Oh boy!

It only seems like yesterday that I last updated. The kids have been at me to get typing.
At the moment I'm unwell with infected sinuses, I don't feel like doing anything. Do I sound like I'm whinging? Yep, I am.

So much has happened since June.

I went down to Montville to my friend Leonie and had a 3 day sewing retreat where I ate too much and spent too much - it was wonderful. I had a play on her new long arm quilting machine that frightened the hector out of me. It is absolutely fantastic and Leonie makes it sing, me, I made it squark. I then went and stayed for 5days with my parents at Gympie and sorted out Dad's computer and finally after 11years altered the quilt on the guest bed. This quilt was in my parent's caravan and Mum thought is was too good for travelling so brought it inside the house to use on the guest bed. Small problem - van quilt's are made to suit a van bed that have rounded ends, so did the quilt, so on the normal bed we had to tuck the rounded end up and under and we did and always said one day when I'm visiting we'll get in and fix that. So now it's fixed, the job took about 1½hours and wasn't that hard. Isn't it always the way.

At Leonie's we visited Maleny Magic P&Q shop and i finally found the right material for the log cabin quilt for our bed, I worked it out on the computer and had all the measurements and the amounts of material needed, I even bought .25m more of each fabric. Big miscalculation, BIG. My bed is king I worked out for single. I made 56 blocks and kept thinking something is wrong here, finally the penny fell and luckily I was able to get more material, so now I can get in and finish the quilt.

At the moment I have a few irons in the fire.
1. A beginners quilt that I will be teaching in a few week's time.
2. My Heart's in Blue quilt that I am halfway through quilting.
3. My Redwork Annie quilt is pinned and ready for quilting - as soon as I finish Hearts in Blue.
4. The curtains for the front sleepout have to be altered for this house. I brought them with me from Samford, luckily was able to buy more of the same material and now just have to sew and alter. Finished one before these darn sinuses hit me for 6.
5. Halfway through the curtains to hang on my shelves in the Sew'n Shed the blockout is up, just have to finish the sleepout curtains so I can take down the make do curtains which just happen to be the ones that are for the Sew'n Shed.
6. Just thought I'd add that number, but I really do have another half a dozen things on the go. Knitting a pair of socks, finishing off heart blocks to send to quilters who need a long distance hug, still working on my ½" hexagon tablecloth and of course trying to get xmas cards made. I made a mental rule, if I sit down at this desk I have to make a xmas card before I do anything else. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

That'll do for this post, I promise to take photos of all of the above and post them here when I'm back on top.

Long Weekend, Kenilworth Quilt Show and More ...

We went to Rick and June's at Imbil for the June long weekend and had a lovely time. Hans, Marg, Phil, Kym, Mike, Narelle with their son Aaron, Tony and his kids Ashley, Zac and Teanna were there as well, we were camped all over the place, luckily they have acreage. We had a fire each night that usually needed a lot of help to get going.


Here's a photo of the fellows hard at work bending the elbow and exercising the jaw.


On that same weekend the Kenilworth Quilters had their quilt show so on Sunday morning four of us gals headed off to take a look. Some beautiful work. Here's just a couple to whet your appetite.

All right I can't count.

The driveway and path are finished and looks fantastic. In these photos the blokes are still hard at work.

After the weekend Ian and I had to head down to the Sunshine Coast for a couple of appointments - Ian for the dermatologist (gave us some good news and a script for a sun spot cream) and I finally had my colours done at Kerryn's Fabric World in Prinder Ave Maroochydore. A lovely lady who truly enjoys her work. I am a Cool Deep and I now know everything to know about making myself look slimmer and taller. Now to put it all into practice.

While we were down there Ian finally made the decision to trade in his ute. Last month we were trading in my commodore, but the ute needed some repairs done that were going to cost MONEY and so we started looking. Here is a photo of the old girl.

We had a good look at a yard in Buderim and found a 2001 Toyota GXL wagon and even took it for a test drive, then Ian crawled under and said we wouldn't be buying this one. He said that the chassis had swelled with rust and the threads on the bolts just came off on his fingers. Was a nice looking vehicle and in our price range too. While we were there we met Frank who was also looking for a towing vehicle and put us onto one at Ken Mills Nambour, so off we went and ended up buying it. Frank reckons we owe him a bottle of good stuff. This is our new vehicle - well, new to us. A 1999 Toyota GXL Landcruiser wagon with 109ks on the clock - just run in.

We have had her for a week now and she runs well and is lovely to travel in, nice and smooth compared to the ute. The only problem we have now is NO ute. On our way home from Nambour I picked up 4 Pekins (chooks) and of course they had to travel in our new vehicle. On the Sunday after we got home I had to have son-in-law Pete bring a bag of horse manure over on his truck 'cause I wasn't allowed to put it in the back of the wagon. I think we need a trailer!

More Renovations

We have got one heck of a mess happening in our yard.

They started last week with removing all the gravel on the roundabout and the driveway. Next we had Kwik Kerb from Bundy arrive and make the edges for the garden and the bitumen.

Then we had the concreter arrive to box in the pathway

So far this is what we have and I have to be very careful on how I walk across the mesh, if not I'll go A over T. Notice our hand railing - 1of.

Meet Amy-Lou

I would like you to meet Amy-Lou, my completed teddy-bear from my lessons, I also have two other bears Charlotte and Fred (who likes to be called Frank). They still have to have their faces done.

