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!

Sydney...here we come! (or went!!)

Well...what a weekend!  Started at 3.30 AM Saturday morning when I awoke to get ready to catch the Red Eye to Sydney.  The offset to this ridiculous time was that my friend Vikki had invited me to go with her - in Business Class and Qantas Club!!!! Wooohooo!!!  Here we are at the crack of dawn in the lounge.

We had a good flight and arrived safe and sound at the Sydney Miniature Fair.  Eager to go - but alas we were one hour early!  Never the less, we managed to find some people to chat to and passed the time away rather quickly.  The whole day was taken up looking at some delightful 'bits and pieces' for our hobby.  Here are some of the things I purchased.

There were a couple of men doing a demonstration on painting little people and making scenes out of real plants and trees.  FAB work!!!

One of the chaps also makes houses that are pretty special - totally out of card.  I must say it was a pleasure to see such detailed and defined work.

The display was magic with several of the New South Wales clubs putting their work on display.   The items on display were varied and interesting and very well done.  This scene was the first in a calender display - this one being January!

And at the end of the calender - December.

The sizes on display varied from 1/12th to 144th and everything in between.  This little A frame house was rather cute.

 As was this little display of terraced houses.

 Lovely piece of furniture here - with four floors on display.

The bedroom from the display unit above.

This next piece took my fancy also - a biscuit tin!

One of the traders let me take some pics of her display.  Most fab work to say the least!!!

And course where would I go without finding a quilt somewhere????  Isnt it wonderful?!

The next pic is not a miniature, but a building that was outside our hotel - would make a wonderful miniature though :)

 

The view from our lovely hotel room.

We had a wonderful night last night in the hotel - Vikki's family came for tea and a visit and it was a scream - what a 4 year old says at the most appropriate moment is priceless - they are the moments when you wish you had a movie camera on hand! 

After a good nights sleep we were up and atom and set off for the airport to come home.  Once again lounging in the Qantas Club!  This was the early breakfast that I had - very nice :)))

So now its back to reality again! And the week begins tomorrow :))) Hope you all had as good a weekend as I did!  A big thank you to Vikki xx