Sewing Frenzy!

I love summer holidays! Now we are back from the "official" holiday we are all relaxing at home and I am on a sewing frenzy at the moment. Finished the pebble quilting on the pink squares quilt, binding is all pinned into place, ready to hand sew down.

Inspired by Corrie, I whipped out the jelly roll I had left over from making Ruby's quilt and sewed all the strips together in a few hours. Wolah! Quilt ready to sandwich. This one is going to her Quilts For Queensland appeal too.

And in between that I have started a new quilt. Rainbow squares. Pretty much like the pink squares but bigger and brighter, I love sewing these blocks. Picking out a centre then thinking oh yes, that would look nice framing that, sew it, then ohhhh, how about that spotty fabric? Yes, perfect, sew it!

These are my favourites so far. I'm up to purple, green and blue to go next.

But we haven't been sitting around home all the time. Have taken advantage of the rain and having our own 4WD and getting out and seeing some of the waterfalls around only in the wet season.

This one is Black Rock which we have been to a few times before. It holds a special place in my heart as it was the first place we ever visited when we came up here. Okay, back to the sewing!

Quilting Pink Squares.

Yesterday was my monthly quilting group sewing day. I used their large table to sandwich the pink squares quilt that has been folded up over the ironing board since I finished it back here.

I decided to do large pebble quilting all over in white, give it some texture. I still have a third to go and I think I am on my 5th bobbin, certainly going through the thread but it looks effective. I have decided to mail it over to Corrie when done, she is collecting blocks to make quilts and finished quilts too if you want to make something for her appeal.

Toni has the master list of all the auctions for the QLD Flood Appeal. Check them all out here! It's massive!

2010 Quilt Review.

I have been meaning to do this since I got home from holidays. The annual year in review in the quilting land of Mini Grey. I made 16 quilts in 2010, not bad. I'm not counting all the block swaps, there would be at least 16 of them. As I was cutting and pasting this post together I noticed a lot of squares, a lot of wonky houses, a lot of floral and a lot of colour!! The first quilt for 2010 was finished in February for my partner in flickrs Doll Quilt Swap #8.

For a friends new baby, also finished in February.

For my 600th post I gave away this mini quilt in March.

Finished in April, now up for auction for the Queensland Flood Appeal. Bidding is still welcome here!

I made this one for my lovely blogging buddy Lynne in a private swap in April.

This is the mini quilt was all free pieced and offered up for Give Away Day with Sew Mama Sew in May.

This dolls quilt was made for the EB Quilters Dolls Quilt Swap #4 in May.

I also finished this little bassinet sized quilt for one of Milly's friends to wrap her dolly in.

I signed up for the Placemat Swap and made this for Kimmie in May.

And also finally finished the quilting and binding on my Round Robin Quilt in May too. A busy month!

In July I finished my favorite quilt for the year. Something about the smoothness of the blues against the white.

Then a blue and orange version finished in August.

Then I made some dolls quilts for Flickr DQS#9 in August. Here is Version 1!

And version 2!

And version 3! This one ended up being a private swap with the lovely Krista in Canada but I tricked her and let her think she was getting a wonky house instead.

November saw me finish Milly's wonky house quilt made with blocks from my Around The Block swap. Single bed size, the second quilt I have ever sent away to be quilted. It came back stunning! So that is 2010 in a nut shell. Bring on 2011.

QLD Flood Appeal Auctions.

The news over the last week from Queensland has not been good. The images of the floods are just unbelievable. Heartbreaking. And to think we were in Brisbane last week! And now it is flooded. I feel like I can't do much sitting up in this corner of Australia and then saw that Toni from Make It Perfect has come up with the great idea of holding some auctions amongst the crafting blogging community.

On Monday 17th January, she will have a master list of bloggers who will be running auctions from their blogs, selling products that they make or from their stores. Auctions will close at midnight on Monday 24th January. Some are up and running now so I am putting up the following quilt for auction.

It measures 37 x 44 inches. It is made from Lila Tueller Santorini's charm squares.

The back. I can make a label for the winner if they would like.

