The Rest of June (At Home)

We returned from our holiday in the middle of June.  Most of what I got up to was stitching…..and catching up on the washing….

It’s always a delight to come home after a holiday at this time of year to see the zygocactus in flower.  Actually, the garden was looking much better than we expected, as there had been quite a bit of rain while we were away, and there had been very little frost.  The lawn even needed mowing.

Having said that, it is still nice to have the heater going to keep us nice and snug inside.

As it was well into winter it was time to refresh the little shelf in the kitchen.

I went to a high tea, hosted by the church ladies.

They always put on a good spread.

I listened to the audio book “The Deadly Dispute”.  This series of Tea Lady mysteries are a lovely, light hearted listen.  I think they work best as an audio book, as the narrator really brings the characters to life.

And that about sums up the second half of June.  More of our Queensland travels will appear soon.

The Start of April

The start of this month has been rather uneventful, with Mick doing all his favourite things at the bowling club and in his shed and me playing in the sewing room, as per my previous post.  This post is just the little extras.

We had a lovely day on Easter Sunday, visiting special friends for lunch.

The day started with an Easter egg hunt in an area on their property, not far from their house, that they have named “The Enchanted Forest”.  

Everyone had to join in the fun, including us, although we left the majority of the eggs for the littlies present.

I was amazed at this ancient old cypress tree.  How old must it be with the thickness of the base of the trunk?  And look how it had fallen over and then continued to grow further upright trunks.

Inside there was a gorgeous centrepiece on the table, which had apparently been well picked over even before we arrived.

Back home, I gave Mick an Easter Bilby.  Having visited the Save the Bilby Centre at Charleville last year, I had to buy one of these.  Now to see how long until he gets around to eating it.  Let’s hope it is before it starts to get too stale.

Now that Easter has passed, it was time to yet again change up my little kitchen shelf for autumn.  I can’t believe we are already over a month into the season.  Where is this year going?

I have picked some of our dahlias to add a pop of colour to the house.  With temperatures getting down to close to freezing forecast for early next week, we are making the most of them before they are finished.

Speaking of weather, our street tree has really coloured up and some of the trees down the road have already started to lose their leaves.

It is only less than a week until we head off with the caravan to Baradine, so much of this week will be getting things packed and trying to remember all the bits and bobs and show and tell that I need to take.  Just as well we have a truck.

A February Recap

I’m a bit late with this, but better late than never.

You can pop back here to see what my wishes for the month were.

I’ll start with my stitching achievements.  There weren’t too many.  Quite a contrast to January.

There were all my green blocks and strip.

The only quilt that was completed was “Swoon”.

I have been considering how to make a cover for Elly May, but her shape would make that extremely difficult, especially with the tablet holder, so I thought of alternatives.  I have a few fun retro tablecloths that would have worked really well, but they were all a tad too small.  In the end, she is going to bed under a vintage sheet.  Purple isn’t the ideal colour for my room, but the only other option I had was orange, which didn’t suit either.  I may come up with another colour at some stage, but this will have to do for now.

There was no knitting or crochet and the only other project I worked on can’t be shared just yet.

There was just one lonely thread spool emptied in February,

As for my 15 Minutes, not so good, but travel does that.

February =   21/28

Year to date =   51/59 = 86.44%

NON STITCHING HAPPENINGS

I tried no new recipes.

Having said that, our tomatoes finally started to produce.  Not a lot, but large.  This was a relief, as we thought we wouldn’t get enough to make any preserves this year.

Therefore, we were delighted to make a batch of Grandma Bird’s Tomato Sauce.

Then, a couple of weeks later enough to make a batch of Red Tomato Sauce.  We are so pleased to have replenished our stock, as we were down to the very last bottle.  These two batches will now last us a couple of years.

There are now enough tomatoes on the plants for us to make a batch of Tomato Relish as well.  

Some books were read and listened to.

On the home front, we purchased our new lounge.

On a fun note, after sharing that I am using a phone book for FPP papers, this year’s phone book was delivered.  How sad is that.  Remember when it was multiple fat volumes, now it is smaller than the free magazine the supermarkets put out each month.  It went straight in the recycle bin, as there is plenty of paper in the book I already have.

We had our fun day out to see the Sunflowers.

Other than that it was just our recent holiday.  

All in all, a good month.

Out With the Old and In With the New

When we bought this house, ten years ago, we needed a small couch for our little sitting area and found the ideal one.

We loved it……but as you can see by the arms…..so did our cat Joey. Fortunately, the couch was just a cheapy, so we always said that after Joey passed away we would buy a new one.

Well, Joey passed away just over two years ago and we still had the old couch.  You see, apart from the Joey damage, we really like this simple couch.  

