I'm still there

... in the sns shed of course. I thank my DH every time I open the door.

This is the cat panel that my craft group did together. I sewed the buttons on today and one of our talented ladies is embroidering the label and should be finished by next Tuesday ready for attaching to the back. We don't plan to present it to Kolan Gardens until September when all our ladies will be back home from holidays. This afternoon when I closed up the shed I meant to bring over all the relevant data out of the magazine to tell you guys. I forgot!! Nothing new there!

Thought you might like to see a sunset from my front door.

I've almost finished sewing the backing together for 'Trev's Quilt', but even though DSIL bought all that was on the roll, 1m, we have run out so if anyone knows where we can get .75m of a Michael Miller Fabric Pattern C - 2592 Gear Up we would be eternally grateful. Right now I need a 24½"x 2½" strip to join the last 2 blocks. I can join up all my scraps but will only do that as a last resort, but then we will have to look for something to border the blocks.

DH left home yesterday for Murarrie, Brisbane where he picked up Phil and then leaving Ian's ute they travelled in Phil's Land Rover to Samford to Ed's home at Highvale where they spent the night leaving this morning for Biloela where they are having -0°C temperatures. There is a national antique machinery show on there this weekend and they are staying there until Sunday when they head for Gracemere and a antique machinery auction on Monday. If there's nothing there they will head for home that afternoon. So at the moment I'm HOME ALONE — the silence — the simple meals, spaghetti on toast, boiled egg with salad, BLISS — the time in the sns shed!!!!!

Wonderful Time

I just love it to pieces. My s'n's shed of course. I spend most afternoons and sometimes even get to spend most of the day in there.

At the moment it is blowing a gale in Gin Gin and has been for 3 days, usually on the third day it has blown itself out but not this time. The weather report says it will be blowing all week. It was blowing so hard today that I dried my washing in the drier and I just remembered the last load is still in there. Darn it!!

Today I finished quilting the Kraft Klub of Gin Gin's donation to the local nursing home — a wallhanging of cats, then I sewed the binding on ready for the next person to sew down. I also worked on the backing of Trev's Quilt, you wait till you see it, I think it is quite appropriate for a 50 yr old fireman. My DSIL Lyn found some more fireman material on the Sunshine Coast, this time it is clothing and gear and I have put it to good use. He He!!

I've also finished (including the label) my parents hanging that they will now donate to their church. I am quite pleased with it and will take another photo to upload here and also to put into my quilters diary - which I must start. I have a photo album in which I have a few photos of stuff I have done but not too many. I must rectify that. Mum and Dad are staying with us until Friday and were really thrilled with the hanging. I photographed them all snuggly in their pjs.

I've also been working madly on my ¼" hexagons and I find that they go together fairly quickly, I mean how slow can you go when they are only that big?

We have friends staying with us at the moment. Hans and Marg - he is Dutch and she is English and they are wonderful. Hans has been helping Ian do a few odd jobs, like put the end wall in the caravan shed, paint the front wall of Ian's shed green, restore a couple of huge kegs that was Ian's one day job. Here they are ready to start the shed wall.

.... and here they are celebrating the restoration of one of the kegs.

We also celebrated Dylan's second birthday last Friday and Saturday we had a small party for him where he got to blow out more candles. Luckily Katie made Dylan a special patty cake especially for him to blow out his candles ..... and he did, several times, each time spraying the little cake with spit, he hasn't quite learned to blow without spitting yet. We got to eat a piece of the cake in the foreground of the photo.

Good news - bad news, for me that is

yes I know, I'm slack. I'm so excited about being in the shed. I've had to divide my days into sections otherwise I would live out there. Mornings on Mon, Wed and Fri are for my house, you know the horrible stuff - housework etc. Afternoons are for the Sew'n'sew (sns) shed and evenings are for hand sewing, tv shows and the computer, at the moment the computer is losing.

In town the other day I got the foam for my design wall. Have also finally designed my "Chook Quilt". These blocks were made by a group I was part of in Brisbane a few years ago, we would meet once a month and we were "The Chooks". My name was 'Cacklin' Daisy, well we decided (as you do) to make a swap quilt. We all did 9 or 10 blocks of a chook we found somewhere in brights and then swapped them, mine have been hanging on the wall in the sewing sleepout for 3½ yrs and I swore I wouldn't put them back on the design wall when I moved out into the sns shed — and I haven't. One step ahead there.

the good news
my shed is going along just wonderful. I haven't allowed food of any description out there, because otherwise I would eat all afternoon like I do in the house (restless and procrastinating) and I'm finding that I am getting a lot of projects passed the finished line.

