.... the Carnival is over.....

The main focus of the carnival is the flowers and gardens, but there are other great activities that happen and last Tuesday was spent with lovely friends visiting some of my favourite ones..

A new one to me is a quilt show that features a guest quilt artist, this year was Val Benson, someone I had not met before this year but she is well known in the area for her work, which is varied and beautifully made...

This exhibition is held at a lovely old homestead Queenslander, now housed at one of the local girls boarding school and kept for events such as this....

I was thrilled to see this pretty hexagon quilt at the entrance....

Val had let me play with it earlier in the year.... I wanted to highlight the pattern so I went around the hexagons... some with feathers, and others in a web kind of look...

... and edged the border with informal feathers....

Another quilt I did for her was this wedding ring quilt pattern...

... great fun to do designs in the plain spaces and loops in the  curved piecing blocks....

The school is on the top of the range and we went over the road to a park to look at the lovely view... as you can see it was a beautiful spring day...

... after all that eye candy we needed our Devonshire teas.....

this favourite tea room annual visit is always decorated with fun aprons and tea towels.... and legs...

.. inside the hall is the teapot extravaganza... so many different tea pots, big and small, classy and crass, silver, porcelain, tin .... all sorts and of course beautiful tea cups and saucers...

... we then went over to the Toowoomba Quilters quilt show... I didn't take many pics here but this is an overall picture of the hall....  of course there are much visited Traders as well and a lovely time of chatting, viewing, shopping and more tea....

So much work for this two weeks of carnival and so much buzz in the city.  I love it.  Great show Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers... see you next year...

Righto, Gotto Go....

Carnival Time....

This time of year out nearest city (we live about 20km outside Toowoomba, Queensland) has it's annual Spring Carnival of Flowers... I always love to go to some of the many things on show.  The gardens are a feature of course, but there are also some other girlie/sewing/tea type things to enjoy too!

Outside the city winning garden.....

outside the city winning garden...

Inside a church - beautiful floral stain glass windows...

one of the windows....

In the church hall was the orchid show....

tiny delicate orchids....

and brighter bigger ones too....

winning rural garden.... 

... and another....

... and another....

Laurel Bank park tulips are always gorgeous....

... more tulips....

... they have live music there ....

a winning garden with a man made waterfall...

... we just fitted in the winning native garden too... it was lovely and my picture does not do it justice...

... and the next day we went to Geham school crafts market... where I treated myself to a scented wax burner and was given some lovely scented wax's as a gift...

It really is a fun time .....

Righto, Gotto Go - more pictures to sort out....

Sewing.... sewing... quilting... gardening...

At the weekend I was lucky enough to win a lucky door number prize (there are always heaps and it's so fun).  This glasses case was made by Steph from The Quilters Angel under Me & Leigh Creations....  her work is just lovely and I have bought a few gifts from her over the years....

I have been lucky enough to be quite busy with quilting... it's other people's quilts so I'm not showing them off here...  I still do my own handwork at night  and here is another 4 of the Dutch Treat blocks.... as you can see they are all so different....

Dear Shez had a birthday this month and we always trade gifties at this time ....  I didn't realise until too late that it was an extra special birthday she was celebrating but I did put this bag together for her and fill it with a few goodies....  I think it's always nice to have a little pampering and Shez is doing a bit of travelling around so hopefully this will be of some use....

Sylvia's Bridal Sampler has been a bit neglected and I had been meaning to put some borders on the sides to square up the shape a bit...

 I cut up a whole bunch of 2 1/2" squares in coloured and background fabrics and sewed these together...

.  then just added these strips to the two sides....

... now I can truly say the top of this quilt is finished....

I got rather keen with organising the leftover fabric (I was sick and tired of them being all over the place as they have been for the last year) and cut up some 10" squares, 5" squares and 2.5" squares...  I wish I would do this more often instead of a pile of odd bits...

One of the best things in the first year of a new home is discovering what is in the garden...

We have a hedge of this port wine magnolia... the scent in the evening is like port wine jelly - almost too sweet to be there for too long.... It is just covered in blooms...

I have quite a few clivia, which we split and moved to fill up some gaps when we got here... it's lovely to see the two colours  - so bright and cheerful...

we were given a wisteria so it was our first planting and it has had it's first flowers this year.  I'm sure it will do lots of growing this year now it has settled....

I do love the bunches and they have a lovely delicate scent...

This is the one I had in my last house.... it was just amazing and what I am hoping the fence will look like in a few years....

Righto, Gotto Go... I want to prepare some more Dutch Treat blocks today...

I hope you have a lovely day doing something you love

Ooh La La..... in Paris.....

.... was the theme for our Stitchers Day Out hosted by my favourite quilting shop The Quilters Angel..... as usual Marion and Steph put on a really fun and pretty day together where we can only feel spoilt and loved..... It is the only event like this that I know of in this area and this time I met people from Cairns, Mt Isa, Bribie Island, Brisbane (amongst others) as well as our lovely locals.

I prepared for the weekend by purchasing a red feather boa... I was at least going to be in the French colours!

Tables were set with eiffel towers and cases, bags and boxes....

Chairs were covered and tied with elegant bows.....

... the room was full with chatter and laughter....

... the three of us who sew together on a Tuesday  with our boa's....

(ok so mostly we got cursed because those feathers go EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!)

I was naughty and didn't take many pictures of the day and sat with a table full of other naughty lovely ladies ... 

.... we had personal bags with goodies at our seats.....

... and patterns for projects...

This is a bag design by Nicki Tervo..... lots of detail in her stitchery....

A drawstring bag by Debbie McGee....

... with lovely stitcheries all around it ....

Debbie was kind enough to have extra little patterns for us... I loved these butterfly needlecases....

the top of a case designed by Nicki,

.. and the hand bag insert designed by Debbie....

... here are the goodies I got in my bag - fabric and printed design to make up one of the projects, a zippy purse, sweet tin, lovely sewing machine zipper pull and a pair of those sneaky little scissors you can take on a plane.... and of course patterns for all of the projects...

For once I did stitch instead of chat all day and finished the stitchery for one of the hexagons that go around the drawstring bag.  I had a lesson with Debbie on her way to do the little bullion stitches so gave those a go.....  not a bad effort (even if I say so myself!)

Next year we are having Libby Richardson (Art Smart Cottage) and a lovely local lady Lauren from Molly and Mama who popped in to meet us all and say G'day.  I'm already looking forward to it....

Righto, Gotto Go... a weekend out means there is sewing housework to do!