First Haircut

Miss Matilda had her first hair cut the other day..........a lady called Robbie comes to our place to clip the dogs for us......

here we go......

the mohawk is gone

how cute is she.....

I clipped Koda for her last cut, my talents at dog clipping are not the best, but she was nice and cool for summer

Country Rose table runner

I finally finished the hexagon table runner, it sat in the UFO corner for so long and in the end it only took a few hrs to finish.....

it looks great on the dining room table.....

I not sure about the quilted feathers at each end........I stitched them in black maybe I should have use the same as the background......it's all trial and error...........what do you think.....

Cathy

Our not so little visitor

We had a a not so little visitor last night. Koda was barking and I thought it was because of the neighbors.....but then the bark changed and we knew it was something we should check out.....so on inspection of the backyard we saw this little beauty........heading to the pumpkin patch and on to the ginger patch towards the studio........it has been a while since I have seen a carpet snake in the backyard.........this one was between 2.5m to 3m (7 - 9ft ?) . He certainly did not mind getting his photo taken....

 

A new bag

This is a present that was made for me, it was made by the wife of a fellow worker of my husbands.......

This is a Bilum bag

It comes from Papua New Guinea, it is a woven string bag and the lady dyed the string herself from natural dyes from the forests........traditionally the ladies would use the fibers from plants to weave the bags but now they prefer sting or wool.......the idea is to carry the bag with the handle across your forehead and the colours are not colour fast. I was told not to get it wet so no shopping on rainy days........love the intensity of the pink and purple.....

I like to buy a bag from different countries I go to especially if they are hand made.....so this will make a nice addition to my collection.....

 
Cathy

Free motion quilting

I see a lot of bloggers are doing the FMQ Challenge and following Leah Day..........I think all the post are great. Love to be able  see to what other people are doing. I have been FM Quilting for a couple of years now, and instead of practicing new designs on sandwich scraps I have started to make pot holder and place mats with quilt sandwiches. It is not such a waste of product and you can try out different threads as well........ I have also made a shaggy quilt with quilting design in the center instead of just doing a X through the middle. It turned out pretty good.

the green and brown one has a printed fabric on the back and I just followed that pattern 

my favourite

interesting

The pot holders as so easy to make I just cut out two pieces of fabric and one of batting at 61/2" sq and used the bottom of a cup to curve the corners. After the quilting they are bound with normal binding......

Happy quilting

Cathy

Sandra from http://calametyscapers.blogspot.com.au/ and I had a sewing afternoon last Friday......both of us are trying to finish a couple of UFO's.......I have working on a project with hexagons that I started ages ago, and I have been doing a little quilting on this table runner.......

I also have been keeping up with the blocks for the bloggers block of the month challenge (see side bar)......

They are not in order for each month....but you get the idea.

Spent time in the front yard on Sunday tidying up under a couple of trees. As we had Hanno's trailer for the weekend, we also cut down an old wattle tree, and trimmed some shrubs. I am hoping to plants some more seedling soon so have been digging around in the garden getting the beds ready.....

Koda is starting to play with Tilly a little....well she is putting up with her......

 I am sure she has nearly doubled in size in just 10 days... she seems so much bigger

Until next time ........... "remember when life hands you scraps, make quilts"

Cathy

We had a almighty thunder storm hit this afternoon, I don't know about anyone else around here but we also had two lots of hail. I measured about 75mls in the rain gauge, not bad for and hour and a half.  No damage at our place.

The creek at the back of our property was dry the other day, you can see from the photos how far it has risen in such a short time, it will subside just as quickly too.  Lucky

Well, we have had such a busy time the last week, with the Termite Dr and his crew here last Wednesday. Our next visit from them will be in one month, just to check on things. Bit of luck we will get the all clear. 

In the last two and a half months our family has grown. My sister Christine....who passed away last April...(from complications from Type 1 diabetes )......her son and his wife had a baby girl. Isabelle E Louise.....still waiting for photos. Isabelle is a beautiful girl, nearly 10lb and doing very well. My other sister who lives closer than Jens and I have just visited for the weekend, and said that you can spend hours just watching her.  Another sister and her partner have also become grannies, young Bradley ( no photos either) was born on Sunday and was 9lb14oz. There must have been something in the water way back in April/May last year, for such big babies.

So as for Jens and I we also have a little one in our family, her name is Matilda....but we call her Tilly.

This is Koda's niece........she arrived on Friday and oh boy do we have our hands full. It has been over ten years since we have had a puppy in the house hold...and is she ruling ours.......

Tilly has her own quilts

Isn't she cute........Koda does not think so, although they did play together yesterday

amazing that a puppy is gnawing on this chicken carcass and then buried it for later

The third  Saturday of the month is our get together in the Studio....a small group this time ....but very  productive...

Karen is working on a UFO from 1999/2000

Kaylene is working on a  New York Beauty quilt from  Karen Stone's book

This is Kaylene's quilt, Kaylene is from Behind the Seams quilting 

At the Christmas party 2010 we had a challenge game, it was called rip those ugly's up. Everyone was to bring 1m of their ugliest fabric and it sort of goes like musical chairs. Firstly you pass your fabric to the person next to you, and then when the music stops you rip your fabric in half. and then continue. This way you end up with lots of different fabric at different sizes, and the challenge is to make something from them.

such beautiful work from Heather with her challenge

So.... I have been thinking of painting the Studio.........

When we built the studio these colours were fashionable but they are a bit dated now.

I'm thinking the new colour scheme will be white with black trim. Jens has three old doubled ended hand cross cut saws that have been painted black that will go along the front of the studio and also thinking of putting a red barn star above them. Anyone have any ideas where I can buy a red barn star in SEQ. The reason behind the red barn star is when we were in the Amish town of Bird in Hand, across from where we were staying the barns had stars on them.

As there is always plenty of colour around the yard and near the studio. At the moment the ornament ginger has a beautiful orange flower that is popping up and the yellow flowers from the watermelon is giving the garden a happy and relaxed feeling....... what do you think......let me know it is always nice to hear you thoughts......

Cheers.............Cathy

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