A Herd of Horses

Finished at last – it was time to take the horse quilt to get commercially quilted.  We dropped the “Great All Breeds Horse Show” quilt off at Paula’s quilt studio, Rabbits Patch Quilting.

We discussed what sort of quilting I wanted and tossed around several ideas.  Paula does marvellous custom quilting so we went with that.

At the studio

Paula had just returned from a Long-Arm Conference in Adelaide, and was buzzing with all sorts of new ideas.  I’ve decided to give my grand-daughter Emma her new quilt at Christmas, so there is plenty of time to get the quilt back, and sew the binding and label on.

“Great All Breeds Horse Show” quilt

Emma loves horses, and requested black and grey, and with the addition of 18 embroidered named  horse heads, I’m sure she will love her new quilt.  These beautiful embroideries of realistic horse breeds were purchased from King’s Treasures, a great on-line shop in the USA.

Exciting News!

What could be more exciting than an overseas holiday across the ditch!  We are just about to set out for an (almost)  month long trip around Australia, all centred around a trip on the legendary Ghan Railway.  We start off in Adelaide, where we have several day trips planned to check out the area.  Board the train and travel up to Alice Springs, where we disembark for a week’s exploring – can’t wait to see Uluru.  Re-board again, and travel up to Darwin – lots to see and do there, too.  Then finally we fly to Brisbane for our last week.  I have a long lost brother living there, so it will be great to catch up with him again.

So I have been busy making blocks from Australian fabric to take away, together with my trusty Pigma pen.  These will be a form of “fabric diary” and I intend to write down where we stay, things we do, and attractions visited in the white rectangles.  Then I’ll sew it all together when we get home.

Blocks made with Australian fabric.

Rather like the idea behind these rail fence blocks I stitched to take away a few years ago when we travelled around the South Island on our three month caravan holiday.   Prints used included Maori designs, water, paua shells, kiwis, pohutakawa flowers, in fact all sorts of New Zealand icons.

Tablecloth made with NZ fabrics to record our South Island Odyssey trip

Our Aussie trip was booked and paid for well before I received my upsetting breast cancer diagnosis, and we wondered if we would be able to go when we had planned.  But luckily the timings have worked out, I’m over the worst now, just recovering from my radiation, which is getting better every day.  We are looking forward and determined to make the most of our Aussie adventure.

Are there any blog readers living in Adelaide, Alice Springs, Darwin or Brisbane?  If so, please do get in touch.  It would be lovely to meet with a fellow quilter as we travel around.

Any Guesses?

Any guesses what I’m up to this week?  It all started with this bunch of fabrics which I sliced and diced.

For a mystery project

Then I made a whole bunch of these.  Oh no - I'm making yet another UFO!

All stitched up

What do you think?  We have some exciting news coming, and this will be part of it.  Meanwhile, normal service on Rolling the Dice and the List of Six has been postponed for a while.  I’ll let you know all about it next time. 

Sew Wots Tuesday

The Sew Wot ladies welcomed me back to the fold after I had missed a couple a couple of meetings with my hospital appointments.  There was another birthday to celebrate – this time it was for Heather B, and lots of lovely gifts were coming thick and fast.

We all love “Show and Tell” and Heather started off and showed us the table runners she had made using some interesting “toile” type fabric featuring patchwork scenes.

Two table runners made by Heather B

Close up of fabric used in table runners

We all loved Mary’s “Domestic Bliss”  quilt top, showing scenes from the life of a housewife.  There's certainly a lot of humour in these stitcheries and we had a chuckle or two as we looked at all the blocks.

Domestic Bliss stitched by Mary

Mary loves anything with a vintage flavour and brought along a tray cloth she had recently completed.  Her work is always so beautiful, and we all commented on how the black stitching sets off the rest of the design. 

Stitched by Mary

Our hostess Carol had some Show and Tell too, another item in the stitchery mode.  This was a lovely red Sunbonnet Sue quilt top, and she is keeping this one for herself, she declared.  Sunbonnet Sue has been around for a long time, but she is definitely a classic design.  Lots of lovely pieced blocks to complement the stitchery blocks.

Carol’s Sunbonnet Sue quilt top

Grunge fabric seems to be all the rage these days, I had seen it mentioned on various overseas blogs, although most of us had never seen it before.  Moira had been shopping recently and brought along a selection of Grunge fabric to show us.

Grunge fabric, so that’s what it looks like

There was plenty of chit-chat going on, a little stitching, reading magazines, and generally catching up with everyone’s news.  Just a normal stitching morning, and another delicious morning tea, served up by our hostess Carol.  Including freshly baked scones with jam, yummy!

