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.

Dye Painting Workshop at Proston

After a few weeks of preparation, anticipation , the day finally arrived. The above image is the work of the most far away student. She travelled 800 kilometres just to attend. The date was selected so she could. I think she was very happy to come, paint and then travel all the way home again. Maybe I might go and visit , to help her quilt the embellishments.

A landscape is in progress here. Old calendars are good for inspiration.

This became a "kakadu frog". Margaret was the only one in the group who had "picture painting" experience. Sometimes not the best students for dye painting. She attacked the background like a pastel painter but reports it has washed up well. She is wondering about the next stage already.

This is the whole group, hard at work. Thank you Narelle for the pics. Hop on over to Narelle's blog to see her finished work.http://pinsandwhiskers.blogspot.com

I had a most enjoyable time, and hope to do some more paintings soon.

Dye Painting and Quilting

It has been a while since I last found time to blog. Not that I have been standing still until this last week. A viral illness has forced me to slow down for a few days.
A visit to the Ekka in Brisbane was not the most enjoyable due to some kind of virus. Left me a bit drowsy and with very little energy to fight the crowds etc.
Once home though I had some time off from work which enabled me to do " my things".

This is my very first dye painting effort. Considering I have hardly ever painted pictures before, I thought my effort was not too bad. I have moved onto the quilting phase. It certainly adds texture to the picture.

I have also prepared a sample chart of dye colours, found an Australian Supplier of Print Paste
and generally am prepared for my teaching workshop of dye painting in September at Proston. Now I must get the house in order. Got my new ladders to reach up to the top of the veranda and have slowly started on the paint stripping again. That is until this last week. Maybe in a couple of weeks I can get back to a day of that every now and then.

Window Renovations

These are the old red cedar framed windows along the back wall. All of the frames are rotted around the rollers and consequently they do not slide. Gales blow in from the west during winter. We made the decision to replace. Cost of timber framed is approx 3 times the price of aluminium, the glass is very old with an unmatchable pattern, so clear glass was chosen. We also wanted a view of the cattle yards from the house.
I spent 2 days removing the rest of the paint from the awning frame ( that I could reach without a ladder ) so the view was not only of peeling paint.

The window men came and quickly removed the windows and the beading strip that held the back 2 in place, they marched up the stairs with a long white frame with 2 fixed panels of glass and 5 mins later it was all installed. A quick trip to town for lunch and a visit to the hardware store as they had torn the flyscreen in transit from Kingaroy ( things like that DO happen to other people and not just us) and the rest of the panels were in place.

The view from outside. It is gray glass to lessen the impact of the summer heat (I hope).

The awning support is a bit in the road but eventually I'd like a deck with a new roof so that would go. Time to save some money for that, the holes in the floor have to be fixed before that happens.

If you are feeling sad for the old windows, do not despair, they are going to an old house currently under renovation at Goomeri. The woodheater installer found out they were going and wanted them. We had met him prior to the woodheater installation and we know they will be restored by him.

Sewing wise, I am nearly finished a UFO cross stitch, went to the Textile Fair in Brisbane, and am currently organising an Australia supplier of print paste equivalent for my dye painting workshop. Can't do any dye painting until the temperature warms up. Bring on September.
When I have some more spare time, I might get to quilt one of my first efforts.

This is the northern wall of the kitchen/dining area. Looks a forlorn sight on a very cold windy morning, a wood heater waiting patiently for the plumber to come along and install it. After numerous phone calls waiting for a quote to arrive, I suggested to the dear man about the house, how about he make another phone call. He dutifully did and hey presto, NO QUOTE , BUT WE'LL BE OUT TOMORROW TO INSTALL IT!!!!!!

Another cold windy morning, the boys turned up ready to climb the roof and drill and saw and install a chimney etc. 5 hours later and the wood was burning. Lucky we've got quite a few spare ironbark trees. Now just the windows to replace and maybe I might have the wind cut in half.

Just been TOOO BUSY!!!!

Yes I know it has been awhile since I last posted to this blog. Life has a knack of getting in the way sometime. The most exciting thing happened just before Proston showday. Phil the woodchopping builder decided he just had to come for the show and install an upstairs shower in the bathroom for us. I think his wife also enjoyed spending our money on all the fittings. She certainly does a good job for her clients. This first photo is of the existing wall in the very corner of the house. Perfect spot for a shower don't you think.


After a few hours of measuring, cutting holes in the tongue and groove, packing to make it all square , we then had a shower base on the floor and slots for some taps.

