Singing the night away

Last night the music club theme was "songs from the 1950s" and a fun night it was too. But I am feeling a bit second-hand today, there's a little man with a drill who's trying to make a hole in my head....he started while I was asleep last night.......haven't had a headache for a long time, at least not since I finished working late last year. (that must say something about the job I left) And I don't want this one. And before you all ask, it's not a hangover.

My "Road to St Louis" quilt has been coming steadily along, I was planning to do some work on it today but perhaps I will wait for my head to get better, heaving a quilt through My Lovely New Bernina can be hard work. Perhaps I shall just sit quietly in a comfortable chair and hand-piece Flower Basket blocks for a while, and think peaceful thoughts, and inhale lavender.

Here's a gem from 1958 that I sang last night -
Send me the pillow that you dream on..........don't you know that I still care for you.......etc........

Jennifer

Still paying it forward

Congratulations to Debbie on being guest blogger on Quilting Bloggers!

And Kiera-Oona has joined in Pay It Forward, thank you so much! Two lovely people have joined in so there is still one vacancy.

A friend and I had a lovely time yesterday, fabric shopping....probably bought more than I need but what the heck......it's my retirement stash.

Jennifer

Pay it forward

Sherry is joining Pay it Forward....Sherry is from Ontario, Canada....thank you Sherry...... another connection with Canada! Aussies and Canadians seem to get along well. One of the blokes in my choir calls himself "Canaussian"; originally from Winnipeg he has lived in Australia for a long time, I think he said 30 years or so. Our younger son lives in Ontario and we have several Canadian friends. We have seen a little of Canada and it's a beautiful country.

Binky has been very helpful lately as you can see, I don't know I could manage without her help. Here she is minding my 'Road to St Louis' quilt until I am ready to work on it. You can see the pieced blocks under Binky, the backing fabric is blue with a green stripey vine pattern. There's quite a lot of green in this quilt, and it's not a huge quilt but is obviously big enough for Binky. And the Yellowglen box in the background isn't full of wine unfortunately - for the non-Aussies, Yellowglen make a very nice fizzy wine - the room used to be our older sons room and the box is probably full of something like "Modern Drummer" magazines. Even drummers have parents........

Jennifer

WOW day - and what a WOW!

Yesterday friends called to visit and presented us with a wonderful surprise - a retirement gift, especially hand-made just for us. Knowing of my wombat collection (the whole world knows of my wombat collection by now) Alison painted a beautiful bowl in my favourite colours, and personalised it with a special message too.
Thank you so much! Friends are very special folk.
Earlier this month Carole posted on her blog about some lovely old and embroidered linen she bought, including a white piece that she was unsure about. It's a tea cosy, shaped like mine. This one was made by my mother's Auntie Laura (who made the lovely doyley in last week's WOW post) I am guessing in the 1930s; the outer layer is beautifully tatted lace, front and back are the same, and the lining is green rayon taffeta with a shirred panel joining the front and back pieces. Inside that is a cosy made of white cotton fabric padded to keep a teapot warm. I can't tell what the padding is as the white fabric is tightly woven, but it feels as though it may be unspun wool. It would probably fit a four-cup teapot.

Somehow I don't think this was in everyday use....I think it would have been kept "for good". I also have a beautiful cloth that Laura made, with an ecru linen centre and a very wide tatted lace border. My mother always told me that one day it would be mine, and when she died ten years ago all these lovely pieces came to me. When I die.......who knows?

Jennifer

It's done......

.....I managed to combine the various posts for the folded star tutorial into one, so now the picture links to just one post instead of several. I was thinking I couldn't do it because I don't know html, I don't know much about computer stuff at all really - and in the end it turned out to be as simple as copy and paste. My shoulder is sore from patting myself on the back.

Yesterday I started to machine quilt a scrappy quilt I made a few years ago using the traditional 'Road to St Louis' pattern, I named the quilt "Meet me at the fair" - if you know the song you will get the musical reference! For those who don't, it's from the musical "Meet Me in St Louis", and the song starts:
Meet me in St Louis, Louis, meet me at the fair......etc.....

Now I am off to iron my black skirt as my choir has a gig this evening, we wear black pants or skirts with blue, green or purple tops; then I am going to quilt a line or 2. Or perhaps 3.