Mary and Heather B

And there was one more surprise, as some of our members were not aware that we have a “Cover Girl” in our group.  Heather E does volunteer work at the local library, and her photo is now gracing the latest issue of Elderberries Magazine.  Good one, Heather!

Our cover girl, Heather E

Saturday was Stitching Day

Saturday was Stitching Day and I was all packed up and ready to go.  Due to health reasons I hadn’t been to many club activities lately, so it was something I was looking forward to.  I joined a dozen happy quilters gathered together at the Red Cross Rooms on Saturday morning.   I was happy to be there too, and took my sewing machine along and one of my many UFOs to work on. 

Which UFO, you may well ask?  This particular one hasn’t made it to my list yet, so it is a bit of a mystery to all who follow the weekly “roll of the dice” project.  I’m making a bed sized log cabin quilt, stitched over printed tissue paper patterns.  This is a really good method for me, as although it is straight line stitching, it keeps the blocks nice and even.  I’ve already made a gazillion log cabin blocks, so I’m up to piecing the scrappy borders.

They start off like this

Paper piecing is slow.  It’s a matter of stitch, flip, and press, and I like to do a bunch of these at a time with chain piecing.  And yes, its another burgundy quilt.  I’m very fond of this colour in quilts and furnishings – it’s a lovely, warm colour, I feel.

And finish like this

Most ladies were working on their sewing machines, a couple of quilts got pinned out, and there was a little bit of hand stitching going on too.  Janneke makes many quilts for Ronald McDonald House, and was pinning up her latest one, ready for machine quilting.  Some little one is sure to love this.

Janneke’s charity quilt

Wendy has joined a little group of club members all busy hand stitching their own version of the fabulous La Passacaglia quilt.  This is surely a labour of love, and Wendy said that planning the fabrics and colours is so much fun.  These quilts take a lot of time and dedication, and we look forward to seeing the finished products some time in the future.

Wendy busy hand stitching

A quick look around the room brought up these lovelies. Madalyn was stitching up these cute little Eye Spy blocks for one of her lucky grand children.

Madalyn’s Eye Spy blocks

And Ute was machine quilting her lovely black, cream and grey quilt.  Ute’s machine quilting is wonderful and the colours in the quilt all go so well together.

Ute was busy machine quilting

I decided to take myself off home after lunch, as the energy levels were starting to flag a little.  As I told the ladies when we all sat down to eat lunch together, I’m still in recovery mode.  I was pleased with what I had achieved, went home and put my feet up for a little.  With Robin on kitchen duties for the evening meal, I could relax without feeling guilty.  It was lovely to catch up with everyone again, and have a bit of “me time”. 

Daffodil Day Today

The daffodil is one of the first flowers of spring, whose bright yellow blooms remind us of the joys the  new season will bring. It represents the hope there is for the 1 in 3 New Zealanders affected by cancer.  As well as providing an opportunity to raise awareness of cancer in New Zealand, Daffodil Day is a major funding source for the Cancer Society.  I was more than happy to help with my purchases of two bunches of these pretty spring flowers from one of the many Cancer Society stalls dotted about our town today.

Purchased for a good cause – daffodils on Daffodil Day

I had left Robin helping out on a stall at one of the local Supermarkets for a couple of hours – no doubt enjoying the chit chat with all the customers as they walked by.  And encouraging them to purchase some Cancer Society goodies so that they would part with their hard earned cash.  Robin and Ray are both Volunteer Drivers for the Cancer Society, taking patients to the hospital for ongoing treatment.

Ray and Robin manning the stall

We have had quite a bit of contact with the Cancer Society lately with my recent medical issue, and they do marvellous work.  The organisation also produce quite a range of informative booklets, run a health line telephone service, support groups, and scientific research.  We can’t thank them enough for all their help.

Something to Celebrate

Check out this beautiful morning we woke up to on Wednesday – and I’ve something to celebrate.  Yesterday was my final day for radiation treatment.

Pretty colours in the morning sky

Off we went for the 120km round trip journey for 16 days of treatment each weekday.   Thank goodness we won’t be doing that every day again, and I was more than happy to hand my blue gown back.  I have to say that the staff were marvellous, very helpful and caring, enquiring how I was faring every day and checking on side effects on my skin. I have been warned that the radiation effects will still be happening even though treatment is finished and that “things will get worse before they get better”.  But armed with creams to apply, and a district nurse calling around, I’m sure my symptoms will gradually ease.

My last day

We had a lunch out to celebrate – I chose chicken breast in filo pastry, and Robin had tender lamb cutlets.  Both meals were delicious, as we expected.

Waiting for our celebration lunch to arrive

With such a lot going on this week, I decided not to roll the dice once more.  And with all my recent finishes lately, my List of Six badly needs updating.  But never fear, there are plenty of other UFOs waiting in the wings ready to be put on the list.