Where do I start??

I have decided it is not a good idea to leave such long gaps between blog posts. It is much harder to to remember any newsfromjude to report on, so hopefully I can get some order into things after the exhibition. The committee is working hard in the leadup to our show, although realising that things can change suddenly in this world of ours. If you are resident of South Australia we would love for you to come and visit us, and our thoughts go out to those 'over the border'. This is really disappointing for all as our town is just on the border, and we usually welcome many from Victoria to our quilt show.

VISITOR(S) and quilting

It has been very remiss of me that I  did not mention the arrival of my "fairy" 2 weeks ago, and now she has departed again. There has been much action happening while I have concentrated on getting customer quilts finished for the show. The 'revolving door' worked overtime while friends came in and out, either to work on their own quilts and bindings, or to visit the fairy. We enjoyed good attendance of Angels one day, but sorry I have no photos of the day.

My fairy has been out and about with lunch and coffee appointments, and also a garden inspection while I have kept working. She has a better social life in Bordertown than I do!? The time is coming when I hope to change that??

This is Raylene's strippy quilt that she is adding binding to in the pic above.

                                This is Val's Mystery and Mayhem quilt that she is binding.

This is Val's next quilt too bind, and I look forward to seeing this hanging in the quilt show.

It has been quilted allover with a cloud pattern. I don't think that flat on the bed gives it the true perspective, but you get the idea.

 Pat was making binding for a quilt that she has made for her daughter, featuring embroidery in the blocks, and this was custom quilted.

The fairy doing what she does so well, sorting and stacking fabric packs.

 Robyn has spent some time staying with me while renovations have been in place at her house and she ordered Chinese for tea one night. The paper plates came out to save having to wash dishes and it was eaten in the lounge with our feet up by the fire after a busy day.

I had to laugh at this scene, as it just goes to show that being 'glued' to your phones is not only reserved for the young people anymore.

OUT AND ABOUT

Trips up the highway have been few and far between this year which means the kms were not adding up in my car. Driving to the shops and Post office only add about 5km each time, so I decided it was time to make a trip to Murray Bridge which would add another 400km and get me to the first service of 1500km. So one Friday morning, Raylene, Yvonne and I headed up the road for a day out. We picked up mum, had lunch out and did some shopping. It did help that I had some birthday vouchers to spend at the plant and clothes shop. It was a fun day out with friends and lots of laughs and even a catch up with my brother. 

While being busy at home and only driving to the local shops it is easy to forget what the seasons are doing, so it was a treat to get out and see that spring somehow had arrived. I love to see the wattles in bloom, the pretty yellow of the canola crops and the green crops, with the blue and white of the sky. This canola crop is higher than the fence, so hopefully we can get finishing rains here soon. 

Because of the MB trip my car was now just over the 1500km it needed for the first service, so it was time for a short trip (40km) up the road to Keith. While the job was being done Raylene and I enjoyed coffee at the local cafe called Henry and Rose.

It was a lovely afternoon sitting in the sunshine. I am not very good at doing the "selfie" pics, but you get the idea.

Just across the road from the cafe is this water feature, called Circlework, by James Darling. Reading from the label, I note it celebrates the cycle of water through the Australian landscape, with reference to the region's high water table and extensive irrigation industry.

NOT IN THE PINK 😞😞

This weekend in most years until 2020 was always taken up with being In the Pink. Last year it was a Pink with a difference with a few local afternoon teas, some Zoom afternoon teas and a sale of fabrics to raise funds, with a result of $2650 being donated to BCNA. I thought long and hard about BCNA fundraising for 2021 and decided that there was too much happening at the moment to do anything. While I am disappointed about this, perhaps I might be able to do something later??

I might finish this post here, although there is more to report on of another trip, and heaps of quilt photos. In my last post I mention processing some very sad news. Our friend Marie, who is pictured above in the middle sadly departed this life for her eternal home on September 8th. She will be missed greatly, and her funeral is planned for this week.

Time to head for the shower and start my day, which will be a quiet one. There is church this morning, and after lunch I have an appointment with my desk to get some more advertising processed for the quilt show. Hopefully I can take off my publicity officer hat at the next Annual Meeting and give it to someone else!? 

Blessings, From Jude

The same old story.......

I decided it was time for another blog post, as once again the time has disappeared, "somewhere"! I had really good intentions and have downloaded photos and written a few notes of what newsfromjude there was to post.

 Suddenly all those good intentions have left the room, and I will finish off  by saying that nothing has changed........ I am way behind in reading blogs, and answering comments, I am still trying to get customer quilts finished for our quilt show, there has been lots happening to report on 'some day', lots of quilt photos in the files to show, the revolving door here at Number 8 is working overtime, a few appointments, a bit of socializing, meetings, planning and advertising for the exhibition, a cold winter, and sometimes a little tease of sunshine, spring flowers blooming, just to mention a few things. And behind all of "normal" life there has been very sad news to process, and i will talk about this another day.

