mesmerised by it, I called Linda to discuss it with her, only to find that she had been coveting it also. I cannot wait to have the opportunity to make it up.

I should be able to share more holiday pictures as I have the chance. Marty bought me a new laptop on Wednesday, and it seems to be so much happier to communicate on my terms (somewhat technically challenged terms). It's so shiny and new and fast and slick - I'm still finding it a little scary, but hopefully I'll be comfortable with it soon. Talk soon :-)

So much to say, but where to begin?

I have so much to share about our vacation (and so much yet to unpack) but due to my alarming degree of technical incompetence, I'll be sharing some pictures I found in my cell phone just now, and a couple of Marty's.

Amy and I both purchased new cameras while we were away - and of course I have yet to figure out how to get said camera and laptop to communicate with each other. Monday I had fun and games, and I don't think I can go thru it again right now. I'll chat to the IT department (husband) later :-)

This is the very start of our journey - getting ready to board the plane. Cameron's excitement was palpable - he'd never been on a plane before. After the huge amount of travelling he's now done, I'm wondering if he'll want to get on one again?!?

This dark picture was taken at the Rainforest Cafe at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas. The kids were just captivated by the surrounding animals, and loved it when they sprang to life.

We loved the MGM, and couldn't believe the size of it - like a whole city within the hotel. Here are the kids in the foyer. Amy gasped when we first walked in - she thought it looked like a palace.

Jump forward a number of days, and we're at Linda's home. I just had to steal this picture of Linda's kitty sleeping on her bed (note the gorgeous quilt!) - Kitty was sleeping with her leg in the air, so funny :-) Of course my picture does her no justice, but that's the way I roll :-)

And last of all, a picture I sent to my dear friend Kath. The night before we left was spent at a teppanyaki restaurant which was really super fun. My pre dinner drink of course was a Cosmopolitan ... my how I love them!

I have to dash now - time to head for the quilt store. Promise I'll check back in really soon! x o x

Fabric Haul

You'll all be glad to know that Amy and I made it home safely, and so did all our luggage. I joked with the customs guy that 'we travel light' after seeing that all our baggage had 'heavy' stickers plastered on them. Lucky for us he had a sense of humour and told us that we weren't the worst he'd seen.

You see some of the weighty culprits in the picture. This is some of my fabric haul - and fabric is heavy! I was reunited with some of the fabric today after sending them home with Martin. I must confess that we travelled to the US with three suitcases between us, and ultimately brought seven home. I must further confess that really speaking, four of those were mine alone.

But back to the picture. Almost everything you see here is one yard or more - many pieces as much as three yards. The ones on top in front of the fat quarter stacks that look like fat quarters are actually folded yard pieces, procured carefully from PIQF. Ohhh, and those fat quarter towers of gorgeous reproduction fabrics, I could just play with them all day. I just had a quick guesstimate, and I believe there could be as much as 80 yards there - possibly more with all those fq's! OMG!

Well, I really should get back to unpacking - I still have a million things to sort, a ton of clothes, shoes and souvenirs to find homes for. Also the issue of the slight fog around me after travelling half way across the globe and through heaven knows how many time zones. I've missed visiting with you all, and look forward to catching up with everyone, and sharing my adventures too :-)

Getting on the big plane ...

... in around 10 hours or so. I'll be travelling across the globe for something like 20 hours (including a 3 hour layover in Auckland *sigh*).

Which means ... that on Monday (Adelaide time) we'll be returning to our regularly scheduled blog programming.

Ohhh, and btw - the first picture in the last post was the Thunderbirds at the Salinas Air Show in California. The second picture is of my tiny people at Avila Beach in California. More pictures later :-)

Where were we??

Marty and Cameron are safely home today, but Amy and I still have a week to go ...

Where do you think we've been??





More soon :-)