A winner!

 

Last night a winner was drawn from the lovely list of names of people who entered my giveaway last week. Thankyou to all those who left a comment, either on the blog, or by email or text. Not sure why it is so hard for some to leave comments, although I have tried on some other blogs sometimes and it does not work. Must have something to do with the settings. Computers are great when things go how you want them too.

The winner of the case of goodies as in the photo below is Granny Smith quilting. I have left Susan a message, so hope she responds and sends me her address. And once again, thanks to all. I shall do this again.

This morning a few of the girls from The Sanctuary have gone to the Anzac day dawn service here in Bordertown. I should have joined them, but this morning I am nursing a sore back. Not sure what has happened, but maybe I slept in a funny position or something. I shall be sitting in an upright position this morning and hope it comes good soon.

Time to head for the shower, and then decide what I shall work on today. Too many projects that need working on, but will probably keep going on the Mystery quilts.

Will be back later with an update and photos from the UFO retreat at The Sanctuary.

Blessings, From Jude

Another quilt post

 

I can see that it is time to show some more quilting photos.

First is a scrap quilt made in autumn colours, by Rosie. This time the quilt is for her bed and not being given to anyone else. Very simply custom quilted.

This one was also made by Rosie, for a friends 50th birthday, and quilted with an all over stars and moons pattern. And another great use of scrap fabrics.

This one was made by Prue, using lots of blue fabrics, and quilted all over with a pattern called Sticky Buns, which has given it a lovely texture. This quilt is to be used as a raffle quilt, for a local group.

And another scrappy quilt, made by Jo, and quilted all over with Square Spirals.

Everyone seems to be using up their scraps lately, although I don’t think the scrap pile actually shrinks very much. I know that I could spend the rest of my time just making scrappy quilts, and not purchasing any more fabric. Well, that would be after I finish the WIP’s I have on the go now!! And that would be in my spare time???

In between some quilting, I am still busy working on the Paper Bag Mystery quilts, and am enjoying playing around with EQ and changing the way things look. And sometimes it all depends on just how much of each fabric I have, just what I change. It was good to have Lois call in and “play” with EQ as well. Another person to “bounce” ideas with is great. I have also emailed ideas to Pat for her opinion, as she lives out of town, and can’t just “drop in”. Thankyou to both ladies. And then I call in the “proof readers”, who go over my notes and make sure it makes sense. I might just be spending this weekend retreat playing with EQ and writing instructions, as the June retreat weekend is coming up really fast, and I have a very busy month of May.

The rain that a lot of our state had this last week, did not bring very much in this area. But the nights are cold, so will be looking forward to lighting the combustion heater at The Sanctuary this weekend. There is more rain forecast for Saturday, but we will see if it happens.

It has been fantastic to receive lots of comments from near and far, this week, both on the blog and by email. Thankyou all very much. I shall be picking a winner for the giveaway on Friday evening, so you still have time to send a comment. I have packed a medium size case with a few goodies for some lucky person.

Well, it must be time to start my day, well the working part of it anyway, as I have been up for 2 1/2 hours already. I love the early mornings, while it is still quiet in the world, and the birds start to sing as daylight comes.

Have a great day, whatever you are doing,

Blessings, From Jude

Happy Birthday

 

38 years ago my second daughter was born. I know I say the same thing each year, but life just seems to be speeding up, and I can’t believe it was that long ago. When I was a child, 38 years seemed like a lifetime, but now it just seems like the blink of an eye.

This baby was in a hurry, when she finally decided it was time to enter the world. She was 15 days past the due date, and that 15 days seemed longer than the whole 9 months. But when she decided it was time, it was less than 2 hours to her birth, and I had to get to the hospital, which was a 20 minute drive away.

The first photo is of mother and 14 year old daughter, and the second a pic with my mum and dad, both photos “lifted” from her facebook page, thanks very much.

Hope your day is a good one and best wishes for the year ahead. Love Mum

Blessings, From Jude

A lucky find

 

I posted some time ago that I was searching for some fabric, that I needed would like to have, for my Head to the Border quilt. I have made a lot of enquiries in patchwork shops all around the country, and sent a photo of the fabric, but have had no luck. Faye went off to Melbourne last week, with a sample piece to check out shops, just in case she might just happen to go to a fabric shop!!

Today I walked into my local patchwork shop, where I had previously searched with no luck. The owner of the shop just happened to be there today, and I asked her if, by chance, she had some of the said fabric at her home, as I had originally purchased it in her shop. But this was 10 years ago. When I mentioned the name of the fabric, she immediately went to a shelf down underneath……. and came out with the last of this range, although in a colour I was not searching for. Mainly because I did not know of it. But it is perfect, just the colours I want, but with a green background and not pink. And as I am using greens in the quilt as well, it goes with everything. And there was 2.5 metres left on the roll! So I have no more excuses and can finish the quilt. Stay tuned for further updates. It needs to be finished in time for our local exhibition in October this year.

