I mended...

It's not as exciting as "I sewed", but all I have done this week in the sewing department is a little mending. There has been box unpacking and furniture rearranging and sorting. A lot of sorting! These photos are what I was doing last week. That was a lot more fun!

Three of my girls, Sophie and Jess with her youngest.

I can't remember what they were looking at, but they were having a great time doing it!

Granddaughter, all surprised that I caught her!

My girls...

Rose and Molly

... well, two of them anyway. You might remember this time last year Rose graduated with a Bachelor of Visual Arts. I was there. This year I wasn't there, but she still managed to graduate. This time with Honours. Again, she looks so happy! I talked to her the other day about her graduation and how happy she was last year. She said that she would be just as happy this year because she was proving all her detractors wrong. Can you believe that her high school art teacher told her not to apply for Visual Arts at university because she wouldn't be any good at it and would fail? She didn't. She did well. Now she is in the midst of a Masters Degree. (Instead of paying to travel to see her graduate we put the money towards her Master's Degree book buying fund. It seemed to be a sensible idea.) Her sister and brother were there to see her graduate as well as her partner. I think she had a very good day.

A new week...

Melbourne, somewhere. (I have no idea!)

Who doesn't love a new week? Oh, hang on. Heaps of people I guess (if the success of the song "I don't like Mondays" is anything to go by!). My Monday is fast disappearing (how does that happen?) with very little done, but I am excited by this new week. I woke up today thinking that anything could happen. The boys and I went for a walk which was lots of fun and now I am tidying my sewing room. It really needs doing. My sewing room was "almost" completely set up when we moved seven weeks ago. Almost, but not quite, and I just needed to sew, so I did. But now my sewing room needs to be finished off. My living room which is attached to my sewing room is almost completely set up now too so I just need to expend a little more energy to get it all finished. Then I am going to sew curtains, cushion covers and other room prettying-up things. And put pictures on the wall. It will be so much fun!

Roses

Result of a Farmer's market. They are making me smile a lot!!!

Sewing - yesterday and today.

I am working on my curves class Oodalolly quilt. I'm not sure how it's going to go. That was yesterday's attempt. I'm finding this quilt a little overwhelming. So I decided to sew something else today.

Today I have been working on this wall hanging. It has been a chilly day here in Melbourne. Just perfect for an evening of stitching on the couch under a quilt. DVD in, I start stitching and then I realise that the colour I am stitching is all wrong. After a little unsewing I have decided that perhaps just watching a DVD is enough tonight!

Colour is so interesting!

Playground

This evening we went to the bee playground. Climbing was the order of the day!

That's it. Just the playground. I think I was on a go slow today.

Rainbow Road Finish

First thing this morning I sewed the binding on my Rainbow Road. Mrs 27 (who is visiting) said it looked more like a rainbow river to her. I like it.

I will be sending it to Kat for her Blankets of Love. And I hope someone else will love it! (go here to check out BOL)

More Quilting

Oh how I love quilting! It is really something for me to be able to say that. I used to be scared of quilting and really felt I was a "topper". I still looove to make quilt tops, piecing is so much fun, but I am beginning to love the quilting process too. One of my favourite books is "Quilting Makes the Quilt" by Lee Cleland and it's title is just so true. Up until you quilt it, it is just fabric. Once you get the three layers held together, magic happens! Anyway, here is some more of today's magic.

Rainbow Road (27"x26") quilted and binding just waiting to be attached.

Drunkard's path bound with solid yellow and backed with red with white spots. I love having red on the back. As a table topper we will rarely see it, but I will know its there!

Some basting and a little quilting...

Today I basted two tiny quilts. My drunkard's path pot holders morphed into a table topper for my new table. (I put the first block on the new table to show my Bradley and suddenly knew that the pot holders should become a 16" x 16" table topper.) And I finally basted my Rainbow Road from earlier this month. The DP table topper got quilted and I may yet get the Rainbow Road quilted tonight. Maybe.

I also baked a treacle gingerbread cake with lemon icing which was delicious and munched on by all. I made a double batch of course, which got me thinking. Does everyone else immediately make a double batch? Or is this just my reality? A hangover from living in a house with ten people? I'd be most interested to hear your double batch or not stories!

