What happened to November

Where has the time gone, November has just about finished, I'm still trying to catch up with projects from September well... maybe October..... Well I'm a bit late in posting this......It is now the 1 December and we had great rain yesterday...........

I finally have the nine blocks of the Sampler quilt together. I have machined appliqued one of the corners of  border. It is coming together nicely.... even if I say so myself. I will post a photo of the completed quilt top after it has been on display for the Xmas party at Kimz Sewing Center next week. 

I had a get together with the girls the other weekend and forgot to take photo's.... I got caught up with teaching and didn't think of it. This year we are having lunch out for our Xmas breakup. We opted to have lunch at one of the Cafe's in Maleny....can't complain about that....and after lunch we decided that we should visit Ann at Quiltopia and Bev at Maleny Magic....looking forward to that.

This is Patsy's quilt from my class at Kimz. Check out my other blog form the shop.. http://itchintwostitch.blogspot.com.... It's such a stunning quilt.....I just had to show you

Jens and I went to Brisbane for a Xmas party and we decided to stay for the night. We meet up with some friends old and new, who were from out of town also, at the Bavarian Bar to catch up before getting ready to go out. It was so nice sitting a the bar looking out over the river and catching up with everyone. As we walked back to our Motel we saw marking along the buildings that showed the levels of the floods in January. Oh boy it would have been really scarey to be there then. It's incredible how quickly they cleaned up and reopened. One restaurant the Jellyfish has a story on their glass door about the flood. It said that the waters reached the ceiling. The restaurant looks great now and well supported by locals....

 

View from our balcony at the Median

Sunday morning we decided to check out the new markets at the old Boggo Rd jail. The jail was closed many years ago. They had a Guide talking about the history of the jail but it was not easy to hear everything he was saying so.....

The art work on the wall was unreal

I don't know what has been happening there since.... but the markets weren't bad... it was extremely hot and there was not a lot of shade...I think we will go back there in winter time...bought some delicious sour dough bread there..... and garlic Turkish bread...yummy!!!

On our way home we decided we would have a look at Pinkinbah and Donnybrook. They are two places that you see all the time and never have time to visit.. Well, Pinkinbah is well, what can I say, not a lot going on there on a Sunday and Donnybrook, a very, very sleepy fishing village. When we got home at lunch time and I picked some cucumber, tomatoes to have with the sour dough bread and mango smoothies whilst relaxing and watching old cowboy movies on telly...my kind of afternoon....Jens had a snooze in his recliner chair...

I have not been doing too much in the garden lately. I did mulch with hay a couple of weeks ago, and I think that is keeping the plants going at the moment.  It has warmed up lately and had no good rain for weeks so everything is struggling...

I don't know how these capsicum are surviving there is hardly any decent foliage but the fruit looks great and is nice and tasty.

The chives and tomatoes growing between the butterfly flowers and they are doing very well.

This area is starting to look really good now... the turf that I laid has taken off... nice and always green, loves that sun and shade.

 

I have some Rosella's and lettuce growing here... so far they are doing really well.....  lots of flowers an the Rosella. I will try drying them for Rosella tea.. and maybe some jam......

Hey..... we actually have apples on our tree this year, they look great.... but unfortunately the fruit fly will have attacked then...... so they chooks will enjoy them....

I'm off to the shop today, I have a class and then a visit to the dentist.........I had a filling fall out on the weekend......lucky it is not hurting..

I hope everyone has a great weekend, I will be........I will post photos next week..

Happy stitching

Cathy

3-6-9

I have been asked by a couple of ladies to explain the 3-6-9 block/quilt again. These number add up to 15 in some way, 9 + 6 =15, 5 x 3 = 15, 3 x 3 + 6 = 15.

I suggest that you have a large variety of fabrics I use about 10 - 15. This should be enough  make a quilt about 60'sq then  all you need to do is add a border if you wish. I cut up a fat 1/4 into 1 x 91/2' sq, 2 x 61/2'sq and the remaining into 31/2'sq's. I have found that sometimes one fabric will look fantastic in the stash but when you use it in the quilt it may overtake all your other fabrics. If you have a look at Slendour I have used a blue with white spot. I only used the 3" and 6" blocks because the 9" block was way to strong.

Select a combination of fabrics for your blocks and place onto the table or design wall to make up 15" blocks. Spread your fabric so that the same fabric don't get sewn together.  Make up 16 blocks and join. I have made a quilt from my scrap basket and it look good, but the quilt above looks scrappy but, these fabric were critiqued throughout the whole process. I hope this helps. Send me some photos when you make your quilt and I will put them on my blog.

Happy Stitching - - - - - Cathy

What a weekend

Well it all started on Friday morning, I decided to wash Koda so that I could give her a clip in the afternoon as it is really starting to warm up and has been very humid lately

hates having a bath

After that I got stuck into the kitchen and got some food cooked for the weekend and then, we mowed the lawn.

looks a bit too healthy

straight out of the oven,  yummmm!!!

