Friday 25 December 2015

Have yourself a Merry little christmas


Have yourself a Merry little Christmas. Hope that you are all having an amazing day doing whatever makes you happy. I have being having such a fun creating my family tree. I have learnt so much as well.


I have got to the point where I am starting to think about my next quilt. I have to admit that I have lost a bit of enthusiasm over the quilt I was creating. I was rushing through the blocks instead of savoring the journey. This is why I normally take a break from sewing in November and December.
The time off allows me to reconsider what I am making and whether it is a quilt that I would be happy to call my own. 
I hate not finishing projects. The question is whether to try another quilt or start hating quilting. I am addicted to fabric and it makes me sad thinking that quilting is over. 

I have the most splendid collection of Kona solids. What I need to do now is actually come up with a design. The design needs to be bright enough to make a statement. I want my dear Jane quilt to look like a faded dishrag in comparison. 

We have done the first part of Christmas. My eldest daughter and her husband came over and we have morning tea, nummy eats and received our presents.
I was given awesome gifts by my loving family. Joy Joy!. In an hour we are going to go to the before mentioned eldest daughter's house for Christmas lunch. This will be the first time in more than 20 years, where my husband and I have not hosted the Christmas celebration. It is a strange feeling sitting here at 11'o clock on a Christmas morning and not doing the entertain, get lunch ready, juggle.

Wishes to all for a day that makes you happy. A day where thing large or small fill your heart with gladness!

Have a good one!

Tuesday 1 December 2015

HO HO Holidays

Just 12 more days to go and then Summer holidays... I am so looking forward to it. We will be at home, and oh how much fun we all have when we are home together. I will hopefully get some sewing in.

This last month was a bit of a disaster where making blocks is concerned. I always find that November is not a good month for doing anything that requires concentration. I normally make Christmas tree decoration or something else fun. This year, I have been playing with Ancestors.
I do not have huge ambitions of trying to follow my genetic contributors from the point that they came out of a cave. My ambition is actually quite modest. The time frame that I am looking at is only 180 years. This covers the period where most of my ancestors left England and came to Africa.

Click on picture to have a look
This is part of the problem. Although record keeping was not a problem, digitizing said documents seems to be almost insurmountable. I have started a new blog on which I am sharing what I find. It is still quite chaotic, but I can see that eventually I will be able to solve the riddle of my ancestors.

My mother told me tale when I was a child. This was a very long time ago and I have overlaid these memories with a whole lot of other sound bytes. I was also the youngest child so these stories were seldom told to me directly.


I think that is why I am trying to write it down, I not trust oral histories.
The other thing is that history always reflects the teller.... 

Hopefully I will found out lots of details. What I have realized is that settlers of any country certainly lived the saddest lives of all. I find myself being quite moved by their struggles. If you would like you may have a read. It is as I say very rough.

I will spend some of my holiday time on this project and more blocks.... I need to get back to making blocks.

Hope you are all having amazing weather and have great projects to keep you entertained.

Have a good one!!

Sunday 22 November 2015

Into year-end Freeze

I know, we are experiencing extremely warm weather. Actually we received rain and it has been delightfully cool here. The year-end freeze that I am talking about is at work, where no changes are allowed at the end of the year. This is always a goal post, to ensure that you have nothing just before hand that will cause chaos! So far so good. I have already started fiddling with things that will go into production in the middle of January. 

My brain has been in a bit of a whirl. I need to be a witness at a trial. It is 4 hours drive from my house and I will probably need to spend the night there. My husband and I have only spend a few nights apart and the only time that I did not see him for a day was when he went to a horrid Microsoft conference. We have now been together for 19 and a half years and this is something that I like. 

The place that I am going to is where my grandparents are from and this has sparked a wild looking around at the picture that I have of them. By the time I was born, only my paternal grandfather was around. I have been playing with the idea of having an Ancestor blog. Hopefully I will actually do this well enough to be able to have a decent record.

I have finished another block. So slow. This does happen when you lose the zen like calm needed to be creative.

Hope you all have an amazing week.

Monday 16 November 2015

And then the rain came!

I took a video showing the rain. It has been so hot and dry. WHat a relief!







We have been waiting for rain. Yay for the moisture!


