Sunday Stash - The Holiday Edition

I arrived home on Friday afternoon after five glorious days away, to find a few fabulous little parcels awaiting me.

I put a call out to my quilty friends in a couple of FB groups, and the lovely Anorina came through for me!  I needed some Sugar Flower scraps for a wedding cushion, and given that it's not my usual style, and I only needed a teeny bit, I am very grateful for the generosity! xxx

You may remember my post from a week or so ago, when I proclaimed I needed more Terrain after delving in to my scrap stash?  Well, I went on a bit of a search, and these delicious fat quarters and a little yardage arrived too!  SOOOOO thrilled!

And just because it's AUSTRALIA DAY today - I'm sharing with you some snaps of our little getaway last week.  It's a beautiful part of the country/world.  My husband has been holidaying in Sandy Point for his whole life.  I've been lucky enough to share it for the past twelve years.  If you haven't heard of it before, it's about half an hour from Wilson's Promontory - the southern most part of Australia!

I'm sure that when we tell people we are heading down to the beach house, they have grand illusions of a big white house on top of a sand dune!  Nope.  This delightful little three bedroom home is just perfect, nestled amongst the trees in a quiet little hamlet.  The kids can ride their bikes around the streets without us worrying about them getting hit.  And our little Chloe learnt to ride sans training wheels this trip!

In all the years we've been down there, not once have we ventured to "The Prom".  Well, I lie.  We went the first time I visited - heavily pregnant with Chelsea.  Andrew and I planned to do a walk, but as soon as we got there, it pissed down with rain, so we turned around and went back home!  Anyway - we took the plunge and headed there this time - and what a day.....

Wilson's is a huge national park, which means it is protected from all the crap humans do to the rest of the unprotected parts.  It is a truly pristine destination.

There were some pretty nasty bushfires there in 2009, but the rejuvination is amazing.

We had never bush walked before, so it was a bit of an adventure.  We chose an "easy" walk - the Lilly Pilly Gully walk.  The first part was all flat, and included this gorgeous boardwalk through a rainforest section.

All Chloe wanted to see were some animals.  She had to make do with wombat burrows and poo......

After breaking for lunch, we headed off in the direction that pointed us towards the car park.  3.2km it said.  After about 500 metres of uphilling it, we realised the entire 3.2km would be the same.  Chloe climbed aboard Lochie's shoulders, and he took her the whole distance.  We made it to the top......

And were rewarded with this spectacular view of the coastline!

And straight after the walk, we jumped in the car and headed to Squeaky Beach.  Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!

My favourite part of our trips to Sandy Point are the days when it's not too hot or windy, and we can head to the shallow inlet.  As you can see, we hit the jackpot on our second last day!  Perfection.  No waves for me to worry about the kids, and Andrew brought the fishing rods and attempted fishing before they all became bored with that and continued swimming!

And my favourite shot from this holiday.  My beach babe.

With only three more sleeps until the kids return to school, and four sleeps until Chloe begins Prep - I am well and truly rested, and have thoroughly enjoyed these school holidays. I'm now looking forward to returning to our regular schedule and routines - and a clean house!

I'm linking up with Sunday Stash - You can too!

Weekly Round up #2 - The Heat Wave Edition

As I sit here with leggings on (don't judge me - my top is covering my arse) and revel in the cool breeze, I can look back on the week that was and say "THANK GOD THAT IS OVER!"  You see, us Melbournians (and a few other parts of Oz) suffered through an exhausting week.  Five days in a row over 40 degrees (104+ farenheit) and we were all pretty much ready to crawl in to a rabbit hole and expire.  Thankfully the husband and I took the plunge a few months ago and invested in refrigerated cooling in the house.  We may be broke, but we were cool.  When inside.  On the few occasions I had to venture out, it was hideous.  Absolutely hideous.

Anyway.

I did manage to make a few things, buy a few things and ponder a few things.  For your viewing pleasure....

I ordered my divine Botanics bundle before Christmas.  And I seriously nearly hyperventilated when they arrived this week!  The colours and textures in the prints are just to die for.