What's next, can you guess

Our favourites Anzacs

Plenty of food for snacking while working in the yard.

here I am TA for the day

 A while ago I decided that we should cover part of the fence between our neighbors and us. There use to be a beautiful  yellow Alamanda covering the whole fence. When the neighbors did the extension on their house and  driveway everything need to be taken down. This was a couple of years ago. So I thought it was time to do something about covering it up again. We do get on well with our neighbors, it just the bare fence that I don't like. So with a little help from my Dad aka Curly we bought about 100 sheets of old roofing iron, from the Refuse Reuse at Hervey Bay. The price was cheaper to buy it in bulk and last weekend we borrowed the trailer from the neighbors so that we could bring the roofing iron back home.

all done .... looks good...yeah in about 3/6 months

I plan to full this area with some good mulch let it sit for a while then plant out yellow raspberries again and blueberries for next year. We have had great success with the raspberries before. I will also be planting white flowering vines along the fence, so in time it should look great.....

Jens and I were invited to Hanno and Rhonda's for morning tea on Sunday.... hot scones with homemade strawberry jam and coffee......

I got to see Rhonda's new book that is to be released in March 2012 ...... very nice book

congratulations Rhonda.

http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/

My dad Curly arrived on the train on Sunday to stay with us for a couple of days. When we were at Hervey Bay I was talking about a project for the backyard, because we have so much roofing iron. I had designed said project and Jens was going to make it for me, but was very unsure how it was going to go together. It has been challenging to built new gardens and has taken a couple of years to collect things like retaining wall blocks, cappers, garden beds. Jens is over it at times, but things are starting to take shape and Jens is getting use to the my arty farty ideas.

I think the redback will look good with a wire cobweb

Anyway, I was telling Curly about it, and low and behold he has had it all cut out and ready to go and Jens was grateful about this. So can you tell what it is that Curly and Jens are making..........here are a couple of clues

 How would you be, not too many backyards have an eight sided garden bed.....Lucky me....

Great job fellas....

Cheers....

The photographer of the day Sandra went next door onto their veranda to take some photos of the yard....

http://calametyscapers.blogspot.com/

This is my Studio in the background that Curly and Jens built for me a few yeas ago

Look at the grape vine now, looks different from above

 

Happy times at the end of the day....... Enjoy all your special times together.....

Cathy

Another busy week

Thank you to all that have taken the time to look at my blog and then sent me comments. It is so nice to hear what you think of my ramblings of our life, the garden and quilts. My friends all love my quilts, and tell me that they are great... but to hear it from strangers, from across the seas and around Australia is very encouraging. So thank you again.

Last timed I posted I was telling you that my friends Margret, Jenny, and Jane were coming over for a night of sewing. As we all have busy lives and work, so it gives us a chance to catch up, and we did solve a few problems in the world, and Margret needs more brights in  her African paper piecing project, and where Jenny could buy a nice bright backing fabric.

Jane listening intently

Margret waiting to see what Jenny is going to do

Jenny ready to attack the chocolate cake

 A good night had by all....

On Sunday morning I went to Cotton Tree Beach Park to walk with the JDRF.

This walk was a fundraising event to raise awareness and money to find a cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

 

Cotton Tree is such a beautiful place...

Not sure how the fishing was

The TAFA Textile and Fiber Arts group is having a little challenge, Margie W and Joan decided tocut up 2 different copies of Hassanwasser's prints,( http://www.leninimports.com/hundertwasser_bio.html#topop) for 2 groups. We could recreate our part of the image in our favourite medium.  A you can see they are all very different, one is felted, one is painted, one is appliqued and stitched and one is corded and stitched. Don't they look great. Oh and one is missing, Molly is unable to do hers, so I am now doing it for her, and I'm putting them together. I will post photos when complete....

I have my Court house steps quilt hanging in the Kim's shop now, it has caught the attention of a few ladies. 

I have another photo of a different quilt with the same pattern as Splendour. This is Coleus Garden in Jane Sassaman fabrics with some purple Krystal fabric. I made this quilt a while ago for class at the shop. It has been very popular, because it is so easy to make.

Our upcoming weekend will be busy for us trying to catch up with jobs in the yard. I am hoping to do some work done on  the fence panels on one side of our yard, order some mulch, weed the gardens and mow.  Jens and I will both get stuck into all these jobs, although one of us does not like weeding. So that will be my job, and we share the mowing I do all the flat areas and Jens get to do the dusty hilly back section. We have to dip and worm the chooks. I need to clean out their coop again, it is job that I do regularly, and as it has not rained for a couple of weeks it will be a very dusty dirty job. My chooks... my job.  Today I need to bake so that it is easy to grab some food when we are working outside. I think a zucchini slice, vege soup and a date and lemon slice and maybe some Anzac biscuits. That should try us over for lunches, and smoko.

My Dad gave me some Dehlia bulbs many years ago and they come up every year, with very little attention

I hope everyone has a great weekend.......

Cathy