Where have I been???????

....goodness knows!!!!  Seriously, I cant believe we are in the middle of the year already! It will be Christmas once again before we turn around.

So, talking of Christmas, some of the Thursday crafties decided to do things in time for Christmas this year :)  Armed with gallons of glue, they set to it :)  The result...some lovely little bon-bons!

As some of you may know, my BFF family came for a visit from Wales for a few months.  We had the pleasure of entertaining them for an afternoon.  This is cute Seth (the one on the left by the way!)

Seth had a bit of an early birthday while he was here (with his Nana below and Jack) and his new friend the Koala backpack :)

 

Unfortunately, the family had to go back home to Wales :(  We had a lovely BBQ at Claire's place before they headed to the grey, grey yonder!

In between the last post and this one, I went off to Melbourne for a two night stint and a YWCA Encore refresher training session. We had to spend some time in the pool, which was a little walk from our hotel.  What a lovely facade the Melbourne Baths have!!! Inside it is quite newish and modern.

Ruth, waiting for the tram to take us round the city of Melbourne's CBD.  Was a stinking hot day and very humid - not common for this part of the world.  Tram ride was great except we had to sit for 7 minutes at the stop/start part of the line to wait till the next circuit was due to go!  NO Airconditioning!!!!!!!

Once again Christmas rears its head....there is a lovely shop located near the hotel we stayed in (which is also just round the corner from the Queen Victoria Markets) that sells Christmas bits all year round.  Of course I had to take a trip inside :) :)

Mothers Day....we (YWCA Encore) attended the Mothers Day Classic Event which took place in the Adelaide park lands this year.  By taking part, I mean we had a tent there!  No excessive exercise for me!!! LOL  Here are the team - June, Chris, Judy and myself - was a good morning!  We were fortunate to be next to the fruit stand, free fresh fruit all day for all concerned :) We even got to take nearly a box of bananas home because they had so much left at the end of the event!!!!  All money raised goes to breast cancer research.

 

Chris's husband Marty ran the event (I understand he did very well with his timing ) Well done Marty!

On a completely different note now....I finally got my new quilt rack in-situ!!! (Well, kind of!) Its in the spare room for the time being, as my male cat can get a bit nervy about new things about the house and has been known on a couple occasions to leave his mark on things :(  Eventually it will come out into the bigger room :)

We have also had many Not the Snobs & Slobs get togethers.....

Glenice made a lovely flower embroidered quilt.

 

Claire made a cute quilt for one of her friends newborn baby.

Lorraine completed this beautiful stitchery and applique quilt.

Lynne's Cat Quilt coming off the long-arm :)

Claire yet again with another finished project - her Snowball Quilt.

 We also had a couple of Not The Farmers Wife quilting group too...unfortunately I have not taken many shots of these events :( Other than this one with once again ....Claire with her nearly finished one of her Kim Diehl wall quilts (has since been completed)

 Friday just gone was the latest get together....here is Lorraine with her template....

 ...and showing us how to use it!!!! LOL

 And just to finish off, I must share this cute (well I think it is) pic of Tiger and Rose having dinner together :)

 Hopefully, the next blog will not be as long away as the last one.....

Hmmm....over 2 months....

...since my last post! How terrible :(  Well, here I am again!  Today was the beginning of the Christmas Pageants in South Australia, and for those of you that don't know, we hold the biggest one in the world!  Speaking of Christmas, one of the ladies that goes to Thursday craft, entered her Christmas waistcoat into the local show and won a prize! Well done, Mary :)

It has been quite a busy few months, that's my excuse and I am sticking to it!!!!  YWCA Encore Adelaide were successful in securing a decent grant for 2012-13, which has enabled us to be able to run several programs, so that's part of what I have been up to :)  Below is two lovely ladies, Marilyn on the left is a volunteer ambassador in SA for The Otis Foundation ( they provide retreats free of charge for people who have had breast cancer to go and have a holiday with family, friends or supporters) and Ruth, my colleague on the right :)  We were at the St Andrews Breast Cancer Luncheon which is held every year.  People (and I say people, because breast cancer is applicable to both men and women) who have had BC surgery at St Andrews get to come along for two years after their treatment and can invite a friend to come along.   There are guest speakers and a lovely lunch too!