A few more hours went by and the adhesive applied , the plastic backing installed, then the figuring out of the doors and hey presto, we now have a corner unit shower. The photo is a bit distorted due to the small space. 3 days later the plumber turned up and installed some new pipes downstairs. Came back 2 days later and it was finally functional. No more showers downstairs with the toads and the breeze coming under the wall.

The door opens into the middle of the room. The next thing to purchase will probably be some sort of blind for the window. The electrician is supposed to be coming back and installing a ventilation unit sometime. I bought a small heater to take the chill off the air in winter.

Sewing wise I went to Yeppoon and spent a weekend teaching kaliedoscopes in March. The girls were busy as usual. I then spent a lot of time preparing for my venture to Coffs Harbour in NSW for 2 workshops with one of my quilting heroes Hollis Chatelain. If you google her you will see her Precious Water quilt. This was the first quilt of hers I ever saw in a magazine. I would love to see it in real life.Another quilt of hers I love is the one with Desmond Tutu with the african children in it.She dye paints then quilts. Her idea of quilting is YOU MUST SEE THE THREAD. Some of her quilts are just a dye painted background with the images constructed solely from thread.

I spent a day learning to paint with dye, I think I did well considering I have not painted pictures since Primary School. It is certainly a different medium to work with.

The second day was a huge discussion on threads, quilting and design. I would now love to join her 10 year class, where you go once a year and learn from the design up. Hope the dollar stays high so I might get there for the colour class.

Just to show it was not a dream, here is a photo of me and my teacher, standing in front of her

"The Gift " quilt. The stitching is awesome, photos do not do it justice. The quilt is about a philipino girl working on a cruise ship ( that Hollis was on ) as a masseur and she had to send all her earnings home to her family. Hollis could feel the tension in her and said she had an amazing rapport with her and ended up making a quilt from the experience.

I managed to bring home my 2 artists palettes with my leftover dye paints in and now have 3 small dye paintings to wash out in synthrapol after curing. Off to patchwork again tomorrow. I need a bit of a break from the work routine as I have been involved in too many "Massive Blood Transfusions" lately, with some not good outcomes happening.

Will try too post a bit more frequently also. The next renovation work is replacing the windows at the back and installing the second wood heater. I had to remind the tradespeople AGAIN today for the quotes.

It Has been Awhile, I Know

It has certainly been awhile since I last did a blog post. Well one can never underestimate the forces of nature. I was stranded by flood waters for a week from home and spent most of my time watching the events in Toowoomba, Lockyer Valley and Brisbane areas on the television as they unfolded. Then of course we had to have Cyclone Yasi devastate North Queensland.

We have made preparations to get three of our dams repaired and fences fixed. We consider ourselves very lucky with the damage we received compared to other areas of Queensland.

Then we also saw the floods in Victoria, bushfires in Western Australia and today more earthquakes in New Zealand. The snow storms across the USA added to the world's misery. I may be called a climate change sceptic, but I tend to think the Earth's poles are going for a bit of a tilt instead. I won't be alive in thousands of years to learn what really is happening though.

Back to the house renos ------- called to a halt for awhile. A wrist injury from work halted my activities a bit. Got that sorted now, blame the replacement centrifuge that needs a 10 ton force to close both lids on it, and my wrist has been xrayed, ultrasounded and it is perfectly normal. Does not hurt when I use the centrifuge in a different manner so that must have been the cause.

BUT I HAVE BEEN SEWING. Yes!!!!!!

My Yeppoon workshop was delayed until March due to the floods, so have been playing with the 60 degree triangle ruler for some samples. I must apologise for the photoes taken with the quilts hanging on the clothesline as I did not have time to set up for a real photo shoot.

I like the movement created across this quilt. Technically quite difficult to sew as there is lots of seams at some intersections. I love the narrow contrast colours and how they all interlock.

This green heaxgon was started using the same principle as the interlock one but to use up more of my green fabrics. This one has 2 photos showing the changes I made in progress. I used the camera as my design wall and have about 8 pics from beginning to end.The best part of making this one was the time spent arranging the blocks.

This is it finished with a narrow dark border frame. It somehow reminds me of a cyclone tracking map.

Finally I got the UFO out of the cupboard and have sewn it up. My Strips n Curves Demo from October 2009, not sure about a border/frame or what yet. I hope to take some of these with me to my Hollis Chatelain quilting quilts workshop at Coffs Harbour in May 2011. I think they need a bit of spicing up with some thread.

I have also continued with another idea from the green quilt, but using my stash of orange/pink/purple fabric. More pics when that is finished. Off to Mt Perry Wednesday for another patchwork day so I hope to get some more strips sewn.