Retreat 2015 Day 2

Still having lots of fun - sewing madly..eating gorgeous food...
Included in my work today:

FNSI - August & Retreat 2015 Day 1

For FNSI this month I got to sew with real friends as well as all my cyber friends!!!!


Day 1 of my retreat...
I've been working on this ...can't show too much....

I drank a bit more of this wine (only a small glass....truly)......I was keeping it under wraps . . . .

Before I left home on Thursday I collected this from the Post Office

I was one of the lucky winners for July OPAM - Peg sent me a gorgeous dilly bag, 3 reels of thread and a Cottage Garden Thread - wow!!!  I was stumped - amazing generosity - thanks again Peg & Khris!!!

Hope everyone had a fun productive night - I had a ball...too much happening to be drifting off to sleep in my lounge chair.....

"Ekka" Holiday

It was a Public Holiday in Brisbane today - for People's Day at the Royal Exhibition Show - fondly referred to as "The Ekka".

I took the opportunity to hide in SSS and added the peeper, the creamy squares and blue border to my SAL project.  I still have 46 squares to applique between the cream and blue to finish this month's target . . . .

And since it's that time of the year, I also filled all my bobbins . . . 

in anticipation of . . "Retreat".

Yahoo!!!!  Only 9 sleeps to go!!!!

FNWF - late...

Oops - I missed posting for FNWF last Friday night!!

I did sew - I enjoyed knowing others were sewing with me.

I worked on this:...its an old Jenny of Elefantz project and I'm adding these little bits to my DD1 Give Thanks hanger.

and may have had a bit of this:
(only one small glass...just to try it...you know...)

See you next month - I'll try to be more diligent then.

That's not supposed to happen

Today I thought I would post about my Natures's Journey - its time to finish off the centre block, but while filling in some time stitching out a flower or two - and tidying up around me at the same time - this happened....

The excess fabric and stabilizer has folded over onto the stitching area and got caught under the needle...

Poop!
just as well I am not desperately short of fabric...

Saturday Meet-up

Over on the Stitch-A-Long blog, we all knew that Holly from Nimble Thimble Stitchery-Do was visiting Australia from Canada for a cousin's wedding.  Holly, Chookyblue and I had been communicating and planning a meetup - I knew that as long as we could coordinate dates around Holly's commitments I could do it - but to get Chooky here required a lot more maneuvering and Holly really wanted to meet Chookyblue.   Well...she lives about 8 hours aways so it was going to need something extraordinary to get her here.

But the "Social Event" Gods were smiling and a farming friend of Mr & Mrs Chooky in northern NSW needed some help "preg testing" the cows...let's not go there to learn how they preg test, but it does include very long rubber gloves...That was about half way to Brisbane .....so not so much of a push to get Chooky to Brisbane.  So that looked like it would happen....(By the way the Preg testing was cancelled due to wet weather!)
The plans continued and we were able to include Michelle Ridgway - who had just released her first ever book - including patterns for a gorgeous quilt and a lot of tags and smaller projects which she brought along to show.

Then another "surprise" guest - Lynette Anderson - who is taking it a little easy for now as she has damaged her finger - Chooky decided she needed a bit of cheering up so we invited her too.  (Fortunately Quilt Sherpa - her driver for now - also needed to come to Brisbane...the gods were still smiling on us).  Lynette also very generously gave each of us a charm pack of her latest fabric range - Needles & PIns.  Gorgeous fabrics.  I need to make something special with them......

What a roll up - sorry to anyone else who went to the Full Moon for a quiet lunch!!  And sorry to those who chose to go away...

In all we had 19 people!

Sadly this photo (which I brazenly copied) is missing Holly & Megan  ...so here is Cheryl, Megan, me & Holly. (sorry I pinched this one too....)

I had a lovely time chatting to Holly & Megan - we were all trying to drag Megan into the "patchwork" world - and her husband's business is opposite a quit shop - what more could  you want???  But Megan is thinking she may venture into a "Craft Retreat" place so we gave her all sorts of ideas & recommendations!!!  