Please ignore the dates on the pics - camera was not set right!  So...then it was a bit of quilt therapy for me...I booked in to see Ricky Tims at the AMQ Festival :) :)  What a fab day we all had (well, I think we all did!) Exhausting, lots of woo hooing and light bulbs going on during the course of the day.  The venue was at the Adelaide Convention Centre and I have to say I was impressed - staff were great, food (gluten free!!!) was provided and it was EDIBLE!!!! and delicious :)

This is one of Ricky's quilts, unfortunately the picture does it no justice at all.  It is called Bohemian Rhapsody.

Here is one of my friends, Marilyn, with Ricky.  He was sooo nice, he signed every ones book and had a picture taken with all that wanted one! You don't get that very often.

 And just have to show you all again! This is my 1/12th Quilting studio...

More R&R, this time up to the Lyndoch Lavender Farm with SW and the Fossils for a lovely morning tea.  We then headed up to Tanunda for lunch (ice cream really), had a mooch around and then headed back home.  Believe it or not that took the whole day up!  Was my birthday so it was nice to do nothing much.

October was our middle great nieces 5th birthday, sadly I did not get a pic of her :( But this is one of the 8 new puppies in their household.  Soooo cute, but no! I am not getting one :)

There is always a fugly pic somewhere, and this is mine for this post.  If anyone would like to purchase it (the light fitting that is) it is up for sale.  And NO, it does not belong to me, but to one of the Snobs & Slobs, it came with the house she bought.

Last week, we had some lovely weather, so I was able to leave my studio door open while working and in flew this little butterfly!  It made a bee-line for the fake flowers and it took me a while to get it to go back out the door. 

Other people have been busy too...this is Quilty Gal holding a baby - two reasons for the pic....1) She doesn't often like to hold babies 2) The baby is only 3 weeks old, but look at that hair!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Moving right along, we are now in November so that meant it was Father-in-law Fossils 85th Birthday, so I thought I better make him a quilt :) Very easy one to do and I love the way they all turn out differently - "Disappearing Nine Patch".  He put it straight on the bed, so I guess he likes it.

 This is Tom with the great grand kids and grand nephews and nieces.

These are some of the lovely friends I have made through doing Encore.  We get together for dinner every 5-6 weeks and its always a laugh.

The Adelaide Quilt and Craft was on this weekend.  I had not been for a couple of years so was eager to go and see what was out there.  The Eggers had a lovely display - so here is a few of what they did this year.

The quilt display was good, but this one caught our eyes (mine and Quilty Gals) cos its different.  It is a Dragons back with a tattoo of a lady who has a tattoo of a dragon :)  Congrats too to Tara and Lizzy for winning a prize with the Farmers Granddaughter quilt - just beautiful!

Well....that's about it for now folks, probably bored you enough at one time!  Till later, I better go and do some more work!

The end of the week...

...is here once again! Haven't stopped much since the last post! But not to bore you with the details, so will jump ahead to Thursday Craft Group!!!! We had a visit from the lovely Cynthia from Cynthias Ark with her delightful fabrics. (Cynthia on the left) It was then time for me (after I had emptied my purse) to move on and do some egg making in time for Easter. (I am not in this photo! ) This was my effort for the morning.Today was a wonderful day spent at the South Australian Wine Centre for a Breast Cancer Network Australia function. Great day, met lots of lovely ladies and their husbands. Myself and two colleagues were there to promote the YWCA Encore program for this year once again. For those of you who dont know, it is a mild mobility program that is free for women that have had breast cancer - just go to the link if you would like to read or know more about it.
So now its time to put my feet up, after cooking the tea of course and vedge-ing out for the night before the delightful crew turn up tomorrow for another Farmers Wife Get Together! Have a great weekend everyone!

...the second part of this week....

....our Thursday Craft ladies have been busy this year doing a Grandmothers Flower Garden Friendship Quilt. Started off with a few and then when the others saw what we were doing, they all decided to have a go and get to it!

This is Norma's quilt completed. Well done Norma! Looking forward to seeing the others come to the finish line later this year.At the end of the week, I attended a Breast Cancer Network Association forum at the National Wine Centre, Adelaide. This was the first visit I have made to the centre and I must say I was rather impressed! The forum had a few speakers talking on breast cancer - one of which was the very inspirational Raelene Boyle AM MBE, Olympian and breast cancer survivor - managed to score a piccy as you can see! I was there partly as a representative for the YWCA Encore and partly as a guest. Great day - thanks BCNA!