Squares from AJ and more Textile Trader goodies.

Late last week I had some squares from the lovely AJ arrive in the mail. These are the blocks I whipped up AJ! It was so nice to take a break from those fiddley 2 inch squares! Thanks hon! Here is a link to the same quilt pattern that she has done. I was thinking of staggering the name blocks diagonally, but it looks pretty cool going from top to bottom in the middle.

Textile Traders still have their amazing special on fabric at the moment. I am suprised they have any stock left! I popped in today to pick up some more prints. Didn't buy anything the same as the other week! I thought the pink strippey one would be a perfect border for Caitlins quilt and the white background with small rainbow dots as an outside border for Grace's Log Cabin quilt, when I get around to sewing the blocks together.

Notice the top print? The cowboy Micheal Miller print? Looks like the odd one out doesn't it? Ad and I have been thinking about setting up a little fabric shop, maybe, just maybe. I brought it in preparation for that. Stay tuned....

Now we are off to Rottnest for the rest of the week, so no blogging from me! No WIP Wednesday or Flashback Friday. I am taking Mum's old Elna sewing machine though and all my 3.5 inch squares to whip up my Dissappearing 9 Patch. So there will be some sewing to share when I come back. :) Have a great week everyone.

Sneek Peak of a bag.....

I am also involved with a bag swap at the moment too. Also with the girls on Essential Baby. What would I do without that site and all the lovely ladies I have meet through there?! Here is a sneek peak of the bag I am currently working on. Won't say anything more!

Had an interesting day at work today. One of the ladies in the department next to mine, she had a stroke in the tea room yesterday afternoon at work, was rushed to hospital by ambulance and is now on life support and the outlook is not good for her. Her family was rushed to her side so they could say their goodbyes, she has two sons, 11 and 17 but the scarey thing is, she's only 4 years older than I am, she's not even 40 yet. Its so sad, all of work today, there was just a gloom in the air, lots of staff went home as they were too upset to work. Just a bit reality check that life is so precious and you just don't know when your time is up.

Flashback Friday - Week 4 - Another Group Shot

Flashback Friday again! This weeks theme is T Shirts but I have searched to find nothing! I did have a really cool Stems Tshirt that I wore to death but I was in that geeky 14 year old mood all the time and wouldn't be seen dead in a photo at that fun stage of growing up!

So here we are with Mum in one of those classic Pixie Photo shots. No idea where Dad is, working?? 1981 apparantly, I am 10, so Scott would be 8 and Ad would be 5. Please note I have not included Ad's ankles in the shot this week!

When Mum went to pick up this photo the sales person said to her "Oh you can tell which children are from your first marriage and which are from your second marriage, can't you?" Mum was so angry she said she nearly decked the lady, and if she hadn't of already paid for it she would have torn it up and walked out the shop. Go Jules! We all have the same father, just Scott and I were blessed with red hair!

Doll Quilt Swap, the start.......

I'm excitied! We have just organized a Doll's Quilt swap with the girls on EB. Was inspired by the doll quilt swap group in flickr. A great starting place for inspiration. And thought we'd start our own while waiting for round 3 to start up. All the details are over at our group blog here, hope everything goes to plan, I haven't organized a swap before! Should be fun though.

WIP Wednesday - Week 32 - Progress on Caitlin's quilt.

Work In Progress Wednesday, again! Nice to have it back this week on the proper day, last week on a Thursday was just weird. Wednesdays are lovely as I get to see Baby Caitlin as she is known in this house and have a lovely cuddle, she is now 9 weeks old and at that cute baby stage, makes you want to have another!

Okay, quilting chit chat! I have blanket stitched the A, L, N and T. The rest are still sitting on the ironing board! There are a total of 54 blocks, minus 7 that make up her name so that is 47. I thought I was doing well as I have done 24 but then I stopped to do the maths and realized I have 23 to go! So only half way there! I'm going to run out of design wall!

I have been bold too, and dipped into my squares recieved from the recent EB Quilters 3.5 inch square swap. At first I just took 1, now the tally is up too 8!! They are supposed to be for another dissappearing 9 patch block quilt! I just want to use them now!!