Blessings, From Jude

Quilt photos

 

I was waiting for better light today to take more photos, but the sun did not come out, so these will have to do. I think you can get the idea of what I did. It was cloudy all day, and tonight I can even hear some rain outside. Do hope the garden will get a water and the tanks need filling also.

This quilt was made by Cheryl, and the pattern is the English Basket Quilt, which is a design of Corliss Searcey from Threadbear Quilts in Castlemaine. The original quilt was an English Medallion Quilt from the early 1800’s.  Hope I have that information all correct. If you google it you will find all the information. This is a very busy quilt, and covered in lots of needleturn applique. As a “machine” girl, I can’t even begin to imagine how long it would take to do this! But I do know that the quilting took me ages, and I was up close and personal with this quilt, so I will be sad to see it go back to the owner. I can tell you that there are 60 quilting stitches for every square inch! And for the first time ever, I have charged by the hour for my work. It took me a few hours just to trim the threads from the back where I crosshatched. Hope you enjoy the photos.

I have been on another learning curve tonight, trying to work out how to watermark my photos. I have not done this up til now, but decided that it might be a good idea to put my stamp on these photos. It was a bit time consuming, so I won’t be doing all the photos.

I have had another busy couple of days doing some edge to edge quilting, which is some relief from the strain of the custom. But it won’t be for long, as there are more waiting in the queue.

Thankyou to those who are leaving me blog and email messages. It is fantastic to hear from a few different names, as well as the “usuals”.

I am looking forward to this time next Friday when the next retreat is happening at The Sanctuary. I need to decide which of my UFO’s I might bring out into the light to work on.

Blessings, From Jude

Catching up again, and another giveaway!

 

I will post photos of the last quilt soon, as I am waiting for the sun  to come out to take clearer photos. The ones I have taken are a bit dull, so hopefully tomorrow will be brighter. I can say that after a couple of days space from the quilt, that I am happy with it. After a week of being up close and personal with a quilt, I need to step back and get another perspective and distance. I had to put it back on this morning because there were a couple of spots that I forgot to quilt. Glad they were found before it was posted back to it’s owner.

First photo is of a few deliveries from the last couple of weeks. Because I was concentrating on getting that big quilting job done, these parcels were left in the corner, waiting until I had time to open them. Since I took that photo I picked up another 2 parcels from the Post office, and today was the day to open them all. I have hung some quilts up and taken photos, so that I can draw on them with quilting ideas. I am pleased to say that some are all over quilting! I am so looking forward to a few days of edge to edge quilting before I load another custom!

As reported earlier, I had an exciting delivery this week. I was surprised to see the truck stop out the front, and he unloaded 4 boxes. I was expecting an order, but not quite this many! I received a catalogue from one of my suppliers last week. And they had a special on Fat quarter boxes and little cases. Part of the order did contain fat quarter boxes, and I thought they would be handy for lots of occasions, when I donate a prize or give a gift. And I had ordered the cases as well, thinking  they would be a change to put the Paper Bag Mystery quilts in, instead of the bags that I had been using, that tore easily. This is what the delivery man left in my room!

I was excited to open the first box, and found this case, which was larger than I expected. ( I took a chance when ordering, by not knowing how large they were, but the price was good!)

And then I took off the plastic, and opened up the case, and lo and behold, there was another inside! Bonus!

And then I opened that one and another surprise! I had 3 little cases, all with sewing related pictures on them! I might add that I had ordered 30 of these, and now I had 90!

And all these bags, with fabrics already cut ready for a quilt, fit very nicely in there don’t they? And there is still room for a few more little goodies that I usually add to the bags!

My mind is thinking of lots of ways that I can make use of my “bonus” cases.

If you have read this far, I thank you, so I have decided to use the middle size case and put some goodies in it for another giveaway on my blog. It was fun to receive comments from lots of places when I held the last one. I will keep this open for the next week, and draw a winner on Friday evening, April 24, when the girls arrive for our next retreat at The Sanctuary. It will be a case of mystery items, mainly because I am not sure what I will put in yet. But it will be worth winning. I look forward to hearing from you. Some girls tell me that they have trouble leaving comments, so I will accept email comments.  

Will be back soon with photos of that quilt.

Blessings, From Jude

It is finished!!!!!!