We reluctantly said goodbye to Holly & Megan late in the afternoon.

During the afternoon those of us who had missed getting their mini quilt from Sunday Stitchers were able to catch up.

Here is mine (made by Lynda)

and its reversible!!

I love it - anything with houses or building gets a vote in my book!!  Thanks so much Lynda.

Chooky was "sleeping over" at my place so we sorted her fabrics for her Nature's Journey centre block - and look she got it done ...

well maybe not quite finished...but it looks effective.

Thanks so much to everyone who came along - I am sure Holly will remember this day as a special part of her trip down under - lets hope she gets back soon!

Sunday Stitchers Mini Quilt Swap

This months meeting was to hand over our mini quilts - sadly I couldn't be there but I organised for my quilt to be there on the day.

I made this one for Cheryl - and silly me - forgot to take a photo so I have pinched the IG photo that Cheryl posted.  (Love her hanger.)

(Thanks Cheryl, hope you don't mind)

So, two finishes in a month!!!!! Whoopee!!!

I will collect mine next Saturday.

FNSI - July

I had Thursday and Friday off work - so I have spent a lot of that time organising things for my retreat...its now less than 5 weeks away...so it's time to start cutting and packing bits.

I have a list of things I want to do - no doubt longer than the time allowed ...but best to have too much than not enough.

I am planning on a few projects that involve 1.5" strips...I seem to have cut a gazillion - here they are:

 Still need a couple of reds

 and a couple of yellows

On Friday night I also finished preparing another block for my Quilty Christmas Fun quilt.

And I did a bit of stitching on my Rosalie Quinlan BFF while watching some TV...

Hope everyone else was productive and not too cold - or hot - depending on where you are..

Finally a Finish!!!!

When I look at my list of finishes for the year on the right hand side I get very depressed....

I do get a lot of time to sew...usually...so why no finishes????

Oh..... that would be because I have too many projects on the go - and mostly they are "quilts" not smaller thing slike bags and wall hangings etc.....Well that's my excuse and I am sticking with it...

Finally, a finish - this might be because of a "sort of" deadline.. I did a Natalie Bird workshop in February along with the Sunday Stitchers and it was suggested that we aim to finish our projects by the July meetup - so I did.  It was designed as a pouch for a kindle or similar but since I have a cover for my iPad - I made a sewing folder - a few others have done that too...but they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I have another almost finish - it's a secret sewing thing...(so I can't show you...yet) but you know when you are putting the binding on - you do a rough measure around to make sure the joins don't end up in the corners...and for me they hardly ever do first time - and then sometimes it's late and you are trying to get it done...and you don't???

Murphy's Law prevails:

FNWF + Saturday Sewing

The first Friday of the Month is time for FNWF - any excuse to sew my DH would say..

I worked on this and have finally finished the alphabet and block 2 from Mrs Beasleys Sampler:

I have a "Go -To" project that is handy when I haven't organised any other hand sewing...so I did a bit on that on Friday and continued sewing this on Saturday at my group  meeting ...there are 32 blocks all up - I've done 12 - although I haven't done any words yet - they will be all one colour and will match the fabrics that I use around each hexagon . . . .when I finally get there.

Saturday night I did a bit more on the "Go-To" project, cut some strips of yellow for a soon to start project and finished off the top for a secret project.

Sunday was a bit of a "domestic" day - went through my wardrobe and now have a "few" bags to drop off at the local Op Shop - did the necessary grocery shopping and tonight I have got to the pinning stage of that secret project...so you can only see one corner....I have ummed and aaahed over this so much - and as my friends tell me - sometimes you just overthink things...so no changes now just a bit if quilting & binding to go....and a label of course...

Thanks for your company - thanks Cheryll for organising and encouraging us...I'll be over to visit a few during the week.