Jennifer

Today's WOW and last week's finish

First the finish......the blocks for this bag were started a few years ago and I never got around to assembling the bag when the blocks were finished. The pattern is one I have had for a very long time, "Sampler Sewing Bag" by Amberwood Crafts and it's the second time I have made it. The colours for the blocks were inspired by the rainbow striped fabric used for the handles, back and a couple of the blocks; the lining is lilac cotton.
This week's WOW is a blue, green and pink swirly glass wombat bought several years ago in Canberra, and it is posing on a lovely lace doyley made of linen with an edge of tatted lace. The doyley was made many years ago by my mother's Auntie Laura, I have several of her lace pieces. Unfortunately I never knew her as she died when I was a baby. Poor Laura, she had a sad life; had her first child, a son, at 17 then several years later married and had a daughter. Her daughter died as a teenager, and her son was killed just three years later in a confrontation between striking miners and police in the Hunter Valley, NSW. A distant cousin and I both share the middle name of Grace - Laura's daughter's name was Dorothy Grace.

We have been enjoying some lovely rain over the past few days, and more is forecast for tomorrow. Australia has had it all in the past ten days; floods in Queensland and parts of NSW, and fires in Victoria.

Kiera-Oona and I have been trying to work out to combine the posts for the folded star tutorial into one, if anyone out there in blogland knows how to do it we would appreciate a point in the right direction.

Jennifer

I has a finish!

The bag that I had to re-make the lining for is finished! That makes the third project for 2009. Haven't taken a pic yet; I only finished it last night and haven't given it a final press. But it will get its pic taken and duly posted here, so the world (or my little bit of the world) can see it.

Rain, lovely rain.........it rained yesterday, and has rained this morning. Our dry parched grass is getting greener as we watch it. And there is apparently more rain to come. We are very relieved.

Jennifer

WOW for the animals

A few years ago our older son gave me this replica road sign, so I photographed it with one of my Aussie native grevilleas. The bees love that shrub - they didn't take kindly to being disturbed for a photo shoot! Signs like this warning of wombats - kangaroos - emus and other wildlife are common along Australian roads. Our native animals regard the road as their territory as much as the bush is. Today's WOW is for them.

In the Victorian fires of the last few days 126 people have died and people are still missing. Nearly 800 homes, to say nothing of businesses, farms, government buildings, schools, have gone. Two small towns don't exist any more. Many fires are still burning; it could be a long time before they are all finally out as some of the country is hilly and inaccessible. My heart goes out to all the families affected. There have also been countless animals lost, native animals (I know a wildlife rescue/carer in Victoria, thankfully she is nowhere near the fires this time), farm animals, domestic pets. A woman who does amazing machine embroidery, Lynne Stone, has lost her house and RV - look at the embroidery photos on her website - we saw some of her wonderful work at an exhibition a couple of years ago and could not believe that her flowers and plants weren't real.

Thank you to the folk who left comments after my last post, people all over Australia were in shock last night, we were both in tears watching the news.

On a slightly happier note - yesterday I started to pin the lining into my new bag and it didn't fit; although I had measured at least three times and cut once, somewhere I had made a mistake. Too small. The heat had fried my brain and I was working with less brain cells than usual. I could have taken it apart and tried to salvage it which would have been tricky as the corners had been boxed and cut off, or I could buy more fabric. Guess what I did.

Jennifer

A day of disaster in Australia

What can one say....at present it is known that 76 people have died in the Victorian fires but that number will grow as more people are found in burnt cars and homes, and over 700 houses gone. Victoria is a beautiful state and we have enjoyed several holidays there, some of the areas that we know are now just smouldering charred earth - no trees or buildings left. Some small towns have been completely wiped off the map. Watching/listening to news bulletins is so terribly sad. At least no one we know has been killed although we have friends who live in the areas affected by fires.

To the overseas folk, please just bear with us while we all come to terms with such a great loss.

To think that some of these fires were deliberately lit is beyond understanding.

Jennifer

Picture and link added

Thanks to Chookyblue for pointing me in the right direction...I was on the right road but hadn't quite made it to the gate. So now I have a picture of my Folded Star trivet, and a link to the tutorial, in my sidebar.

