Today is a national day of mourning here in Australia. I know it was televised Australia wide but not sure about elsewhere. It was a very moving ceremony. Tears were never far away throughout the ceremony. It just really hit home just how devestating the tragic fires of two weeks ago were. In know we are all trying to do our little bit eg. making quilts, getting together small stashes and kits for those who have lost theirs, but it seemed just so incidental today, the magnitude of the loss of unbelievable. But in true Aussie spirit many are already beginning to get on with their lives and rebuilt bits and pieces of their communities, sports club etc. I wish them well. I spent today once again working on what we now term bush fire quilts, I wish I had another term as this seems so inadequate, and I don't want to call them victims as most them were 'fighters' not victims and survivers portrays a meaning which I don't want to face just yet. My prayers are with them all.

Wednesday and today were once again spent sewing for the bushfire quilts. A few are just about finished now and they are looking really nice. The quilt as you go method is definitely the way to go when wanting to do quilts in a hurry, in fact one of the group says she only intends to use this method from now on as it is the quilting which gets to her (me to). Hand sewing is now finished except for the binding so back onto the machine tomorrow to put the finishing touches then the binding, my least preferred part of quilting.

These are the latest additions to my second sampler quilt using the small 6 inch blocks. I have just got a new pattern but haven't got around to doing it yet, concentrating on blocks for the bushfire quiltt at the moment

I have completed 18 blocks of the 30 needed for a QAYG string quilt for the bushfire victims. I have never done this method before but am finding it very easy. Not only that but I am using up mega scrap from my strip boxes. I actually have 2 empty large shoes boxes now and I haven't seen an empty one of these for years. Its incredible to think you make a lovely quilt completely out of scraps, so I am certainly 'stashbusting' here. A few of my friendship group are going to get together on Wednesday and again on Friday in the hopes of getting another few finished. Another mad firebug has been at work in the Otway Region which is closer to where I am but still a fair way away, but considering how quickly the fires spread last week one can never be sure. Precautions, precautions, I think are the order of the day at the moment.

Wow what a week! It was suggested by one of the members of my local group that we use our regular monthly meeting (yesterday) to make quilts for the bushfire victims (now up to about 1800 homes gone, so that means goodness knows how many homeless). I made a few phone calls and untold emails asking for people to come with their machines, fabric from their stashes, bits and pieces of batting etc. I was completely overwhelmed by everyone generosity. We had a great day. About 20 ladies spent the day, cutting, sewing and hand stitching. Most of us decided to use Jan Mac's method http://sewmanyquiltstoolittletime.blogspot.com quilt as you go as we want to get these quilts sewn and off as soon as possible. Many thanks to Jan for her tutorial, she is a fellow Southern Cross Quilter, and she does magnificent work for charity!
All in all I think we would end up with about 10 or so quilts (when they are all finished) and the members would like to either adopt a family or town. As yet I don't know how to go about this but with all the messages tooing and froing on the Southern Cross Quilters List I'm sure it will be possible in the near future. I hope so anyway. If not we will leave it to others to distribute.

What a very sad weekend. So much devestation, loss of life, property and wildlife here in Victoria from horrific bushfires. I spent much of the weekend listening to the radio to keep updated on the fire situation around the State. Saturday was far too hot to sew, about 44C here, so instead spent much of the day checking out a lot of great blogs via the blog rings I am a member of. Yesterday was much cooler down into the low 20s much better for sewing. I was able to get two heart blocks done for Southern Cross Quilters who are having a tough time at the moment either through sickness or loss of a family member.

I had hoped to post photos of two more 6 inch blocks but my camera decided it had had enough (probably heat stress!!) so this will have to wait until it has had a visit to the repair shop or been replaced with a new one. As I am now to the end of my download month this will probably be my last post for a while.

I have decided to make some smaller blocks e.g. 6 inch in softer colours as well as the 9 inch previously posted (two different quilts). All the blocks in the friendship swap will be included but I will make a lot of others as well of my own choosing. I am coming to the end of my download month and will be downsizing my allowance as the school holidays are over and the grandchildren are no longer here a few days a week logging up lots of time on the net. Consequently I will probably onlybe uploading photos once a month from the 10th as I find it really eats up my limit. I have been playing around with this blog adding bits and pieces to it and spending lots of time looking at some other really great blogs.