New Furniture

Shay was a bit upset that I didn't post any photos of my great new furniture collected from Ikea's As Is last night. That's because we hadn't actually built the flatpacks. This morning we remedied that.

Mr 17 and some of  his helpers

The finished Varde drawers

Mr 17 was our chief builder, with my Bradley, Miss 15, and grandson and granddaughter as assistants. The kitchen in our new house is not small, but it is pretty old-fashioned with very few drawers. (Teeny tiny drawers! My cutlery doesn't even fit in a drawer!) I just love drawers in the kitchen so was pretty keen to get some drawers. I even had the space for them mapped out. I have been to Ikea several times to buy some drawers, but have come home empty-handed every time because these are really the best fit for my needs, and the worst fit for my bank account. Until last night that is.

White Liatorp round table

And the new table for our making/doing area. (You can see the old one in the background of the first photo. It's not really old, I bought it on February 29th. This was the table I really wanted, but couldn't afford. The "old" table is upstairs in the rumpus room now, waiting for someone to do some homework on it!) Of course, I don't have any chairs yet. (Any minute now...) I am lucky to have a houseful of professional furniture builders! They built, I sewed. Yes, more work on my drunkard's path pot holder, which has morphed into a table topper for my new Liatorp table. Not finished yet, but any minute now...

Sewing

Yes! I sewed today. Just one seam, but sewing is sewing! I sewed my first drunkard's path seam today, part of my Curve's Class homework.

Tonight I have been to Spotlight for solids for my final Curves Class project, Oodalolly. And to Ikea for hand towels. Yes, just hand towels. Which is why this is how we looked immediately before leaving the carpark.

The two things on the top of my wish list were in As Is tonight. And they were cheap. My Bradley thinks it must be my birthday. (It's not.) tomorrow I will be sewing more drunkard's path!

A post without a photo.

I badly want to post here tonight, but I don't have a photo! I know that you don't need a photo to blog (hard to believe that there are blogs that never have photos) but it just seems so important. Anyway, here I am posting without a photo.

Today was our first day back home. We drove from Adelaide to Melbourne yesterday, a long and boring drive. It is longer than usual because there are roadworks everywhere! We came back in convoy because Mrs 27 and those grandchildren came to visit with us. There is lots of grinning and smiling here because they are very fun!

Mrs 27 is  pretty much a genius at arranging cosy, lovely-feeling rooms. Our living/dining room (which is our making/doing room) just hasn't felt right since we moved in. So today we have been re-arranging this room. Re-arranging and unpacking the straggler boxes. It feels much better now and is almost finished. Tomorrow we plan to sew and make things. So hopefully tomorrow there will be a photo!

Early this morning

In the early hours of this morning three of my children and I went to Vilis. We are having trouble fitting everything in to this long weekend! Vilis is a bakery that has a 24 hour cafe attached. It is a bit of an Adelaide institution. After eating our various pies and cakes Mr 23 produced a game of Monopoly Junior which he had recently purchased from an op shop for $3.50. The kids (well, actually, the adults!) then relived their childhood and played a game. Mr 23 was very pleased to win the game!

An Adelaide kind of weekend.

Thursday morning, bright and early, a few of my children and I went for a drive to Adelaide. Last time I made the drive (two weeks ago, maybe three?) we dubbed it "National Roadworks Day". And this trip was just the same. Another "National Roadworks Day", possibly with more trucks thrown in. (Not sure whether there really were more trucks or whether I just imagined it because so much of country Australia is flooded it makes sense that there were more trucks on my bit of unflooded country road.) I came to bring Miss 19's furniture because she and Mrs 27 and family have just moved house. So once we got here and unloaded the trailer it was all pack, pack and then truck and trailer and moving. I much prefer sewing!

We have a few more days here which will include a lot of unpacking, some cleaning and a touch of organising. And then there will be another long drive and another "National Roadworks Day" undoubtably. (They didn't look close to finishing any of those roadworks!) Until then I am admiring my grandchildren and helping my daughters. Should be a fun visit!

