Well....What a weekend

...I think it will take me all week to recover...

Sandra and I flew down to the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne on Thursday...
After checking in at the Hotel we meet up with Angela and headed straight over to Amitie Textiles.....
the wonderful Angela had everything organized for us so that we just had to catch a train there and back.....otherwise we may never have found our way back...it was so exciting.....

This is the Circle Game quilt that I am working on at the moment.....nice to see the original...

We ooooed and arrrrd over the beautiful fabrics and made a dent in the weekend budget.....On our way back to the station we browsed in a couple of the small shops in that area.....and then we had  to get back to the hotel to get ready to go to the first lecture of the weekend.......tonight David Taylor was speaking.....

OM Gosh....this guy is so funny...I have not laughed so much for so long.....he is amazing and his work...it is just amazing.....  

Just love both of these quilts

Sandra and I spent 2 days walking around looking at all the beautiful quilt and at the stalls.....following are some photos of my favourite quilts in no particular order......

here I am standing next to Bernardine Hine's beautiful quilt

On the second night Judy Coats Perez gave a great talk about finding inspiration....

Judy's quilts are so different and beautiful.....we got a chance to meet and talk to her the next day....what a lovely lady......so we had to get our photo taken with her.......

I spied Rachelle Denneny walking around looking at the display and went over and spoke to her about her beautiful quilt.....of course no photo....anyway.....

Congratulations to Rachelle for winning the Australian National Quilt Award with Golden Ivory.....

this is only a little snip-it of her beautiful quilt.......but you can see all the awesome quilting....

Well I feel in awe and inspired by all of the talent that I saw on the weekend......we have so many amazing quilters in Australia......and it was great to see there work.

I took over 300 photos so there will be more to show you over the next couple of days......until then

Happy Stitching - - - - -

Cathy

Decision made....were booked....

My husband text me the other week and it said....Ok were booked..were going to New Zealand for 2 weeks and leaving on Easter Sunday.....we had spoke about going on a holiday to celebrate hubby's 50th birthday and to celebrate our 25 wedding anniversary but not settled on where or when......Hubby had booked a car and 5 nights in Queenstown.....the rest of the time we will take it as is comes........

We had an amazing time.....I have no photos yet as they have been downloaded onto my hubby's external hard drive.....and since we have returned everything is just hectic.....will upload some photos next week.....at the moment I have unpacked wash and repacked as I am heading to Melbourne tomorrow for the Australasian Quilter Convention and my friends Sandra and Angela are going as well.....I have got tickets for the lectures with David Taylor and Judy Coats Perez.....looking forward to seeing all the beautiful quilts on display, seeing all the new products available and new fabrics.......going to Amitie Textiles tomorrow afternoon....can't wait.....until next week....hope everyone has a great weekend......

Happy Stitching  - - - -

Cathy

Birthday, garden and patchwork......

Some weeks I need to clone myself........time just seems to get away from me.....its been two weeks since I last posted anything.......during that time we have been out for dinner three time to celebrate Jens 50th birthday......we went to the local Pub to celebrate with friends.......we went to Daisy's with Rhonda and Hanno......and my sister Caroline drove down from Mackay to Mums place ....Jens and I drove up......it was good to see everyone and catch up ......we all wanted to be with Mum also as it would have been Dad's birthday that weekend as well........

This little beauty is under the grape vine

The Eudlo Permaculture group came to our garden for a garden visit last Sunday......I was a little nervous as we hardly have anything in the garden.....3 watermelon and a half a dozen pumpkin is no great show piece.....so I raced out and got some lettuce seedlings......yeah that made all the difference.......so on the day there were 10 members from the group that turned up.....that put a smile on my face.....so nice that they wanted to visit our garden.......even though we didn't have a lot planted, there was a lot to talk about.....the worm farm, all the chooks, the lay out of the vegetable garden, and of course the massive grape vine..... I was too busy talking and forgot to take any photos......Jens was busy socializing with the non gardening husbands......and my friend Sandra was a great help keeping Matilda and Koda under control and telling the group all that we have done so far in our backyard.......still no photos though........so I have added some from last year

Here is Koda getting away from me and the camera....

photo from last year before the fence was put in.....

I have been in contact with Jen Kingwell from http://amitietextiles.blogspot.com.au/ about teaching the quilt from her book The Circle Game....and have written permission to do so......I will be teaching it a Kimz Sewing Center starting in June....I am constructing the blocks a little different to the original...instead of hand piecing as Jen has done...I am using foundation piecing, english paper piecing, hand applique, machine piecing, curved piecing, machine applique.......I am really enjoying making this quilt I am using the fabric from the Fabric Stash from Amitie and my scrap bag....bags.... I did have to purchased the black and white spot........

