EQ7 - wouldn't it be wonderful?!

The first time in simply ages that I have gotten around to writing anything.  I have actually been accomplishing/finishing things!  Two quilts back from the quilters, socks finished and given away, another quilt halfway through...that has just kind of kept growing...it was going to be a baby quilt...now it's looking like it might end up a queen size quilt, and I still have to make a baby quilt...actually two! And, shock horror! I have started a Baby Jane quilt...I vowed and declared, most loudly, that I would never ever do that one...and one word from my friend Sandy that she was going to a class, and I meekly followed along, like a lamb to the slaughter....and I am hooked...but I think I might try making all of my blocks by hand.  So far I have completed 3...so a long way to go!  I'll put up some photos a bit later.

But right now, I have to mention that that Mary Mary has a competition to give away a copy of EQ7, so to be in it to win it, go to http://mequilter.blogspot.com/2010/05/exciting-news-eq7-give-away.html and follow Mary's directions to have a chance to win as well!  Good luck everyone!!

Nearly the end of the year...what happened to the New Year Resolutions??

New Year Resolutions.... to refresh myself...

• Create a new garden in the wreckage of the one we used to have before my partner decided we needed a pool. [very eco-conscious person!]...still happening...waiting for the new fences to be completed, and that looks like happening this coming week!
  
• Go to the gym at least 3 times a week, walk every day – firm up by at least 2 inches everywhere, get flattish belly! - yes, that was happening, but fell backwards down a flight of stairs a few months ago when a door handle came off in my hand...but I'm back to twice weekly at the gym, upping it to 3 next week...and walking most days
  
• Finish the Kaffe Fassett inspired quilts [2] - Yay - I've finished one - see above
  
• Make a quilt from ever-increasing patchwork squares made as leaders and enders - still working on them - the piles are increasing
  
• Make up dresses from the numerous finished pieces of smocking I completed [number...what is the goal here? Maybe 3?] - total so far = 0 :-(    ... maybe one this weekend?
  
• Finish quilting old hexagons quilt..still working on it...learnt new quilting method..still trying it out
  
• Make new director's chair covers....soon!...in the pipeline
  
• Begin to play a musical instrument - gave that up till next year.
  
• Begin to learn to speak Spanish...have a passable vocab by 2010 - also for next year
  
• Finish my degree...only a few subjects to go...must get this done! - by the end of 2010..
  
• Have completed a majority of my hand-pieced hexagonal jewel squares - still working on them
  
• Complete double wedding ring quilt.. ummm, now where is that stuff?
  

Hmm, I'm not very good at blogging on a regular basis!

Things seem to get busy and I forget.

I went to Adelaide last week with three friends (some of the friends mentioned in an earlier blog) for a week of sewing and fun (and just a bit of wine and chocolate..) while we attended Country Bumpkin's Beating Around the Bush event. My friends and I spent the week at workshops run by Michele Hill, who has studied and adapted William Morris designs to applique. Her quilts are really beautiful, and she is a superb teacher. Funny, generous to the extreme, and really accomplished, even though she keeps on saying, 'but if I can do it, anyone can!'.... and we all wish we could! :-) One of the nicer memories of the week is of us sewing away, while Michele read to us from a book by William Morris...another great memory...Michele coming round the class and giving us all massages with a little hand massage gadget...bliss....

On our first day of "Afternoon Tea with William Morris", where we appliqued and made tea cosies, Michele gave us all three of her favourite afternoon tea recipes, one of which was lemonade scones. Well, later during the week, my friends and I decided that we would make the lemonade scones for our last morning of class. The night before, with the help of a little white wine and champagne we began making the scones. Libby, who hasn't made scones before, decided that if the scones were as easy as Michele ("..crikey! if I can make them, anyone can!") said they were, then she would do them... needless to say, it wasn't quite that easy, as Libby literally poured all the ingredients into the pot we were mixing them in...we didn't have any of the usual accoutrements that we are used to in our home kitchens...and we discovered that she had poured in soda instead of lemonade, and possibly a little too much cream...so the mix was just a tad too wet, but we managed to get them into the oven pan...too much laughter was rather hindering us... and we baked them and, well, they looked like scones. The next day came, we took them to class, along with lots of jam and cream. They weren't quite as buoyant as we hoped, nor quite as sweet as they should have been, but there weren't any left after morning tea, so they weren't quite the flop we thought they could have been! I will forever remember being completely paralysed with laughter while we were making them though. Poor Professor Pythagorus on sabbatical in the next apartment...when we left we left him a bottle of red to say sorry for all the noise we'd made that week!

We went to the SA Art Gallery on our first day in Adelaide, and loved lots of the art works on display...particularly enjoyed the "William Morris room". It isn't exclusively all works by WM, but by others who were also known in the Arts & Crafts Movement of the time. It's well worth a visit if you are in Adelaide. There was also a lovely modern art installation of a ring of crows on the floor, all in different postures. I loved that one. I think Libby took a photo of it - we discovered later that we weren't supposed to take photos! I will ask her for a copy of it, and post it if I get one.

True to my form lately , I didn't take any photos while I was away, except some of a beautiful hedge at I think it was Henschke wines in the Barossa... see above. So much for my photo a day resolution... [Note to self: I will have to review my new years wish list and see what I have accomplished. Another post another day.]