Yesterday I went to Sorrento to the Point Nepean Group's Exhibition. As usual after viewing lots of lovely quilts I came home all inspired and so will endeavour to spend more time at my machine over the next couple of months. I have also been looking favourably on the Bridal Sampler of Elm Creek fame. Will I or won't I is the question? As I am doing blocks with my friendship group which are 9 inch I will probably leave the Bridal Sampler for now although I do covet it.

This is the 2nd block in friendship group pattern swap.

This is the first block in my friendship groups pattern swap. We hope to make some very exciting and different 'sampler quilts' It will be interesting to see how they all end up as we are using our own fabrics.

A new year of my friendship group begins. Once again we are swapping a 10 inch square of fabric each month and I have decided to make mine into Ohio Stars which I will alternate with nine patches for the quilt. All very scrappy. Hopefully I will use up some of the many 5 and 6 inch charm squares I have as well as left overs from other quilts.

As well members are taking turns in supplying a pattern each month. Our challenge is to make something interesting other than the ordinary sampler quilt which many of us made as our first quilt. Our first blocks are a Jacobs Ladder and a Pinwheel Star. I have many metres of plain white very fine homespun which was purchased for a Baltimore Quilt. I have made a few blocks but I just know I am not going to do as many as I originally planned so am using it for the block challenge along with red and blue. I will try and put some of the blocks up as I do them.

A small quilt in my favorite colours. It was made in a class with Angie Solomon when she was promoting her book 'Angies Angles'. Somehow I have changed this post to double spacing, I will have to find out how I accidently did this and undo it for future posts. It seems that I haven't learnt very much over the past year of blogging, I'm still floundering around and spending far more time than I had anticipated just uploading one small photograph and putting some text with it. Hopefully during this year I will finally get my act together and learn a bit more.... I am looking forward to another year at my friendship group. We have decided to once again swap the 10 inch squares of fabric the same as 2008 but as well we are going to swap patterns each month. This enables us to use our own fabric and make using the size of our own choosing. The challenge will be to put them all together at the end, not just in the old sampler format.

This has has been quite a long time in the making. I am not usually into stitcheries but this one which is an adaptation of Kerri Gillesppi's pattern is one I really enjoyed doing. I was struggling to find a hand pieced design which took my fancy so happened on these embroidery designs in 'A Little Different' in Geelong and fell in love with them. I have used a little bit of creative licence but am very pleased with the result. Soft and pretty.

After quite a while I have finally got some pictures to share. This is the finished quilt made from swap FQs at my local group. Each block contains a piece from everyone in the swap plus some extras from my scrap boxes. This photo is slightly distorted as my camera is playing up. Colours were better on block shown previously.

I have been organising a couple of new projects and hope to get some photos up soon. Also I have just added a new header to by blog. It is from http://alliebrownslayouts.blogspot.com/. She has lots of blog pages and headers free for general use and very easy instructions. If I can follow them anyone can!!

This quilt was made in a class with Jan Preston and was an excellent study in colours and their values.

I have decided to upload a few photos of quilts I have done in the past as I am a bit slow finishing off current projects. This is a charm quilt made a few years ago, but still one of my favourites. Over the next few days I hope to add some more

I haven't had a chance to add to this blog for a few weeks and wow has the weather turned cold during that time. I have to admit we did spent a week on the Murray River the first week in July where the weather was much warmer.
I have been busy adding to my pineapple blocks made from FQ swap fabrics which my local group swapped in 2007. Not my normal colours so quite a trial for me to work in these colours (and only these colours) no additions except for a few in the same colour range from my scrap stash. When finished it will go to my local aged care hostel where everyone who is a resident receives a quilt of their choice. (We try and have at least 3 or 4 for them to choose from).
This challenge was supposed to be colour co-ordinated but only to the previous one, but I'm sure almost everyone cheated and had a look at previous months FQs. This year we are doing much the same thing except that only the previous one is on displayed and all previous must be sealed in a paper bag. Goodness knows what we will end up with!!!!!!!!! Next weekend I am off to a weekend retreat to Bacchus Marsh where I hope to get most of these blocks finished ready to put together and quilt.