Sunday 1 November 2015

Remember, remember it is only November

Poor November, it is the totally forgotten Month. Christmas has invaded our consciousnesses in all that we see and do. At this point of the year burn-out has occurred and the last six weeks before the year end break have to be gotten through.Though, today is the first day that I have had a permanent job since 1985. 
Today the three month probation for a permanent job has finished, and the company for whom I have worked for the last 10 year can't get rid of me without having to do a whole lot of paper work. The thing is: Have I worked harder being a contractor in the last 30 years? Being employed as a contractor, you have to prove that you are a necessary expense, otherwise, you soon find yourself looking for the next contract.
There is a certain symmetry in me now being employed. I worked for 7 years for a specific company, before going out and selling my brain on an ad-hoc basis. This company then left this country. It has now returned, I am now working for it again and I have 7 years work before I reach retirement age. The 10 years that I have put in here is the longest that I have worked anywhere. Hopefully I can make a few more years...

Maybe this is why I think of November being the worst of months. The year is almost over, people are running scared that if anything goes wrong now, their December holidays will be messed up. I love having the year end break. Even if we do not go anywhere, the time at home is amazing.

I have been chugging along with blocks for my quilt. I am currently lacking motivation. The heat here is of the ridiculous range. To stay cool I am hugging a fan. This is always fun when you stitch by hand. The thread flutters each stitch that you make and creates the most glorious knots every five stitches or so. Well that is how it goes trying to quilt in summer.

Happy Halloween for last night and happy Guy Fawkes day in 4 days time. Have a good one.

Wednesday 21 October 2015

Welcome to the future


Well we have actually got here. The earth is still working the same and people are still people. We watch all of these movies last week, due to the date coming up and they really did last well. 
I enjoyed all three and they were fun to watch again. We also watch Star Wars and I think it must be that I have got really old. I found it hilarious. As they say, "What a load of malarkey!" I first watched it when I was 17 and thought the movie was profound.
The theme talked to the teenager that I was. I am no longer her. It was such a whiny piece of entertainment. And spiciest; Why didn't chewy get a medal. So shocking.


Well have a great future day, and be on the lookout for all of the cool gadget promised to us.

Have a good one.

Tuesday 13 October 2015

Last Year's Birthday Present

It has arrived. This parcel started travelling on the 16th of August 2014 and has finally reached it's destination on the 13th of October 2015. This poor package arrived at a post office that was busy having a strike.
The package was sent back to the shop where it started it's trip. This then took 6 months to get back to Fabric Shack. Katie was a star and sent off the package for it's next attempt to get to my house. 


I think Kona fabrics are the problem. I entered a competition to win all of these splendid colours and they did not choose me. So sad. I then ordered them with a gift certificate my eldest gave me for my birthday. This has been an exercise in patients. Well they are here and they are beautiful. I will be including them in my current quilt.

The poor packaging looks a whole lot worse for wear. 
This is truly a well traveled package. Luckily the insides were fine. The outsides are rather horrid. Thanks again to Katie at the Fabric Shack. You are awesome!


Have an amazing day!

Thursday 1 October 2015

October - let's be festive

October is here and so is the hot weather. The temperatures are once again reaching 30 degrees Celcius. 

These are the two blocks for the centre of my quilt. I am trying to improve my applique skills.
My mother from 55 years ago. I am rocking the short hair.

Both of my parent had their Birthdays this week with my father reaching 83. Unfortunately my mother has been living in Heaven for the last 12 years. Her birthday was always celebrated on the 4th and 5th of October. This was not due to her being greedy for presents but rather from her having been told that her birthday was on the 4th and then her Birth certificate being registered as the 5th. My mother maintains that her father came into town from the farm and had a party before going to do the registration. Hopefully we can all think of her on either the 4th or the 5th and send her a mental greeting.

Sewing is coming along fine. I had an exra long weekend. I did not do as much sewing as I wanted to. All sorts of things conspired to keep me away from my needle and thread. It was still fun just to have some time off work.

My fabric that I ordered August last year and that started it's second trip in August this year, has as yet still not reached our continent.

Have a good one

Saturday 12 September 2015

Progress is being made

Another Saturday morning and progress is being made. I now have 4 blocks and 14 triangles. It is really fun just choosing which block I want to do next. I am keeping the progress report on the Kathy Sampler tab. Summer is sneaking in, with a few days this week being extremely hot. It is cooler now and almost seems that it is going to rain again. We have had early rain this year and it is wonderful to see the garden being green again.

Have an amazing weekend!

Saturday 5 September 2015

Kathy's sampler started


First week on starting my new quilt and progress has been made. I have made 6 of the border triangles and 1 block. 

