Hot, hot, hot!

...is what it has been here in South Australia for the past few weeks :) Not that I am complaining about the heat, its the humidity that we have been having that I don't like at all :(  

Now then, whats been happening since the last post?  Well...I can now show you what I got for Valentines ! :) A new car!!!! Woohooo - its a Hyundai Accent (and despite the colouring on this pic, taken as the sun is going down, it is white) Tis a bit smaller than my last car and will be more eco friendly with the amount of fuel used = more money to spend on fabric and quilt trips!!! Yeh!!!!!!!!

And what else? Well, my dad is slowly getting better but needs to get some weight on his skeleton so have been trying to feed him up a bit.  Catching up with my quilting and keeping the house tidy.  You know, the usual mundane things that crop up in life that keep you from doing what you really love to do???  

We had our usual get together with the quilting girls.  We have morphed yet again and are now the 'Friday Fabriholics' - what do you think?  Describes us all to a T I think!

Lynne has been busy for a while making these lovely little cat face blocks - think she is nearly there with them

Lorraine went overseas at the end of last year and brought back some FABULOUS fabrics in delicious colours - and being her (middle name is Val by the way) has been very busy putting this scrummy looking disappearing nine patch together.  The pic does the top no justice as the fabrics are a blend of silkies and other textures with goldie bits on them.  Looks good enough to eat though.

Saturday was then the Farmers Wife get together - not than any of us are doing the Farmers Wife when we get together mind you! 
Claire has put this lovely little quilt together for a friends baby shower - it has minky on the back and feels divine.

 Kay made this colourful one for a friends son interstate - certainly should brighten the little boy up :)

Granny Loz had also been overseas at the end of last year and was able to bring a gift back for Shay from a friend of hers in the USA.  So here is me taking a pic of Shay taking a pic of her gift! LOL

And guess what part of the gift was??? A type of Oreo we don't get here in Oz!  Was she happy do you think???

And then there was this cute little wooden spool.....

 ...that had this lovely message on the inside of the fabric that was wrapped around it!

Unfortunately my camera died at this point....sobs loudly!  Loz had brought her antique quilts along for show and tell - you will have to go to her web or Quilty Gals for a look at what happened next!  Tara also brought some show and tell, her Mrs Billings top, she is nearly finished! woohoo for her.  Apparently she started in January on 2012, so that's not bad cos she has been busy doing other things in the middle of that too. 

So because I don't have any more pics to share with you all, I will sign off for now!  Stay cool or warm, wherever you are in the world, and stay safe!

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!

Where is the warm weather???

...certainly not here yet!  Oh well, get over it I am saying to myself, however that is not really working...just sooo looking forward to summer!

So, since my last post - which has been some time - life has been busy.  Some of you may know I work as a coordinator for a program called Encore (YWCA) - this is a free mild mobility and exercise program for women who have had breast cancer.  We rely on donations and fundraising, so in July we had a wonderful day at our local Bunnings doing a BBQ.  We were flat out all day and managed to make a nice amount of profit! So thanks to all who helped and certainly those that ate our food!

Three little munchkins enjoying their sausages!

Some of you may also know that I go to a Craft on a Thursday.  One of the crafty friends made my birthday cake last year.  Earlier this year she sent the pics of the cake off to the Cake magazine in the UK and she got her/mine cake published! Well done Beth....and of course I still have the decorations from on top! (Don't be surprised Claire)

We have also been very busy getting our miniature festival items ready for the show - S.A.M.E.  One of the items SW and I put in was a copy of my Studio workshop and Garden.  This is 1/12th scale and most items except for the ironing board and two swivel chairs were all made by us!  It was a great project to work on and got us thinking a little outside the square of what to use to represent the real thing,

A close up of the "Gammil"!  LOL (needs a couple more bits and pieces on it to finish it off but we ran out of time.  The panto pattern on there is 'Florence' from Lorien quilting - a copy of the real one I also have on the setup.

Another item I displayed - St George and the Dragon - this was for the medieval section.  Sadly the Dragon killed St George this time round!  Once again, except for the Dragon and the bones, I made all the other parts of the scenery.  The sad knight in the front was made by one of our members Bev.

And our third item - not a real good pic - might have to change later! - is the Christmas Bon Bons.  These are 1/48th scale and to give you an idea of size - the 'box' they fit in is a Pringles or similar size container.  There is a bit of quirkiness here if you enlarge the pic and have a look closely!

During July, I managed to catch the dreaded 'lurgy' that is going around :( So I confined myself to home for 12 days....very hard to do!  Anyway, didn't have much energy or thinking power, so hunted through my cupboards and found some kits I had bought a while ago.  What better time to get them out and do them??  The following four houses are 1/144th scale (they sit on the palm of my hand)  I was very pleased with the finished items..don't know that I need to do anymore though!

Last Friday was Snobs and Slobs get together.  I have not been there for a while for sickness and other reasons so thought it time I turned up!  Angela has done this lovely warm looking stitchery quilt.

Glenice showing off her grand daughters hat that has stretched a bit - looks like Claire rather than Glenice!

Saturday, a couple of us got together for the Farmers Wife meeting - ROFLMAO here - Farmers Wife!!!! Anyway, moving right along, Kay has done this lovely stitchery quilt.

And this Cathedral Window looking quilt.

And this round the world quilt.

Claire sorted her Suffolk Puffs out in order.

And me? Well I didn't do much, just took some photos! LOL

Live, laugh, love....

...and we did all of that this weekend!!  Yes, it was the bi-annual trip to Carrickalinga for us Snobs & Slobs once again.  Unfortunately, not all attended this weekend due to various circumstances...and all weekend we kept waiting for the others to come upstairs from the toilet! LOL

Never the less....we managed to open our purses in a couple of the fabric/quilt shops on the way (and even on the way back too!) (Haven't got a pic of all our purchases - which is probably a good thing really!)  

We stopped at a wonderful shop in Unley for morning tea/lunch (Lorraine's worms were playing up again) that only sells Gluten Free food!!! Seventh heaven for myself and Claire.  Here they are waiting to be fed :)

Then it was off and going to the destination of our home away from home for 3 nights and days.  We were rather quick to get the PJ's on.

And started off with Show Off and Tell.  Lorraine was first with her Farmers Wife quilt.

So we all then went off into a huff and hid for the afternoon.  As the weekend progressed, so did the projects.  Lorraine got this quilt top almost finished - made from a jelly roll.

She also got this lovely little Christmas quilt top done - made from a charm pack.

Kay did a good job on her Drunkards Path Quilt.

Claire was well away with one of her new patterns from Gale Pan Designs.

Kay also managed to put together a delightful scrap quilt.  Here we all are having a feel with out toes :)

My effort for the most part was annoying everyone with my stupidity and taking nice pictures - some of which are to follow.  Besides that I did manage to get the next project for Thursday craft almost finished.  It is a Christmas crazy patch waistcoat (or for some, a cushion cover)

The usual array of food was on hand for consumption.

 

The following pics are the ones which I will probably get smacked for putting up here - but you get that! (I have a new camera and it does some funny stuff as you take the pics! so why not use it I say??)

Claire was feeling a bit snotty by this stage....

And so ends another trip :( Oh well back to the grindstone so we can all come again in another six months!