An Update on Melbourne and who did I meet ?

I would like to introduce you to the lovely Liz from Broderie.


I have followed Liz's blog for a long time, long before I had a blog and I always felt she never updated it often enough for my liking, but since having a blog I understand how time consuming blogging and blog reading can be. I would like to now introduce you to Sharyn. Sharyn does not have her own blog but is an avid blog reader, and feels that if she didn't spend so much time blog surfing she would be able to achieve a lot more quilt finishes. (Don't we all) Sharyn was a reluctant quilter, she originally felt it was silly to cut up fabric only to sew it back together again but somehow she was bitten by the bug and since has become very prolific in her achievements.
The girls put on a great show and tell for me. This is one of Liz's nine patch that is really an eight patch ( I hope I have got the right) but how striking is it?

These girls had a great show, lucky for me my excuse was I was travelling and had no room , I have many starts not nearly enough completions.

This is Liz's circle quilt , I have long been an admirer of this quilt so it was great to see it in real life, it is spectacular, loads of fussy cutting. it is nearly finished being hand quilted.

both the girls have made this candied hexagons quilt. I think this one belongs to Liz, once again loads of fussy cutting, and hand quilted. Sharyn's is fairly similar and once again hand quilted. You can't beat hand quilting in my humble opinion, not that I want to start a debate about machine quilting, it has its place and serves a purpose just my opinion.

This is Sharyn's version of the Kaffe snowball, lovely greens and pinks, I think she was being persuaded to hand quilt this.

Melbourne is a lovely city, a city that takes a great pride in its gardens, after all they are known as the Garden State.

This is a collage of images through my lens. You will notice pears in the bottom right hand side.

It is due to our love of pears that began Liz and my friendship so when I noticed this cushion in Liz's home I felt it worthy of a snap.

Liz picked me up from my hotel on Saturday morning early and we headed to Auburn Road, Hawthorn.

Here are a few images of the lovely shops we managed to contribute to their takings

This shop hadn't opened at this stage so this their window, beautifully enticing.

They had some divine Christmas decorations.

Our first port of call was Est. Est is known for their beautiful handmade soaps , ceramics, string, braids and trimmings and Linen.

Well worth a visit if you are in Melbourne.

Everything is packaged beautifully , a one stop shop for gifts of all tastes.





A real feast for the eyes

Baskets galore, along with rolls and rolls of twine in all colours , I liked the Linen and Raspberry colour ways.

Sorry this image is a tad blurry but you needed to see every corner of this packed to the rafters tiny store.

even the floor space used to every advantage.

Yes I did manage to do a little damage to the credit card.

After we had visited EST we needed coffee and a chat. I don't think we stopped to draw breathe the whole day, loads to catch up on.



After coffee we crossed the road to a shop called Perfect Pieces, this place had lots of rooms all very tastefully decorated and priced extremely well.

How divine is this table setting

Loved these candlestick holders, but alas I had a plane to catch and already my bag was full.

They were extremely well priced.

These bells formed a part of their window display

Just another room , pleasing to the eye.

After I finished work on Friday evening I decided a walk was in order, I set off with my trusty point and shoot and captured some typical scenes around the area I was staying.

It is quite an old area and I still love these old time worn fences being embraced by this unruly vine.

Gate hinges are something that always catch my eye

This old stone wall has the canopy of a Birch leaning over it, this did provide a little shade as it was quite warm on Friday evening and I was grateful for a rest in the shade.

I hope you have enjoyed my visit to Melbourne as much as I did. I had the most wonderful day with Liz and Sharyn.

