Mid week drama

We had a bit of excitement on Wednesday. Having a two story house makes it a little difficult to wash the outsides of our windows so we arranged for Jason to clean them. Luckily he was nearby when an electrical spark ignited a birds nest in the eaves. Fortunately there was very little damage, his other job is firefighting, so he new just what to do. We had a fire engine turn up, three firemen, two police cars, two policemen , one policewoman, one Aurora man and an electrician. Such a lot of people for one little fire. And apparently Win TV turned up as well, but Jason sent him away.
Many thanks to Jason for preventing any damage and saving Number One Son and my quilts.

I have finished the second block of Peacock's Garden and two from the Adelaide Floral Sampler.

Sorry, this one is sideways.

We had a lovelyDear Jane Day yesterday, very relaxing for me, and I even made one and a half new DJ blocks. I will show pictures soon.

Catching Up

I have been doing some catching up lately. I finally finished the last border of Rebecca's Friendship Round Robin. It has been posted to her, so I think I can show you now. Hope she likes it, cos I did deviate from the pattern somewhat.

This is another piece that I am working on, using Helen's centre stitchery. It was going to be a cushion and I did enter it in the exhibition, but alas it didn't get finished. Now I can't decide whether to finish it as a cushion cover or keep going and make a small quilt.

How are your Gidday Quilters stitcheries going? The shop hop has finished but if you missed out there will be a pattern released soon. And final results for the giveaways will be known when Helen gets back from Salt Lake City. This beautiful bag was made by Vicky from the platypus stitchery.

Here are two finished stitcheries made by Kathy.

I have finished two blocks from Monica Poole's new block of the month 'Peacocks Garden'.

This is the first, I haven't photographed the second, and I have finally received all the fabrics and started cutting so I am now set to go.

We have some new samples and patterns from Sally Giblin in the shop (the doll isn't hers, she is just adding to the display) and Marian is busily making up more new samples of her patterns as well.

The new header is a close up of the centre of a basket quilt I made in 2000. I will show you the whole quilt next post.

Terry has been very busy adding heaps of photos and info to our new website, so hopefully you can expect to see an announcement real soon.

A lovely surprise

I had a lovely surprise, yesterday, when I went to the Craft Fair. My Dragonfly Ninepatch won 2nd prize in the Non-Traditional Quilts section of the Quilt show. It was beautifully quilted by Leanne. The fair is on again today and tomorrow, so if you want to see some wonderful quilting go along. The quilts are amazing, can't show you here, but I will direct you to a site soon.
Best of Show is a stunning quilt of applique, trapunto and machine quilting. Just beautiful and a great story as well. I am going back for another look tomorrow, and to help out with the white gloves on, and to spend my gift vouchers. Oh, and I did buy a little bit of fabric- :) .

Christmas blocks and Easter

Hope you had a great Easter. It has been wonderful not to have to go anywhere or do anything.
I have caught up on a lot of things. I can't remember when I have had this long a break at home.
The garden is starting to look a bit more respectable, lot's of weeds pulled, plants cut back and woodchip layed.
On the patchwork front we have been very busy. Kim has finished two blocks from Christmas Fun.

I have made a top using Kate Conklin's pattern that was in Homespun magazine a couple of months ago.

And Leanne quilted my Kitchen Capers quilt. It has been entered in the Island Threads exhibition next week along with two other quilts. Hope you had a great Easter break.

More cushions, bags and quilts

Once again a lovely weekend. Especially so on Saturday when we had a family get together at Punchbowl. The day was just lovely, with the expected rain holding off til late afternoon. I achieved a lot this weekend. New displays put up at the shop on Sunday morning. So much more can be done with the doors shut. I finished off the set of bags shown above. They used part of a honey bun (1 1/2" strips), I think I still have half left. I put the binding on two quilts and finished the embroidery on Rebecca's round robin. I also put this quilt top together. It uses a panel of A is for Annabelle and some 8" squares. Now I need to put borders on it. Trying to work out what sort of border, if any, to put on this little quilt, designed by McKenna Ryan, and then how to quilt it.

A cushion finished last week using Clare's owl pattern from her new quilt "Best Friends".

It's hanging in the shop. Couldn't get a proper photo of it, but here are some closeups.

And last, but not least, my dresden plate cushion, using a Lilac Hill candy bar.

Embroidered Cushions

I have been finishing off a few pieces of work lately. Above is a cushion I made from Helen Stubbing's friendship round robin from last year. I can only claim to have worked the centre embroidery and the finishing off. The second border was worked by Rebecca, the third by Leanne and the fourth by Kate. Thanks girls, In love it. I will put up links soon. Too pushed for time at the moment.

This cushion features the emu on my website from Helen Stubbing's Gidday Quilters Shop Hop.

And I am working on this piece of Rebecca's. I don't know if she will make it into a cushion cos we differed on our opinnions of cushions. I'm nearly finished Rebecca, sorry it has taken so long.

Winner

Congratulations Kate, you have won my 50th post giveaway. Thank you to all who entered and for your helpful information. I am starting to put it into practise.