4 blocks completed 12 to go

Happy stitching  - - - - - Cathy

I really enjoyed going to the Gallery on Friday as a volunteer demonstrating the beading on my table runner and the felting that Liz was working on.....although it was very quite we sold some raffle tickets and had a look at all the beautiful work of the members of the CACA.......

On Saturday Sandra and I went to the official opening of the Gallery..... unfortunately we were  not allowed to take any photos.....but I did manage to get a quick snap of the felted scarf before I knew about not taking any photos.......

Mine is the pink and orange one......Barb's is the white one, it's so soft and delicate....Fay's is the blue one and Jo's is the dark one on the other end....

     
Though out the Gallery were booklets of the CACA and Artist statements.....so I had a little look and low and behold there was a photo of one of my pieces that I made a few months ago.....I didn't even know that Eileen had taken a photo of my work.......Eileen was the coordinator for the CACA with the Gallery and put the booklets together.......

Well we had a great afternoon playing ladies...there was finger food....wine and music.....
and a chance to catch up with friends and socialize...... 

The rest of the weekend was spent in the yard.....pulling out weeds and building up gardens......the front garden is looking good now....although I lost a few plant after soooo much rain......it has been nice to have a few sunny afternoons.....

....and after slogging it out in the yard I have been sewing a few blocks from the Circle Game by Jen Kingwell....

This is the center of the 4th block.....will post photos of other blocks later......have been cheating a bit with this block by doing a background piece instead of separate pieces....I'm really enjoying these blocks......yeah I know another project on the go.......

Hope everyone has a great week......

Happy Stitching -------Cathy

Unite.....Inspire .....Create.....

This week at the Caloundra Regional Gallery is a exhibition of works from the Caloundra Arts Centre Association.........it starts today until the 14 March.......there will also Artist demonstrations throughout the week....I'm going to be there tomorrow with Liz from the Textile group.....Liz will be showing her felted flowers that we made on Monday at our get together........following are photos of the process.....

First time I have used butter muslin for the base

Covered with some wool

This is Margaret's nice soft colours

This is Junee's strong and vibarent

This is Liz's bright base with soft coloured wool on top

At the top is Barb's and Molly's in front

I added some white silk to mine and this is when it had
been felted but still wet

Here is my flower and I'm going to make a note book
cover with the remaining felt......

The group got together on Sunday to make a scarf as a prize for the raffle at the gallery

The scarf is made from white wool...blue silk and silver thread.....

We were all so pleased how well it looked after it had dried.....


I have not done a lot of felting...making the flowers with Liz was the forth time I have felted anything.......last year I made a scarf and it was selected for the Unite, Inspire and Create display at the Gallery......

who would have thought......I'm happy....I will be at the Gallery from 10am - 1pm .....come in a say hello and have a look...there are about 100 pieces on display......

Cathy 

Some garden goings on

It has been raining for about 3 days now I have no idea how much rain we have had this time, but on Monday they said on the radio that we had 3" or 75ml......so the rain water tanks are over flowing again.......I have been trying to get the garden beds ready for planting, after being a bit of a drought the soil in these beds are poor......so I have been adding a lot of cow, sheep manure and compost.......to get them ready to plant out some vegetable seedlings ........and of course some flower seedlings.......this was written on Wednesday.....we have had a little more rain since then...maybe 150ml or 6"  

I have a struggling watermelon plant that we have had 2 huge delicious watermelon from.....the first melon I picked I struggled lifting it......and the second melon weight 14kg and had no trouble lifting that one ...I should have weighted the first melon......the melons were cut up and shared so that they would not get wasted.....I have a heap of tiny melons growing now

I have been going along to the Eudlo Permaculture Group for about 18 months now....I found it a bit of a struggle as our garden is neither established or Organic......but we are taking little steps to build a productive garden that produces ongoing crops.........I found  that our plants only have one crop and then that's it......there is something that I'm not doing right......so this year we are rebuilding the beds.....using the layering style again with a better water system...I found that under neath the mulch the soil was dry, so we need to fix that ......

Anyway....the other weekend some the members of the  Permaculture group visited a members garden........when I arrived there is this huge driveway to walk up, up and up......one heck of a way to get the heart going......had to sit down and have a cuppa and enjoy some delicious pumpkin scones before we had a look at the garden....they were the best scones that I have had for many years......

enjoying a cuppa on Jane's veranda

I hope you enjoy the following photos from Jane's very productive garden.....

Jane's worm farms

beautiful bush land beside their property

this is a small fig tree

I was loved the stamping oo the concrete

Hope you enjoyed our visit to Jane's garden.......

Happy gardening ....Cathy