I have decided to do blocks and triangle together as boredom started to creep in.  I am using alternate coloured background to add some depth to the blocks. 

I am doing the sashing at the same time as the blocks, this was one of the lessons that I learnt whilst doing the Dear Jane. The second lesson was to ensure that all of the paper was out of the pieces and that each piece was re-sized at the end of making it.
Here are two of the triangle, the rest are on my Sampler tab. I will try to add all the pieces as I make them. It is fun to see how a quilt comes together after the fact.

The triangles are being made with contrasting colours. I was shown a cute trick of finding the contrasting colour using Paint.

All you do is highlight an area, and then right click and select the contrast. Now all I need do is find the corresponding colours. I need to see if there is a formula for me to work out which colour I should use for the background to these blocks.

The weather has turned extremely rainy and freezing, all of the lovely peach blossoms are now on the ground. I love the rain as all of the trees are now showing their leaves. The are tiny and as yet have not unfurled. Hopefully they enjoy the cold snap before the heat of summer.
Hope you all have an amazing weekend full of things that you want to do and not just things you have to do.

Have a good one!



Tuesday 1 September 2015

September springs in

Happy spring day. I know the equinox only happens in three weeks time, but having looked into it, the popular date for Spring day is today for us people who live in the southern hemisphere.
The Blossoms are glorious in the garden. The choice of quilts to use at night is a bit difficult as  cotton batting is a bit cool and wool and silk batting is too warm. Oh gosh what a lovely delemer. Tonight I think we will once again sleep under the granny's garden quilt as the weather is supposed to be cold again tonight.
Hopefully today I will get to stitch. The last day of August was too busy to even do a few stitches. I have now done 4 of the edge s for my new quilt, and when I do the next two, I think I will try my hand at one of the blocks. Though having just read this sentence I realise, I will need to actually complete the four blocks that I have stitched so that I will have a picture to add to this blog. If you catually see one then I got my act together this afternoon and did some block ironing.
Well I hope that you have all had either a marvelous spring day or an enjoyable start of fall.
Have a good one.


Saturday 29 August 2015

New projects gets ready to start - Kathy's sample quilt

The start of a project
After so much procrastination, I am ready to start my next major project. It will be a sampler. I will be taking blocks from where-ever I find them and hopefully at the end of the day the quilt will be awesome. I like the sashing and on-point from the farmers wife, so this has been incorporated. 

This is last year's birthday present
I always enjoy having a border, so this will be included. Currently I have a border added, but, I very much doubt this is what it will look like in the end. This will be a design in progress until I am actually finished.
The colours for the block backgrounds
 I went shopping today to get the sashing fabrics as well as some muted colours for the background portion of the blocks. I am trying to only use solid colours. It will be a stretch for me. I will try and see if I can do this.
 I am going to be documenting this quilt in the same way that I did the Dear Jane. I will show each pattern piece as well so that if you want to make any of the blocks, you can just take the pattern piece and copy it. The Kathy's sampler quilt tab will be have the blocks as I make them. I will probably be driving my self nuts by adding a schedule and a progress chart. It really is difficult getting an A type personality to act like a zennny zennist.
Taz was helping with the fabrics, he was all over them when they were having their picture taken. As soon as the fabric was being packed away again, Taz decided that this was a box and it had fresh fabric in it and that he needed to do some investigation. 


Here are some pictures of Taz being himself.
He looks so sweet in the first picture. He is trying to show that he is a calm and handsome fellah and will wait patiently while his people take his picture.


These next two are showing him spotting the fact that his tail has escaped and its eventual capture. He had a bit of a chew on it, just to show the tail who is boss. He so enjoys this, though he tries to hide it.




Phew! after so much cuteness he is exhausted. He can barely fit in this silly box. He now has to think what he can do next. Even though he is so tired, he is also very bored. Maybe he can go and chase the birds outside, or nap, or is he actually hungry...

Hope you all have an amazing weekend. I know I will.
Have a good one.

Monday 24 August 2015

Spring is sprunging

As I thought, the rain on Saturday has made all of the blossoms spring forth. Here are the blossoms from our garden as well as the cats, who suddenly appeared and took a walk with me outside. We even had a neighbors cat who joined us for the walk.





Leiea is now 14 and the Grand Madam of the family 

Tabatha is our new girl, so soft and silky

Taz is Taz and that is cool

The neighbours cat who joined us for the walk





Hope you enjoyed the walk around the garden.

have a good one!

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