Rainbow Road

I have been working on one of my curves class projects today. The project is called Rainbow Road and you can see designer Rachel Hauser's original here. Rachel's runner is a bold beautiful thing. Mine is more sedate, and possibly not even my taste, but it is made with a charm square pack and a metre of fabric that I had in the cupboard. (I am trying to use up my stash this year. Not in a "measure it, don't buy anything else" kind of way. More in a "really I don't have any more space to store anything and I don't want to get rid of anything I just want to use it up" kind of way.) So, mine isn't as exciting as Rachel's. It also isn't a runner. I am planning to finish it off as a baby quilt for my do. Good Stitches group this month. March is a Blankets of Love month. You can go here for more info about Blankets of Love.

I like it. It was so easy to make. (It looks hard, doesn't it?) I have been putting it off because it looks so hard. Now I am excited to make my final project for curves class, Oodalolly, which uses the same construction method.
Bring. It. On.
I wonder what fabric I have in the cupboard that I could possibly use?

Lately I have been watching blogland's fascination for scrappy quilts. Scrappy quilts make sense to me. I want to make quilts with exciting new fabric ranges. Lots of them! And then I have scraps which I need to use to use up. So scrappy quilts just make sense!

So today I made crazy scrappy patchwork. Pink squares. With a little red thrown in. It was so much fun. I cut the paper out for this project well before we moved, but it took me this long to get to it! I just wanted to do a little fun sewing today. It was so much fun I managed to burn and ruin the dinner I spent all day on. Oh well. Some days are like that. Patchwork forever, dinner ...... from some fast food joint.

I'm pretty sure I don't even like okra!

I was really going to write a post last night, but the night got away from me! I guess it does when you spend an hour and a half talking to a daughter. It happens sometimes!

My Bradley and I popped in to Ikea last night to pick up another of these basket/drawer systems because I used the one we bought on Friday night in a different room! (May I just say here that auto correct thinks I mean "okra" every time I write "Ikea"! Auto correct has no clue! I have never even seen okra, let alone talked about it, whilst Ikea and I are like "Family"!) Today has been a lazy day. I have read a little and been to church, but not much else. I see this evening ending in much the same manner. Tune in tomorrow when I will have been incredibly productive! (I can dream!)

Sawtooth star block (February do. Good Stitches

I finished a couple of blocks for my do. Good Stitches charity bee today. I am enjoying this group very much. It takes very little time to sew two blocks and send them off and then a quilter turns our blocks into a quilt and it is donated to charity. I have a button for my sidebar so you can find out more about it. (Any minute now I will put it up!)

I only got a few buttons sewn on today, but I will work on them again tomorrow. I was too busy today getting things more organised here. Things are getting better here in every room!

It feels like autumn at my house today. (& word verification & curves class)

That's a good thing, because I love autumn and winter. And it's a good thing because it IS autumn! It's March! I was just saying to someone today that I can't believe that it's not January. (My daughter told me to quit living in the past!) It was a grey rainy day here, my favourite kind of day!

Have you been bothered by the new word verification thing? Chookyblue wrote an interesting blog post today on how she is dealing with the change. You can read it here if you like. I have deleted the word verification on my comments now and will see how it goes! (I was going cross-eyed trying to work out what they were!)

My newly sewn bunting

At the beginning of February I started an on-line class with Rachel of Stitched in Color. I haven't mentioned it here on the blog before because I also moved at the beginning of February and the class was put on the back-burner. Well, I am finally getting into the class! This finish is one of my curves class week one projects! I decided to join in with the curves class camp which includes chat sessions once a week and the opportunity to have access to the class materials for a couple of months, so I still have time to complete the class! I have really enjoyed the chat sessions and have learnt something new each week in the session! My newly sewn bunting is for one of my granddaughters and is made from some offcuts from a blouse I made her ages ago. I love that fabric! (American Jane)

I still have the buttons to sew on the eight blouses made over the past week. Perhaps I will do that tomorrow. Buttons and baking are what I have planned for tomorrow. We'll see what happens.....