Catching up once again............

 I'm way behind with blogging, I have been reading posts, but not left many comments. Apologies for that.

Have a few minutes sitting and waiting so here is a few recent, (and some maybe not so recent) happenings......

The weather here in South Australia has been very dry so far this year......not much rain recorded at all, lots people are out of rain water.....we did have some stormy weather with lightening and the clouds looked promising, but scant showers......

........and there were a few fires......this was actually 20km away.....

 

***************

I n other news we sold our pop top van......and this was saying goodbye as the new owner took delivery....

***********

I took my 'wares'  to the city for the SA Quilters March meeting as I was the shop for the evening..........I was very happy with sales before the meeting,  and looked foward to more afterwards........sadly the power at the venue went out just before the meeting closed and everyone went home instead of buying more....it was too dark

**********

I will be one of the shops for the Sunraysia quilters show, at Redcliffs on the first weekend of September,  so looking forward to that. 

************

We ventured north for a day trip recently, and decided to try out the track through the Big Desert, which was a much better road than we expected.....and ended up at Murrayville which was the halfway mark to meet Jo and Tony from Mildura.

There were a few camp spots along the track, with toilets and water.....

We took Pat and Alan with us for the drive, and met up with Jo who is handing her quilt to me for quilting. 

We all enjoyed lunch at the local store....

*******

It was lovely to have the lovely Faye Packham and hubby Kim call in for a visit on their way through Bordertown to AQC in Melbourne.......

************

Barry and I did have a few days away in the van......way back in February!! I shall do a separate post about that.....

************

Other news includes recovery from a simple op and LOTS of resting and book reading and being waited on......

Tomorrow we are off up the highway for a very special occasion, and then we hope to pack up the van and head east and then north......

Be back soon

BLESSINGS, From Jude

Customer quilting update............

I believe I am well overdue for a customer quilting update. My apologies for a lack of blog posts lately. I don't know just where the time is going!! The days and weeks are flying by and here we are already into the first week of April. 

This quilt was made by Sherrel, featuring lots of sport fabrics...........and quilted allover with a bubble pattern............

                                                  .........and this fabric was the backing.............

Another quilt made by Sherrel, using Charm squares...........and quilted allover with swirls and feathers pattern............

This Zig zag quilt was also made by Sherrel, who has been very busy lately finishing off a lot of her UFO's. This was quilted with Whisper, a very popular pattern that I am using a lot lately.

This stack and whack quilt was made using a lot of older country style fabrics from years ago.........and was quilted allover with Songbirds e2e.

Kath made this quilt using one of my Ready, set and sew kits. This was quilted allover with Floppy Daisy pattern.

This applique quilt, called Anne's Legacy was made by Jill and custom quilted..........I have a few more of Jill's amazing applique quilts here in the queue.

Lois made this North Star quilt for a family member.................

........and it was quilted allover with a pattern called Celestia.

Chris made this quilt, This Way and that way, which was another Ready Set and Sew kit, using a collection of batik fabrics................she loves dragonflies, so I used a dragonfly loopy pattern.

We have another quilt made by Sherrel, using an amazing collection of black and white fabrics.........this is a disappearing Log Cabin quilt................and features a touch of red throughout, and was also quilted with Whisper.

Lyn made this cute Clamshell Bear quilt for a family member, and I custom quilted it..............

Shirley made this bear quilt for a great grandchild and it was quilted allover with a pattern called Inside Out.

Prue made this pretty quilt and couldn't decide how it should be quilted.....we thought it would look great customed, but she had no plan for it and did not know where it would end up and decided it should be quilted edge to edge. I hesitated about this and so I customed the centre block and quilted allover in the remainder. We were both happy with the final outcome. Sometimes it is hard to justify the time, and of course the extra cost for custom quilting a quilt.

That is the end of this post. I have done a few more QFO quilts that have been sent out for binding, so they will feature in another post. You can see that Max is getting some use in between other activities, which I shall talk about in another catchup post.

Blessings, From Jude

Part 6............back into South Australia.......and to home

        

As it is almost 2 months since we returned from WA, perhaps I need to finish the report of our trip, so that I will have it in the printed book. I shall try to be brief in this post............ In the part 5 report we had just arrived back into SA.......

