Happy Birthday to me

Well, I have had a great week and weekend to celebrate my 50th birthday.  I went to Hervey Bay to visit my parents to celebrate with my family. I caught the train back home on Thursday and Mr J had the car packed and we were heading off to Byron Bay for the Bluesfest. "Wow" what a fantastic weekend.

 The first day we saw BB King and the Blind Boys, followed by Grace Jones (?), Xavier Rudd, Tim Robbins, Jack Thompson, Saltwater a great Australian Indigenous band, Los Lobos, Raul Malo, Wagon, Rockwiz, Bob Abbott ( our local Mayor), Eric Bibb and the most outstanding was Trombone Shorty. What a weekend!!!!

 Byron Bay is such a beautiful place to visit. Mr J was lucky enough to get some accommodation for us near the center of town, so it was easy to catch a bus to the BluesFest.

We saw my favourite busker Juzzy Smith on Saturday morning playing his version of Waltzing Matilda.  

On our way home on Monday we called in and had lunch with our extended family. It was great to catch up with them and to see baby Jamie again, he has grown so much and now weighs 3.6kgs. 

I also received another present for my birthday that you will hear about in a couple of weeks. Keep posted, it's exciting......   

I have finished Featherwood Forest, It may never win any competitions but I'm happy with it. I took it around to Kim this afternoon, who is taking the quilt to the Maleny Quota Quilt Show for me this weekend. Maleny is the place to be this weekend with the Art and Craft Fair and also Woodies   -  http://www.malenywoodexpo.com.au  is on at the Show Grounds.

I'm off tomorrow to Brisbane to do the workshop with Hollis Chatelain for three days, it is a little daunting. I still can not decide what image I am going to do. I have a few ideas ready and will decide once the workshop start. I will have a posting for you to see my work in stages next weekend.

Until then I hope you all have a creative week.  Cathy

An afternoon being inspired....

I have been madly quilting to finish the Featherwood Forest, but took the afternoon off to catch up with friends at the Textile and Fibre Art group in Caloundra  http://caloundraartsandcrafts.org.au. We have been making a banner to display at the upcoming fair in June.

The girls are getting all the blocks ready but the 'L' is still a work in progress.

Show 'n' Tell

We have also been making some badges for the Fair to sell. 

Margaret is showing us the work that has done on her challenge which is from another group she belongs to in Buderim.

Eileen has been busy making a beautiful felted hat and basket.

The book cover belongs to the very creative Mollie.

Our group gets together the 1st and 3rd Monday afternoon. It is always inspiring, we have some very talented ladies who are very willing to share knowledge and experience. 

A great afternoon with friends

We had a great get together yesterday with six ladies coming along, for an afternoon of sewing.
Lorraine is up to the quilting stage of a Dianne Johnstone pattern. I suggested a spiderweb pattern across the background using a white metallic thread. 

 

I can't wait to see it finished.

 Margaret and Lyn are working on a their quilt tops. Margret R came along for a social outing after just spending the morning with her grandkids and Janet is finishing off her star quilt. 

Heather is still making Grandma flower garden flowers, last count she has 75 made. Heather also made a yummy orange poppy seed cake for me for my birthday. Isn't she lovely.

 When we first started meeting many years age we only had a packet of biscuits for our coffee, these days it is a smorgasbord of cakes, chocolates, dips, cheeses and a little wine to finish off the afternoon. A good afternoon had by all.

The Creation of Featherwood Forrest

 Drawing and drafting the pattern.

 The first stitching lines to divide the sections

 The first feather stitched.

This is the design that was drawn on the sheet. The finished feather is not quite the same. I find that being creative freemotion, once the spine has been stitched the feather can take on a whole new style, to my original idea.

My first blog

Where do I start?  Well, I am currently working on a piece  for the Maleny Quota Quilt Show in May. It is called Featherwood Forrest, as the name suggest there are many feathers in this small quilt. The hand-dyed background fabric I purchased from Karyll Butler last year at the same show. It has  beautiful shades of green and I have divided the fabric up into sections and sewed a running stitch around each one to separate them. In the sections I  am quilting a variety of white feathers with different background in green thread. It is starting to take shape,  I will post some pictures soon. I have a class next Saturday, it will be great to catch up with the girls and see what they have been up to.  We have been working on reducing our scrap fabric stash by making a variety of quilt-as-you-go quilts. They are a little addictive, finish one and you want to start another, and it has not reduce my little pile of strips, I keep cutting up fabric that is a little tired looking or over 15years old . I have to get in and finish the baby/toddle quilt I started for B-I-L Kerry and his partner Sunni, they had little Jamie Kim last week. so cute and tiny.  Will post photos when we see them again at Easter.