Back in the "real" world

I'm happy to report that finally we have the internet connected at last. Now I can start showing you some of the things I have been doing instead of sewing. But once again you will have to wait until I upload some of the photos. Mainly been doing a bit of stripping lately.
Hold on you say? No it's not the clothes removal, nor the patchwork version but indeed a bit of paint ( lots of flaky stuff) removal.
Stay tuned I will get organisd next week.

April Notes

No I have not disappeared from this planet, we have been experiencing some turmoil in our lives due to a set of controlling aged parents. My husband has decided that he is old enough at 51 to not be kept held to ransom by greedy ageing parents any longer. Anybody who has experienced the non communicating that happens in trying to keep a farm together for the family will understand what we are saying.
As a result we are in the process of shifting house, business, cattle and possessions. It is compounded by the fact that 2 internet providers have so far failed to be of much assistance.
I hope to be back to "normality" by about July 2010. Then I may be able to start doing some beloved sewing again instead of house renovations so as not to freeze come winter. See you then if not before.

January Jottings

Time has certainly whizzed by since I last posted a report. Christmas and New Year has been and here we are over half way through January 2010. We did a bit of relaxing in the rain over Christmas and New Year spending most of the time over at the new farm. Lucky for us there is a huge dam nearby and thanks to a niece, we spent some time water skiing and tubing. New Year saw us all have a quiet time in various places. I think only 2 of the family were in the same place.

There has been 2 deaths of people from Monto since New Year affecting our eldest daughter greatly ( both people were sudden) one a result of a traffic accident, and who's loss will be felt greatly by all of the community. Danielle needs a bit of extra support to assist her in her job to help her pupils get through this tough time.

We caught up with the family from Mackay and had the boys visit for a few days. They loved the train trip back to Mackay. The Sunlander certainly is a grand old girl. Only 1 and a half hours late into Mackay from Bundaberg.

The glamorous girl featured in the last post has received her results and did well for her efforts. She has been accepted into Sunshine Coast University to study Bachelor of Paramedics. Already her grandfather is worrying about her and the effects of traumas on her pysche.

I have been working on my Sunshine and Roses quilt from QNM Cover Series patterns. Wow I have 1 compass with 64 outer points completed. Only 8 to go. Thinking of retiring when I finish it. The applique will be the challenge.

I have nearly finished the class preparation ( very interrupted this year) for Coolwaters Retreat at Yeppoon for QCWA Piecemakers. I think I have managed to remember everything.

I have just finished 2 nights and 2 lates at work and am beginning to enjoy working the late shifts. On day shifts for the rest of the week and due to some unpleasant colleagues attitudes to work not really looking forward to them.
I also plan to re organise my class lists of classes that I teach and add a few different ones.

Big events are coming up this year for me so I must prepare for a lot of changes. The first one will be the youngest leaving home for uni and that's not too far away.

This is the view of the verandah where I have spent a lot of time removing the last bits of paint. A long way to go yet. There are only 11 sections like this one. All of the floor boards need replacing as well but we are trying to preserve most of the railings. Looks like I'll be painting more than sewing this year.

December Welcome

In my last post I mentioned altering a grad dress. Here's the gorgeous girl who received lots of compliments. She had a wonderful time and holiday at the beach. Now she is waiting for her school results.

Yikes, December is nearly half way through. I have experienced and coped well ( with a few zzzzz's) during my very first 2 night shifts at work. It was very considerate of people to stay away from the hospital on Friday night but they kind of made up for that Sat night. I always did find that Sat night on call was very busy.

I managed to do some photocopying of some quilting designs that I had previously drawn up and in my breaks wrote out some christmas cards etc.

I did manage to catch up a lot of work leftover from the day shifts due to the ever present computer system slowness.

Unfortunately not much sewing has happened. I have finished the 5 foundation patterns for the poppies pattern. I now have to do the applique and I have not taken a photo of them yet.

I had some bad news on my car today. A second wheel was damaged when I was forced off to the edge of the road so now I have decided to get 4 new alloy wheels ( not genuine VW) though.

I will definately be following up my claim to the Main Roads Dept through my local parliamentary member. The road is still unrepaired. A mob of lazy people if you ask me.

Hope to be doing some more sewing in the next few days. I finished a lot of Christmas shopping today. I have also spent time at the other farm where I am trying to remove the last vestiges of paint from the verandah posts so I can of course cover them up again.

Monthly Report

Yes I know I'm a bit late for the beginning of the month. How do you deal with some quiet moments? I'm beginning to think my upcoming forced venture into night shifts might give me some of those. Hopefully there are not too many dramas every night in the early hours of the morning at the hospital when I will be trying to stay awake and I may catch a few moments of being idle.

The past few weeks have been fun with patchwork and quilting. The M t Perry and Mundubbera girls enjoyed being guinea pigs for our strips n curves workshop. We did a bit of fabric dyeing along the way. Had a sleepover and pub tea on the Sat night and ing eneral had a busy weekend. I went to work to recover. The photo is of Trish's handiwork. She was the first one to get hers sewn together. Still needs a border treatment yet.

I have also been playing with a foundation pattern called congregation of Poppies from QNM .

I have started the second one today. It sure is exciting starting something new and a bit different to what I have been playing with for the last few years.

I am also constructing a workshop using the 60 degree ruler. Probably have a one block wonder plus my triangular log cabin plus these.

Am not sure which colour scheme to use yet.

Here is a close up of the free motion quilting feathers I did on zinnia fizz. I used Glide thread . That centre square is 2' in size.

Do you think I should feel like I have been busy???? I have also nearly finished all of the requirements lists and procedure sheets for Jan 2010. I'm off to alter a graduation dress. That is one thing I would really like to be able to sew well. Formal clothes, I reckon you could do well doing that type of sewing. Quilts are more fun though because you get at least 3 different stages of sewing work from one of them. See you next month.

Workshops

More workshops are in the planning stage. We are having an overnight retreat in Mt Perry soon. We will be doing the strips and curves pattern by Louisa Smith. I have made a poppies quilt and a hand dyed version in pinks and purples as class samples. The photo shows the pattern pieces quite well in the hand dyed fabric.

The girls are all having fun collecting their fabrics. We will be dyeing some fabric over the weekend as well. It certainly seems full steam along. This is a practice session for my workshop at Yeppoon in 2010.

I have finished quilting the Citrus Fizz quilt from this years Yeppoon workshop. I used Glide polyester thread available from Fil-Tec in USA and found this to be a wonderful polyester thread to use. I have even stocked up supplies of this thread as the dollar keeps rising. I can get 5 times the amount of a better quality thread for the same price as a less superior thread including the high postage cost. It really is amazing what you can learn and source via the internet. I have also sourced another book ( yes I know I vowed to declutter) which has some wonderful ideas for leftover strata from strips and curves. That is for a future project.

August Endings

Spring is nearly here and the cleaning has been happening at my house. I have been sorting through years of accumulated junk and culling out stuff. I have 4 boxes of fabric and magazines to be looked through by other quilters next patchwork day. Some of the magazines will probably find a new home at our new venue.

3 car trips to the dump in 5 days is a pretty good achievement for this hoarder.

If we end up shifting house I want to be able to just pack everything without sitting there thinking do I really need this item anymore. The problem is I still have 4 storage areas of the house to sift through.

I can't believe how organised I am as I have all current projects stored where I know exactly where they are. I am working on a small art quilt for an art exhibition competition in October so no pics of that.

I have also got things prepared for QCWA in January. It is just a case of waiting for the weeks to go by until school is finished for the youngest before I can really move.