My happy news :-)

Recently the Royal Adelaide Show was held in town - it's a fun week for us here in the city with so many things going on. The carnival rides and sideshow alley for the young and young at heart, the agricultural side of the show with farm animals/equestrian events etc, crazy amounts of showbags for all ages, and also the competition part of the show with all sorts of categories from pets to plants, cookery and craft.

I love to enter a quilt or two when I have something ready, and this year I decided to enter two projects. You've seen them both before, but it can't hurt to revisit them right?

My Montmellick quilt fitted right into the hand quilted category, and this year there was a special category for nine patch quilts, so I decided that Omigosh! would be perfect for that one. After I knew the judging was completed I waited a few days before I checked the show website, and received the happy news that both quilts had placed first in their categories!!

Here is my Omigosh with her first place ribbon. I'm so happy it did so well! :-)

And I also had the happy news that my Montmellick quilt won best quilt in show! I was just so thrilled! You can see her two ribbons in the picture. Yay!!

Amy and I visited the show one evening after work, and we had a really great time. My sweet girl is a real thrill seeker and wanted to hit the rides in sideshow alley. I love roller coasters, but some of those rides at shows leave me a little sweaty ... I don't know how she did it, but Amy convinced me to go on the biggest scariest ride there. It's called Speed 2 - I found a video on YouTube from a few years ago:

It was actually really fun, but I definitely didn't need to go on any more rides after that!! We got busy eating the obligatory carnival food, and after purchasing a bunch of show bags and watching the fireworks, we were super tired and ready to head home. What a great night out with my girl :-)

In other news, I wanted to share a quick snap of Norma's finished peacock block:

It's really cute isn't it? She's made it up into a cushion as a gift for her daughter. I am absolutely certain she  must love it! :-)

And finally for today, I just wanted to share a couple of fabric purchases I made at work today. There's a 50% off sale in the back room, so I was determined to give a few pieces of fabric a good home :-)

How could I leave behind a couple of Di Ford-Hall fabrics? And the Jo Morton in the middle there too? They'll live nicely in my stash until I have a project ready for them.

And this fabric will be super cute for a Christmas project I'm sure. I don't have any ideas right now, but I won't be able to think of anything until I've finished the top of the Caswell project. Surely it can't be long now?

So, today I added 5.5 metres of fabric to the stash. At the beginning of the year I stated that I wanted to end the year with less fabric in my sewing room than I started with - it's fair to say that I've done very poorly with that goal. Maybe next year I'll work on much faster projects and I'll get through more of the stash? Who knows??

Thank you all for the lovely comments you send my way. I'm behind with mail at the moment and promise to respond as soon as I can. And a big Hi to Janet who always sends the kindest notes - your email address doesn't pop up with your comments so I'm not able to reply.

It's getting late now, so I'll have to dash and catch some zzzz's. Chatter soon! xoxox

More border progress, and a sewing room update ...

I've been super busy working away on my Caswell quilt. In my mind I'm thinking I'd like to have the top completely finished by the end of this month so I can send it away to be basted for hand quilting. If I'm honest with myself, that goal is unrealistic, but it doesn't stop my from trying.

I've completed all the applique on one of the borders, and I'm plugging away at a second border. Here are some progress pics:

It's really fun making up a whole bunch of flowers and leaves and then throwing them on the border to see what happens. Of course, my perfectionist tendencies won't let me be completely random, but I'm doing my best to make each border different. My sweet friends from the USA will recognise some of the fabric they sent me in a recent care package making up some of the green leaves. You girls are all awesome, thank you!!

With less than two and a half weeks until the end of the month, the more I think about it, the less likely the applique finish will be, but at least it keeps me motivated and stitching. I'd like to have as much hand quilting time as I can possibly get.

In other news, I have some new additions to the sewing room. I'm not sure if I've shared that I've been looking for the perfect side table for my hand stitching throne. The item I particularly wanted is something I've been seeking for YEARS, mostly at auction because they can be pricey when new. I'd only seen three since 2010 and had devastatingly fallen just short placing absentee bids at auction. I finally decided to bite the bullet and see if I could find a new one, and here it is:

The side table I chose is actually a cocktail cabinet! I just love it! And because I finally got the 'table' I could go ahead and order the lamp I'd coveted for the longest time. It's a repro Tiffany lily lamp. I'm just the worst for having a vision in my head of the items I'd like in a space, and then tearing my hair out looking for the pieces in my mind, not necessarily knowing if they actually exist or not!

Hubster was actually away when both these items made their way into the house - it's actually funny - he teases me that whenever he's away with work I always seem to drag new furniture home. It was the same thing with the dumbwaiter (bookcase) at left in the picture, and I think the chair too. I joked with him that I must get so bored when he's away!

I also had some good news recently with a couple of my quilts in the Royal Adelaide Show - I had some happy wins. I'll share some pictures with you in my next post - I can feel my fingers itching to get back to some applique work. Chatter soon! xox