A close up of the stippling. The colours on this quilt are lovely.

How this auction will work:
1. Bidding will start at $30 (Australian).
2. You can place a bid by leaving a comment on this blog post with your bid amount and email address. Please make sure that your bid is higher than the previous bidder.
3. Your bid must be in whole dollar increments.
4. This auction is open to everyone, however $25 will be charged for International addresses, I will cover the rest. Postage is FREE for Australian residents.
5. The auction begins NOW and will END at midnight on Monday 24th January 2011 (AWST).
6. At the close of the auction, I will contact the winner (please make sure your bid comment includes your email address). The winner will pay the winning amount directly into the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal and send me proof of payment via email. Once proof of payment has been received, I will post your quilt to you.
7. Thank you for participating and happy bidding!!! Please someone bid!

Holiday Fabric!

I managed to get a bit of hand sewing in during our holidays. Kununurra to Darwin is a mere 832 kms away so I made a start on my Honeysuckle stitching.

One of the best things about going to Queensland was that finally after 4 years of online chatting and blogging together, I got to meet AJ! She arranged a whole day of fabric shopping for us! Any excuse hey? Her sister Carissa came along as somebody had to type the addresses into the Navcom from the back seat! And we thought we were pretty clever all managing to dress in blue tops and denim bottoms!

We meet at a place in Eagleby which I think was called Fabric Frenzy? It was kinda a seconds shop, one third fabric and the rest toys and cheap kitchenware. I still managed to get 7 meters which is the blues, reds and orange in the bottom of the above photo!

Next stop was.... um, I can't remember! I brought this pattern here, Japanese Fans by Judy Niemeyer. It's foundation paper piecing which I could technically print onto paper myself but, its already done on A2 sized sheets and that will save sticking A4 sheets together so that sold me!

There was a Spotlight next door so we popped in and I got some more thread and upgraded to a larger carrier!

Then we drove onto Patches Indooroopilly. A great shop!! Was my favorite. We drove up and parked out the front but the car in front of us wasn't quite in their marked spot, so we decided to reverse and park at the back of the shop in the customer parking. We looked at the shop window and saw the "Yes we are open, please come in" sign, all good, so we go park. Walk back down the driveway, look in the window at the display and then we notice the "Sorry we are closed, please come again" sign. Huh? We are standing there under the veranda talking amongst ourselves that didn't the sign just say open? We check the opening hours and it closed at 2 and it was spot on 2. So we are standing there going oh no!!! And then the door opens and a lady says "I can hear you ladies, would you like to come in?" and she very kindly opened the shop for us! An hour later...... I got the pink and green fabric in the top left of the first photo and all the fabric around the Japanese Fans pattern (except for the white, Mum gave that to me for Christmas). The lady behind the counter was lovely and took these photos for us. AJ wanted us to stand in front of this quilt as she is going to make it! It was the perfect shopping trip, thanks AJ!

Then a few days later, Dad drove Mum and I and the girls over the border into New South Wales to Fantazia Fabric Land! All $10 a metre except the back wall which was $12! Great range. I got a rainbow selection of tone on tone prints in the top right of the first photo and I got at last the backing fabric for my daizee quilt, the green floral, 2.4 meters wide.

And then I got home to have more fabric waiting in my mail box! Ad sent me up this bundle of white on white for Christmas and when we got back there was this parcel from Bec of fabric that I brought from her shop before Christmas! I would like to say publically that I am not puchasing any more fabric till SIT in March!

The Gold Coast Holiday - Part 1!

We have just come back from a two week holiday catching up with family and friends in the Gold Coast. I took a lot of photos as to be expected, so thought I would break the posts up for the blog. It's usually a sunny part of Australia but at the moment large parts of Queensland are flooded, its the wettest summer in 150 years or something like that. We had a few days of sunshine... Our accommodation was right on the foreshore so we could walk to the beach.

Little bit different to our days on Rottnest. Lots of people, lots of different languages heard as you walk along the sand and the lifeguards! And shadows from the skyscrapers on the beach.

