Capital T finished

Managed to finish this quilt today. Finished the quilting this morning and stitched the binding tonight whilst watching tv. This means I can take it to red club tomorrow for show and tell. It is just a small quilt. (60cmx60cm maybe? I haven't measured it) Looking forward to red club tomorrow.

Blue skies!

It has definitely been a cooler September here in Adelaide than it usually is, but we had beautiful blue skies today. This was the day just before it disappeared into the twilight. You can see the last rays of the sun illuminating my red club 3 quilt, "Capital T" by Marg Low. I put this together late last night, but thought I would wait until daylight to photograph it. Almost missed the daylight today by the time I got around to photographing it! I was busy sewing. I started work on some blocks for a new quilt. Went to the patchwork apple and then stretched and basted the capital T quilt and started quilting. I must have been enjoying myself cause I was most surprised when my Bradley came in search of me and told me it was 11pm. So I am now in bed doing this quick post and (hopefully) will be fast asleep soon! Goodnight!

Civil War block and flowers

I have had a busy couple of days this week. Still getting ready for that wedding. Lining boleros (below) and making flowers for the girls to wear in their hair. In between that I managed to get this civil war block finished. Class was a week and a half ago, but I have been busy! Putting this together tonight was fun!




These flowers were lots of fun too! Might even make some for the Marion LIFE market we are going to!!!

Snappy Friends challenge - starting with J

Grandson has a name starting with "J" so I thought it appropriate to share some photos of him for the Snappy Friends Challenge. (I have missed the last few. I have just felt so busy that time and motivation have just passed me by!) This is grandson "allowing" me to take his photo. ("Take my picture Ma!") Kids change all the time and he has just had a language ramp up. He has always been chatty, but his sentences are longer now and they tumble out one after the other! We were sitting outside and he was narrating this sequence for me over and over.

He is building an aeroplane here. Stacking wood offcuts. (As you do)

Then, the aeroplane crashes. (The blocks of wood tumble off of each other after a shove from grandson) Miss 13 is helping act out this narration too of course! Oh no! Build it again!

Build it so you can see it fly up high in the sky. (Okay, here you can see that grandson is a much better actor than Miss 13. Or perhaps he just is more invested in this narration than she is!)

Look! I see it flying!

Ties - all tied up!

Yes! I finished the ties! So glad to be finished. The tally is seven ties. Oh! Eight if you count the practice tie. The real ties are a colour called "cafe". (Not green like the practice tie! I just chose that fabric to practice with. I needed a similar fabric to the real fabric and it just so happened that it was green and shiny!) Tomorrow I hope to sew something completely different.

Eggs

Last post cupcakes, this post eggs! This is turning into a cookery blog! Not really. This is Mr 9's egg that he got in the kitchen after he tripped and faceplanted it. It came up so quickly, we were quite astonished. He was sure he had concussion (he didn't) and was sure he wouldn't be able to go to sleep because it hurt so much (he did). Today the egg is but a shadow of it's former self, but it has developed quite a good bruise so Mr 9 is pretty happy with his war wound. Funny how much boys love war wounds. He is really desperate to have a broken bone I think. Well, not a broken bone so much as a cast. He's in the wrong family. Eight kids over 26 years, two broken bones. They're not good odds.

I have been sewing ties. Off and on. Well, more off than on I guess. Tomorrow is sewing day at picklesticks house. I will be sewing ties. Possibly. (No, really, I will!)

Eating cupcakes

Miss 24 made cupcakes and we have been eating them. I have also been working on the wedding ties and have to inform you that despite Katherine's and Mrs P's brilliant suggestion I will definitely NOT be opening a tie shop! Hope you all have a stitchy week!

Sewing today

I managed to make it to sit n sew today and this shiny green tie was what I sewed. (Modelled here by Miss 13) It is my practice tie because I am making ties for my son's wedding. I got the pattern from the purl bee. The pattern comes with a fantastic step by step tutorial which is completely amazing and made sewing this tie so straightforward. The pattern uses a different fabric from the one I will be using, which is one reason why I made a practice one to start with, so I will have to change the pattern a little to make it work with my fabric. Apart from that (changing the pattern) it was pretty successful. So. Change the pattern. Make 7 ties. (Will I be good at ties or what by the time I finish?!)

Hot water bottle cover

This is the sum total of this weeks sewing. Picklesticks knitted this hot water bottle cover some time ago and tonight I sewed it up. I use hot water bottles to help with my arthritis (Man, I am sooooo old. Silver hair and arthritis!) so figured I could use a cover! I have been in a sewing funk this week and decided I needed to rearrange my sewing room. (I think that's called procrastination!) So, I have been rearranging furniture. And sorting through stuff. Not quite finished yet! I am off to sit and sew at the patchwork apple tomorrow. I might take my civil war homework with me because class is on Saturday!

I can cook. I just don't do it very often.

Pink meringues, made by my own fair hand. (Using my sunbeam mixmaster if you want to get technical!)

• Three egg whites
  
• One cup of sugar
• One teaspoon of vanilla

Sometimes I put cornflour in too, and sometimes I don't. This time I put some red food colouring in and no cornflour. That's cause my Mum might have eaten some of these and she has celiacs disease and can't do gluten. I know that true "corn"flour doesn't have gluten, but very often cornflour is wheaten cornflour which does have gluten. So just to be sure I omit it altogether. Oh. And I never ever just make a single batch of anything. (See the profile. Eight children. Two grandchildren. I cook for crowds.) When I make meringues I use 9 eggs.

