Sunshine and Roses

After 3 days of cold, dreary weather, I needed a bit of cheering and warming up. Here's the progress on my latest mammoth project. The Sunshine and Roses quilt by Kathy Nakajima. Am now waiting on a delivery

of Superior Silk Threads to arrive before continuing with the applique.

This is the centre compass, with 6 of the applique sections surrounding it finished.

This is actually the second of the 8 sashing pieces finished. I am still tidying up the threads on the back. I thought self threading needles would work well. 100wt silk thread and self threading needles do not like each other in my hands. Only 6 more sashing sections, then a huge outer border to add. I have quickly dismissed any thoughts of having this finished for the Bundaberg Quilters Exhibition in August this year.

This is a geranium growing under our front steps. Hopefully Patty is going to show me how to transfer this image to fabric at patchwork this Friday. I have 3 photos like this to practise my free motion quilting on. This is a very sentimental bush as it came from my grandmother, and she passed away 24 yrs ago on June 6th.

Flowers in the City

Flowers in the City Quilt from 1994. It is from the Inner City pattern but worked using strip piecing and colourwash. This is going to be the QCWA Piecemakers workshop at Yeppoon in Jan 2012. I need a long lead in time these days.


I have decided to rework it in a collection of batik and hand dyed fabrics. I ordered these from Erica's Craft and Sewing in USA on 8 May and happy to report they arrived in my dusty roadside letterbox within 10 days.

I also have about 10 other pieces I have collected over the last few weeks. Now I must organise a dyeing day soon, before it gets too cold. The list of things to do is starting to grow. I have bought some second hand pattern boards and pop up stylus from a long armer and these need to be fitted, Patty loaded us up with small projects for the Mt Perry Art Exhibition, quilts to be made for the Bundaberg Quilters Exhibition and our own Mt Perry Quilt Exhibition in the art gallery in September. Patty and I are also off to the Australian Machine Quilting Festival at end of September. When am I going to keep renovating the paintwork here?????? We just may also have found a builder who is willing to tackle our termite eaten floors, I was also told that we might just shift my quilting machine into the larger room downstairs. I don't really think HE knows exactly what that involves yet!

Reasons for my Absence.

Well, I really did not realise that 6 months have passed since I last posted to this blog.

I have been focusing my spare time to trying to finish the house renovations.

Unfortunately that is happening slower than I would really like but I still feel a slight sense of achievement.



 Here are 2 views of the longest veranda basically finished, just requiring a light finer grit sanding.I have even finished the roof beams.

Here is the second major reason, as to why the poor blog has been a bit neglected. Our eldest daughter was married in late March amid the rainy days. It rained and flooded in some areas until Friday, Saturday dawned with bright sunshine, a change of venue due to a causeway preventing access to the original venue, and a beautiful ceremony and reception followed. My undyed rolls of fabric ended up being used as the swags in the ceiling of the reception place as the Council misplaced theirs. So when I finally dye it and make some quilts, I can honestly say they attended the wedding also.

Now the wedding is out of the way, they are concentrating on a building project of their own. This took about 3 days to appear from a few pegs in the ground. Wonder if some of their builders would be handy at paint removal?

We are currently waiting for our reno expert builder to come for a drive and measure our floorboards that need replacing.
On a sewing note, I went to Yeppoon in Jan 2012 and had a busy weekend teaching strips n triangles and free motion quilt/embroidery.
I also visited a long arm quilter only 2 hrs drive away, who had just had her Intelliquilter driven A1
machine installed. She has upgraded from a Nolting like mine to this new machine and is now back on a steep learning curve. She has kindly offered to help me on my way with my machine.
I am also going to attend the AMQF in Adelaide. The accommodation and travel is booked so one day soon , I hope to be able to quilt.