Reporting in

The winter has been so cold, and I confess to spending most of my time inside, and ignoring the garden at The Sanctuary, so I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I checked out the back garden over there.
Without any attention from me, quite a few things are out in flower. Maybe spring is on it’s way! Now that the Mystery Cases have been done, it looks like I better spend some time outside and pull the weeds that have sprung up as well.




10 ladies have arrived at The Sanctuary for this weekends “Pick-a-case” Mystery Retreat. Some have driven from Adelaide, and some from just over the border, and one from Bendigo, as well as the local girls. I think the SA girls are outnumbered by the Vic girls this weekend. Some have met before, but some are here for the first time, and it did not take long before the conversations were flowing, and there is definitely lots of laughter.
The early arrivals had to wait for everyone to come before we had the “allocation” process. Jean arrived early and was so sure she would get something with blue in it, that she brought blue thread to sew her quilt with!. All the cases had name tags, and the contents were a mystery. Some of the names might have given a hint as to the contents, (or they might not have). A couple had names such as Blue Diamonds, or Ella Blue, so these were the ones that Jean was watching. She even tried to “quietly” walk off with a case during the afternoon, but was caught. And then each person had to wait for their number to be called out before they could choose, and Jean’s number was nearly last. So when it was her turn to pick, “someone” had hidden the cases with Blue in the label! One of those moments when you really had to be there! And Moya decided that Irish Crossings had to be green, and she wanted that, but someone else told her it could be orange!! After they all chose a case, they could look and if they were not happy, had one more choice.

Above is Jean trying to sneak off with a blue case.

And Jocelyn thinking about what she might like.

And they are off and sewing.

And Jocelyn seems happy with her second choice, called “Dancing Daisies”, which has a lot of blue in it too. It was good that she picked a second one, because Alison was eyeing off the first choice, (which was called “They all add up”), and patiently waited for Jocelyn to change her mind, because she wanted that one! I do hope they are all happy with what they have now, and I look forward to seeing them all come together. It is almost like giving birth, (well maybe not), after creating the designs and choosing the fabrics, and now watching them come together. I told them they are all guinea pigs, testing out my patterns and instructions. Do hope there are no mistakes.

Moya’s “Irish Crossings” on the way, and it is green and not orange!

In between sewing, Val checked the cricket on the TV and kept everyone up to date with the results.

And Jean is busy cross cutting her strips to make the 4 patch units for Blue Diamonds. Just as well she brought her blue thread!
Time to get dressed and start my day. I hope to finish a quilt on the machine today, and do some food preparation, in between checking out the progress “across the road”.
Be back soon,
Blessings, From Jude