 

Today is the day that I finally took the quilt off the machine. It has been a marathon. It has been on for a week, although I have had a few interruptions in that time. I went to Adelaide on Friday, for Valuation Day, and Sunday I did not switch the machine on either. Tomorrow I will try to tidy up my work space again, and load an allover quilting job. I feel like life has been on hold for the past week, while my focus has been on that one quilt. 

I received a phone call today from a friend, who nicely told me that I had not posted on my blog since the 8th April?! I just had to finish that quilt before I could even think about other things. So I hope she is happy now, as I am doing a few separate posts.

I received a special delivery today that I will tell you about another day. It was just like Christmas opening the boxes and finding surprises.

I had been planning things to do with 2 of my granddaughters who I thought were coming during their school holidays. There are lots of crafty things here for girls to do. But, unfortunately they could not come. And as you will see in a post further down, I received other family visitors instead.

Catch ya later.

Blessings, From Jude

Early morning coffee visitors

 

This morning 2 excited people called in for coffee on their way to Melbourne. Faye is teaching at AQC over the next few days, and then they are taking delivery of their new caravan. Although I don’t think I should call it that, as a 5th wheeler, is a bit more than a caravan isn’t it? Kim has retired and life is about to change for them. Wishing you both all the best for retirement and travelling this great country of ours.

Weekend visitors

I had the pleasure of family visiting for the weekend. They drove from their home 3 hours away to load their trailer with wood from their family’s farm. This will keep them warm until the next trip. The nights, and some days are getting cooler and we are thinking about preparing for winter. I still have some wood in the shed left from last winter, but will need to phone the man who delivers my supplies. As I am not a person that likes hot weather, I am looking forward to cosy wood fires. Just sitting and watching the flames in a contained heater is mesmerizing.
Photos below of 2 little boys and what they got up to while at Grandma’s house.

A bit of colouring in for Mr 4year old, and he had the blue, red and yellow colours out to draw his favourite footy team. And below is a picture of concentration as he pins the fabric. It’s amazing how much time little kids can spend amusing themselves with pins, (with supervision of course).

Mr 6year old wanted to do some sewing, and guess what? Everything you need to sew, you will find at Grandma’s house! We found some flannel fabric and he sewed the seams to make a baby blanket, which you see in the bottom photo. And it just so happens, that his Uncle and Aunty are having a baby soon, and won’t they be surprised that he made this for them. (Not too sure whether a blue blanket will be needed, but they will get blue anyway!) He wanted to take some fabric home to sew on mum’s machine, so we found some precut squares in the scrap drawers.


And they found some time for playing their games as well as kicking the footy, sewing, drawing, catching up with friends, and visiting the farm.

Their dad has recently purchased a new Harley motorbike and he rode this, while DD2 drove the car and trailer. I can’t say that I have ever had a Harley parked in my pergola before!

A visit to the farm while the sheep crutching was in progress was a big highlight for the weekend. This photo was taken with their older cousin in the shearing shed. The smiles say it all. I think it is disappointing that most of my grand children are growing up without knowing about farms and all the associated activities. At least this branch of the family do get to see a bit of farm life, although not often.

Head to the border project

On the Monday after Easter we met for the last reveal and to announce what the next border will be. As it was a public holiday for Easter Monday, there was not a lot of participants present, so I only have a few photos to show you. Some of the quilts are getting quite large, especially those whose centre blocks were nearly a small quilt. I know have 2 borders to do on my quilt, and am still trying to locate some more fabric.

Blessings, From Jude

Progress report

 

I am still working my way through the quilt. so thought I would update you on what I have done.Today I have been crosshatching behind some of the applique. The lines are 1/2” apart, so it’s pretty intense. I am only doing some sections, as the top and bottom borders with the applique are very close. The first photo below is of my piece of paper, printed with the quilt. I have been drawing lines (roughly), on it for the past few months, trying to come up with a plan. The centre part will probably change yet, because right in the centre where the 4 flower pot blocks meet is a star, which throws my design out. So my plan for that will now change. So far I have outlined the outer border, crosshatched the 2 side borders inside that, framed the flower pot blocks inside that, and crosshatched the border in from that. And I have also SID all the border seams. I have not SID any of the applique yet. Lots of work yet to come, and a decision about what patterns to do inside the stars and flowers. This has taken me 2 days, although not full days, as I need to take a few breaks in between.

Time to call it a day,

Blessings, From Jude

I will be awhile

 

quilting this beauty. All beautiful needleturn applique. Lots of work already gone into this quilt, and my instructions are for heavy custom quilting. So if I don’t surface for awhile, you will know why. (I imagine I will be taking lots of breaks, so you might still hear from me!) I have almost got to the halfway mark of stabilising and SID all the seams. And then I shall go back to work on the rest. I have half a plan, and the quilt is “talking” to me as I work through it, so once I have made a decision on what I will quilt I will feel a lot better.

