I am still here!!

I know that I am overdue in posting any newsfromjude, so better get busy tonight and update you. I am sitting here with my feet up in the lounge, and the laptop on my knee. I see that, (except for a quick post about the Kaniva quilt show), it is 2 weeks tomorrow since a post!!?? Just where has that time gone, and what have I been doing? A really good question.

That last quick post said that it was starting to rain, and thundering, so I was going to turn the computer off. Next morning when I got up, and checked the gauge I was surprised to see 50mm! That has to be the biggest rain recorded here in a loooong time.

 It was good in the tank, and nice for the garden, and has germinated a lot of summer weeds that I have not had time to do anything about. My garden is looking the worst I have seen for ages, and it will be awhile yet before I get out to do anything about that. My vegie patch has not been worthwhile this year, and I have pulled out most of the tomato plants. Have been picking a few cucumbers and some zuchini. The pumpkins don't look to be very productive either. Perhaps next year will be better. One bright spot are the dahlia's that went in 2 months late, as they are just starting to flower. But there are a lot of weeds coming through to compete with them.

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There were quite a few local ladies who travelled over the border to see the Kaniva quilt show. For a group that don't have a lot of members, they had a great display of a wide variety of quilts. Most of the photos I took are of customer quilts. I love to see them after the binding has been stitched on, and they look much better hanging for a photo, than flat on my bed. 

The following are all Pick a Case Mystery quilts.............

.......... and the following are customer quilts. This is an Antelope Canyon quilt, made by Jenny.

I don't think I have posted the next 2 quilts before.

This Gravity quilt was made by Jackie, and she decided to have the centre star customed, and the background edge to edge, with a wavy line up and down.

This one was made by Jenny, and the centre star points have a pattern over the whole diamond, and the background was quilted with lots of straight line work.

This is Sherrel's quilt that won a prize in Melbourne last July, and looked great hanging up at Kaniva.

Another quilt by Sherrel, that I am not sure if I have posted.

Another by Jackie, with shoe fabric which is rather cute.

There were many other fantastic quilts, but sorry I did not take heaps of photos.

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Back in January, I told how I was sorting and filing paper work. A lot of it was copies of minutes etc from our group meetings, that had accumulated and was taking up space under the desk. I also have the photo albums here that belong to the group and go back about 24 years, to 1996 when our group commenced. Next year it will be 25 years since we started, and as I needed something else to fill in my time (!!??) I have started compiling a history of the group. I have until next April to finish this, but have spent a few days already on the computer and sorting out "stuff". It has been hilarious looking back at the old photos, and here a few of them. We have had some fun times.

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I had a problem with my emails, in that messages were coming in, but I was unable to send any out. I contacted my service provider, who was not much help, and the local computer guy, who told me others from the same provider were also having the same issue. But the problem persisted. So what to do, when all other avenues fail?? Google, of course. So I questioned Mr (perhaps it's Mrs??) Google, and found a forum with the same question from 2014!? After reading this, I went into Properties, and followed the instructions from 9 below, and voila!! Instant sending of emails, and was I relieved.

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Our patchwork group commenced meetings again last week, and I was rostered on as hostess for this day. It has been a long time since I have attended a day, due to a big back log of quilting that had exhibition deadlines for. So I decided that this time I would spend the day there, and was wondering what I would work on. All the UFO's that I have all require a lot of embellishments and are not something quick to take for a day out. I dragged out a pattern I had purchased in the US, and wondered if I might make a start on that??? I would love to get busy on this Rooster, who looks like he has quite a bit of Attitude!

I even auditioned fabrics that I thought might work, and read through the pattern instructions for collage???..............

...........before deciding that it looked too complicated and I would need more room than was available at the group hall. It has now been packed into a box, and will come out "one day". Does that count as a UFO yet, or just a thought??

I took my laptop, and spent the day with EQ, working my way through the lesson book and learning some more great features of this programme. 

Below is a photo of some of the ladies who attended that first day. At the end of the day, our first committee meeting for this year was held, so it was a full day out for me.

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I have to say that there has not been a lot of quilting with Max happening so far this year, but I have not been idle either. The first Pick a Case Mystery retreat is less than a month away, so this has been my constant view for the last little while. Surrounded by piles of fabrics, waiting to go through the scanner, and then find their way into a design in EQ8. Sometimes it takes awhile and a few printouts before I am happy, and then the fabrics are cut, bagged and the pattern written. 

I have made good use of the Go Cutter..........................

.................which makes short work of cutting lots of squares.

 I now have another collection of scraps to be sorted and put into the system......................

.............and some end pieces for the rubbish bin.

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I had a problem with my freezer a couple of weeks ago, and somehow it managed to get itself turned off!!?? (I do have a theory about how that happened, but I shall refrain for naming anyone!) It was fortunate that I found it after a couple of days, and not weeks, when there might not have been such a good outcome. I found a few friends who helped me use up the thawed food, and cooked some of the remaining produce. So this has meant that I needed to cook up the stocks again, as I like to have supplies on hand for catering purposes. This morning before church I restocked the sausage rolls, and this afternoon it has been scones and muffins.

It has been a pleasant change to be home and not heading up the highway so much. We should have had a trip last week, but this was cancelled. I might have been a bit "jetlagged" after doing the 3 trips in 8 days.

I think that might have caught you all up on the newsfromjude for now. There are a few other things happening soon, so will be back sometime. Hopefully I will also get around to updating the Retreat Schedule that I said some time ago, that I would do. I have been reminded about that, so thankyou.

Blessings, From Jude