Merry Christmas ................

from........

Koda and Matilda

Xmas break

I hope everyone has a Happy Christmas with your family and friends... ...all the best for a creative and prosperous 2014........Thank you to all who follow my blog..... happy holidays to all......Cathy

Last night was our last get together with Margret, Jenny and Jane for 2013......We have been very slack this past year having only met up three times......

Margret has been studying, working and has now graduated with a Diploma in Early Childhood Education.....

Congratulations Margret.....

Jane with a new business venture....

Jenny teaching her fabulous style of crazy patch......

Talking about Jenny's crazy patch......look what she gave us all for a Xmas present........a copy of her new book......

 
Congratulation Jenny....we are all so excited for you.........

have a look at....http://sewsocrazy.blogspot.com.au/ .....  http://jenniferclouston.com/.......to see Jenny and her students beautiful work.......

so we celebrated with some bubbly and delicious food

this was delicious no idea what it was called.....but it is made with creme fresh, cream and white chocolate with the fruit on top.......yum......

Thank you ladies for a great night.....

Cathy......

Lunch again

Well.....we have done it again....lunch with the Thursday ladies....this time they came to my place....

Everyone bought some hand sewing along and a plate to share........there was so much delicious food.....unfortunately I didn't get a photo of all the food laid out....but I got a photo of my plate of food......

I also set the longarm up for the ladies to have a play on...... 

and Patsy whom we have not seen much this year bought along a quilt to show us......

A great day had by all......

when the ladies left I finished sewing the last of the half compasses.......I got it is all stitched together over the weekend.....yesterday I started making the sections for the outer border......by the end of the day I had sewn three different designs and none of them are working.....

a bit of a wasted day really....nothing added to the top.....I'm running out of fabric and I can't get any more of the brown fabric.....Aaaarrrgh

so........I closed the studio leaving things a they are....

 and went and played in the yard instead.......

I hope you all had a great day......Cathy

Over the last month....

I was on the phone chatting to a friend the other day and she asked me what have I been up to.....and I said the usual....gardening....sewing....quilting....gardening....sewing ....quilting...and working......and my friend said you should post that on your blog so we can see what you have been doing.......so here goes......

On the gardening side we had about 100sq metres of turf laid.....it has been a work in progress over the last 18 months.......before laying the turf we had to sort the drainage and build up the area with soil.....let it sit and compact and finally lay the turf.......

so here is the before....

and now....

the other area that was turfed is twice as big as this.......all the turf has taken well with lots of watering and we were lucky enough to have a few rain showers as well......

We have also installed another 5000lt water tank at the back of the Studio..... 

On the sewing side I have been working on the compass quilt from the Chris Jurd workshop...it has grown a bit

It is suppose to be finished by Wednesday week.....feeling the pressure.....

On the social side I went out to lunch the other with the ladies from the Thursday class....we went to Pomodoras at Maleny....

and then visited Colin James to have an ice cream for dessert......

we also visited Ann at Quiltopia and the Bev at Maleny Magic.....sorry no photos from the quilt shops.....

I made this pincushion for our Christmas swap........

I made a book....well I tried to make a book....my binding is not the best...needs more work....

and I baked a cheesecake....and it was as good as it looks.......

So that's what I have been up to in the last week or two......

Thanks for stopping by....until next time.......

Cathy

I went to the workshop with Judy Coats Perez.......what a lovely day...it was one of the most relaxing class I have done.........My friend Angela did the workshop as well and another friend Michelle was there too.....although I'm not a member of the Peachester Quilters I do know a lot of the members....so it was good to catch up with some of them....... I am not a painter or very good at drawing but I always like to step out of my comfort zone.....and give it a go.....we started the workshop playing with the inks and and practiced drawing leaves, orange circles and flowers and then we could select a smaller project to paint and also choose an animal to paint using a different technique with the inks......so I picked something simple...not.....

A  rooster...what was I thinking....... 

but I love his stance..... 

Angela working on her piece

Here is Michelle.....

and here is Judy talking to Martin

and here is my flower and rooster........I hope to finish it over the Xmas break.......