Flashback Friday - A Group of Cosuins

Well this weeks Flashback Friday theme is "group" and so here is a group of cousins! I thought after last weeks debarkal of mistaking my sister for my brother, I better include both of them this week. Hey, in my defence, he was dressed as a cat! I'm the tall one in the middle at the back, recognize the mullet? My brother Scott is the red head next to me. The child I am trying to hold still for the photo is my dearest younger sister, Ad! Take special note of her cute chubby legs and the funky pleated tartan skirt! The other child in red is our cousin, Sally, only 3 months difference between her and Ad. And then next to me is Paul, Sally's older brother. There is another brother, Bryan but he must have been too small for this shot. I'm thinking I am about 6 here, so mid 1970's, 1977 maybe?? Standing in the backyard of Nan's house this time.

WIP Thursday! The start of Caitlins Quilt

A new quilting project! Very exciting! One of the girls in my real life Mothers Group has just had her second child, a little girl called Caitlin. She is as cute as a button, love having cuddles every Wednesday morning with her. I am making her this quilt, in pinks and purples, is there another colour combination for a little girl?!

Its a pretty straight foward pattern, just squares made up in different arrangements. One of the sizes needed is 3.5 inches and it has been so hard not to dig into the beautiful collection of squares recently recieved from my EB Quilting buddies. I have only caved once so far, the bottom right centre square in that block! Recognize it?

The pattern is for 54 blocks, 7 of them are just a letter though, so really only 47. 8 done here and I have fabric cut for another 4 there abouts, so only 35 to go! Jo, if you are reading, what do you think???!

Beware the Blue Bead

We have had a drama packed 24 hours! Tuesday morning started off quite nicely with Gracie Lou being on telly for the first time, I cried watching it! Happy tears though, it was great. It was "Row, Row, Row Your Boat", Grace sat on my lap and gave me a running commentry of all that was about to happen as she has seen it so many times before! Then 90 seconds later, all over and we went to kindy! Thank you all for your words of congratulations too, means so much to Daz and I. :)

Then, that afternoon, I was doing some sewing, the girls were hanging in the lounge room, Grace comes up to me, "Mummy, I have a stone in my nose" and I thought she meant just a hard boggie so didn't take much notice. Then I realized she did mean a stone! My Aunt made her this extremely tacky hanging out of aquarium pebbles and other bits and it was spent the last 3 years hiding on a shelf behind some books and Grace found it on the weekend and has been carrying it around since and as a result it has started to fall apart. So Grace popped one of those blue stones up her nose and it got stuck! When I asked her why did she do it, her answer? "Because I wanted a good hiding spot for it."

So, off we go to our local A & E department at the local hospital to wait 4 hours to be told its really stuck and they don't have quite the right hook thing to get it out (one small enough) and so they wrote us a referal to the children's hospital for the next morning. That was this morning. Mum takes Milly for the day and off Grace and I go. We arrive at 9.30 to be told that the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic doesn't open till 1.30 that afternoon! Okkkkkkkkkay! Home is an hours drive away so not much point driving back again, instead we go to Kings Park and hang there for awhile. Come 1.20 we are back at the clinic doors, waiting to get in. We are seen first thank goodness. the doctor gives Grace's nose some puffs of local antisetic to numb it and then he goes in with a long tube camera for a look. And guess what?? He can't see the stone! It is not there! I can't believe it, I almost ask him if he's sure?! *sigh* So it seems after all our running around that it dislodged itself. I felt relieved, thank goodness.

And as a result of all that, no WIP Wednesday post today. How does WIP Thursday sound AJ?!

Gracie Lou is on and in the ABC....

We are excitied in our house. Finally, after about 2 (or is it 3?) years of dreaming, hoping and lots of hard work, Daz has done it or we have done it. The first of four Gracie Lou DVD and CD packs have hit the ABC shop! We went in on Saturday to have a look for ourselves, just to believe it. And yes, its true! We are on the shelf next to Hairy Maclary! Third row from the top, second DVD from the right, there we are! Grace was more interested in the Fireman Sam stuff in the store, but Milly was pointing to the DVD going "Gracie Lou! Gracie Lou! Hey thats me!" as she pointed to the Matilda character.

