Monday, 24 November 2008

SSCS Gifts

Pleased to say I posted my SSCS gifts today. Hope they reach ??? safely and that ??? likes them.



These two photos are just to prove that I did actually do some stitching at Ross. They are from the Capricorn Quilts Quilters Blessings BOM. I managed to keep up for the first four months but then fell behind. Have all the blocks traced off ready for stitching in the evenings in front of the telly.
Parts of these were stitched in the car on the way down and back.


Sunday, 23 November 2008

Tassie Quilting Bloggers and Friends Gathering



Yesterday I went to the Tassie Bloggers and Friends Gathering at Ross. Big thanks to Jo and Sarah who did all the organising. It was lovely to meet up with old friends and make some new ones. (Check out the links in my sidebar to Great Tassie Bloggers for posts by the other girls.)
I travelled down with Kathy, Tali and Isabella and despite it being wet and cold we arrived in plenty of time.

This is the gorgeous old building which was ours for the day. It reminded me of some of the barn conversions on the BBC show Grand Designs. (Yes, I'm a lifestyle channel junkie!)

The bare stone walls have been retained under a new ceiling with modern lighting. Love it!


'Our' building was at the rear of the Ross Village Bakery ... it is also a B and B.

When we arrived, each of us received one of these sweet little packages ...
... this is what was in mine. Love the shades of those threads. The lollies didn't last long!



Click on the photo below if you'd like to read our itinerary for the day.

The highlight for me was the Show and Tell session. I just love to see what other people are working on. Rose brought her fantastic Ben 10 quilt and Sarah her gorgeous Journey of a Quilter. It is great when you see them on blogs but even better seeing things 'live'. Meredith (no blog) had some exqusite wool blocks and a lovely quilt in At Water's Edge fabrics. Wish she had a blog because her work is awesome. There were lots of other lovely things shared by the other girls.

Must say thankyou to the Quilted Crow ladies and Helen from Hugs and Kisses who donated the lucky door prizes. Everybody got one. Here's mine.



Here's Tali with her stitchery. She had a great day and was so excited by the Lucky Door Prizes and Fat Quarter Swap. Afraid that at 8 she's already addicted to collecting fabric, threads and especially ric-rac.



An extra surprise was this gift from Isabella.


She had been very busy making these pencil/thread rolls and I was lucky enough to receive one. Thanks Isabella.

Well, that was a mammoth post! (but lots to share.) To the girls who are finding they can only load 5 photos per post ... all I do to add more is re-click the 'add image' button and start again. You can load up to 5 photos each time you do this. Just drag them down to where you want them in the post. Hope this works for you.

Wednesday, 19 November 2008

WOW!

Thanks to everyone who commented on my log cabin post .... I am amazed that so many people were interested. I have tried to reply to everyone ... some of you are still set up as 'no-reply' ... but I did my best to visit your blogs. Haven't had a chance to do any more to the quilt, but I think I'll go with this version ...

The Christmas decorations are gradually coming out so this sampler came down on Saturday. It is from the days when I did lots of cross-stitch and is still one of my favourites.


Of course, as soon as the camera came out, so did Oliver!

This Christmas cross-stitch is going up in the spot where the sampler was. It is a Debbie Mumm design.

They're not very good photos ... I kept getting reflections in the glass ...

these are the best of a bad lot!

On Saturday I am heading down to Ross for the Tassie bloggers Christmas get-together. Looking forward to meeting up with everyone again. I guess one of the advantages of living on a smallish island is we can meet up like this fairly easily.

Sunday, 9 November 2008

Decisions, Decisions!



Back in July, I did a Quilt-as-You-Go Log Cabin class at Picture Patchwork in Latrobe. At the time I think I managed to completed 4 blocks, which then got put aside while I worked on other projects. (I'm sure you can relate to that!)
Well, the last couple of weekends I have been busy trying to complete the rest of the blocks. As I now have 25 done, today I lay them out on the kitchen floor to try and decide what setting I'll use. My original plan was to do a barn-raising setting but as you can see I'll have to make another 11 blocks for it to look any good.

While I had the blocks out I tried a few other options. I quite like this one ....

and this is okay too.


Then again, what about this ...
or this. Do you have a preference? (or another option to confuse me even more!)



This is what Oliver was doing when all this experimenting was happening. What a life!



I know I'm biased, but he is rather cute.


Sunday, 2 November 2008

Yummy Fabrics

Today I've got a little fabric yumminess to share. I picked up the fabrics below at Cranberry Crafts in Ulverstone on Friday. They were having a Birthday Sale so it was a good time to splurge.

From the top, we have 2 fat quarters of 3 Sisters Faded Memories ... these were $2.00 each. Next is 1/2 metre of Sweet Romance by Blackbird Designs .... this is earmarked for Anni Downs' Christmas Story Quilt and was 40% off. At the bottom are 2 metres of Cinnamon Stars by Figtree Quilts ... at 60% off I just had to have this!


This is an At Water's Edge by Blackbird Designs jellyroll I found very cheap on the internet before the Australian dollar plummeted. At least the dismal dollar has curbed my overseas fabric purchases for a while. There is already enough in my stash to keep me busy for a very, very long time!




Don't you love the swirly pattern the strips make?

Block 5 of Truly Scrumptious is finished, with block 6 about 1/2 completed.

Couldn't resist a close-up of this pretty lady.



A few people have queried why it is a long weekend in Tasmania. Well, it's actually only the north of the state that have the long weekend as the south have a holiday in February for the Hobart Regatta. Tomorrow's holiday is just to even things up. I am busy sewing log cabins blocks today. Will take some pictures tomorrow if the weather is better .. very grey today.