Flickr Doll Quilt Swap #8 Finished!

Well the football starting and the new blow up pool in the backyard kept all members of the family amused enough today for me to finish sewing the binding down on my two dolls quilts for the flickr swap.

This is the one I was talking about yesterday with the yellow variegated thread and the purple variegated thread.

The back looks pretty crazy!

The other one I quilted a bit more subtly. Just used yellow here, no stipple and stars, just a wavy line, to look like wind? I'm thinking of quilting Matilda's Wonky Houses like this when it is done. Got the inspiration from this beauty here.

So all I have to do now is sew a label on the back. I am hoping my partner will make a comment over at flickr on which one she likes....

FMQ Action!

My new darning foot purchased off ebay arrived yesterday afternoon, perfect timing for a long weekend! So I put aside my wonky houses and turned back to the flickr DQS#8. The deadline is fast approaching. I've gone a bit crazy and done tall swirls supposed to be grass, maybe?! Stars and stipple inbetween. Used a yellow variegated thread at first and then that wasn't giving it enough omph, so added some purple variegated too.

I've got the binding on, just need to sew it down and pop the label on, then all done!

WIP Wednesday - Wonky Houses for Matilda.

Despite the new job, the anniversary (thank you for the lovely well wishes too) and visiting the amazing countryside around this corner of Australia, I have been doing some sewing! All the recent blocks I have been doing for our Around The Block swap, it has inspired me to get mine out that I have recieved back from the girls and work on them. I have made a few more, just for the fun of it, from the scraps posted back. The one above....

And this one here. Loving the pointy trees. This one isn't ironed, hence the wavy grass.

Laid our on our bed it looked like this. The plan was to make two more blocks but then I started to think what is this quilt for, our bed? Or something else? There are enough hanging quilts in the house and we have the Highlight Quilt to snuggle under, which you can see peeking out from under the blocks here! Grace has her Rainbow Log Cabin Quilt, but poor Milly Moo has nothing! So I decided to make it for her bed.

This is how it looks now! I sashed it with 1.5 inches of yellow for some zing! I still have 3 blocks to work into the backing.

It sits nicely on her bed as is, but I am thinking of a red wedged kinda border....

Happy Wedding Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 6th wedding anniversary. Daz admitted last night as we were going to bed, "I haven't got you anything, sorry." I laughed and replied "That's okay hon, I haven't got you anything either!" We just have too much on our plates at the moment to celebrate anniversaries and Valentine Day, I know how much he loves me, I'm happy with a coffee first thing in the morning and a kiss. We actually had morning tea together today, in the staff room at school! Today was my first day at my new job, I'm one of the Teacher's Assistants now, helping out with the literacy programme that is run at the school. So all the family goes to the same school now!

If you had told me 6 years ago that I would be living up here and popping across the border into the Northern Territory for morning tea with friends, I would have laughed! But that is exactly what we did yesterday. I have become friendly with one of the other Mum's in Milly's class at school. They are new to the school as well after doing School Of The Air for the last few years. Also bizarrely enough during getting to know each other, we discovered she was good friends with my brother during their high school days! They live just over the border and so we just popped over for morning tea! A mere 45 kms down the road, over the border then a left turn a few kms in! It looked the same as WA, but hey, I can now say I have been to the Northern Territory!!!

WIP Wednesday - Free Motion Quilting Chickens.

I think my sewing machine may be cross at me. Sulking from being in a packing box too long. I can't get the auto threader thingy to work at all. But more importantly, my darning foot has just died. How can it?? I thought feet were supposed to last forever? It sort of pulls the foot foward which causes the needle to go straight down onto the foot and break. Not good. But funnily enough if I leave the feed dogs up, it will work, sort of. Gives a rough FMQ line. Which is perfect for this quilt for the Flickr DQS#8 as that is the look I was after to go around the chickens in.

I added the border and will bind this one in a black and white dot. I want to FMQ the yellow, I need smooth lines for that bit so I am currently waiting for a new darning foot via ebay.

I still can't shake the urge to make two of these quilts when I do a swap. This is the second one. One for my wall, one for my partners!

Dear Donna.

February is a double month in our Around The Block swap. After finishing Amy's blocks the other week, today I turned to Donna's blocks. She requested blocks of simple shapes, looking at "Dear Jane" blocks for ideas. We were to think squares, circles, triangles, rectangles, stars etc. I must admit I felt daunted. I am not good at at maths and accuracy, I felt scared. So I went the easy path of squares. The above block is based on one of the blocks in the bottom row of this quilt top here that Donna had featured as inspiration. I spent a lot of time looking at that quilt top, pondering which one to do!

I like this one. It is based on this block. I did the one second, more in the swing of it. Hope you like them Donna.

Black Rock Falls.

Yesterday started with a fantastic breakfast and ended with an even better swim. This is the real reason you come up to this part of Australia, to have this in your back yard. We don't have a 4WD (yet!) so when fellow teachers asked us if we wanted to go for a swim at one of the local falls, we said yes! A 30 minute or so drive later, we parked and walked up the track...

And then around the bend to see this!

Walk in a bit more, as you can see the girls are really excited! I was quite proud of them, they were sitting in the back for the drive and Grace was looking out the window saying "This scenery up here is just stunning Mummy! Look at that tree!"

