Bye October.....

Already the end of the month and I am doing a summary of my finished projects and progress on UFO's that I have....

Three scrap baskets were made.... that's it for the scrappy baskets now....

I finished off my botanical prints quilt and put it on my bed.....

5 more blocks for my Dutch Treat quilt....

.... some of the other projects I have been working on is my scrappy beach houses....

Holly Cottage quilt....

Anthology

Dream 

... and Gardeners Journal....

Thanks to Peg and Kris for hosting OPAM - I do enjoy looking back and seeing what I finished, and thanks to Joy for hosting Finishing Stitches which is helping me keep focussed on my UFO's......

Righto, Gotto Go..... possibly a bit of attention deficit noted in my sewing life!

My stitching week......

Our regular Tuesday girls stitching day was successful with another 11 blocks being sewn...

I've run out of prepared sashing so I need to do some cutting out. 

This is all the blocks together now.... at the end of that last column it will be the half way mark.  We started at the beginning of August so are doing well with this one.... 

During the day I mostly do my quilting jobs .... how lucky am I to spend so much time doing something I love....

Joy is doing a series this month focussing on making $ with quilting and sewing and she did an interview with me.... Now I don't pretend I have a 'business' - it's not that much that I do but I do make enough to feed my fabric/sewing addiction and occasionally buy the groceries.  More of a paying hobby and I love it. 

In case you are interested the online chat we had is HERE ... Joy and I have never met in person but we have been bloggy friends for ages.....  If you are thinking of supplementing your income this way have a read on her blog - there are some great tips and quite a few people have grown into full time businesses.

I bottled my first lot of kombucha brew - added different fruits and left them for the second fermentation....

They have been taking on the colour of the fruits and getting a nice bit of fizz to them....  taste is good and so far no side effects so hopefully I am doing it right.  I think if I leave them long enough like this they will be good and alcoholic?????   

Another Dutch Treat block is completed.... I'm up to 120/196 now.... but then the borders will be a year's work on their own I think!

... and another Gardeners Journal stitchery is completed..... they are such sweet pictures....

Hubz went away for a night so I took over the living area in the evening, and started blanket stitching some French General Christmas fabric onto wool felt for this years decorations....

Thanks for the idea Michelle....

.. and another idea from Michelle was to stitch up Angel Story with her!  Thanks (I think) .  Michelle has started hers and has a few pics up on her blog... .very pretty and lovely pictures to sew.

My pattern arrived in the post this week and I had this pack of Tilda's in my stash. My favourite local quilt store  stocks Tilda fabrics and I find them very hard to resist.  This is one of the older sets which I have had for a while.....

Last night I got the background for the applique.  I just want to add a few tone on tone/plains to go with them.  This will be my new needleturn applique project....

It's important to support local industry?

Righto, Gotto Go....  the weekend to enjoy.  A visitor is staying for the night, and we will join up with another friend for dinner.... and tomorrow there are open gardens to see.

A short break......

This week 8 more blocks were added to the Anthology quilt.....

I've started placing them sideways on my design board so they will fit better... 

We have had lots of lovely wet days.....

I am always amazed at how forgiving nature is - only a couple of days and there is green already.... and within a week the lawns needed mowing again...

Another block for Michelle's Holly Cottage Christmas quilt is done....  I'm enjoying the applique and simple piecing....

... and another little Dutch Treat block in reverse applique has been added to my collection....

(growing slowly but surely)

Hubz had a work trip away so I decided to be a supportive and dutiful wife and accompany him.....

...... I find it very hard to resist a trip to the seaside....

... amazing how slim one feels there.....

this is a coastal town called Yamba in NSW.....

the next day we went inland to a town called Grafton which spreads on each side of the Clarence river..... while Hubz had meetings I walked across the bridge and around the area....(I took this picture from half way across the bridge)

this is the bridge from one of the little spots under a tree where I sat and took in the view...

... and looking upstream - you can see quite clearly two parts of river coming into one...

... then onto Coffs Harbour, where the beach was more pebbly .... - here is a heart pebble I found specially for you Debbie....

I love beach walks.... even if it's a bit wet!

The wet did come down for our day of no meetings but we still found things to do...

you can see two of the 'solitary islands' here.... there are several and they cause a special system of currents ....

There is a science department studying the currents and system and they have a small aquarium which we visited... 

  

just amazing how the corals and sea plants glow flurescently.... so beautiful

hard to get nice pictures with glows in the background of the glass.... the fish are snuggling up to the  plants here - this fish can do it and gets a nice massage and scrub -  but the plant will sting other fish

We drove by the big banana at Coffs Harbour - I didn't bother to go and stand in the rain next to it.... 

but we did get a lovely forest walk which went round other beaches .... always lovely to see and listen to

... and found a lovely spot to eat yummy seafood in the evening

It was a lovely short break for me... lots of meetings and driving for Hubz

Righto, Gotto Go.... going away means a big pile of laundry to be done (small price to pay). 

Wishing you a wonderful week ....x

My week.....

First up this week I finished off the binding for my new quilt.....

It was made from a layer cake and extra metreage from a set of botanical type prints that I just totally fell in love with.....

 ... so no cutting up was done, I used the squares as they were and added sashing, corner stones and a border....

Then quilted it with shapes based on the oak style shape leaf in some of the prints

It just goes down the sides and the foot end a little, which is all we need on our cool/warm evenings

I love sitting in bed looking at the prints and stroking the texture ... gosh I really love the feel of quilts!!!

Tuesday we got back to sewing our blocks for the 4 x 5 anthology.....  these 8 were done....  every now and then I do a little bit of fussy cutting for the blocks.... occasional little peeks of a picture....

...we are over 1/3rd of the way through our blocks now....

... these two little pictures were stitched for my Gardeners Journal quilt....  still a few more to go....

... and this Dutch Treat block took quite a few evenings of stitching ....  

Christine has designed this gorgeous embroidery focussed quilt... and gifted a pattern to me..... it is so pretty and detailed .....  my picture doesn't do it justice at all but I have been lucky enough to see the real thing.

Last night my daughter invited me to join her going to a workshop to learn about Komboocha.... I gather it has been around ages but it's my first time trying it..... so I brought home this lump of fungus and am going to give it a go... supposed to be good for you... anybody try this and any effects?

It tasted nice so I thought even if I end up making our morning fruit juice drink it will have saved us money in the end....

looks like it is an alien thing...and might take over my kitchen! 

I sent off this quilt to my son in Melbourne.... I've had it in the house for a while as it was a pattern I wanted to try.  It was made using up 5 hawaain print brand new shirts from the op shop... I had to buy for the sashing and a fun retro sheet from the op shop....

A fun way to try something new, make up a fun quilt that I'm not going to be precious about if it's jumped on, food spilt on etc...

I am hearing rain on my roof... I am happy today.... and I have some quilting to do ...

Hope you have a wonderful weekend....