Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all

Growing up....

Gosh, can't believe we are nearly at the end of the year.  I haven't even started my Christmas baking yet and Christmas is only 10 days away.  It's such a glorious day outside today too, that I certainly won't be going near the kitchen today either! Summer has finally arrived.

My son, who is 13 had his End of Year ball at his school to farewell the Year 8s before they go onto high school.  He scrubbed up pretty well...

I haven't had an urge to sew at all over the last couple of weeks.  It's always such a busy time of year with Christmas parties and get-to-gethers.  I did, however, start on my bee blocks. I ordered some books from Fishpond and they arrived when I was in Melbourne....a couple of FMQ ones by Natalia Bonner and Angela Walters,  Hexa-Go-Go by Tacha Bruecher and Carol Doak's 50 Paper Pieced Stars.  I can see me making lots more from this book. She has a CD with the book that just explains paper piecing brilliantly. My fav is the Colorado Star so I will be making this for my bee members. This is the first one...

Erika wanted bright blues, greens and pinks

Granny square quilt and bee blocks

A wee while ago I joined a Granny Square swap on flickr.  We had to make 24 granny squares: 8 on Snow, 8 on Charcoal and 8 on white and then you would get 24 squares back in your chosen base colour.  We all followed the same tutorial by I'm a Ginger Monkey so that our blocks would all turn out the same.  Unfortunately 3 of the blocks were too small, so I redid 3 in similar colours and I will put the 3 small ones on the back of the quilt. I guess everyone's quarter inch seam is not always a quarter inch. Anyway I love how this has turned out and hopefully will baste it tomorrow. I think I will FMQ it all over in a meandering way.

The other sewing finish I have is my last block in the Modern 99 bee, using blocks from Modern Blocks book.  This has been a fun bee, and I have attempted things I have never done before like free piecing and paper piecing, but I have learnt lots and met new people along the way. This is Jane's block in bright fun solids. I have put together a mosaic of all the blocks I have made for the Modern 99 below as well. Thanks everyone; it has been a fun bee.

The Potager block

Modern 99 blocks

Melbourne getaway

Well, I returned in the weekend from 5 days in Melbourne. I love this place. I took my 16 year old daughter there for her birthday and a shopping holiday!  We had such a great time. Lots of shopping. I found this great fabric store thanks to Rita and had a great spend up at GJ's Discount Fabrics.  We stayed at the Swanston Hotel which was perfect.  Right in the city so we could walk everywhere.

Love this busker who had his own
Eftpos machine just in case
you didn't have cash!!!

Hannah standing by the Yarra River

Hannah just down from Flinders Station

Flinders Station

Hannah just outside Chinatown. This was
opposite our hotel

A night at Dracula's

Finished my Birds and Bees quilt

I LOVE this quilt.  I adore the fabric, Birds and Bees by Tula Pink. I love the design and I love the way the colours all work so well together. I straight line quilted it following the outlines of the hexagons. I used a Deb Strain stripe for the binding which blends so well with the colours in the quilt.

My 3 favourite fabrics from the range. The Kona solid is Green Tea

The binding is a stripe by Deb Strain.
That's a spot of water from my roses on the top!

My hubby being a dick. He did have another pose,
but that is not for family friendly viewing.

And of course, poor Max wasn't even safe.  Tony is holding him so he can't escape, much to Max's disgust. He certainly didn't want to be wrapped in such a pretty quilt.

Bees all round and in a quilt!

I have finished up a few more bee blocks...this time for the girls in the 4x5 modern quilt bee.  I chose the Flutter block by Patty Young in the Quiltmakers 100 Blocks Volume 2 mag.

I always love working with different color groups that I have never put together before. Each time I made one, it became my new fav!

Now that my bee committments are all up to date, I have been able to piece something together for myself. I just LOVE Tula Pink's Birds and the Bees range and when I was lucky enough to win a jelly roll of it from the Fat Quarter Shop, I couldn't wait to start cutting into it. I am using a design from Jelly Roll Dreams called Dripping with Diamonds and I am loving how this is turning out. The photo was taken at night so the color is not the best and doesn't show off the vibrancy of the fabrics, but I will take a better one in daylight when I have put the borders on.

