Middle of the month.....

Time is spinning out crazily...... mid April already.  

This week I got the last two blocks for Gardeners Journal together....

Here are some garden tools

and here the friends are off to a garden show

I experimented a little with the tea - you can see on the scrap where I stained half of the piece... just tones it down  

Please meet Tilly the Tea Lady - this is the next set of blocks I am working on for Angel Story

(well one of the next set of blocks!)

Friday night with the girls was cancelled this week so finding a bit of extra 'machine' time I put the GJ blocks together and added the borders... and stained the blues....

Ta-da.... Gardeners Journal top is completed 

I do love it.... I love stitcheries and piecing 

So now it is joining the quilting queue..... 

This picture shows the difference between the blues before and after staining

perhaps a tad more muted than I had meant it to be - but I prefer it to the brightness

Righto, Gotto Go....  I'm going to do something very practical and make a bunch of towelling cloths.  A bit boring but in my opinion they work well and are tough.

Have a lovely weekend ...xx

Coming together.....

With the stitcheries done and all the blocks cut I am managing to get through a few more of my Gardeners Journal blocks....

The apple trees in the orchard look like they have a decent crop...

Clearly I was exhausted from not supervising Hubz properly so I sat and watched the birds....

The birds do love the bird bath... and the sprinkler on a hot day....

The blocks are not sewn together but this is how they will sit... there is two more to go on the right - then the borders. 

I used fabric with a kit... looking at it I don't like the bright blue very much.... I think I might be painting with tea to mute it a bit??? ... I'm not unpicking...

I got a few more circles done in the evening .....

... as well as these 3 Dutch Treats .....

In between quilt jobs I try and do a bit of sorting..... I had some African animal fabric in swatches 

I've cut them into squares and slashed across to add the green stripes (I am following a Kiwi pattern which is also a bit African in design)

There was also a few pieces with these smaller pictures.... I am going to make these into polaroid pictures - it will make a nice childs quilt....

Now that I have plans for them I have them boxed, bagged and ready to sew when I can.... there is also a nice bag of scraps.....

I find if I don't do this I forget what I wanted to do with the fabric and then it gets put away in a box again.

I have seen Africa themed fabrics with these before...

... hmmmmm....

I left them out

Righto, Gotto Go... it's showday holiday here today so nice and quiet outside - I'll still be working though

The long weekend....

I was given these sweet tarts last week... they are melts and smell as good as they look....  they look pretty on my plate with a little bunny....

On my machine I learnt to quilt roses.   I'm quite pleased with how they worked out...

Another block for Gardeners Journal was put together..... I think the designer was quite complimentary with my back view!!

Here they are all together..... I love seeing how it starts looking like a story... 

At the weekend Hubz and I visited a local Railway museum....

They are fixing up the trains and carriages to run trips... this is the Piano lounge....

This is a separate carriage "Great Gatsby" and decorated to suit

This carriage had actually been burnt by vandals many years ago so all the fittings and decor are newly made for it.... they have done it beautifully

a new bit of line has been added for when they run their trips.... very pretty gardens.  Completely run by volunteers who rely on donations and their own hard work.

another of their lounges with the bar in the background....

Lovely from the outside too...

There was coffee and slices available so we had that whilst listening to a Ukelele group..... 

Another lovely carriage had been painted Dreamtime, the artist called Domi did such a great job.  No photo's were allowed but they did have these beautiful postcards for sale which show some of the pictures...

this one gives an idea of the inside of the carriage... the whole roof was painted and various pictures on the sides....  

Played a little with my circles... these squares are all trimmed back to 4 1/2" but they are not sewn together... still a way to go as this is still small.... 

Righto, Gotto Go......time for some lunch....

Easter weekend

 This is the other backing I have been making.  It is with all the leftovers from my Anthology quilt - there was much more than I thought.  I still need to add some of the light background to the borders to make it big enough ......  

I have finally decided on the size for my Dutch Treat blocks.... I cut at 6" for sewing and now I am trimming back to 5 1/2" .....  this block needed mending as I trimmed too small!!! grrrrr... 

Been making a nice pile of trimmings!  still lots more to go but there is no hurry as I still have heaps of blocks to do.....

I have put together another block for Gardeners Journal... Taking time to smell the roses and a mower.... haven't used one of those style for ages but they used to work a treat and give a good workout....

My frangipani's are flowering in the garden... this is my favourite and is a bolder pink than is showing in the picture....

I also love this cream one with the yellow centre

Righto, Gotta Go - I'm learning to quilt roses this weekend!! a little bit of a challenge

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe and happy Easter weekend 

A good day's work.....

Lovely needlecase from Cheryll in the post on Monday..... isn't she sweet? Such pretty embroidery. Thanks Chez.....xx

Fish update....

At my last post there were quite a few comments about my little baby fish.  Well it did survive okay.  We ended up having to empty the whole pond, repot plants, clean all the stones and bricks, get achy backs .... but the fish all survived okay.

It still looks a bit murky but we can see the fish - here you can see 12 ... different sizes and colours...

the teeniest baby stays separate most of the time.... I have labelled it in this picture (just above 'baby') as he/she is hard to spot but you can see the difference in size - I don't think it is 1" long.... 

Tuesdays I spend the 'ChooseDay' girls and is where my main machine sewing takes place for the week...

At the moment we are all working on our UFO's so doing different projects - of course we always have advice and opinions on each others work, lots of cups of tea and coffee and chat chat and a lot of sewing ...

I worked on making the last 4 rows of my Tags quilt and added them on...

So now it is a finished flimsy ..... it's very soft and pretty pretty

I had enough of one of the browns in the quilt to cut strips for the binding... I will need to buy some backing ...

Big thanks to the hosts of the No Fuss SAL (Tuesday girls) who got this going.... I love it

 Somehow I managed to cut quite a bit more than I needed.... these will be used - maybe even a little something on the backing....

Next up I put together a block for Gardeners Journal.  I have had the stitcheries done for a while.

Then I worked on the backing for my Shimacho quilt.  I have used up left over pieces of my Japanese fabrics for this ......  the outside is quite scrappy as you can see but not much will show - most of it is so my backing is big enough for pinning and gripping during quilting.

I had the blocks already made so it was just sashing and borders to add

I started working on the backing for another quilt... still a bit to do on that...

A good day's work....

Righto, Gotto Go... real work to do today......