Just because I don't have anything else to do, I decided to jump on board the Aurifil Designer of the month challenge.  Pat Sloan is the hostess with the mostest, and has a fabulous Facebook group! I fluffed around for a few hours trying to decide which fabrics to use, and then stumbled across my much loved Terrain scrap bag.  And that was that.  January's block can be found HERE.  It is a fabulous spool block, and I loved putting it together!  It also reaffirmed how much I love Terrain, and sent me in to a tailspin trying to track down more, so that when I've finished the full year of monthly blocks, I can put a quilt together.  I grabbed a bundle from #thegreatfabricdestash on Instagram.  Oh. My. Lord.  Did you all see that fascinating spectacle???  I swear I wasted at least a couple of hours that day cruising through everyone's destash photos, and freaking out at how big some people's stashes really must be?  Anyway, I also managed to find a fabulous store in NSW for us Aussies, who also has Terrain available, and at a very reasonable sale price!  You can find it HERE.

The freaking out continues as I put together all of my little Chloe's school items.  I was uber impressed with her fabric choice for her library bag!  I was gifted this gorgeous butterfly print from my Tokyo Bff.  Chloe was most impressed with my choice of pink Aurifil thread to free motion her name tag!  Win win!

My search for the perfect bee block continued.  My month as Queen is March, and I wanted to be organised.  I kept coming back to the block that was designed by Kate Spain for the Fat Quarter Shop's mystery BOM.  I made the block a few weeks ago, which you can see HERE.  So I took a leap of faith and emailed Kate last week, asking her permission to use the pattern for my bee.  Got a lovely reply, and went forth to experiment!  Now, if you just saw the original block, you would agree they look COMPLETELY different!  My vision for the bee blocks is for each bee member to choose a colour, and make this block in the different tones radiating outwards, from light to dark.  I wasn't sure if it was going to work, but I am really really happy with how my aqua/blue block turned out!  I spent some time last night searching online for a version of this pattern that isn't on paper.  If you have seen it on the interwebs, please let me know!  It would be far easier to point my bee to an online version, than scanning the paper pattern or re-writing it in PDF form!

And last BUT definitely not least in my week....... I received my Wombat Stew Secret Santa gift!!!!  Yes, it's a little late, but given that my Santa had an international move to contend with over the holidays, I was very patient.  That doesn't mean that when I saw the package in the post box and saw Gemma's name on it, I didn't run, hands flailing in the air, then ripping the parcel open?  No, not me.  What can I say??  Gemma is one of my closest on line friends, and she has made me the most beautiful sewing machine cover ever made!

Every single part of it is divine.  I spent last night staring at the free motion writing on the sides, writing down the words Gemma had shared.  Some of them I have had to write ? because they've disappeared in to the binding, but like a true sleuth, I shall deciper them!

 

This is the INSIDE!?!?!?  WHA??!?!?!!?  As usual, Gemma has managed to incorporate her beautiful free motion quilting in to the project.  Sigh.

Thank you so much Gemma! I absolutely adore my gift, and I look forward to another fabulous year of being a wombat, and getting quilty with you and the other ladies! xxx 

So that's it my friends! In a nutshell. Another weekly round up, because school holidays are still in force. ONLY TEN MORE DAYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm off to the beach house (sounds fancy yes?) tomorrow, with the six of us stuffed in to our car, and trailer full of bikes and crap behind us. Five days of relaxing and sitting around. Who am I kidding? Five days of refereeing children at a different location..... I AM looking forward to it! Have a wonderful week, and I will see you all back here next week with another round up! I'm sharing this all over the place, cos I can! You can too!

Weekly Round Up

We are nearly half way through the Summer school holidays here.  And this week - Summer arrived!  We've had a very unseasonally cool few weeks, so we have taken advantage of the sun and heat and spent some time outdoors.  I thought I would share some evidence of such frivolity.....

We don't get to the beach much, it's a minimum 30 minute drive, but one of my best friends lives down near the sea, so we traipsed down there!  It was brilliant!

Chloe received this sprinkler fun set for Christmas.  Now up until a year or so ago, my kids had no idea what a sprinkler was!  You see, for many years we were on water restrictions here in Melbourne, so no sprinklers allowed!  We've had plenty of rain this year - so it's fun for everyone!

