Cathy at Studio 28

Well I'm stuck in the house all day, the guys from the Termite Doctor are here to do a preventive barrier around the house so that no more termites can invade our house. Even though we have not had any problem before we decided to do the whole outside of the house because we have a timber kitchen and bathroom and then there are also the cupboards in the bedrooms. The rumpus room is the biggest job as there have to drill into the concrete floor between each tile to injects the poison.  So it's very busy and very noisy here today.  On the up side the cupboards under the sink and the kitchen window have been cleaned.  Along with some ornaments that usually just sit there and collect dust, the sink has been scrubbed and I have had a chance to catch up with emails and blogging.

 Friends often ask me what I have been up to......my usual answer is sewing, gardening and sewing.....and a class on Thursdays.  So last weekend our garden project was for Jens to build a small block wall against the old fence at the side of the house.

This area is where I'm going to grow some climbing Jasmine and also hope to plant some native raspberry. So, before I can plant anything we have to fill the area in with cardboard and old newspapers and any other plain paper and then mulch it all.

We bought extra wheelie bins years ago to keep our gardening stuff in

The tree had to be cut back so that I could get the wheel burrow down into the garden easily.   Well that's my job, cutting back the tree branches was the easy task......

how long did this take......this is 4hrs of work and I have run out of papers and only did 7 loads of mulch, with the big wheel burrow.

And yes I was exhausted afterwards, I'm not know for my fitness.....so after a shower and something to eat it was time to head down to the studio. 

I have been working on a project for a friend for a number of years, it is very time consuming and  intense. The pattern is a Maggie Walker design and all the chooks are needle turn appliqued.

 

I have just about finished all the pieces and I think I burnt myself out working on these and have not done any work on them for a long while now. I started doing the center panel and there are over 200 pieces in it.

I started doing the center panel and there are over 200 pieces in it. There is a large rooster to go in the middle of this panel...

 

In the pattern they used a piece of dyed/painted  fabric but I have appliqued the pieces of this part of the background

A bit daunting, but I feel as though I'm ready to tackle it again, it's one of those projects were I get them out, press them, and look at all the work and them fold them back up again and put them back into the cupboard, until later and yesterday I actually took photos of some of the blocks. I hope you like them....

When I started the chooks I gave it a ten year project (plan), we joked about it then but it's over five years since I started them, so I need to a little more work on them soon.

I love doing needle turn applique, so between the intense projects I have a more carefree and brighter project to work on.

On Thursdays I teach a class at Kimz Sewing at Kawana and a couple of the ladies are also working on the same project, although they are a lot further ahead than me.....If you hop on to my other blog http://itchintwostitch.blogspot.com.au/ and have a look at older posts you can see their variations of Kim McLean's quilt. 

A present from my chooky friend....it sit on the kitchen window......with other presents from my friends.......

Friends are the flowers in the garden of life........

Cathy