Until next time be happy in whatever you achieve

j

I've Been to Beautiful Melbourne

More about that in my next post. I felt it was high time I did an update and announce the winner of my sampler paper lined box.
Just before I do though , when I arrived home last evening there was quite a lot of mail. ( I won't mention the credit card bill) I did receive however my quarterly fabric club from Patchwork on Stonleigh.
I can't tell you how nice this fabric club is to be a member of. It is priced so well, truly those girls Christine and Susan put a lot of work into this mail out.
You get 10 fat 1/16ths of fabric along with a really newsy newsletter, a sheet with photo snippets of fabric that is coming or new fabric that is in stock , usually a pattern for a quick quilt. Now the best part about this mail out is , the girls are going to provide a pattern for the next year sort of like a block of the month but I will call this a quilt of the year. It is going to be a take on an old Sampler known as the Browne Sisters sampler. I have given you a sneek peek of part of the pattern but trust me it will be divine as always.
As you can see the pieces of fabric are quite sufficient for scrappy repro type quilts and if you need more if you are a club member you get a discount on your further fabric purchases.
Who could complain about $15.00 a 1/4 even if it was $20.00 it would still be great value.
I believe the girls now have a blog , I'll just quickly check , yes it is up and running, go check it out here

This has to be one of my favourite magazines (no bias here of course) the December issue is on the newsstands now.

It has some of the loveliest Christmas images

How could you resist this beautiful green and white display, so fresh and for us down under in the southern hemisphere our Christmases are usually very hot so this cool freshness is welcome, believe me.

There are pages of very inspiring homes and gardens

I love white so this really took my eye.

Another mag in the mail was the Summer edition of Donna Hay. I think I have every magazine that has ever been printed, even if you aren't too much into cooking the pages are a delight to view.

but they do have some yummy temptations.

What have you decided to cook for your Christmas ?

Oh and by the way the random number generator picked number 8. Vintage Sandy in Ohio

I promise I will do a post very soon on my trip to Melbourne. I had the most wonderful time and met up with someone you all know.

See you soon

j

My 50th Post and a Spring Giveaway

I have to say that Spring is one of my favourite seasons, one of the reasons being, I just adore the Jacaranda trees. I just love the confetti of petals that form a lilac carpet.

This driveway caught my eye this morning and thought it very worthy of a photo.

The abundance of roses this year is also a joy to behold, we have had some fantastic rain after many many years of drought.

I only hope the intense heat we can have here in Sydney remains at bay for a few more weeks so we can enjoy the fruits of spring, Gardenia's are so delicate with an intense perfume that fills the evening air but can quickly turn brown with such intense heat.

This past week I had a class at Material Obsession and couldn't resist this piece of fabric, imagine the possibilities for fussy cutting, it also came in a terracotta colourway. I think some of the girls imagined making a piece of clothing (not for me I don't do clothing :-))


This is what I have been up to this past weekend, remember it is only 7 weeks until Christmas.

You maybe wondering what it is , stay tuned and I will reveal in a couple of weeks.

I think I have mentioned in previous posts that I have a passion for stitching samplers, I have many that have remained unframed and when I read on Alma's blog that she photocopied a sampler to line a fabric covered box , I rummaged through some of my unframed samplers for some inspiration to use as a box liner.

What better way to celebrate 50 posts than to make a fabric covered box and copy a sampler I have stitched in the past to line the box .

I am giving this box away as well as some cards to use a trim winders, along with some photocopies of my stitched samplers .

I have been inspired by so many blogger's during my first year of joining the blogging community, so many of you are so generous and sharing of spirit.

Leave me a comment and tell me who or what inspires you. I will draw a name via the google random number generator on the 14th November.

Until next time happy creating

j

A Quick Show and Tell

I am a real fan of Blackbird Designs and follow Alma's blog with some regularity.
Alma recently posted a tutorial on using fabric to cover paper mache boxes.
I couldn't help myself I had to whip one up, I thought I would share with you the outcome.

It took no time at all , in case you are wondering, no ,I didn't cut up one of my samplers, I simply photocopied it as per Alma's instruction
Go check out Alma's blog and see for yourself, the instructions are easy to follow. I am sure there will be a few made for your stitching friends.

see you soon

in the meantime

happy fabric box making

j

Sometimes !

Yes that is right, just sometimes life gets in the way of our normal day to day activities.

I guess that is my excuse for being away for so long.

Firstly I must say thank you to those of you that emailed to check if I was O.K., it really meant so much . I must say that the blogging community is such a caring one. I did reply to all of the emails, however I have also been made aware that some of my emails didn't find their way to everyone, so if you emailed me, and didn't get a reply please accept my apologies. I have no idea how I can rectify that problem, who does one get in touch with?, is there anyone behind a phone at Gmail !! I doubt it.