In about 10 days I am heading off to Melbourne for 5 days with my eldest daughter for a spot of shopping.   We decided to splash out so we're staying in the Swanston Hotel.   Hopefully I will find some good quilting shops while I am there ;) Unfortunately, she is not quite so excited about that idea!! lol

Today we were privileged to meet one of NZ's finest rugby coaches, Graeme Henry.  He was doing a book signing at the local bookstore and was so down to earth and friendly. He had taken the time to buy a raffle ticket from the Rose Society outside the front of the store before he went in and took the time to chat with all those he met on the way.

Sarah and Graeme Henry

Tony and Graeme Henry

A Year On...

Hard to believe that a year ago that our lives were turned upside down in an instant. Sarah was coming back from a school camp and the parent driver turned in front of an oncoming car into the school grounds. She was the rear seat passenger right beside that crushed door. She sustained a fractured femur and pelvis, facial fractures, head injury with a subdural haematoma and lots of lacerations and wounds.

The car in which she was sitting. She was the rear passenger behind that
crushed door and took the full impact.

The ambulance officers carrying her to the rescue helicopter

I think this speaks for itself!!

In Intensive Care after all her facial lacerations have been sutured
and she has been cleaned up

In ICU in traction waiting for operating theater to have her femur
 rodded.  She hasn't really regained consciousness at this stage.

And here she is today with only a scar on her leg to show for it.  She has completely healed and you would never know that we had gone through this hideous trauma.  I am so thankful each day for her recovery.  Life is given so easily and can be taken away just as quickly.

On a more cheery note, I have finished up a few more bee blocks. For my month in the Modern Minx bee, I chose Selvage Strings from the Modern Blocks book. This is my block and I have asked for the solid colour to be different for each member.

Amelie wanted the Set Sail block from this book in soft colour and "nice" browns! I hope she likes it.

  And this is a block for me for my purple, aqua and green quilt. I have a bunch of blocks already from the 3 x 6 bee and the 4 x 5 bee. I used the Starry Web block from Quilters Cache and paper pieced it.  At the end of my next bee round I will have enough to put the quilt together.

Good sewing day...

This is the weather outside at the moment....a view from the front door and no better from the back door!! A long weekend to boot! Oh well, it will mean lots of sewing! That is not an outhouse either!! That is our hen house. My hubby built it...he is a city boy and obviously thought the hens were the size of ostriches!!

A momentous year...I have finally finished my Masters in Nursing. I hit the submit button on my final assignment a couple of weeks ago and, boy, was that a good feeling. Hence, why not a lot of action has been happening on the blog or sewing front.

I have been keeping up with my bee commitments though, and this was the latest round of blocks using Nydia's tutorial. I haven't done a lot of paper piecing before, but by the end of it, I was whizzing through them. Love this block. I know I shouldn't have favs, but I love Staci's block which is the black, white and chartreuse one. I have to make a black and white quilt now.

The other bee block I have completed is one for Cille in the Modern Minx bee. We are making blocks from the Modern Blocks book. Cille wanted greens, yellows, oranges, aqua and reds.

Ok, I'm off to make use of this very wet Sunday....

Spring is sprung....

I am loving the fact that we are now into spring. Our 4 ewes have all lambed so we have bouncy white springiness in the fields at the moment. They are so cute, especially at dusk when they bounce around like they are on pogo sticks!

I have just finished up my Tetris quilt top and need to quilt it soon. Think I will just make a giant Tetris piece for the back. My son has nabbed this for his room. He loves the bright colours.

I have also been busy with bee blocks.  I love the online bees and have met some fabulous fellow quilters through them. This next one was an angel block for a member who did not receive a block from a fellow hive member. It's the Rocky Road to Kansas block from Faith at Fresh Lemon Quilts. Her instructions are always very clear and it was a pleasure to make.

This next one was a block for someone in my Modern Minx bee where we are all making something from the Modern Blocks: 99 Quilt Blocks  book. Jo wanted bright bold colours. I think this fits the bill!!

Another challenge was in the Modern 99 bee where Shawn wanted a little girl. I chose to free piece this one and it was fun. I am definitely a "follow a pattern" kind of girl, so this was really putting me outside my comfort zone! Very retro 70s I think!