New Years Day saw us all heading to Australia Zoo. It was grey and raining but we brought a $3 plastic poncho at the shop and everything was okay. The rain actually kept the crowds down so that was good for us. We had come such a long way we weren't going to let some rain dampen our spirits! I was excited, the girls were excitied just as much! We walked in the gates and up the first path straight into the elephant feeding. Grace was there popping carrot into his trunk and exclaimed afterwards it was like a big vacum cleaner!

We then headed to the Crocoseum. It was amazing! Terrie, Bindi and Bob were all there. Bindi sang a few songs, Bob then sang one and then the show with the crocs started.

Terrie feed him......

And then Bindi feed him too. Note the flying bit of meat mid air! We did see Bindi later walking through the grounds with a minder giving some boy and his Mum a private tour, no photos of that, we were to star struck and only managed to say "Hi Bindi" as she walked past and to her credit she said hi back and smiled at the girls.

Then we went and saw the Tigers which impressed Grace so much she has decided to be a tiger handler when she grows up.

And also Grace managed to pat a koala's bum! It was a busy day, we were there all day and it was fantastic. the grounds and animals are all immaculate, I'd go back there in a flash. Next blog post, Seaworld!

Santa 2010.

There is no Santa Photo Booth at the shops here in down town Kununurra. Hard to believe but true! There was a small ad in the local paper the other week saying sorry no Santa photos this year due to an impending birth. So what is a Mum to do? I have to have my Santa photo, have had one every year since 2004. During my recent whirl wind trip to Darwin while wandering around Kmart, I found a Santa Suit for $7! $7???!!!! So I brought it just for this photo shot. The girls weren't fooled at all about it being their Dad. "When is the real Santa coming Mummy?" Milly asked, soon sweetheart soon.

We will be going here on boxing day for 2 weeks so I'll be taking a blogging break while we are away. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, looking forward to sharing 2011 with you all.

Honeysuckle.

We have had a lazy start to the week, sleep in's, not getting changed out of our PJ's till lunch time, dancing with friends on the Wii, drinking champagne with my dinner. But amongst all that I have been designing and cutting out a new project that I want to take away with me to hand stitch on our holidays. Inspired by the ones I have sewn in the past. Just a sneak peak as I am hoping it will be published next year..... We shall see. Pantone has declared the colour of the 2011 to be Honeysuckle! Which is fitting as there is a bit of pink here!

Tablerunner Finished!

Thanks for the welcome back girls. Nice to know I was a little bit missed. I finished something last night, gee it has been awhile since I wrote that! This runner that had accuracy issues last seen here, all I had to do was join up the binding and sew it down which was completed last night while watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

This runner is a gift, all I have to do now is sew the label on but I couldn't resist putting it on the table with our gingerbread house.

I have never made a gingerbread house before and will confess I didn't actually make the house, just assembled it and decorated it. Looks almost too good to eat!

With Grace's help. The spearmint leaves on top where her idea!

Kate C's Blocks.

Hi my name is Helen and I used to blog and quilt. I feel I have fallen off the wagon. This month has just been crazy. It just seems like yesterday that Daz graduated and we arrived here. And now the school year is over, we all survived! The last few weeks have been full of graduations, celebrations and goodbyes of new friends made. Plus a quick trip up to Darwin solo for me for some medical stuff. School finished yesterday to a sigh of relief. We have 6 weeks stretched in front of us all! 6 glorious weeks. So seeing as though I haven't sewn anything for awhile, thought I'd throw myself back into it today and did these two blocks for Kate for Around the Block 2.

I followed this tutorial here. Hope you like them Kate, they were great to sew. Nice to warm up to after being away for what seems like awhile. I can turn my attention to a few projects that have been stewing in the back of my mind. Let the quilting begin!

Pink Squares Finished.

Well not 100% finished, the top is finished at least. I have some Amy Butler Midwest Modern in the floral pink and white left over for the backing. Now to find time in the week to sandwich it.....

Grace's Art Exhibition.

We went to the school's art exhibition last night. Grace had a few pieces on display. Despite being less than impressed on the first day here, I am proud of how well she has settled in. She does enjoy her art classes!