It was funny when anyone would walk around to see what the others were doing and I could hear "Oh wow that's lovely"......or "Oh that's so pretty"....and then they would come to mine and say......Mmmm.... a blue and purple rooster..... Oh that's interesting......I just smiled and say thanks........you know what .......I love it and that's all that matters......

Hope everyone enjoys their day...........Cathy

Well the Xmas party's have started........last Monday the Textile Group from Caloundra met at Moffit Beach for a BYO lunch.....2 members of the group live part time OS and they were due to leave within a couple of days, so the group decided to celebrate early.....

It was blowing a gale and the bunting that Debbie made was flapping all over the place....

A great day was had by all...

I really enjoy the company of these ladies.....and it was great to see to the ladies after such a long break from the group.......I had been helping a lady (who I worked for 7 yrs ago) in her shop and had worked Mondays but that has all finished now and I'm looking forward to getting back into being part of the group in 2014......

Hope you all have a great day......Cathy

Worm farm construction......

I'm having another go at building a worm farm........I had a large worm farm in an old double concrete laundry tubs.....it worked well for a couple of years....but it was very hard to collect the liquid......over time the weight of the tubs dropped a bit and it was hard to get any container under the outlet and all the liquid just dribbled out and was wasted.........so after a visit to Bob Lewis at Landsborough Worms  I decided to buy a worm tower and set up a new farm.........so I collected my 2000 worms on Friday after work and Matilda and I set it up on the weekend......

So we have unpacked the containers......

Reading the instructions on setting everything up......

Putting the bedding in bottom tray......

Uncovering the worms to transfer to their new home

Checking that the worms......

A healthy snack for the worm to help them settle in........

All watered and cool in a shady spot under the grape vine........

Hope everyone has a happy day........I going to Peachester to do a workshop with Judith Coates Perez.......so looking forward to it.......and maybe tomorrow I will actually post something about quilting/patchwork and not about the garden........so until then.......

Cathy

A weekend away......

On Friday afternoon when I finished work I drove up north to see my Mum as it was her birthday....we celebrated with takeaway Beef and black beans with noodles and a glass of wine.......the next morning we went into Hervey Bay and meet up with my sister Pam and her partner for morning tea at a book shop.......we had a lovely morning.....I had the most delicious Orange and Almond cake....yum...

After morning tea Mum and I went for a drive to Point Vernon and drove back along the Esplanade to check out the view and we came across the Osprey nest....

 I only have a little point and shoot camera......but I think this is a pretty good photo of the Osprey and her babies.........

After spending the morning with Mum we went drove back to her place and had a late lunch while we waited to hear from hubby.....Jens and friends were driving up to meet us and drive back to Hervey Bay as we had planned a weekend away to go whale watching........

We stayed at the Mantra which is at the Marina......

This is the view of the sunrise from our room.......

Having morning tea at one of the cafes.........we had dinner at this cafe the night before.....of course we all had a seafood.... I had the Hervey Bay whiting....

These are the working boats in the marina......they would have  caught some of the seafood that we had for dinner the night before........Hervey Bay is known as having the best scallops in Australia....

We were on the Whalesong boat with about 50 people....they served a delicious cold meat and salad for lunch as we cruised out into the bay off Fraser Island.......it was such a beautiful day.....

We saw quite a few whales......most were mother and calf with and escort of one or two male whales......
as the afternoon worn on we ended up getting closer to the whales so much so that we could hear them blowing out air as they came out of the water......I had my camera at the ready all the time but missed most of the action......or the whales were too far away to get good photos.......so I decided to just enjoy watching the whales......on the way back to the marina we came across a mother teaching her calf how to tail slap.....and it was spectacular.......sorry no photos......I decided to just enjoy watching them......

As we got closer to the marina a storm was brewing with lots of thunder and lightning

but unfortunately no rain.....to ease the drought and threat of bushfires here and around Queensland.......

We all had a lovely weekend..........

until next time........

Cathy