                     

....it was cool and cloudy and the temperature was down to 21deg.........we finished our day at the Nullabor caravan park............

............and this was the next morning after most campers had already departed. We still had 2 weeks before we needed to be home, and had driven a few long days up to now, so were in no hurry...........

.......we were aiming for Ceduna and had a lunch stop at Penong, the home of all the windmills...........

......and then to the quarantine station at Ceduna........we were surprised about the quick check as they did not even get into the van to look......

That night we camped at the Ceduna foreshore caravan park..........

............and took the chance to get some washing done, and more bookwork then decided to have a rest day so booked another night and went for a drive around.......to Denial Bay..................

.....and to Port Thevenard.................

                                    

.......spent some time watching this dozer move the huge pile of salt around and then it was loaded onto a conveyor and onto a ship in the port.............

                          

                                                             The bay at Ceduna.......

.........and the jetty...........................

Next morning, (which was day 33) we departed by about 9.30am. We decided to follow the coast road around Eyre Peninsular instead of heading cross country like we had on the way over. My brother lives on Eyre Peninsular and we decided it was a good chance to catch up with him as he was holidaying at Cowell......................

We called into Streaky Bay for a look...................

The tourist maps showed a lot of little towns on the coast with things to look at, and we did start to drive into a couple, but we had the caravan in tow and the roads were very rough and corrugated, so we turned back to the highway.

We did call into Murphy's Haystacks and found these unusual stone formations in a paddock...........

We were told to call into the Colston bakery, which was a roadside stall along the way.........and we were looking forward to the buns that were recommended, but we found this sign instead!!

Our next stop was at Elliston and we found a cliffside drive with amazing scenery.........

It was late afternoon when we went for a walk along the elliston jetty............

The next morning we headed further south along the coast..........the countryside here was very stony and the 'old timers' had used a lot of these stones to make their fences.... sorry no photo as it was difficult to take one while we were travelling...........We decided to skip going down to the point and to Port Lincoln, so crossed countryside to Cummins ...............which was much more fertile cropping country with out the stones............

 

From there it was downhill towards the eastern coast of Eyre Peninsula..........



.............and into Tumby Bay, which was a very pretty and tidy town............

...with a painted silo..........

We make a quick detour into Arno Bay, but did not stop to take any photos.....and the next port of call was at our destination of Cowell.............we had a site alongside my brother and his wife......

we did the tourist thing and had a look around the area...........

Cowell is known for it's Crap Art.............

 

.............with small art works in the local toilets!!??

The next day we did a day trip inland to Cleve then up to Darke Peak where my brother's family farms are...........

.....and enjoyed an evening with my brother (left) and his wife and there friend Peter

On day 37, we left Cowell and headed further up the east coast of the peninsula to Whyalla, where we drove up to the lookout which looks out over the whole town.............

...and from there to Port Augusta, where we turned south............which road shall we take?? 

We headed to Wilmington and and took the inland road south, crossing the mountains at Horrocks Pass.....the countryside through here told us of the dry season with poor harvests and bare paddocks going into the next season.......

...............we had a quick stop at Wirrabara, where there was another painted silo............

We passed through many little towns and finally made a stop at Laura, where we had stayed previously, where they had supplied afternoon tea of scones. We were in luck and here they were again!!

You might get the idea that we enjoyed the scones!!??

The next day we journeyed further south, through and made a little detour into Brinkworth, which was where I lived earlier in my life........this was the house and it had been lovingly renovated, which was pleasing to see as sometimes it's not good to go back ............

We spent the next night camped at my son's house in the Barossa and spent some time with them. We had hoped to meet up with other family, but that did not work out............

From there it was to Murray Bridge Marina caravan park for a few nights which was a base for visits to family and a city appointment.............

We arrived home 41 days after we had left, (January 15th), having travelled 9,200 km. It is always sad to head home again, but Barry tells me, "it's ok, just think that it's one day closer to going away again!!??"

Blessings, from Jude (oh, and Bazza!!)