I have been sewing up a storm in front of the air-con, my new bag is coming along nicely. The lining only needs the corners boxed, then it can be attached inside the bag. I probably won't stay up to do it tonight; I stayed up very very late last night reading as it was too hot to go to bed. But it will be finished tomorrow, another finish! That will be three so far for 2009!

Looking forward to the cool change tomorrow evening.

Jennifer

Asking for help

Dear fellow bloggers, many of you are far more technologically minded than I am. (that's not difficult) I would like to put a picture on my sidebar with a link to the tutorial for the folded star trivet I posted in December, and I cannot for the life of me work out how to do it. My brain has been fried by the heat so I am working with less functioning brain cells than usual. If anyone could help me I would be very very grateful. I would be full of grate.

This is one of the cushions I have been propping under my injured foot (which, by the way, isn't quite right yet - I bumped it in the shower this morning and it told me quite firmly not to do that). I bought the tea-dyed stitchery several years ago from a shop in Queensland, used a deep red for the embroidery then framed it with a tiny strip of green to match the green in the Aussie wildflower print that I used for the rest of the cushion. The old house looks like so many that are still around in country districts - it wouldn't be trendy enough for city folk, but I like them.

Now I am going to move My Lovely New Bernina into the lounge room which has air-con, and work on my latest bag.

Jennifer

No takers yet for Pay It Forward?

See this post for details - it's the first time I have tried Pay It Forward - it seems like a lovely way to connect with folk elsewhere in this big wide world.

I am trying to get enthusiastic about progressing on my latest bag but it's getting a bit warm, my sewing mojo slinks away for a while in this heat. Even more so does my knitting mojo......at this rate my cardigan won't be finished by autumn......and this weekend the forecast is for 44 degrees C - that's 111 degrees F, for those who count that way - that's not nice. But next week will apparently be much cooler thank goodness, my mojo will come back and I will sew up a storm.

The other day I quilted the layers together in a diamond grid for the bag back, laid it carefully on the desk so it wouldn't get creased, and yesterday evening had to kick Binky (The World's Friendliest Cat) off it. She thought it was a lovely new little Binky-sized quilt. I have news for her......no pics yet, I will take a pic when it is finished. There is still some decorating with beads, buttons and bows for the front to be done, the handles to be made, the lining to be cut and assembled, and the whole bag put together. When it's put that way - it doesn't look as though I am very advanced at all!

If anyone emails me and I don't reply within a day or so, please forgive me; we are having ongoing mailbox/server problems. It is so bad that last week I rang the government ombudsman who helps sort out problems, after being passed around from technician to technician, and country to country, I have had enough. I may be old,* short* and fat* but don't mess with me.

Jennifer
PS *old - not really, I am 29 and some months; *short - can't help that, blame my parents; *fat - no, just carrying a bit more weight that my doctor thinks is good for me. But don't mess with me anyway.

Somehow I seem to have lost a day........it's WOW day already

Today's Wombat of the Week is a cute little feller (I think they are all cute!) - it's a hand puppet. Try as I may I could not get a good picture of this wombat with my hand up its bum, so we will have to settle for a reclining hand puppet resting on one of my quilt books.
This little bag was made as a gift for a visitor from Sweden. The pretty fabric is an Australian wildflower print, the bag is lined with sky blue. The waratah bowl was made at Pilliga Pottery and bought in Tamworth last year; I have a soft spot for our native flowers. And the pretty Teneriffe lace cloth on the table belonged to Kevin's mother, I have a lovely stash of beautiful hand-made linen that belonged to my mother, her mother and aunts, and Kevin's mother and grandmother.

Do you know, I could have sworn that yesterday was still January....had my days mixed up...I thought that February started today. It's all the fault of that big machine in Europe, it's mucking around with time.

Last week Kevin and I hung some net curtains in the lounge room, they are very sheer but help keep some of the hot glare out. The receipt was still in the bag of curtain fabric, it was purchased on 22nd January 2005 which means it sat in that bag for four years and one week. Shame on us. I seem to remember we were waiting for Bianca The Beautiful to grow out of the destructive kitten-climbing-up-the-curtains stage before we hung the new curtains.

For the Aussies, stay cool. For those living in the midst of snow and ice at present, you lucky folk!

Jennifer