Mothers Day

and the family is everywhere but here. I had a card from Elizabeth this morning without an envelope, phone calls from the boys. We Skyped with the granddaughters plus parents at dinner time.
My mothers day present is flights to and from Sydney and a weekend at Stroud (north of Newcastle) for a quilting retreat. I have started by pulling ALL the charm squares that I have from Rainbow fabric swaps including low volume and black and white charms. Also the Anna Maria Horner international charm square swap on flickr  - 224 charms in this swap alone.

HAVE YOU HEARD THERE IS A KATE SPAIN CHARM SQUARE SWAP

I've joined in and you can find all about it on Melissa blog. I have pulled fabric from my stash that has been sitting there for a while because any self respecting fabric hoarder will tell you the right project just hasn't presented its self yet. I've taken 2 spots which means I will get back 224 Kate Spain charms from my 4 metres of fabric.

photos to come

a trip west all the way to the Indian Ocean

Wednesday we flew to Perth,  Western Australia for an 8 day visit. Yesterday morning we hired a car and headed south towards Busselton where we were meeting with a lovely lady who is a school chaplain here and had done the sports chaplaincy training to talk sport, we met Christine at The Goose café on Busselton pier. We then spent the afternoon driving and exploring the south  down to Margaret River where we stayed the night at a bed and breakfast called the Noble Grape at Cowaramup.  This morning our meeting at Margaret River was cancelled until lunch time, so explored some more driving down to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin.  This is where the Southern Ocean meets the Indian Ocean and I have taken lots of photos and shared them on Facebook,  Twitter and Instagram but here are a few of the last 2 days

Busselton Pier

The Nobel Grape B&B Cowaramup 

Cape Leeuwin

Forest on the way back to Busselton

a quick quilt top

Ribbon Box quilt

Last week I was heading out to NOTYQ,  packed my fabric up and my machine went to leave and it was pouring,  if it was just hand stitching I might of made it. I really wanted to make the quilt above, I had found the pattern online and really liked it and I had the fabric from the Millrosie bloggers get together that Anne had added to the lovely red sewing bag that I wanted to use. Instead of heading to NOTYQ I stayed home cut, stitched and put the quilt top together.  I really like the way the fabrics work with the pale green back ground fabric.  I am also doing some secret sewing for the angel/mortal swap that is being run by NOTYQ this year, I have taken photos but you won't see them until Christmas when all is revealed.

Thirroul Beach

heading for the sand

Violet climbing the rocks

Steve (Granddad) and Violet  out on the rocks

Kate and Lily on the same rock

a turtle made in the sand and covered with rocks

  

my feet in the sand

On the Sunday we went to Thirroul beach, a lovely day for a walk along the rocks and a swim for some. 29 years ago we Steve, Sue, Kate and Josh moved into the manse of Thirroul Baptist church on Lawerence Hargraves Drive. Six weeks later Elizabeth was born, her birthday is Thursday, we spent 4 years at Thirroul before moving to Toronto, Lake Macquarie.
Monday we headed home via Mittagong, Canyonleigh, Goulburn, Crookwell, Boorowa, Harden, Cootamundra, Junee, The Rock, Culcairn and back onto the Hume Highway just before Albury and headed home to Heidelberg. As we have travelled up and down from Melbourne to Sydney a few times over the last 8 months, dirt roads a detours are a nice change from the boring highway.

my favourite things stitching

row 2

and the rest

I didn't mention in the sewing together of row 1 that I cut 129 cream and 129 coloured 1.5" squares and made 4 patches and 2 patches out of them. I also had to cut 2.5" squares of the cream. I'm now doing the hand stitching of row 3.
On Thursday 6th March, Clare and I went to the Stitches and Craft show at Rosehill Racecourse, she came away want a "Sweet 16" quilting machine after spending some time playing on the one there. I knew that sitting down at it would be fatal as I also would love one but at $8000 not in either of our budgets. I went looking for thread, special thread, Aurifil made in Italy and wonderful to sew with.
Friday morning I checked my emails, I had one that said I had chosen the winning name for the pink in their new colours, Fairy Floss, you can read about it here. They arrived today all 18 pretty cottons ready for me to play with.

Lots of stitching happening

first 3 sewn together

and the rest of the strip done

the next row started

Sewing is happening at a great rate, hand stitching now sitting on the couch at Clares (no blog) after spending the day opshop shopping and sewing the first of my strips together. The reason I'm here instead of Melbourne is Steve is in the Southern Highlands teaching at Capenwray bible school today to Friday.  We will then catch up with family and friends before heading back on Monday (Monday is a public holiday in Melbourne).

For all those going to weekend stitching of let's get stitched Melbourne have a great time, I was going to come but other thing got in the way, like the opportunity to see my granddaughters and sew to my hearts content with Clare for 3 days. 

Stitch Along

In 2012 I joined Chookyblue's stitchalong  making the "My Favourite Things" quilt from the Anni Downs book Some Kind of Wonderful, but somewhere along the way I waylaid. I started the first five blocks with great intentions. Last weekend I bought a A4 light box from Spotlight on special for $49. I then spent the rest of the weekend tracing the rest of the blocks out, cutting fabric getting them ready to stitch. I have finished the first 5 and I have now started on the next row, stitching the chocolates and daisy yesterday at Mill Rose. I changed the cat to a dog as we had a dog a pet not a cat and most of the blocks the fabric used is by Kate Spain. 

my new lightbox

3 blocks ready to stitch