This was the 30 metre rock face that greeted us. We haven't had any rain in about 4 days so the waterfall was just a trickle but the water was so cool and refreshing. Swimming over to sit underneath it on a little natural ledge was great. And no, we didn't climb up to jump off like those crazy backpackers were doing. Sent shivers up my spin to watch them jump in.

Daz having a swim. Got him a beer just after I took this shot!

The girls after going for a swim were off exploring. They found a black frog. This part was a little gravel beach that the water eventually flowed down to and trickled away into a creek.

They built a mini dam too. Just had a great time, whinged when it was time to go.

And the perfect sunset on the way home. A great end to another great day.

Valentines Day Breakfast!

Valentine's Day is pretty much a non event in our house, no cards, no red roses, a kiss and a "Happy Valentine's Day" in the morning is about it! But that's okay, we just don't do Valentines Day, it's also the anniversary of Grandad passing away, we'll toast him with our beer tonight. But this year I decided we would go out for breakfast using Valentine's Day as the excuse. Ha! As if I needed an excuse. Conversation up here soon turns to where you can get a good coffee and someone earlier in the week suggested this place, so I booked a table for four. And here was my first real coffee in awhile and boy was it good.

We had an outside table. Much to the delight of the girls as leaning over and looking down....

.... all these catfish just waiting for toast scraps to be thrown over!

This was our view to the left.

And this was the view to the right. You can drive your boat up to their jetty, if one has a boat that is! We drove. :)

And this was the view if you just looked straight ahead and stared into space. Water and blue skies in all directions. I love the openess of the country up here, breath taking.

So when you come up to visit, yes, you! We'll go here for a coffee or a beer or maybe even dinner!

Amy's Blocks.

February is Amy's month for our Around The Block swap. She asked for a teeny weeny village. These were so much fun to sew! Those with sharp eyes would have spotted the house on my noticeboard in yesterdays Self Portrait Friday shot. I really enjoyed doing these, the material arrived Wednesday, they were sewn up within 24 hours. Hope you like them Amy!

52 Fridays - A Self Portait Challenge - Week 4, 5 and 7.

I am behind in my Self Portrait Friday Challenge, simply because having no internet access at home was a killer! I took the photos still but haven't uploaded them till now. Week 4, above, we had a theme of outdoors. I am still in Perth here. I put the camera on the ground and did the auto timer thing. I remember it was the day before we flew out, I'm thinking have we got everything organized?

It rained here on week 5 so I continued the theme of outdoors! It was like stepping under a shower, the water was cool and so refreshing after the build up of humidity in the air. I really like this shot, I think I look happy to finally be in our new home.

For week 6, no photo, it just didn't happen! But today for week 7, a self portrait in my new sewing area.... wearing the same clothes as week 5!

First day of school for 2010!

School started on the 1st of February here and I was glad to see them go back I'll admit! Milly looks pleased to go but Grace looks like she wishes she was anywhere else in the world rather than wearing a new uniform about to go to a new school!

As we all expected, Matilda was all smiles and excited to start the day. She loves school. She has a lovely teacher, the perfect pre primary teacher, young, fresh, full of joy and enthusiasm for her little 5 year old charges. She was one of two new girls in her class but that didn't worry her at all, she is now friends with every one and has taken a particular interest in a little Indigenous boy who "Is very shy Mummy, he catches a bus to school with all his brothers and sister, how lucky is he? And sometimes he comes to school with no shoes on, but that's okay cause we are all friends".

And those of you who know Grace in real life would have known that she wasn't at all impressed at leaving her old school and her best friend there. The expression on her face sums up what she thinks of her first day! And this was the best photo I could get out of the ones I took! She was buddied up with a little girl who has been at the school a few years and they became instant best friends by the time the lunchtime siren went.

'So by Thursday she was all smiles. So in all, the first week of school wasn't as bad as I had expected.

WIP Wednesday - DQS#8!

I have unpacked the sewing machine at last and made a late start on my dolls quilt for the Flickr DQS #8! I have the perfect partner, she just said "quilter's choice" so I thought I'd make something I would like to make. Unpacking all my quilting books last week got me reacquainted with this book and so I thought I would make a quilt based on the front cover which I love!

So I got out the girl's textas and drew up a sketch. Milly had a go at drawing it too!

Not bad for a 5 year old!

This is what I have so far. I am torn between loving it and thinking ekkk, what will my partner think!

Arriving in Kununurra!

On Saturday the 23rd of January we left Perth ready for our adventure.

Here we are on the plane!

Goodbye Perth! You can't really see it in this photo but in the distance was Rottnest. Wonder when we'll be back there again? Not for awhile I think.

Three hours into the flight, nearly there, I look out my window to see my first glimpse of Lake Argyle. It is Australia's largest body of fresh water. And it is now in my backyard. No water restrictions up this part of Australia! It was nice to see that red dirt at last, felt a little bellyflip in my tummy like I was home again.

Landing in Kununurra I was suprised how green and lush it all looked from the air.

The first boab tree we saw, growing alongside the runway!

And at last we arrive at our new home! We made it!