Mum and Dad's hanging for the lectern in their church is now bound and this afternoon I will be sewing the hand embroidered label on. One down just a few more to go - 1000 or so. The quilting on the cat panel that was jointly sewn by my craft club is almost finished. Will take a photo to post here before I hand it back in.

My DSIL Lyns and my joint project - the quilt for my DB's 50th birthday is one step closer to the quilting machine. Lyn found a piece of fireman material, it is covered in firemen overalls, firebuckets, hoses etc. I will put it in as sashing between the backing blocks and also as the backing border.

My DS Jen had another birthday last Sunday. Last year when she was visiting she started the embroidery on 'Im not aging, I just need repotting' so I finished it and have framed it for her. Have to now work out how I'm going to get it to Brisbane without breaking it.

now the bad news
Last Friday had a little pain in my right hip which worsened over the weekend so much so that I could hardly walk by Monday. Went to the Dr and for a CT scan and have found out it is disc bulge between vertebrae, thankfully not serious enough for surgery - which I am not allowing anyway, have heard too many horror stories, but have to now work on pain management, so my Dr put me on Digesic, I hope no one out there in cyberspace knows of any bad side effects to this drug as I'm on 6-8 daily and look to it being that way for quite a while. The good news is that the Dr said I'm to do "a little bit of sitting, a little bit of standing, a little bit of walking" and isn't that exactly how we cut, use the sewing machine, the ironing board, the design wall.

What a Week

Today I spent the day in the Sew'n'sew Shed — SEWING. I have nearly finished putting things away and so I thought I would spend the day doing something different. So I finished the quilting on the panel for my Mum and Dad's church lectern. Now I just have to bind it and put the label on it for them.

These are photos of THE Shed

Now this has been a busy week! - is there ever any other sort?

We have friends staying (Hans & Marg), they brought their own caravan and will be staying with us for a couple of months before they head off to warmer places (Cairns) for the rest of winter.

Last weekend we went over to Gayndah to have a look at the biennial Orange Festival and it was really good. Saturday they have the street parade with stalls lining both sides of the main street. The traffic is detoured through the town via the back streets.

One of the Festival's Princesses

The Golden Oldies - A new meaning to an old saying

Katie and Pete with family in tow arrived to knock on the caravan door just after 8am.

Does it look as though it might have been cold? B****y oath it was!!

At the Sports Oval on Sunday morning there was a Bush Poet's Breakfast run by a very talented compere and poet whose name I never did find out, but we spent our $2 for a sausage, bacon and egg roll and listened to a few local poets compete for prize money. If I had of known I would have given it a go myself, though I would have had to read the poem from the book. Really good poem too, about a horse that used to be owned by a priest. Oh well there's always next year.

We then went off to the Rodeo and spent most of the day sitting in the sun. Doesn't that make you feel jealous.

I'm In - sorta

Hectic is what I call the pace around here. One day when I retire I'll have more time to do the things that I want to do.

Hang on - I am retired!!!!

I have two days a week where I go out - Tuesdays to craft and Thursdays to art lessons with shopping in Bundy afterwards, most days I feel that it is the other way round and I've finally worked out why. At home I have so much to do that on the days I go out I relax.

I am being a good granma. I have already got Tanee in hand helping me sewing.



Yesterday friends (Hans & Marg) arrived with their caravan in tow to stay 2,3,6 or 8 weeks, will work it out as we go along. We have already decided that next month we're all heading off for two weeks. We'll start by going to Woodgate, then up to Bargara, Moore Park and then head up the old road staying where we feel like ending up at Agnes Waters and 1770. Does anyone know if there are any free camps at those areas? We haven't seen Woodgate yet and by all the talk around here its growing very quickly. New estates are popping up everywhere.

I am in the shed. At least my stuff and my machines are in the shed, I'm still busy trying to get my house in order. I haven't been able to find the floor in the side sleepout for 3 years, but all the bugs and spiders did, you wouldn't believe the mess that was there when we shifted all the boxes. So I have been madly washing the ceilings, walls and floors in the side and front sleepout so that I can the move furniture in. Today Ian and Hans moved the beautiful desk that (scq) Stacey and Troy gave me into the study and I have now got one room that is at least in order. Yeah! Tidiness here I come. Here are before and after photos of the side and front sleepouts.