Do you remember, I began making a version of the Sundial Quilt ?, I put it down for quite sometime, well I have picked it up again and here are a couple of the 4 inch blocks that I need to complete the centre.


I must say it is quite a challenge making these blocks, sewing really small pieces, especially after handling bigger pieces on my Orange peel quilt.Something else I have started , making some coathangers for gifts for Christmas. (Do you realise it is only about 8 weeks to go) I need to make quite a few. The pattern I am using is from Marg Low designs. When I contacted Marg to purchase the pattern I explained to her I need to make approx 20 and did she think it was achievable , she laughed and said I probably would need to revise the quantity. However I am up for the challenge and have really enjoyed making them so far.

I have started a production line of sorts , cutting out the bodies, the strips for the frill, the collars etc etc. so far I have needle turned the collars and some have the ric rac on the collars. Needle turning the collars on, keep me company on my journey to work at the traffic lights. I pop in a couple of stitches whilst I am waiting for the lights to change colour, some mornings, I can get a whole collar appliqued. Those that know me, know I like my stitching to keep me company on my journey to work, which take me through approx 17 sets of traffic lights and at some lights I have quite a wait.
anyway these photo's are really for Marg to show her I have made a start. I will keep you posted on the progress .
I just love playing with the fabric combo's and love this basic grey range.
Since I last posted another year in my life clicked over. One of my Birthday presents was an invitation to a literary luncheon held at Star City here in Sydney. The guest speaker was Stephanie Alexander.

Stephanie is an amazing cook and has produced many cookbooks over the years . One of her many very famous books is the 'Cooks Companion'. She has now written a companion to that book .
known as the 'kitchen Garden Companion' a really lovely book all about growing one's own produce and cooking it. The book has a really lovely cover, it is cloth , almost like a teatowel. The contents are a feast for the eye , so many beautiful recipes to be made from lovely fresh produce.

Stephanie has been heavily involved with encouraging children to grow their own produce and cook it, she has set up a not for profit organisation within schools here in Australia known as the Kitchen Garden Foundation. It was certainly a very interesting and informative talk.

My sister addressed the event and introduced MC, Joanna Savill , The director of the Sydney Food Festival who in turn introduced Stephanie to the room. There were alot of people in attendance , mainly women , having said that , a Gent was present at out table and there were a few accompanying their ladies.
The menu was chosen from Stephanie's book and cooked by the chef's at Star City Ballroom.
I was lucky enough to sit at the same table as the guest of honour , and took the opportunity to ask many questions.
The first course got woofed down so quickly that it slipped my mind to photograph it, however I couldn't let the desert go by without a photo and yes it was very yummy. I certainly needed the brisk walk back to the light rail , then the walk up the hill to my car.
There have been a series of these books arrive on the book shelves lately, this one particularly took my eye , I love this cover , I thought it looked very inviting.
I have been a fan of cross stitch samplers for more years than I care to remember
There is also a section on patchwork
I am so drawn on anything to do with old samplers
and I just love these old quilts, the naive shapes shown on this wedding coverlet will feature sometime in the future I am sure on one of my quilts.
This crib quilt is just adorable and was made after the maker (Nancy Horsfall) made her Wedding Coverlet. There are a few instructions on how to make some of the shapes but no actual patterns. A lovely book for the collection however.
It is spring here in the Southern Hemisphere and very welcome I might add. I am a lover of roses and this year I didn't get to prune our roses (Iceberg) until quite late, so they are only about to bloom, the bushes are absolutely loaded with buds , I am anticipating quite a show.
We have had so much lovely rain this year that the garden has really grown.
Working full time doesn't always allow the amount of time I would love to spend in the garden, having said that rewards are great for a small investment in time spent.

and lastly I thought I would share this photo of a very well clipped hedge that has been created by Mr L & R . It hides an ugly timber wall.
It has been lovely to return after such an absence , hopefully I will return sooner next time.

Thank you again and until next time happy sewing.

j