I tried to do them myself and while following the pattern was easy, I didn't fill them enough, couldn't get Charlottes nose right and I couldn't get the joints tight enough to stop them from spinning around too easily. So I decided that the best way was to do a course and learn how to do it all properly .. and so Amy-Lou was born.

... and here is a photo of the three of 'em.

Churn Dash Blocks

I have 108 of 'em from our clubs 12month swap last year ... and so far this is what I've put together and the quilt will be finished for DGS 7th birthday on 8th June. His favourite colour is dark blue and the best one I could get was the extra wide fabric for backing, he'll just love it. So far I've cut the half square and quarter square triangles and I am in the middle of cutting the strips to join the top together, then I'm in a quandry as to whether I put a narrow red or yellow border next before adding another d.blue one to finish the top.

One of our club members Evelyn is on her umpteenth churn dash quilt. This one she is donating to the local hospital.

I thought you might be interested in this little shoulder bag, this one Sue (a club member) picked up at the Bundaberg sunday markets at Shalom College. So simple but looks fantastic. I am now collecting ties.

Latest News

We have been absolutely flat strap since we arrived home. Have had all my xrays and scans done and no real bad news other than arthritis in my left wrist, fingers and right knee, well thats just more to go along with the arthritis in my lower spine and neck. Years ago I had a large gangleon on my left wrist which my doctor at the time said to hit it with the big family bible. Wouldn't leave the hand there long enough for DH Ian to hit it .... I'm not that stoopid! Anyway over time the lump disappeared and I thought it had gone to gangleon heaven. Not so, it is still there about 1cm thick under the skin and I'm going to leave it there too unless it decides to grow again. What the pain in the left wrist came from while we were away was a combination of the arthritis, the gangleon and then crocheting while we were on the road. RCI [repetitive crocheting injury] I call it. But since I've been home, not doing so much crocheting, the pain has lessened to a bearable degree but the wrist is still weak, I don't use it if I don't have to. Other than that I'm in fine fettle. My glasses are still fine for me though I have large floaties in the eyes, which will go away when they are ready.
Ians' news is good too. No operation on his lip, the severe sun damage has healed according to the plastic surgeon. Eventually he will have to have some sort of surgery for his sun damaged skin everywhere else on his body but we don't have to worry about it for a year or three.
Last weekend we headed to Brisbane. Saturday night was a barbque for DB#2 Trevor and his partner Karina to celebrate their engagement, their wedding date is 27/9/08. Sunday morning was DB#1 Ken and DSIL Lyn's first grandchilds' christening and he did look absolutely gorgeous as you can see.


... and he didn't make a sound even when the minister poured water over his head.

... that's DB's big head in the road. In the background to the left is their other daughter.

Now to travelling news.

Travelling south we found some wonderful things, people come up with brilliant ideas. Like making cages out of chicken wire and filling them with small boulders then using them to build tunnels.

A much better idea - utulising the small boulders dug up out of the hill and looks fantastic too. Our first nights stop in a free rest area was not what we invisaged. Seven roosters lived on the rest area and one of them decided that our car made for a nice warm spot to roost for the night. What with the semis travelling south on the highway beside us and a full moon above, you can imagine what the roosters did all night too. Not much sleep that first night.

We're BBBAAACCKKK!!!

What a fantastic trip. What a loong way and in the end we didn't get right round following the coast line. We arrived in Bunbury, the house sitter said he had to go into hospital for another back operation on the 4th April, the ute started playing up and spraying the front of the van with oil and Ian couldn't always get 5th gear - it went on holidays too. Then Ian had a biopsy done on his bottom lip and its not bad but its not good either so we decided that we had stretched 8weeks into 16 and it was time to head for home.

The van travelled beautifully with only a few repairs for the fixit man here in Bundy to repair. One is the back bumper (plastic of course). Ian was turning around and backed into a small shrub, nothing wrong there, but it was hiding a koppers log, we now have a broken corner on the bumper bar and a broken reflector. The foot on one of the back legs was broken too when we went cross country, turning around to find Johannas Beach camping ground in Vic - we found it. Now that's one rugged beach.

As soon as I start transferring photos I will put them up here. I had hoped to keep you all up to date as we travelled, but it didn't work out that way at all. Internet cafes are hard to find unless you know the town, the best place I found was libraries and they were free. By the time we get going again, I will have it all working properly.

Here is a photo of "Margies Roses" that I was lucky enough to finish before we left home and she was absolutely flabbergasted when I gave it to her in Woolongong.

I wasn't able to finish any sewing as I travelled. I was going great guns on my ½" hexagons until I ran out of papers in Stratford Vic and didn't have the forethought to write down the website I downloaded them from. You wouldn't think that it would create such a problem, a ½" hexagon is a ½" hexagon. Not so. I downloaded the papers cut them out, made up the flowers and when it came to joining them to the rest I found they were 2mm smaller. So I put that exercise into the 'too hard' basket until I returned home and continued crocheting. I finished a chevron quilt for my bed, a quilt in manly colours for ian's bed [a 6row granny square x 100] and almost finished a quilt for skyelah (DGD) in purple, pink and turquiose [a 7row granny square x 108]. The quilt is now waiting to be pressed and wrapped for her 8th birthday on monday.

As I get back into the swing of things and I can assure that I will be doing it slowly. I will show you some of the sights that we were privileged to see, like wild sealions suckling their young, a picture postcard of the 12 apostles as we flew over them, the gloucester tree and the giant tree tip walk that someone who will remain nameless nearly froze with fright on.

But it sure it good to be home again.