I came up with the grand plan that I could reupholster the damaged parts with interesting woollen fabrics and some old tapestries, à la some very creative ones on line.  The only problem is that, although the seat cushions look like they are separate, they are not.  I’ve never done any upholstery and I found this rather daunting.  As you can guess, it hasn’t happened and I have finally come to the conclusion that it won’t.

Time to go shopping.

Ta da! A very different look.  This one will make the area seem much darker and cosier.  Not what we were originally planning, but it will work.  Funnily enough, after we ordered it, we discovered that Mick’s sister has the identical one.  

Anyway, it looks very “brown” as it is, so time to see if we can accessorise it a bit, to brighten it up, or at least cosy it up.

Plan A - Using the quilt that use to be on our vintage lounge. Nah.  Still rather drab.

Plan B - using the reverse of the colourful quilt that was on the previous little couch. - Better, but still nah.

Plan C - Using Mum’s knitted rug and knitted cushion,  Better again, but not quite.

Plan D - Use the woollen quilt just like on the previous couch, with Mum’s cushion.  You know what?  I think I like that bright pop of colour best of all.  It really needs something to reduce the “brown-ness” of the couch.  We may change things up leading into winter, but for now, it will do.

Which look is your favourite?

By the way, Mick finds it rather comfortable to have a snooze on, so it is a success.

And Another One - William Morris Quilt Completed

This is another quilt with a back story.

It all started back at the very first Scrub Stitchin’ in 2018.  Dale brought along some bits and bobs to destash and among them was a pile of charm squares, mainly in William Morris fabrics.  I like William Morris fabrics, so they came home with me.  

So, now that I had them, what to do with them?  I decided early on that I would like to set them with hour glass blocks, but what colour?  It turned out that at that first retreat our goodies bag was an ochre coloured paper bag and the colour looked rather good next to the fabrics.  Now, to find a similar coloured homespun.  Spotty didn’t have anything and there wasn’t really anything local.  I did have a suitable low volume cream floral fabric to go with it.  Therefore, it all waited patiently for a couple of years.  

In 2021 at Scrub Stitchin’ there were some destash fabrics from Diddles.  I gave some blue floral striped fabric a home.

Eventually, in January 2022 I found a suitable coloured homespun in Spotty, so problem solved.  I then got stuck in and made the hourglass blocks…and it sat for a little longer.

Meanwhile, the fabric from Diddles proved to be perfect for the first border in this quilt.  The outer border fabric is a William Morris print that I already had in my stash.  Like I said, I do like William Morris designs.

In 2022 I took the bits and pieces back to Scrub Stitchin’ to make into a flimsy.  It came together easily and I was very happy with the result.  I then made the binding and packed it all away until I felt confident enough to quilt it on Monique.  Well, that obviously never happened.

Now that I have Elly May, it was time to get it quilted. I wanted to try out a Baptist Fan quilting design and this looked to be an ideal candidate to try it on.  

The traditional pattern really suits the quilt.

Initially, I had planned to donate this quilt but have now decided that it will stay with us and be a couch quilt, as it suits our old club lounge beautifully.  We've had this vintage lounge suite since we bought our first house over 40 years ago.  It is affectionately called "The Sunken Lounge", but we love it.

QUILT INFORMATION

Measurements - 67" high x 57" wide

Pattern - None, just made from charm squares and hourglass blocks.

Quilting Design - Baptist Fan

Batting - Bamboo/Cotton

Backing - Cream paisley wide back from stash

Thread - Glide - Cleopatra

Binding - Ochre homespun

Mick continues to be my ever patient quilt holder.

The First Week of January

They say that how you start the year is how it will continue.  For me, I hope that means lots of stitching, as New Year’s Day was spent joining in on a Zoom sewing session with Chookyblue that went for 14 hours.

After 28 girls joining in on New Year’s Eve, there was a large number popping in and out again on New Year’s Day.  This photo was right at the end before we all signed off.

The project that I worked on was putting together the Wensleydale Quilt top.  The poor girls had to put up with lots of cursing and wingeing, as I struggled to get the points to match, as they don’t nest, due to the construction method.  Some were restitched up to five times.  However, I did get there in the end and I am satisfied with the outcome.  I know I may be a bit pedantic, but I do want it to look nice.

It will now wait patiently until I quilt some other simpler quilts before I tackle the quilting.

Next on the stitching agenda was working out what I want to make for Rainbow Scrap Challenge.  In the end I have chosen three projects.  My grand plan is to get them kitted up now, so that I can quickly make the blocks as their relevant month arrives.  I have chosen ten colours to work with for each.   That way I only have to make blocks for ten months, and will have two months to finish the quilts.   If the colours don’t quite align with the nominated colour, that’s too bad.  

