I am alive… but

It isn’t that I don’t enjoy quilting, it is just that life is really, really busy.

Find me on Facebook… I am there somewhere…

The week that was

Kit and Thelma in 2008

Appearing in Thursday’s Border Morning Mail (12/8/10)

DUGAN (nee Maclure), Thelma Jean. — Formerly of Tangambalanga. Passed away peacefully at Yamaroo Hostel, Yackandandah surrounded by her loving family on Wednesday, August 11, 2010, aged 92 years. Dearly loved wife of Bill (dec). Loved mother of Ann, Wilma (dec) and Stuart and mother-in-law of Maurice, Margaret and friend of Graham. Loving Nin of 10 grandchildren, cherished Nin of 10 great-grandchildren.

Re-united with Dad and Wilma.

Rest Peacefully, Nin.

This week I will be travelling home to bury the woman who mothered me after my mother, Wilma, died. This is going to be hard.

A lazy day in the Capital

At the moment the Canberra Quilt Show is on (actually today is the last day). Cas and I went and had a look about at it this morning.  Here is the obligatory pics of the quilts I liked…

Yes, there was only one…

And you can go and see the rest of the winners at the Canberra Quilter’s Website.

Then I came home and created with clay…

Do I have to go???

Holidays end for me on Monday, back to work.

No more spending my days with King Henry while working on the Mosaic Flower Garden or some other things which I have completed! Yes, that is right, completed!

I had to finish something. And I know that the term is about to start and there is something which I am getting which I need a pouch for. So I made one.

My iPad will hopefully make its appearance in the house sometime in the next few weeks, so I made a carry pouch for it. Based on this tutorial I made it in an afternoon… and it looks a little something like this…

(Please note the black nails – I love them)

On the inside of the sleeve there is flannel, which should not only keep the iPad (which will have a name when it arrives) warm, but should also protect it a little from scratching.

There were a couple of changes which I made to the pattern, the addition of the flannel was the first, the second was to have a pocket on the inside of the cover, rather than the outside wrap around one.

My iPhone is in the pocket where the iPad will go and there is an inner pocket on the other side from that under the red fabric (my descriptive ability is impaired by the lack of coffee, when the new baby arrives, I will blog about this again).

And here is proof that I managed to find my stuff… but I think that there needs to be another post all about that

There comes a point where you wonder why…

Why, why, why did I start this quilt?

Mosaic Flower Garden is going along, it should be I have been slowly working on it for over 2 years now… TWO YEARS!!! Well earlier on this week I decided I hated it and I wasn’t going to do any more. It was pale and washed out, there was no vibrancy to it, it wasn’t what I wanted. So I have started putting the top together, just because I have cut out all of the frames for the hexagons and didn’t want to lose them… Then I started putting the squares in and the top started to take shape.

I have put it out on the floor and taken photos of it before, but they have actually been sewn together now… there is more of it together than what is here, and I have managed to catch up on all sorts of trashy tv… love school holidays…

There are two blocks which have to be completed soon… I want to get the top together by the end of the school holidays, so I have almost two weeks… Both of the blocks are from the bottom row, so I figure I can put the other rows together just to see some progress with it.

The 8th one to be finished

And then there were nine…

I think that if I manage to get the centre of the quilt together, I may actually see some progress… but I still wonder why it is I started the thing in the first place…

Like a butterfly…

I have emerged fron under the paper… be here soon…

I HAVE SEWN SOMETHING!!!!

A picture is worth a thousand words…

I am working on a number of deadlines at the moment… the teachers of the world will understand in one word…. reports… but I also have a couple of other things on my plate (the whole biting off more than you can chew syndrome)… hopefully I will surface from under the mountain of paper sometime soon…

Today I stood in a queue

I stood outside the National Gallery for about an hour and a half to see the Masterpieces from Paris exhibition. And it was well worth the wait. I even picked up a couple by Van Gough and a Monet while I was there (prints of course, the real thing would be lovely, but the budget doesn’t quite stretch that far).

And I may sew something today, not sure.

Yes, I do still have a blog

I get asked quite a bit as to whether or not I still have a quilt blog, but given that I don’t do much in the way of quilting at the moment (thus making me wonder if I still have the right to refer to myself as a quilter), I have had to think abut things again.

There are still quite a few who do pop in from time to time – the counter thing is full of information about such things – so I guess I should write about what I have been up to of late.

Well, I moved house (hold on I have already said that). We had Christmas with more family than I am generally used to (I think there are pictures about cherries to that effect). But then I went on a bit of an adventure… I went to the tennis.

I love tennis – used to play, small child (whose birthday it is today) plays it with alarming regularity, and apparently quite well (but I digress)… I went to the Australian Open, a whole week of tennis, tennis and not a lot else more than tennis… apart for the bit where it rained.

So, here are the obligatory photos…

It rained on the first day… so here is what happens before there can be any more play…

This photo actually tells the story of the first day. This was the only match I watched on the first day, a women’s match, it started at 11.00 am… for all of the maths people in the room, what story does this tell???

But then the rain cleared and there was a whole lot of tennis… I will (eventually) have more on flickr, but for the moment I leave you with…

Janko Tipsarevic…

And Gael Monfils…

There are some others as well… but that can do for now.

One meal down and another to go…

It is half time in the Christmas celebrations for 2009… so far there have been presents and food and chocolate and food and brunch and food…

One of my favourite things about Christmas is cherries. They are usually really nice and juicy at this time of year…

Hope that you are all having a Merry Christmas… more later…