We had a great week in Adelaide. I don't think I have laughed so much since I don't remember when. And came home with some good new techniques to use. Particularly on a quilt that I had started for my sister-in-law...for her birthday a couple of weeks ago...now she might just get it before Christmas. :-)

Now that I’ve remembered who I am....

...and read back through my blog, I find that I have actually made a few inroads on the things I'd like to accomplish this year! And added a couple of other things.

• I go to the gym at least three times a week, and am up to 330 abs exercises, comprising various crunches, and the various weights I try to lift have increased by a few kilos each, and I can see the beginnings of some muscle tone!!
  
• I have enrolled in guitar lessons and Spanish lessons.
  
• I am in the throes of starting a new online business, (an addition!)
  
• I have lost 2 kilos.
  
• I have sewn most days, not as much as I would like, but at least I am sewing. I have begun to go through my stash of fabrics, and have begun to make a quilt for victims of the Victorian bushfires. It would be fun to use up at least one third of these fabrics this way! I'll have to try and keep a tally!
  
• I have started climbing at the indoor rock climbing centre again, (and that wasn't on the list either, but it is great fun).
  

I try to remember every day that life is an adventure, and that it should be as much fun as we can make it every day, because we don't know that we have a tomorrow. I try to remember at least four things that I'm grateful for in my life every day. And that I should try to make someone happier every day in some way, because I don't know if I will have the opportunity again.

So saying, I am going to go and get some grilled fish from the local fish and chip shop and go to see my mother.

Take care out there, and make someone happy today if you can.

It’s so long since I posted I’ve forgotten who I am!

...it's true! It's so long since I've posted I'd forgotten my identity and had to do a search for it! But I had to post and upload a photo my son sent me of his dog – SUPERTIGGER!! My friend Wendy quipped:

"Disguised as a mild mannered dog around the home,

she slips into the shed and emerges …Tiggerwoman,

faster than a speeding frisbee,

more powerful than a fluffy toy…! "

Isn't she just great ! She is the best dog, and nicest of all, I get to babysit her most days while my son is at work. She is a little ray of sunshine and lights up my life.

Leaders & Enders...

Tigger the Wonder Dog asking me to play instead of sew

...not George Bush and Obama kind.

I have been digging through all my boxes of stashed fabrics and cutting strips from all of the fabrics that I know I am never likely to actually go, "ooh I must go and dig out that particular fabric as the basis for a quilt.." to start making triangles and squares from, for leaders and enders projects. It is actually rather inspiring to have five smallish baskets full of squares: lightish squares and one of darkish to v. dark for the possible 9-patches, and 3 baskets for bigger squares of lights, mediums and darks, for scrappy triangles. There are increasing piles of triangles and 9-patches, but with the increased strip cutting...more increasing piles of squares in the baskets too. And now that I have a biggish pile of finished triangles and 9-patches I find that I am becoming more discriminatory in my strip cutting, beginning to envision single colour or themed quilts rather than just straight-out scrap quilts, and also a vision of a log cabin quilt because of all those strips...and the more I sew, the more ideas begin to come. And the year of actually finishing things rather than starting things is not getting off to a good start!

Fiddling with some of the scrappy triangles

One of my scrappy triangles & 9-patch quilts

On the finishing things angle though, I Have finished a few things already...board shorts from Amy Butler fabric for my grandson, some dresses, again in gorgeous Amy Butler fabric for my granddaughter, a new tablecloth for the back verandah table, and I am nearly finished hand-quilting a quilt I began years ago, and keep putting aside. Today the binding goes on. But there is a big list of the to-be-finisheds that has to be got through this year!

Nic's Boardies, courtesy Amy Butler & me

[postscript re Nic's boardies, they arrived in NZ,
and he didn't take them off for 4 days! - I think he liked them!]

This is bit is totally NQR...I think... at least I know I didn't find any quilts on the site yet....

But check out this url.... www.redbubble.com There is some amazing artwork and writing on the site. ..maybe it could inspire a quilt or two...some of the colours of some of the photography really made me think, wow, look at those colour combinations!

Year Quilts...

I have kind of fallen by the wayside with my year quilt and my daily blog, but dreamt a marvellous bowl of flowers the other night that I will use as the basis for my monthly blocks, and will now get busy again.  I have kind of kept up my blog occasionally as a means of keeping a diary, but again that hasn't been constant.  I have decided that I will have to make an appointment time with myself to get each day down for the quilt and the blog.  I seem to write a lot of emails for both business and personal reasons, and I have decided that when I don't have time for my blog that I should just lift some of the stuff I write in my emails for my blog...so this will probably get transferred there later today.  Today's fabric choice will have to have a dog in it, as I am about to take our Tigger to the vet for her vaccinations.

And a quick question for you all....what fabric do I use to represent the day before yesterday, when I found out why the contractors haven't been back to finish a sandstone wall prior to our pool being put in.....

....they have been on the run, after committing a double murder!!!!  I thought that would at least deserve a flower on the yearquilt block, lying dead and prone beneath the bowl!  I have been alternatively amused and horrified since finding out.  My brother has asked if I'm sure that after all the excavations that have gone on that our yard shouldn't be checked for unwanted deposits!! I thumped him.