The first of the songs go to air this Tuesday at 8.25am. We'll be watching and hope you do to! Its going to feel so surreal! My aim with this project was just to have it on ABC Kids, thats what I thought would be fantastic. Daz agrees but he's already got the wheels in motion for series 2. The man is amazing, I am so proud of him and happy for him too, Tuesday is going to be fantastic!

Disappearing 9 Patch Quilt, finished!

I finished this quilt a few days after doing the simple line quilting in the border as blogged about here. But was waiting for it to arrive at its new home before showing finished picts, a you do! :) It was a delight to sew this one, I loved how quickly the design fell into place. I now have 162 pink and purple 3.5 inch squares from a swap with the Quilting girls on EB, so think I might whip one of these up for Milly.

Flashback Friday - Week 3 - Fancy Dress!

We have a theme this week, fancy dress! I had a choice of the above shot or me with a sheet over my head as a ghost, I went for this shot! I am the witch, please note the very detailed wand, *ahem* thats a star just stuck on the end of a cardboard tube! The white figure next to me is my sister. Propping up the counter at Textile Trader's one post then a white cat the next! It was taken in 1981, when we lived in Karratha. I don't even remember going trick or treating but this is why we are dressed up. Look at the neighbours boat in the background! Mum could have just moved around a bit and got a nice green background, but instead we have a boat!

WIP Wednesday - Week 30. Star quilting.

I am embarrassingly behind in the due date for the July 12 x 12 inch challenge over in the Quilt Studio group. maybe I set myself to high a bar by doing this one for my April peice? Anyway, stop making excuses Helen. I'm not too sure if the person I am making this block for reds my blog so I am going to be cryptic and just post a pict of a section. My theme was STAR. So for this one, bit of star stipple quilting around the outer edges. More to be revealed when it arrives at its home.

An Outing to Textile Traders

A grey rainy day here today but that didn't stop Ad and I shopping up a storm! All children where at school or Day Care so we were off to check out the new Textile Traders Supa Store a 30 minute drive down the highway. And what a day to pick to go as all their patchwork fabrics were 50% off, yes all of them! So we were picking bolts of fabric and making piles of what we wanted, wrecking their display, eyeing off other customers fabric to add to the pile after they had purchased! Lots of fun. I was buying with no particular project in mind, just to stock up the stash! Here's my goodies!

Flashback Friday - Week 2

Here we are, Flashback Friday again and a pict taking us back to the beginning! Christmas 1971, my first Christmas! 7 months old here and we had just moved into this house and I think that explains the sparsely decorated stick of a Christmas tree!

The brown teddy between my knee's is "Ted" and the rabbit sitting on the right if my knee is "Rabbit" and I still have these two stuffed toys today in the girls rooms, they sometimes come down when we need numbers for a teddy bears picnic.

The ride on horse at the back was called Tigger and he was around for a few years as I have some shots of me at about 4 still riding him. Dad actually emailed me this picture as he is currently going through the old slides, scanning them and putting them onto CD. He mumbled that I nearly got killed on Tigger on day as our driveway was on a slope and one day I got on Tigger at the top of the driveway and just flew down the bottom and crashed. :)

I can see absolutely no resemblance in my face here to that of my girls. *sigh* They seem to have all of Daz's gene's.

WIP Wednesday Week 29 - Finished Pinwheels!

Well I started this blog to inspire me to actually finish projects and it worked today! At the start of today I still had a metre of binding to hand sew down and I thought, hey its WIP Wednesday Helen, better do something so you can blog it. So I sat on the couch this afternoon as the girls were glued to Bindi the Jungle Girl and finished it off. So this WIP Wednesday is a finished item!!

All started here, when we meet Elliott, so 2 months this one has taken. Embarrassingly enough we have not seen the little man since this day. Last time we visited he was asleep, now the quilt is done, we'll have to visit when he is awake!

Not too sure about the white binding, but too late now to change that and no other colour would go. Just nice to have finished it. You can't see the swirly quilting in the boarders in these shots though, but it is there! Better shot in this post here.