Firstly, I will make a quilt with my six inch crumb blocks.  For the size I want I need three of ten colours.  I already have some made from the last couple of years, so that shouldn’t be too hard.  I decided that I will just make them into a shadow block and went ahead and worked out all the details.  It was only then that I watched  Kate at The Last Homely House and discovered she had made the exact same quilt that I intend to make, although her blocks aren’t quite as crumby.  Obviously, great minds think alike.  I have pulled the fabric for the shadows, sashings and borders, but still have to cut them out.

The second one will be a variation on the Potato Chip Block. I just found a photo on Pinterest.  I’m sorry I can’t credit the maker or designer, as I don’t know it. It will have a centre of two black and white prints, which will be surrounded by one round of the colour.  I need 48 blocks, so five for most months, but just four for two months.  I have gone ahead and cut all the black and white strips, which didn’t make much of a dent in the collection.  However, it did mean that I have now tidied up the black and white tub, which was a good outcome.  When I look at it, I really do wonder why I didn’t just use a square in the centres, but it doesn’t matter.  It will take a little while to get all the different scrappy bits cut.  I will persevere.

The third one is going to be made from solid colours.  This is therefore going to be more of a Rainbow STASH quilt rather than a Rainbow SCRAP quilt. The pattern I have chosen has a cross with two tones of the colour.  Of course, I had no trouble having enough colours.  

My once tidy sewing room became a big, colourful mess during the process.  Once again, the solids tubs had a nice tidy up when I finished cutting, which is a good feeling.  I still have to cut the white background and grey corners.

I will hopefully have some completed blocks to share in the next week.

I did have to break my wish of only using fabric that I already had.  I had plenty of the background for the two quilts, but didn’t have a suitable grey, so visited Spotlight.

Now, I have a question I would really like some feedback on.  How are the patchwork fabrics displayed in your local Spotlight?  In the Bathurst Store, they have changed their layout.  Where there used to be all the solids together, all the blenders together, the aboriginal together, the novelties together and any specific ranges together, now they are all jumbled together by colour.  It is an absolute nightmare trying to find things.  It’s like how some people arrange books on a shelf by colour rather than author.  Obviously not readers.  I digress.  I asked about it and was informed that it was instructions from higher up, and not the store.  However……..the store at Orange is arranged like they always were.  I’d be really interested to hear if it is across the board or just Bathurst.

Now back to our regular programming…….while I was in the Orange store to buy the grey homespun I noticed that their clearance table included their Liberty fabrics.  They were all designs that hadn’t been in Bathurst, so I bought up big.  The original price was $30/m, clearance was $6/m, but with their sale they were $4.80/m.  13.3metres came home with me.  That is cheaper than homespun and some will even be pretty for backings at that price.  Win, win.

Yesterday was our first day back at my Patchwork Group, so I needed some hand sewing to work on.  Yes, I have started yet another project. 

I bought this kit quite a few years ago, and having seen Lin make her version last year, was inspired to finally get it made.  

I traced all the stitcheries on Tuesday and just worked this simple one yesterday.  My next job is to prep all the appliqué and get them stitched down.  It is a fairly simple project and will be ideal to take along.

That’s all I have done in the sewing room, but I am happy to be getting everything prepped to make the rest of the year easier.

Meanwhile, Mick has been enjoying watching the Fifth Ashes Test in the cricket.  The Sydney Test is the Pink Test to raise funds for the McGrath Foundation, which provides cancer care nurses.  We always buy our “virtual tickets”.  The third day, Tuesday, is the Pink Day where everyone dresses in pink and they make special presentations.  Mick joined in, despite being in our lounge room, rather than at the cricket ground.  His shirt even has cricketers on it.

We had a quick trip to Orange to deliver some chairs Mick restored on New Year’s Day.  (Hence my visit to Spotlight up there.) His sister has an outdoor setting with wrought iron ends that the wood had rotted on.  Mick has fixed them for her.  He had to test one out once he had it put together and delivered.

Our garden has been producing plenty of veges.  I am picking and freezing about 500 grams of beans a day at the moment.  The garden doesn’t like the extreme heat we are experiencing at present, but it is doing OK.

I was surprised to see these strange mushrooms in one of our plant pots.  The spores obviously were in the potting mix.  No, we won’t be eating them.

I have tried my first new recipe for the year.  It wasn’t really all that different, but we will count it anyway.  Quiches made using a wrap instead of pastry have been popping up on Instragram, so I gave it a go.  Very simple, and they come out of the pie dish nicely.  A win, that I will probably do again.  A slice would be good to take for lunch.

And that about wraps up the week.