These are my butterfly ATCS to be swapped with members of SCQATC group.
Hope they like them.

I have spent the last week catching up on my ATC swaps. Firstly 'Purple People Eater' and secondly 'Butterflies'.
Yesterday was 'Lonsdale Lights' which was a really good day with only Liz not able to make it. Merrilyn demonstrated 'New York Beauty' offering quite a few tips for the ladies wanting to take up the challenge in the future.

I sold my Horn sewing cabinet today as I have had two tables made for my sewing room to fit in an L shape. One benefit is that I will be able to swing the shorter one around in front of the other and make a good deep area for quilting. Now all I have to do is get some drawers to fit underneath.

April skipped by without a posting. I have made ATCs for 'In the Pink' SCQATC and have received some in return (see photo). I also received my ATCs from the 'Cheer me Up' Swap and so have added to my collection of great cards. This months square of fabric at Lonsdale Lights was a very nice blue in a William Morris type design, have made two more kaleidascope blocks with it. I finally made two more pineapple blocks using the fabric from 2007 FQ swap at 'Lights' but a very long way to go with these, there is a lot of sewing in each one but I think I will be pleased with the result, it is also letting me use up a lot of my own scrap. Finally we are having rain this weekend, 17 mil so far, its been a long time coming. Just a couple of cold days and my tulips have poked their noses through.

Its been a very big couple of weeks. Had a farewell lunch with Zoe and Maureen from work on Wed before Easter then finished at The Blanket Box the next day. Good Friday was spent quietly then birthday celebrations began on Sat (my actual birthday). Firstly Sophie cooked lunch (exceptionally nice baked potatoes which she had learnt to do at school) for me as well as John, Leesa and Spencer. Sat evening was a family dinner at the Carlton Hotel in Geelong which had a limited menu but oh boy was what they did excellent. Sunday was once again a bit of a food feast with Matt firing up his new BBQ, cooking a large piece of pork and we ate the last Christmas pudding. Monday was spent working on Pineapple blocks my monthly Kaleidascope block for Lonsdale Lights and a bit more to my Bendigo Retreat quilt. On Tuesday 25th I had 8 guests for lunch. Three from Mahjong, four quilters and Leesa. They mixed really well and I'm sure everyone enjoyed themselves. During all this food and drinking I have been walking religiously every day to try and keep the weight under control and I think I have done that. More work to be done though. Today I am off for my first day of voluntary work at the Historical Museum in Queenscliff. It entails listening to Joyce Stewart talk about Queenscliff during the Second World War. Another chapter begins!

I have had a busy couple of days sewing. First time I have really felt like it in a while. I have decided the stash must be decreased!! To this end I have done 3 pineapple blocks using the FQs from Lonsdale Lights 2007 exchange. When I can figure out how to put photographs onto this site I will post a picture, I'm extremely happy with them. By way of a change, today I have spent cutting and sewing the oriental charm squares swapped at the Southern Cross Quilters Bendigo Retreat in 2007. After a lot of trials finally decided to do chinese coin design. Guess what? A lot of designs were directional and I cut them all wrong. Can't have people birds etc on their sides so must come up with a new design. Instead of chinese coins running horizontal they will now run vertically and I will sash them in blocks instead of columns. This will make it easier to quilt anyway.

Work and etcs have been taking time so I haven't been doing much sewing apart blocks using my groups fabric swap. Unfortunately I made an error in cutting and have totally messed up the two blocks I am to do this month. I am hoping Glenys and June might have a bit more fabric that I can purchase from them to redo. Initially I hand pieced a kaleidescope block by hand except for the last join which I did by machine for more strength. It went together like a breeze. However every one I have tried since just will not go together with matching seams so I have given up and am doing them totally by hand.

February is here and hopefully it means more sewing time. I made a start yesterday on cutting strips for a pineapple block quilt I intend making from FQ swap at my friendship group. I have also finally made a decision finally on what to do with the 130 6 inch oriental squares swapped at the Bendigo SCQ retreat in 2007. I am going to make lanterns on a light background with navy and gold trim.

My First Post

This is my first attempt at setting up a blog and posting. I'm sure I won't be updating anymore than weekly at this stage but retirement is imminent and who knows I may become adept at this when I have more time.