My husband plays cricket every Summer.  Yawwwwnnnnnnnnn.  I try really hard to make a concerted effort to get down and watch him every now and then, but really, I have sewing to do.  Anyway, my youngest son goes with his Dad every week, and is sort of like a club mascot.  He has his own club shirt etc, and is water boy for the team.  He takes this very seriously.  I don't.  This photo was taken yesterday, when I took the girls down for an hour or so, and I was laughing at Cadyn's enthusiasm.  God love him.

Anyway, I wanted to show you how I've been spending my time and exhausting myself, and why I haven't been blogging!  So I'm putting all the pretty photos in to one post to display my week of sewing!

I'm taking part in the Sweet Pouch Swap, hosted by the lovely Ros from Sew Delicious.  I've missed out the first two rounds of the swap, so am very excited to be joining in this time round!  I've been partnered up with Barbara from Germany - you have to go and check out her blog HERE.  Click on translate or just enjoy the beautiful photos!  Given the deadline for posting our pouches is the end of this month, and I am working quite a bit and will be going away for a week - I deliberated for a few days on what I would make, and then got it all sorted the other day.

Here's a sneak peak at the finished product.  Now to fill it with sweets!  I will do a big reveal of it once it's arrived in Germany!

The other project I've been working on is my Waterfront park quilt.  I finished another three blocks yesterday and then laid it all out to see what I needed to do colour wise for the remaining blocks.  It did my head in.

But I kept going and got another six blocks finished today!  Phew.

And last but certainly not least - I got my January block done for Fiona in our Wombat Stew paper piecing bee.  Now if you can't figure out what the theme of Fiona's blocks are, I'm in trouble!  This little beast was very fiddly, but I got through it!  It's another fabulous pattern by Kristy at Quiet Play.  All of her Star Wars Lego patterns are free - so head over and check them out!

And that's it.  I'm working the next few days, then have Thursday and Friday off before working all weekend - but am looking forward to then heading down to the beach the following week!  SO much to do - SO little time!

I'll be linking up with a bunch of peeps this week, when their linkies open up!

No Rest For The Wicked!

Last year I joined a quilting bee - the QCA Bee #5 to be exact!  I ummed and ahhed about whether to continue this year.  I was a little disappointed with a couple of the blocks I received for my quilt, however, I really enjoyed getting to know other quilty peeps, and learning new techniques and challenging myself a little.  So I stayed!  Our bee was meant to be starting up again in February, but we had over half the members leave and a whole bunch of newbies join, and everyone keen to begin, so it's already started!

Cue panic stations.  Not from the Queen bee for the month - Lisa - no, even with a newborn baby, she knew exactly which block she would like us to make her and posted the details within 24 hours!  How's that for organised?!!?!?  Her request?  The Stamp Collection block, using THIS tutorial by Oh, Fransson!  After being a little perplexed for a few minutes, I jumped in, went to Lincraft this morning and got interfacing and calico, and began just after lunch today.

Lisa requested red, black and grey for the colour theme, and for it to be predominantly red.  So I pulled all of those from my stash (excluding cutesy prints!) and got cutting.

The tutorial uses a technique I'd never even heard of, let alone tried.  It directs you to use a piece of fabric (I used calico) and draw a 20" x 20" grid, with 2" squares.  You then place a piece of lightweight interfacing over the top of it, and place your 2" squares on top of the grid like above.  And you then take the iron to it!  Now, I didn't think too much about it, and had to iron the fabric on to the interfacing whilst it was all like this on my cutting board!  That was interesting……

Three hours after beginning, I had this divine block!  I was a tad frustrated after sewing the first lot of seams, as it was apparent that it would not end up being 15.5" finished block size as the tutorial states.  I checked and double checked with the tutorial, and it didn't state to use a scant 1/4" seam allowance, but, if I were to do it again - I would!

And this is how ridiculously neat and tidy the back of this block ends up looking!

All in all, this was a really enjoyable block to make!  The cutting of the 100 x 2" squares was a little tedious, but not overly hideous!  I'm really looking forward to seeing the other 11 ladies' blocks!  And I'm contemplating whether I will make this block again!

