August Update

 

I started this post yesterday, the first day of spring, and didn't finish. So it's back to the drawing board tonight. I have spent the day cleaning and sorting and putting things back where they usually live and trying to make things look tidier. The last week or two has been another hive of activity which I shall elaborate on in this post.

 But I have to say that it is lovely to see a bit of blue sky occasionally, and see the wattles coming out in flower, the daffodils in the garden, and hear the birds singing. Even the magpies are warbling, so I guess the swooping season is on the way. After the cold winter we have had, this sort of weather makes everyone feel more optimistic. (Don't listen to me in a few months when i am moaning about the heat!!)

In amongst all the usual activity I sometimes feel the need to sit and sew and recently made a couple of QFO (Quilts for Others) quilts to put in the cupboard to donate. While sorting through the 'stash' I found a bag of leftover pieces from an earlier kit that was made, so I decided to make some blocks with those. (I do have a "few" works in progress that I could work on, but they all require more thinking time than what I needed!)

I made 6 blocks as in the picture, and was running short of matching backgrounds, so they are rather scrappy. There were plenty of the pink and also green pieces, so I thought it would be a good idea to cut more backgrounds!! 

Then it was time for another sewing session and I laid out all the pieces very neatly, ready to make blocks!!

But, what can you see? Whoopsie, ALL of those larger squares from the photo above DO NOT FIT!!!

It took me a little while to work out that I had cut 3 1/2" squares and they should have been 4" !!!!!

Another cutting session then happened, and now I have a LOT of background squares to find a use for in another quilt. Now I had enough blocks and some are much darker, but it's patchwork, isn't it?

Done, and then into the quilting queue to wait it's turn.

So I found another pattern online 'somewhere'. And some jelly roll strips in the drawer that needed to be used up. This was pretty easy and i had this much done in one evenings sewing time.

Then another night time sewing session and I got this far.

Time to think about borders and I had these left over bits from cutting the other lengths, and should have used them 'creatively' in a border to use them up...............

..but decided that finished would be good and these can go into the scrap system?? And found a fabric that would work with the jelly roll strips and stitched it on and called it done. Well, done enough to join the others in the quilting queue! I did enjoy my stitching time, which I call therapy and wish that I could sit and sew all day???? I just need someone to quilt customer quilts, and clean the house, and cook the meals and do the washing, and also a gardener!!!. 

In my last post on the 20th August I updated the newsfromjude with the 'sometime before that' happenings. In fact some of those activities were when Raylene had been here, and by the time I posted on the blog, she had been home for 2 weeks!! Thus news of her departure on the train was "old" news. And I knew that her arrival again was imminent so I had to tell you she had gone, before she came back again??? Does that make sense? It certainly confused one person, when I said I had picked Raylene up from the train, as she had just read the blog about her departure. She wanted to know if Raylene even got off the train at the other end, perhaps she stayed on and came straight back!??

So perhaps I better catch you all up a bit sooner this time on the newsfromjude?

Raylene did not take long to get into action after she arrived. We were sorting out fabrics and patterns to make QFO quilts as there is a day planned soon to work on these.

 And it wasn't long before this one was finished and put into the queue.

A friend was having a clear out of items and this bag was dropped at the door for Raylene to sort out......and no, we were not about to start calf feeding as a sideline!!

..................inside the bag was lots of 'leftover' balls of wool................

......Raylene belongs to a knitting group in the city and she soon sorted this lot out, into what she can use, and what can be passed onto to others.

                              I spent some more time on the laptop and with EQ, doing up more kits.

The drawers labelled black and white were full to overflowing......so some sorting needed to happen.........

.........and now there is a black and white strings quilt in progress, all ready for the QFO sewing day.

We went for a drive one day to Murray Bridge. I attended a funeral and Raylene spent time with my Mum, and we also spent some money in shops to help the economy. It was a lovely day to be out and about with blue sky and sunshine.  On the way we saw this unusual cloud (?) formation, so had to take a picture.

It is lovely to see the yellow flowering canola crops and this one was up higher than the fence.

A lot of labels have been printed and framed, ready for the QFO quilts.

We had another day out and visited Mt Monster Conservation Park, which is up near Keith. 

Locat­ed 12 km south of Kei­th, Mount Mon­ster Con­ser­va­tion Park boasts many spe­cial fea­tures. The parks is not­ed for its pre­dom­i­nant geo­log­i­cal fea­ture, an unusu­al gran­ite out­crop found only in one oth­er loca­tion in South Aus­tralia. A short hike to the sum­mit offers unin­ter­rupt­ed views over the gran­ite out­crops, nat­ur­al bush­land and the flat agri­cul­tur­al land extend­ing into the hori­zon. For the inquis­i­tive, an inter­pre­tive self-guid­ed walk around the base of the gran­ite out­crop will reveal some of the secrets of Mount Monster.

A mosa­ic of soil types sur­round­ing the out­crops rang­ing from shal­low stony soil to dark brown loams sup­ports a diverse ecosys­tem of bush­land includ­ing blue and pinkgum wood­land, mallee, broom­bush heath and gold­en and prick­ly wat­tle shrub­lands. Sheoaks, banksias and hakeas are oth­er pre­vail­ing species, and in spring, a spec­tac­u­lar­ly rich diver­si­ty of wild­flow­ers includ­ing orchids can be seen. The park also pro­vides an impor­tant refuge for wildlife includ­ing kan­ga­roos, wal­la­bies, echid­nas, wood­land birds, and reptiles.

My photos are of the granite stone, which was formerly used to make local roads. This activity ceased a few years ago and it is now a protected area. It is very pretty and often used for picnics. It was a very peaceful place and we enjoyed a cuppa looking out at the scenery. It was another lovely day out. I do recall a brief visit to here many years ago when our children were small, but this was the first visit for Raylene, who enjoys seeing what our local area has to offer. (I also enjoy being a tourist in my own backyard and it's not something I do on my own.)

There was much sorting and cutting with the Go Cutter of scraps into useable sizes and this was the result of 2 days cutting.

This is the basket of crumbs and smaller bits from the edges of the cuts....................

.......and this is the overflowing string drawer, which also needs to put into quilts, and some vilene was cut ready for this.....................

..and this is the basket of scraps, that were NOT kept.

I do keep a lot of leftover bits, and Raylene had to laugh when we saw this on facebook as the floor was full of little scraps !!

I managed to put some eyes on the animals on Tate's quilt, and just in time too as his arrival is imminent. More photos in the next post.

Time was spent with Max and I managed to get a few QFO quilts quilted and Raylene machined the bindings on, ready for someone to hand sew.

All too soon the week was over and we had to meet the train again. We are very thankful that Bordertown still has the train stop as a lot of towns along the way no longer have the train stopping there.

It was another gloomy day and there had been rain earlier in the day. I could see that the clouds were building up again to the south.........

....and this was the view to the north.............

The train arrived 50 minutes late, and it was not long after the departure that the rain came down again.

It is 5 days since Raylene left and I have managed to get a few customer quilts finished since then and Pat has been in to visit and waved her magic checking wand over a few more kits for me. And it seems like I might have to pack my own this time, which has Raylene rather worried about whether I will manage to attain her standard???

I have also spent quite a bit of time on this computer this week, doing the church powerpoint, the patchwork monthly newsletter and now catching up with this blog post. I do know I am very behind in reading other blog posts, and perhaps this will be a Sunday job after my visitors have left??

Pat and I also spend some time playing around on EQ with another design and range of fabric.

That's all for now. I'll be back with some more quilts to show sometime. Also a report on my weekend with a couple of little people and their parents. There could be some sewing time tomorrow with them!!

Blessings, From Jude