And my last bit of creating came about as a bake-off at work where we were making cupcakes from the book Ripe which is a cafe in Auckland.  I love this book and have made so much from it. Just need to take a road trip to the cafe now! I had so much fun decorating these and it seemed a shame to eat them! Even the little ladybugs were edible.

Tetris QAL Block 2

First of all I would like to say a big thank you to the Fat Quarter Shop and Melissa for sponsoring the giveaways on this QAL. I was lucky enough to win a jelly roll of Birds and Bees by Tula Pink.  I LOVE this latest range of hers and had it on my wish list, so was overjoyed to find I had won it. Thanks so much FQS and Melissa.

I was excited to see the next block come out for the Tetris QAL.  I carefully cut out my shapes and coloured them as instructed, then gave them to my daughter to place them as she saw fit, so the end result is her interpretation. I will do this for the rest of the blocks as well, so each family member has  a say in this quilt.  I love the brightness of the solids...it's such a "happy quilt".

Block 2 in Kona solids

Catch-up

To be honest, I haven't felt like blogging over the last few months.  I have been keeping up with everyone's posts in Google Reader though even if I haven't replied to many of you.   Now that life has resumed to normal for me, I have far too many other things to do other than blog!!

Tony and I have just had a holiday in Hawaii. Oh my gosh, I loved this place.   Since we are in the middle of winter here the warm tropical climate was just divine. I tortured myself my leaving the weather app on my phone and checking it for the next 2 weeks after we got home.  I am already saving for my next holiday there.... did have to buy an extra suitcase for all my shopping though, gulp! 

Overlooking Haunamu Bay...amazing snorkelling

I have been sewing...lots of bee blocks and I have just joined the Tetris Quilt-along that  Melissa is hosting. I chose Kona solids in bright colours. 

First block in the Tetris QAL

Sarah has had the last stage in her journey and had her plate removed from her broken femur a month ago. It all seems like such a age ago and you would hardly believe that 8 months ago, she was unconscious in intensive care.  The human body is an incredible thing.

Sarah a couple of hours after her op.

She has been cutting up fabric today and making wheat bags.  I think we might have a new quilter in the making....

Block envy!

Well, just got back from a long weekend at the beach again to find one of my blocks has been featured on Cut to Pieces blog. Angela is one of the designers in the 99 Modern Blocks book. I am doing 2 bees that use the designs from this book. With one of them, Modern 99  we get pre-chosen fabric sent to us each month and the other, Modern Minx, we use our own stash, but with guidelines from the bee member as to colours etc.

The first block for the year in the Modern Minx bee was Envy by Angela and I used Hope Valley fabrics by Denyse Schmidt for it. The solids are Kona Green Tea and Snow. It was easy to make and her directions simple to follow. 

In the Modern 99 bee, the first block was Mondrian by Jamie Moilanen.  The funny thing is that the angel  block I made for a member in the 3x6 bee group that didn't receive a block turned out to be for Jamie. I had no idea when I made it and I nearly picked the Mondrian to make for her. How funny would that have been!! It wasn't until I had mailed it off and was looking at making the Mondrian for this bee that I twigged that the name I had written on the envelope and the designer's name in the Modern Blocks book were one and the same!!

Endings and beginnings

From this on 28 October 2011.....

To this on 10 January 2012

Sarah has finally been given the all clear to start walking so this is her first day without crutches! Yay!!!
What a great start to 2012....

I am now back at work...what a shock to the system that is after 2 and a half months off looking after Sarah!  I am enjoying being back at work, but have noticed I don't have near enough computer or quilting time now! I have joined several bees this year as a way to try different types of quilting and to challenge myself.  Doing small blocks will be more achievable than trying to do a whole quilt too. This year will be busy, as along with working fulltime, I am also doing the last postgraduate paper in my Masters degree in Nursing.

I signed up to do an angel bee block for Jamie on one of the Flickr bee groups. Her request was bright colours with a black background.  Hope she likes it!

And I have booked our next holiday...having listened to all the suggestions from my giveaway, we have decided to go to Hawaii.  So all booked and will head off there for a couple of weeks in June. We thought after the stress of the last 3 months we want somewhere relaxing and warm, somewhere where Tony and I can just enjoy one another's company and spend some time together and somewhere that won't cost a fortune!