So there you have it - my first bee block finished for 2014!

I'm linking up with Sew Cute Tuesday - You can too!

The Ring Bearer's Cushion

Today I began and finished the first project for 2014.  It was something I had on my to-do list for quite some time, and given the date it is required for is only a matter of weeks away, I needed to get it ticked off!  Success....

My youngest brother-in-law and his gorgeous fiance are to be married in February, and our three youngest children will be in the bridal party.  Cadyn is the ring bearer, and needs a ring cushion.  So, naturally, I asked if they would like me to make one?  This is the result....

Jason & Jamie are getting married down at the beach in Lorne, so the colour scheme is perfect.  I pulled out my three favourite turquoise prints and paper pieced three little love hearts using THIS pattern by Quiet Play.  That gave me an 8" block, so I then added a few more inches around to make it up to the 14" cushion insert - the smallest I could find!  The quilting was an easy choice - lots of little free motioned pebbles.  I also outlined the lettering with some free motioned love hearts.  It looks really sweet close up, as the hearts pop out!  I used Aurifil #2024 50wt to both piece and quilt the cushion.

The back is a simple hidden zipper finish.

I had pinned a bunch of ring cushions, but really didn't know which direction to take.  I liked the look of stamped lettering, and as luck would have it, I bought myself some divine little alphabet stamps just before Christmas.  The next task was finding some fabric ink - not easy.  I ended up making a trip to Riot Art & Craft and buying some matte fabric paint and a fine brush.  I lightly brushed the stamp with paint - just the letter not the surround - and very carefully stamped it on to the fabric.  I did a practice run first, but was still terrified of stamping the finished block!  It actually turned out pretty much perfect!  It only occurred to me part way through that I didn't actually have numeral stamps - so I had to wing it!

All it needs now is some ribbon to tie the rings on.  I'm sooooo happy with how it turned out, and hope they will be too!

I'm linking up with T.G.I.F.F. over at Quokka Quilts  & Crazy Mom Quilts - You can too!

New Year - New W.I.P's!

Happy New Year!  I hope you spent it with family and friends wherever you were!  We braved the trains and crowds, and headed in to the city for the early fireworks - and it was well worth it! 

 

'Twas a bit sunny at first!

 

The gathering was held on the grounds outside the MCG - perfect slopes for child rolling!

 

And the wait for the toilet line was far longer than the ten minutes of fireworks!  But it was fantastic!  Our three youngest kids really hadn't seen anything like it before - we are so glad we took them!

Now - on to quilty things….  What is a new year without new projects?  Nothing.  Well ok, life would still be alright, but you know…..

I asked you all a few weeks ago which direction I should take with my next quilt?  Which fabric collection should I go with?  Well, it was decided by both the majority of you and myself to go with Waterfront Park.  BUT - I then spent a ridiculous amount of time trawling Pinterest and Google for design ideas.  And was getting incredibly frustrated.  So I took a break from it all the other day, and in my desperation for something to sew, I pulled out my Fat Quarter Shop Designer block of the month packs.  I signed up at the start of 2013, and have received six or seven deliveries now, but was a little underwhelmed by the first month's block.  So the little packs have been put on the shelf each month…..  Until a few days ago.

 

I pulled out the one designed by Camille Roskelley and Bonnie Cottonway.  Love it!

 

So then I grabbed the next one designed by Kate Spain.  No words required.  But in Kate's words, who saw this on my IG - "whirly swirly awesomeness!"  I concur.

Anyway…….it lit the fire to get my Waterfront Park quilt started, so I headed back upstairs to the computer and googled for another hour or so.  And found THIS.  I'd been debating between star or cross blocks - this combines both!  BINGO!  I ran straight downstairs and starting chopping!

 

And this was the first block I fell in love with!  LOVE!

So they very quickly began to multiply…….  And today, I have cut out another seven blocks.  They are only 10" blocks, so it could do my head in by the end, but hey - when you love something……

So there you go!  My first project/s for 2014…….  

I'm linking up (if Lee is hosting!) to W.I.P. Wednesday - You can too!