This week seems to be rocketing by with very little productivity on my part. I noticed Picklesticks has just posted a free tote pattern with tutorial on her blog. Miss 13 made herself a new pencil case. So my kids have been productive! I have just been out of sorts I guess and haven't done anything. We did find out today that our application for a stall at the MarionLIFE market in October was successful. So, I will have to get out of this funk and sew something I think!!!

So you want a crocheted pencil case?

But you can't crochet? No problem. Get your sister to teach you how to crochet on Friday night. Late. (After you should really be in bed) Practice a little on Saturday morning, just to perfect your skills. Saturday afternoon (at your new sister-in-law's kitchen tea) start your new pencil case. Continue crocheting until both halves are made. (Sometime on Sunday). Choose lining fabric and a zip to complete the pencil case. Sew it all together Sunday night. Monday morning take your new pencil case to school.

Well, that's what you would do if you were Miss 13.

Kitchen Tea

A pink theme

Miss 13, granddaughter, picklesticks, my Mum, future DIL

My Mum, granddaughter, picklesticks

Miss 13

Miss 18

We have a wedding in three weeks time. Mr 21 (child number 3) is getting married. Today was his sweetheart's kitchen tea. Miss 20 and Miss 24 had prior engagements, but it was a gathering of most of my girls. Now, back to the sewing!

Wild weather last week, but this week......

That was last week! (Ducks in the carpark!)

This week. (Shorts and tshirts and bubbles)

Candy Bars are delicious!

I saw Chookyblue's new candy purchase here and decided to see if my LPS had any candy. They did!!! I have some ideas for these candy bars. Stay tuned.

1930's quilt top.

So, this is what those blocks look like all together. I couldn't wait till tomorrow to share this with you so this nighttime photo will have to suffice. I love this quilt top. It is exactly what I have been thinking about lately. I am really pleased with it. I am thinking this will be another heart quilt for RMCH. Just have to quilt it now.

Inspired by fabric

I have been sewing. I have managed to sew 80 flying geese units for my log cabin quilt. (124 required) "Managed" to sew them that is before they got packed up into a box. Such a relief to have them in a box! I was really sick of it all. They can sit in that box for a week or so and maybe I will like them again. (I hear that absence makes the heart grow fonder.) Meanwhile . . . . . .

I bought these fabrics from the patchwork apple the day of the log cabin class. Last night after I had packed up the log cabins these fabrics called to me. I only have 50 cms of them all up, so I decided to use some moda bella solid with them in order to make a small quilt top. All the blocks are finished and sit waiting for me to put them together on my sewing desk. And then I can quilt it! I love small projects!

Pasties for Father's day.

We had pasties for dinner tonight. They were a joint effort between a bunch of us here at Rosemary Hill. Three types of fillings, two types of pastry and about 50 to 60 pasties. (There were quite a few of us! And we all love leftovers.) We had chicken, pork and vegie pasties, lamb and vegie pasties, and beef, bacon, cheese and vegie pasties. We started out with sheets of puff pastry and when they ran out Mrs 25 made some shortcrust pastry to finish up with. She and Miss 13 were pastie builders extraordinaire! They tasted wonderful. My favourite vegies for pasties are carrot, sweet potato and zucchini, which my Bradley grated up for me with the trusty food processor. See, a joint effort.

There was no sewing here this weekend. Sad, but true. Yesterday we went for a drive to see water. We have had some wild weather here this weekend with plenty of rain and the creeks are rushing with water. Dams are overflowing and there is lots of water! Doesn't happen that often here so I was keen to get out and about to see it. There have been rooves off, trees down, and blackouts. Not very serious fortunately and I can still hear the cars outside swooshing on a wet road. (I love rain!)

Go see the "Blooms" at the Royal Show!

Roses

If you are in Adelaide and like fabric, you must go see the "Blooms" at the show! We went to the show today. It was cold and rainy! But a lot of fun. More about the show later. It's late!

A lonely little petunia in an onion patch.

Flowers. Real flowers in the front and fabric flowers on the stage.

Painting

I have been thinking about surface decoration for about 10 or 15 years now. (Don't rush me! It takes a while.) I have had one or two unsuccessful attempts, which has just made me think about it more. In the latest "Quilting Arts" magazine there was an article about painting fabric with watercolour paint, which sounded easy to me because I have watercolour paint in my art cupboard. So on sewing day I painted. Grandson helped too. I'm not incredibly happy with this, but I think it's a method I could use again and improve upon. So when I get a spare moment I think I'll give this another go.

Blogger has twisted my photos again!!!

In order to view my log cabin blocks you will have to turn your laptop (or monitor) on it's side. I'll wait while you do that. . . . . . . Back again? I have been working on the log cabin blocks this week. 48 were required and today I finished the 48th. It did become a bit samey, but I was pretty excited when I got close to the 48th block. Then Loz pointed out that there were 120 flying geese units to be made for the border. I haven't made any yet. *sigh*

Oh! And did you know? It's September! Which is spring for us. Not that today was very springlike. Yesterday had a warmth in the air that said spring, but today was cool and eventually raining. Not that I am sad about that. Warm weather will be here soon enough and not long after that it will be TOO hot. September will be a busy month here at Rosemary Hill. Early in October Mr 21 gets married so September has lots of wedding preparations coming up. But for now, I just want to sew!