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.....

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

Where did last week go?...

...oh yes! I remember....most of it was at Carrickalinga! LOL Fab time had by all. A very much needed R&R was definitely the order of the four days we spent down there. The weather was fab and then awful and then fab again. The shopping was kept to a strict minimum...????dum de do!

First night there was just right temperature wise and the sky was rather nice and clear.We settled in for the night...Lorraine was very busy working on her star quilt while Lynne was whittling the fingers away on a stitchery.Glenice had done some knitting so was rather occupied with her stuffing, while Claire looked on bemusedly!Sunset the second night was just beautiful.Just to prove that we ate good healthy food for the weekend - this was the lunch serving!More knitting....Oh! forgot to tell you that Lynne brought her portable wide screen TV phone to ring home on! LOL...some reading (or perving maybe eg centrefold???) was done...Lorraine made a good effort - she cut and sewed this lovely little Log Cabin topper - its not Christmas fabric but we all decided it could well be a nice table piece for that time of the year.Claire had nearly completed her Gail Pan Berries & Bluebirds quilt top - looking lovely!Almost finished! Lorraine completed (or so she thought) her Star Quilt, but once she had the binding on we all decided (as we do!) that she needed to echo her cable on the border. Good effort to Lorraine and what a gorgeous quilt!I will leave you on this post with the last sunset we saw for the weekend - just cant beat the colours that are natural can you?