Years have passed by

Good grief, I can't remember when I last posted on this blog. Time flies and I was bored with blogging. Facebook gathered me up in it's arms and whisked me off to quick comments and instant pics.

Now I am back but I don't know for how long.
My quilting is keeping me busy as I move from making bed covers to art quilts and textiles.
Meet Liberty Bunny, fashioned from tiny scraps of Liberty fabric and stitched and stitched and stitched. My heart fills with joy as the little tufts turn into a creature right before my eyes.

Years gone by

Too long has passed since I last blogged. My quilts are different now. More arty and less snuggly.

This Liberty Rabbit is my latest project, how I wish I could work out what prevents wrinkles amongst the thread sketching. I've used heavy stabilizer, batting, adjusted tension and sewed slowly. My next trick is blocking and stretching onto a frame.

Just some rambling.

I don't seem to be blogging much these days but I'm still keeping busy.
This morning I put a pot of beans on to boil then took a shower, refreshed and dressed I toddled out to my studio to sew up this sample block for my "Bee".

I had great fun with this gorgeous pattern from Lori Holt and I'm really looking forward to getting 11 more blocks from the Bee group next month. Suddenly my nose twitched......
Oh dear.....

One wrecked pot, one very dirty stove and no beans for dinner.

Unless you like them blackened and scorched!

Yesterday I posted a couple of quilts to Finland. I am amazed by the postage costs these days, over $90 to send two small boys a quilt each. I hope they like them!

They came back from the quilter a week ago so I finished the binding and added a little extra quilting detail just so I felt I'd done some too.

I'm feeling very emotionally attached to these quilts, I have never met the boys who own them or their Dad, in fact I haven't seen their Mum since she was a young English backpacker travelling through WA nearly 20 years ago but I truly believe friends come for a reason, a season or a lifetime and this family is definitely in my life for ever. It is thanks to the internet now that I can see photos of them more frequently.

Another great friend I have thanks to technology is Lizzie @ A House in the Country. She was in Perth recently for her talented daughter's Art Exhibition so we made a date to take our cameras to Fremantle.

Maybe my new found love of photography is keeping me too busy to blog?

Springtime

Just to set the scene, imagine eight retired ladies, two cars, a couple of cameras and several thermos's of hot water and teabags.............and a carpet of wild flowers in the bush.

That's how we kept ourselves amused yesterday.

Only six made it into this photo........one was holding the camera and the other must have been pouring the tea.

The flowers did their best to give us a pretty show.

Great photo opportunities.

And we all enjoyed our picnic at Mingenew Coalseam Park.

A surprise visit

Our middle boy called on Thursday....could he and his family come up for the weekend?

Would I ever say "No"?

The boat came too and while they all went fishing on Saturday, I took a walk 

and did some homework for my photography class.

I think the fishing was more successful than the photography.

 These are Dhufish, my very favourite fish to eat and as it sells for around $80 per kilo at the fish shop, we were pretty happy with the three kilos of fillets these guys gave us.

Sunday was a chance to exercise the dogs and everyone else on the beach.

Poor Choppa, he is getting on a bit and the big sand hills took a toll on his legs,
I'm glad I didn't have to carry him back to the car.
He recovered quite quickly after a rest.

Then we had coffee and pancakes at my favourite beach cafe, 

Jackson was impressed with an ice-cream spider for his breakfast.

We do live in a pretty special place and it's nice to share it with family.

The Dragon has landed......well, almost

I'm still working on Shelby's quilt and I'm glad to say it is taking shape.

The tree has grown and is now ready to support that "Scaredy Cat" Dragon. Who'd have thought he'd be so frightened of chickens?

A quilt for Shelby

I've been asked to make quilts for three sisters, aged 11, 9 and seven.
A list of their favourite colours and things was delivered and the rest is up to me.

I'm starting with Shelby's. She is eleven, loves dragons, chooks, her pony, animal prints, Sparkly fabrics, black and blue. Now if anything will need thinking about, I guess this is it!

I did a sketch, then sewed some fabrics together totally differently to the drawing. Right now I'm working on the tree...........that'll have to be another post.