Cheeky Monkey is growing!!!

The cheeky little man is growing!!  He is now 8 weeks old.  Already a junior member of the Kangaroos (for those who aren't in Australia - that is an Australian Rules Football Team here in Melbourne.  Cute as......Proud Nanna talking here......

Mystery is solved!!!

In my last post I related the story of the upcoming Retreat and the Angel/Mortal swap that was happening.   Well, I can now tell you who my Angel was - Christine from Qld.  She was even further devious with one of the gifts at the retreat - when I was arriving to dinner on the first night she had the girls at the desk hand it to me!  The only clue there was that I knew she had to be in the room - among 60+ others.  A really lovely person and I hope we keep in touch.

Townsville is a beautiful place in far north Qld.  Retreat venue was fabulous and the staff very attentive and friendly.  This is a view from my room overlooking the river (around the corner from the main beach).

 And this is what we saw when we went to Magnetic Island for dinner on Saturday night - a supurb sunset overlooking Horseshoe Bay.  Just look at those colours, I took this photo with the camera in my phone, (and while on the bus) so not quite as good as the real thing, but still beautiful.

I will have more to tell you about the retreat as soon as I get myself back into gear and into the real world!!  Oh how I wish I was back there, relaxing in the sun, instead of rugged up in my winter woolies with 0c degrees the last 2 nights.  brrrr.

Who likes a mystery?

I do.  Love reading mystery novels and participating in mystery quilts etc.  But at the moment I have the biggest mystery of all to solve.  Scquilters, which is an on-line group of Aussie quilters have an annual retreat and part of the activities is an Angel/Mortal swap.  This involves being an 'Angel' to another Scquilter and then being someone else's 'Mortal'.  All very secret and devious!  You send a parcel each month for 3 months before the Retreat (this year at the end of June) and then having 3 more to be given out at the retreat.  You also have a special parcel to give to your 'Angel' as a thank you.

Apart from trying very hard to not reveal yourself before the 'Big Reveal' at retreat, like posting from a different PO than near where you live, to using various friend to post for you etc etc and using a 'non de plume' email address, the lengths that some go to are extrordinary.

Well, so far the parcels I have received have come from 3 different addresses in the USA!!!  How did my Angel do this?  Was she away when posting, then if so, she must have been away for 3 months!  Does she know someone who lives over there - but then she would have had to send them over first, and then have them sent back!  Not only are the return addresses from different people - they are also from different States.  This has me truly baffled.

Any help to solve this or do I have to wait another 4 weeks for the reveal at Retreat?  The retreat this year is in Townsville, north Queensland, a lot warmer at the moment than down here in Victoria.

Will keep you informed as to any more clues etc..

Blogger's Directory

Have you got your blog listed on Michelle's Quilting Blogs Directory?  If not, it is easy, just go here., and follow the prompts.  Michelle has a great resource site for links for just about anything you want to know about blogging and blogs of interest.  If the above link doesn't work, click on the label in the right hand column, have a look around while you're there and join up.  It's free!!

Guild Quilt-In

Spent a lovely couple of hours on Saturday at my Guild's Annual Quilt-In.  This is me with Rose on my left.

Geelong Patchwork and Quilting Guild, like most guilds in Australia host an annual Quilt-In where invitations are sent out for others to join in our fun.  It is a fun day, plenty of tea and coffee and lovely things to eat.  Usually a couple of our local quilting shops have stalls selling all the stuff us quilters just love.

We had a great speaker - Linda Steele, who talked and showed us her quilting journey and lots of her lovely award winning quilts. You can visit Linda's blog here to see some of her work.  While you're looking around the net you can also visit Geelong Guild's blog here and read about what we do and also have a look at the link and read our Monthly Newsletter.

The 'mess' in front of me is my hand sewing for the day - I was piecing some more Candied Hexagons.

Why I haven't been here......

is because of this darling little fellow.  My new grandson, Fraser Jeffrey Vale born on 3rd May 2012 at 2.52 am.  I have been in Melbourne looking after big sister Jorja Pearl, who thinks 'he is the cutest baby Nanna'.  Of course I'm not a bit biased!!! 

Mum, Dad, big sister Jorja and Fraser - 1 day old



Fraser on Nanna's quilt - first day home from hospital



I managed to sew some more Candied Hexagons while there - at night after Jorja went to bed and a bit more while she was at school.  I have also finished sewing the binding on my Orca quilt.

Hope all is well with your families - I just looooove being a Nanna.

...Joy

More Candied Hexies & look at what else I've been doing

As promised, here are the next lot of Candied Hexagons I have completed.   Slowly getting them sewn while at my local quilt group meetings (amongst lots of talking etc).

Thought I would show you this Journal/Diary cover I made recently.  It actually started off as a brown paper bag, which  I acquired on my first trip to the US in 2009 when I purchased some fabric from a shop in Bird In Hand in Pennsylvania.  I later did an on-line course in Mixed Media and one of the lessons was on turning brown paper into faux leather.  Just love the look of it.  Was easy to do, a little fiddly though and you have to be careful not to tear the paper before it becomes strong enough to sew through.  I lined it and made it into a cover for my diary. 

One option was to construct a bag, but I didn't have enough of this printed bag, but I think that would be very cool, especially if you have an interesting piece of paper to work with.

The beauty of nature

Recently we have had some rain here on the coast and this has made our grass turn from brown to green - yes, in the hot summer months we grow brown grass.  After some good rain the new grass is green and very much sort after by the local wildlife.

These beauties here are King Parrots - very similar to the Rosella, but larger and brighter red.  The ones with the green heads are the females.  What you see in the background is from the kangaroos that visit at night!!

Even though they are wild they are also very tame when it comes to humans and as you can see Warwick (DS3) is feeding them some native seeds and they are literally eating out of his hand, in fact one is actually standing on his arm.

(my apologies - these are two photos that were deleted - I still haven't found a copy of them)

Candy anyone???

Today I received a reminder from a reader that I haven't posted any more of my Candied Hexagons.  She emailed me with some questions on the templates used to make these tasty morsels.  In the recent hot days we had here in Victoria I cut out a box full of shapes and templates - it was too hot for actual sewing - my hands were very hot and sticky.

Anyway, what you see here are some that I have been sewing while at my local quilting group.  Hope to get some more done this weekend and over the following week.

 

For lovers of all things vintage.

For readers who love all things vintage - I have just discovered this great site and blog.  The site is called 'The Vintage Workshop' and the owner Amy Barickman has a plethora of stuff including vintage images that you can downbload (for a small fee).  If you have a few minutes to spare go on over and a look around.  I'm sure you'll love what you see.  I do.