Mudgee Sewing Weekend

Well I had a great time at Mudgee with the Coolah Cottage Patchwork girls. The weekend started early Friday, I drove to Coolah and went to the Lovely Kate's house and parked my car, loaded hers and off we went. We stopped at Gulgong for lunch and a wander around a few shops. I didn't take any photos we were chatting too much. We went to the Gallery which is a craft co-op and then Stacks which I am sure is a neverending row upon row of aisles and the most amazing selection of stuff! I think we lost and hour and a half there, there were phone calls to see where we were. Then on the way back to the car we stopped in a little antique shop, another hour gone. So we got out of shopping mode and got into the car and off we went. In mudgee we had to go find a Sussan shop, it's not there anymore, Kate had forgot to pack her pyjamas, so Big W it was. Then we went to the River Cottages B and B I think thats their name, and unpacked the car with the help of two teenagers, they didn't come with the B and B they were waiting for their dad. The rooms were ready, the machines set up and I was sewing.

By Friday night I had finished the first quilt top, I stayed up till 11 pm way passed my bedtime. 

This is a raffle quilt for a local lady who has a yearly raffle for Beyond Blue.

Saturday arrived and back to the machine, I started on my solids quilt, a scrappy Irish chain. I have a lot of solids and I don't use them often.

Unfortunately I didn't take enough of the white to keep going I only got 4 rows sewn. After morning tea I showed some of the ladies how to make a Sew Together Bag by Sew Demented. It pushed a few out of the comfort zone, I made 2 of these bags I think about 8 years ago so I had to refresh the brain. In the end they were all happy with their bags.

Saturday evening Catherine showed us how to make these cute folded stars, mine turned out quite fat but I will make some more.Sunday Kate showed us this cute YoYo decoration, I think it would be better with a thicker thread but Kate had been given a box of Perle 20 so thats what we used for the example.

        

       

                               

The grounds were beautiful they have a selection of farm birds, turkeys, chickens and geese. A camel and an ostrich (it looks like an emu to me) and a donkey. The river was all over the animal enclosure last week so we didn't go down on the grass to keep it nice. Kate and I stopped at the cheese shop on the way home and got some beautiful cheeses. A great weekend.

 

Another Flood!!!

 I think this is the 5th time the Namoi River has broken it's banks since we moved here 17 months ago. There is so much water around, we have had over 80mms of rain since Friday the poor people down the end of our street and out beyond must be tired of the water. I heard one family have tresltles in the house to put the furniture onto.

We went up to the lookout yesterday to have a look, the last picture shows our house by the purple arrowso the flooding river is 2 blocks behind us.

I have finished my Churn Dash Quilt top, I'm very happy with it I used all Riley Blake fabrics and they are lovely to sew. Sewing the top up on point did my head in a bit but it's done. I thought I was alomost finished my Bronte's Star blocks until I looked at the original design (I lost my copy of the pattern when my computer died) and I saw that I had put the corner squares in the wrong plae. I was matching them with their star colour I could have left them but I would know it's wrong so I am unsewing them and fixing them up.

I joined Chooky Blue for a zoom on Saturday afternoon and continued my Smitten blocks and made the decision to go to Scrub Stitchin' next April. Yay now I just have to find a project or two, as I said to Chooky and we laughed and laughed, more like narrow it down to a project or two.

This pretty little Rose is going strong, the whole garden is thriving with the rain and then sun and then rain.

I'm hopefully off to Mudgee with Coolah Country Cottage for a sewing weekend so no more rain please. Have a wonderful week and stay safe

I Love My job!!!!!!

 Ok so over the last few months I have been doing Community Care work , the only clients I have want domestic help , so basically I'm a cleaner but the last two weeks and almost every Wednesday I'm assisting with a Men's group in Tamworth as a Diversional Therapist, this is what I was doing before we moved here and I love it. So far it's only a small group of gents that we pick up and take out for a few hours. Last week we went to a fire engine museum and yesterday it was a motorbike museum.

I took more photos than this but the men are in them so I can't publish them. The last bike is an old Harley Davidson postie bike the red box is the sidecar section where the postie kept the mail it was last in use in Walcha.

With all the rain and then sunshine the flowers have gone nuts the Irises are over 4 ft tall. The last pictures are of my new cutting table, I have a new sewing room the spare bedroom was a bit small so I have moved, I bought 2 pantry cupboards for my fabric and stuff and a bookcase for my books and stuff and this wonderful cutting table has my rulers and scraps at the moment but this could change.

Queen of Gadgets Blog Hop

 Carol of Just Let Me Quilt is hosting this hop, the challenge was to use your favourite sewing tool to create a project.

I love a good gadget but which is my favourite? this month the favourites would be my Stripology ruler, my rotating cutting mat and a squaring up ruler(I hate trimming 1/2 square triangles). 

So what will I make using these? I went through the ever growing stash and found all the solids that I have and don't use because I just don't so I made a block book from Jo Avery's book Patchwork and Quilting Basics. First I pressed everything, then used the Stipology Ruler and started cutting, while I was there I cut a mountain of strips in solids to make a Jacobs Ladder quilt too.          

I used a 10" ruler, because that is the size I have, to square up the blocks and sewed them all up , I used a ruler to mark the quilting lines and I even followed the instructions and finished the book minus 3 toggle buttons that I need to get.

This is the last day of the hop so go and visit the others and see what gadgets they have, I'm making a wish list and it's going to be long.

Just Let Me Quilt

Quilt Doodle Designs

Day Brook Designs

Homespun Hannah's Blog

Time 4 Stitchin

Lynn's Blog

Thanks for dropping in

See Ya Later Aligator!!!!!

 It's August blog hop run by Carla at Creatin' in the sticks the brief was  to create something inspired by travel, anything from places to go, how to get there and anything in between. Even an alligator. 

I was going to make a big block book for EPP but I needed a few supplies and time ran out and I couldn't get to the fabric shop to get what I wanted and we have had a steady stream of visitors lately, it's my husbands 60th birthday today so his brothers and a few friends made the trek over the last couple of weekends to visit him and the kids are here now and another brother. So then I thought I would make shoes bags for the kids as they are starting to travel again, but same problem I couldn't get what I wanted so think Lianne..... I went to the op shops looking for a voile curtain nope, the cheap shop had one and I must say never ever buy a sheer curtain from the Reject shop it's terrible material but good enough for shoe bags, I used french seams so it wouldn't fall apart. So then I didn't have enough bias binding for the casing so I used my Pauline Rogers bias makers and volia!

With all the visitors we have been up at the lookout a few times and the canola fields in the distance look beautiful. The other picture is my Bonsai Azalea that number 3 son has grown for me.

Make sure to go and look at the others in todays hop

Moose Stash Quilting

Quilt Doodle Designs

Quilting Gail

Just Sew Quilter

Homespun Hannah

Thanks for stopping by