Pressies Received

Last month there was a blogger's festival. I entered and was lucky enough to get stuff. It arrived today.

I love receiving parcels through the post. 

It is my eldest child's 30th birthday today, so I like to see that the universe is observing both labour day and mother's day all rolled into one.

I entered my ridiculously loud Dear Jane. To see the post that I had click Here

It was the first time that I participated and I must say that it was a whole lot of fun. 

I think there is another competition later in the year. I don't think my granny'e garden will be ready yet. I could always enter my Cathedral window quilt

Have an amazing day

Happy Winter/Summer Solstice 2014

Happy Winter/Summer Solstice. All I can say is yay and that our Sun is coming home. I hope it enjoyed it's little European vacation but it is time to come back where we allow it to shine. 

I used to be hung up that the Solstice was the beginning of Winter (which academically it is), but, in all reality it is in the middle and winter is on it's way out.

The thing is that we live in a summer rainfall region, so winter is quite horrid, with everything dead and brown. Veld fire happen all the time and static can make you electrocute yourself.

I find it amazing how quickly the sun starts coming up earlier and earlier. I can just think of over the horizon when it will be warm and the air quality will be good.

I hope all in the North enjoyed the closer tilt towards the sun. Get prepared for freezing cold and we need the sun down here.

Have an amazing day.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to all of the fathers out there.

A special father's Day to my husband who has exceeded my expectation as to what a good father could be. 

 A happy father's day to my own father who lives so very far away.

I hope that everyone has at least some good memories of a father or at least a good father figure. To all the mom's who are doing it by themselves, well happy father's day to you too.

Have an amazing day!

Cathedral window finished

Cathedral Window wall hanging

The Cathedral window wall hanging is now complete and hanging in the dining room.

I thought I needed something quick and easy between doing my Dear Jane and the next quilt. I have actually started the next quilt and the decision was, now wait for it..... A Granny's Garden with appliqué around the border.

The decision was partly due to have been given quite a few jelly rolls and thinking this would be a stylish way to use them. The hexies are going to be 7/8th of an inch or 2 cm so they will be fun.

Sleeve and wood

Back to the hanging up of the Cathedral window. This is the sleeve that I stitched on the back of the wall hanging. The wood was a wedge shaped piece of wood we picked up at the DIY store. Who knows what it should actually be used for. It looked like something that should be part of hanging up a quilt, so it was purchased.

Husband Drawing on the wall

This is my husband drawing on the wall, with wood bit and bubble thing showing...Ok a spirit level. Spirit level, bubble thing, (same thing) whatever the name is, as long as it does the job. When I was single I used to enjoy going into a hardware store to find the things I needed. I grew up in a house where all of the home maintenance articles were present. The thing is that I never did learn the name of things even though I knew how to used them.

Quilt level

I see the levelling thing did work as it should as the quit is obviously on the level.

Label

I had a whole lot of labels made. I added one onto the back of the wall hanging.

Wall friends

The wall hanging and its companion. Hope they enjoy living in close proximity to each other.

Have an amazing day!

June !

Wow the 6th month of the year is here. We are now using my Irish chain quilt as it has wool batting. This seems to be holding the cold at bay, but, as soon as it gets colder we are going to have to add a layer.

The temperature still warms up to an excellent temperature by about 10 in the morning.
I see that next week is going to be quite chilly. We will definitely going to be adding an extra layer. Possibly the Dear Jane can start earning her keep.

May was fun. I did something I had never thought I would do and that was enter my quilt into a festival. I was lucky enough to come second in hand made quilts and third on Viewers choice. Thanks to all who added their vote. I do appreciate it. There is even a prize which is quite exciting. The other quilt got 38 votes and that was fine seeing as it was the first quilt that I had made. 

I have made progress on my wall hanging. I have done the top of the cathedral window. I am now adding buttons. Oh the boredom of sewing on more than 100 buttons. Each button had 6 crossing strands and the a stay knot. On and on and on. I stole all of the buttons off my husband's shirts(old shirts not the ones he currently wears). Some of the buttons that come off expensive shirts are quite beautiful.

I bought some old fashioned buttons on Ebay, but, I think I will have finished this item before they arrive. I may add one or two on the border. Today I may work on the border. If I spend another whole day, stitching on buttons, it may render me incapable of ever sewing on another button on anyone's shirt and then my husband would be sad.

I have been going through Dear Jane withdrawal. I need to find the next large quilt project to do. I started the Dear Jane on the 1st of June 2012.
I want to decide today what my next large project will be.
What did you do as a follow up quilt to Dear Jane?

I don't want to end up in an endless cycle of making Dear Jane quilts.
It feels almost as bad as when you are studying. Once you have finished it takes an effort to give yourself permission to do something else. Quilting is the something else that I chose to do.
I have seen these two pictures each time I looked up a block when I was making my Dear Jane. 

I have been gathering pictures to try and spark the creative juices as it were. I thought a granny's garden may be fun. A stained glass window would be dramatic. A fully appliquéd quilt may be a challenge.  A mandala quilt would be Zennish. My husband wants me to do a fresh and original design. This would be fine if I just knew on which path my next quilt lay. I think this is the problem with hand piecing and hand quilting quilts, they take a long time and should not be entered into lightly. See I even think of quilts in the same way as I think of marriage. You should only start a quilt once you know that you can faithfully complete it. I think if everyone was committed to their projects, then no abandoned projects would exist. :D

I have been thinking of doing some mug rugs and some oven gloves. I don't know if this is considered a project as they should not take me too long to do. Maybe inter-project tasks are a good idea.

Hope all in the north are enjoying their summer and that all of us in the south are enjoying the cool weather.

Have a good one.