Better get back to it for another couple of hours, and then perhaps I could say I have had enough?

We have woken to rain 2 mornings in a row, but I am not sure how much we have had. The weather is rather cool, and I am starting to think about getting wood for the fire.

Have a good day,

Blessings, From Jude

This and that

One of my first tasks for the weekend was mending. Not my favourite thing to do. But it was a fair exchange for someone who replaced the batteries in my smoke alarms for me. (I would have done it anyway, but don’t tell him that!) You can see how thin the fabric was inside the pocket in the first photo. So I cut it out, and made another pocket to replace that one. It was not the easiest place to get at, but as the seams are all on the inside it worked out ok. I only had to unpick a small section of the waistband,which I sewed after. All the pockets were very thin, but I only replaced one, cut the other 3 off, and stitched them closed! And for 2 pair of shorts.


I mentioned in the last post about my impromptu trip to the beach. On Saturday, I phoned a friend who has this week arrived home after 3 months overseas. Ages ago, we had talked about a trip to the beach one day, and during the conversation we decided that Saturday was going to be that day. It was half an hour later that we left for our drive. The weather was glorious, and sunny. It is an hour’s drive to the sea from here, so it was time for a late lunch when we arrived. Of course when you go to the beach, you need fish and chips, and a place by the sea to eat it. In the first photo you can see we had lots of visitors, waiting for us to throw them an offering.

And now you can see, they were getting rather friendly, and landing onto the table.

And now they are getting very friendly, and flying in close. I was not so worried about them taking my chips, as I was about them leaving their “calling card” on my head. They are very persistent, and they did get some of the leftover chips.

Now this fella was very patient, and not as fast as the seagulls, and he walked slowly over after the seagulls had left, and pecked the last crumbs.

From Kingston, we drove down to Cape Jaffa, and checked out the jetty, and the new housing allotments at the marina.

And then on to Robe, for a wander along the lawns overlooking the sea.

Then it was time for a coffee and some cake, before we drove home, arriving about 6 hours after we left. Sometimes the unplanned, last minute decisions are the best. We had a nice time, and talked non stop all the way, catching up on life’s happenings since we had last seen each other. This lovely lady has spent the last 3 months in India, doing some amazing work, living and working in far less comfortable conditions than most of us know in this country. It would be so far out of my comfort zone, and I admire her greatly for doing this. Thanks for a lovely afternoon Barb.

Today I attended our local patchwork group sewing day for a short time, where the Head to the Border group met up for another reveal. The last border element was drawn, and now we all have a few months to finish and quilt our tops, so that they can be shown at our Patchwork Exhibition in October. Due to the public holiday here today, I have not got many photos to show you. I have to confess that I had not finished my last border, as I am still trying to source some more fabric, and also have not had a lot of spare time.
Well, I think that’s about all the newsfromjude  for the last few days. I had DD3 and her fiance here Thursday and Sunday evening and today they left to return to Melbourne. In between they caught up with family, and friends, and cousins, fitting in a lot over 2 days.
Time for bed,
Blessings, From Jude

Quilt update

 

It must be time for photos of more quilts that have recently gone out my door with their owners. These 3 quilts have all been custom quilted.

First is June’s quilt, which she has made in my Embellished Quilts class, using lots of different machine techniques. June was trying to use up her stash of blue fabrics, but I believe she did not make much of a dent.

This is Toytime Circus made by Di for one of her grandchildren. Lots of fun in this quilt, and I am sure they will love it.

This Star quilt made by Sue is very striking, and it was custom quilted with feathers and straight lines to highlight the star. The photo below shows the back of the quilt.

I have another quilt to load this morning, that needs an intense custom quilting job, so it could be on for awhile. Lots of needleturn applique which needs SID. I have had a little “quilting” break over the Easter weekend, with one little impulse trip to the beach, and most of the time spent with EQ on the computer, and cutting fabric and writing instructions for more Paper Bag Mystery quilts.

And the Thursday before Easter I spent the whole day doing “housework”! It is such a rare event here that I need to mention it. I usually do what really needs to be done, and only use a small portion of my house myself. I spend most of my time in my quilting studio, and the adjoining room where I sew, iron and store my stuff. I do use my kitchen and my bedroom, but that leaves the remaining part of my house ignored. But there is nothing like the expectation of visitors to motivate, so a clean up was necessary! 

Time to finish this post, but will be back with a photo or 2 of my beach journey.

Have woken up to rain this morning, which the countryside really needs.

Blessings, From Jude