This was the side sleepout


and now ....


...... and the front.

The after photo of the front sleepout didn't turn out. Something about it being nightime and too dark. The lighting in this room is atrocious so will take another photo tomorrow.

It's DONE!!!

Well, after I wash the floor, it's done!

Ian and I have spent the last 3 days since Jen left finishing off the sewing shed. One of my craft friends said I should call it the Sew'n'Sew Shed. I'm thinking about it.

It took us a couple of days to build the dividing wall and then today we built the shelves.

Ian says "where do we go from here?"

The finished shelves, just need to take some pointy bits off.

Now I suppose you're all wondering why there are 2 shelves missing on the right. That's for my roll of wadding. Ian is now going to make a big toilet roll holder to go there and that will control the wadding roll nicely. I can't build the storage shelves any higher, that power point up top is for the air conditioner.

I have all my stash in those plastic bins with wheels, one for reds, one for blues and so on, and then I have a couple or three for my dressmaking material and then one for my teddy bear supplies and so on and so on. I think I have about 20 - 25 all up. I even have 4 that at the moment live under the cutting table and they hold my sewing threads and all my sewing books and folders and that's not counting my magazines. It will be great being able to put them on display on the bookshelf. Hope I have enough bookshelves?

We have broken up our hippeastrums (a friend's DH calls them hysterectomies ) and planted them and crocus' along the bank outside my entrance. The rest of them we planted out the end and back of the shed.

This is the view from the back of the shed. All that lovely green you can see is sugarcane.

and this view is from the front of the shed.

Tomorrow we line the storage side of the dividing wall and then I can move in with a clear conscience, cause once I start moving I ain't stopping till everything is put away where it's supposed to go and then I can start moving things into their proper places in the house.

...... and first thing tomorrow is to draft that pattern that keeps getting put on the backburner.

Busy, busy

I've had the loveliest week. My only sister Jenelle (Jen) stayed with us from Sunday to Thursday when I put her on the tilt train for the trip back to Brissie. We had Monday in Bundaberg where after lunch we visited my fantastic masseuse Kay Hock (nimble knuckles as Ian calls him) and we each had the most wonderful relaxing massage and he worked some of the kinks out. DSIL Lyn wants the same treatment next time she is visiting. I think she is tired of me singing his praises and wants to try him out to see if I'm exaggerating.

Well I've been up for an hour trying to get a few things done.

I've promised one of my niece's to draft a skirt pattern for her when I saw her at the beginning of the month. It has been nagging me so I think I had better do it and get it in the post. Belinda is just through her first trimester of her first pregnancy and is starting to show, she has decided that the most comfortable outfits for her are longish Aline skirts with a stretchy tummy panel and a big tshirt covering the tummy. So that is the next job on my long list for today.

The shed is coming along very nicely, yesterday Ian and I sheeted the dividing wall to my end but it is not fully screwed as yet, come to think of it none on the internal walls are fully screwed as yet. The shed walls inside and out are tin, trimdeck on the outside and corrugated on the inside where we used the grey underside of the colourbond to help lighten the room. With the lights turned on the brightness bounces everywhere. We have insulated the ceilings and walls, I have 2 ceiling fans and will be buying and getting an air conditioner installed in the next few months. Won't be moving in this weekend but today we are working on the storage shelves. I will take a progress photo tonight and post it here. It looks fantastic!!!!!

This week I have finished my Japanese Churn Dash blocks ready for swapping next Tuesday and my rag rug is finally photographed to show you all.

I used hessian for the backing and made it like a latchhook. I cut narrow strips of anything and everything and then pulled them through. I am so thrilled with it I have decided to make another one. This one was going to go in front of the laundry tub but now is going in the guest bedroom beside the bed, so I will need two. There I go again making more work for myself.

Jen and I pinned a hanging I talked my Mum into buying at S&C and now have to quilt for her. I started quilting it at craft last Tuesday morning. It will hang from the lectern at her church. I'm going to have to seriously look at the how to book for my camera. This hanging is blue albiet a dark one - it looks black and where are the reds and greens that are in the hanging? Another job on the list.