Hopefully by the end of this week I will be almost finished with customer quilts for the show, and perhaps will get a couple of mine done?? I am wanting to get out in the garden a prepare some ground for new plantings. I shall finish off this short post with a couple of pics from the garden. 

Sorry for the short update, but will try for more soon. The eyes are suddenly very tired and I am heading for bed, to be ready for an early start and hoping to finish the custom quilt I am working on. There is a lot to try and fit in this week. I am feeling more tired just saying all of that. Good night.

Blessings, From Jude

Recent Custom quilting

 Time for a post of recent custom quilting. Another week has flown by, and I am trying not have a 3 week absence again. Yesterday's 'to do' list had 2 edge to edge quilts on it, and that did not happen, cos life took over once again. This morning I have done one of those and was going to try and make up the other this afternoon, but decided it could wait until Monday and I shall do some office jobs instead. There is always something to do at the desk, and because I am feeling a tad weary that seemed like a plan.

I shall start with a couple of my quilts to show you. First is "This Little Piggy", a Red Boot quilt company pattern. Last year I made the Paper Dolls quilt for Miss Bridie, and started this for Miss Billie. It has waited in the queue for my quilter, until she finally decided that it had better be done and gifted while Miss Billie was still young enough to think it was cute! I also had the motivation of getting my tops finished for our quilt show in October. 

I had intended to do a very quilt simple quilting job with this, but then went to Plan B and had a bit of fun instead. I have added extra details to the background quilting and hope she will have fun finding them all.

                  I quilted a girl standing on the left of the tree, and wrote her name on the dress.

Because the cow in the block above had a chicken appliqued to his head, I quilted a rooster on the head of the horse!

The sun is shining brightly in this block,  so the little pig has an umbrella!

I was having a video call with Miss Billie outside in the garden one day and I showed her all the bees on the flowers, and another day I videoed them all buzzing around. I have made a feature of bees on this quilt block......

...............and appliqued bees for the corner blocks of the quilt. (This was not in the original pattern).

I hope that it won't be long after our quilt show that the border will open enough for me to be able to give the quilt to her in person.

The binding has not been finished yet, but I have made a start on the hand stitching.

This is the quilt that I made using little scraps of fabric and reported on in my Easter post. I have ended up calling it "Out of Africa" and it has finally moved out of the quilting queue, has been bound and is now waiting for our show in October. Sorry I don't seem to have any closeup photos, but the block backgrounds have been quilted with a giraffe pattern and a zebra pattern alternately.

This quilt was made by Kaye and is a Sue Daley design, called "Round we go". I came up with a plan for the star blocks, but then had to think again as Kaye had left some of the background blocks empty, without the pieced stars in a circle.

Each circle was framed.

Some of the blocks had a dark background and I used a different frame pattern for these blocks.

I  did have a few options for these "empty" blocks, and after consultation with Kaye this was what I went with. A replica star in the circle pattern  in each block.

It has been awhile since the elephant left the building, so maybe it's time to show the pictures. This was made by Lyn and is a foundation paper pieced pattern Elephant Abstractions and designed by Violet Craft.

It was a bit hard to get good photos of the quilting as the days were dark and gloomy. I used a pattern set from Kim Diamond to quilt the elephant and found a leaf pattern for the background, hoping it looks like the elephant is coming towards you out of the jungle??

I was a bit confused with the fabrics used on the legs and talked to Lyn about this when she picked up the quilt. After looking at other photos of this quilt she could see what I meant.

Lyn went home, got her fabric pens out and did some recolouring on the legs and we both think the result is much better now.

That's about it for today. I will return soon with more customer allover quilting. It's now time to head to the lounge by the fire and read a book. The weather has been very cold again this week, but by the end of the week it is forecast to be close to 30deg!! Almost double what it's been for some of this week. Enjoy your weekend, and I am thinking of those who are in lockdown. Make the most of each day as it comes.

Blessings, From Jude 

I am still here!!

 Today I have decided to make the time to catchup with so many tasks that have slipped under the radar in recent weeks. I do realise it is more than 3 weeks since I have posted to newsfromjude and my apologies to anyone who has been checking, and I believe there have been a few. Where are the weeks, in fact where is the year going? I have been back into the photo files to find out and this usually offers up a few clues, but I have to admit to not taking too many pics lately. So off to the diary and my memory and perhaps this tells me more.

THE COMPETITION

My last post was to announce the competition to celebrate my 10 years of blogging, and thanks to those who commented, and to the 2 ladies who were cleverer than me to realise that the number of posts for each month were in fact on the archive listing for all to see. They say that we learn something every day and are never too old!!

As promised a case of goodies will go to Jo and Di for being clever and I have packed up 3 of these cases to send off soon.

I changed the competition to see who could guess how many comments had been left on newsfromjude in 10 years. This was much harder and thanks to those who had a go. Even though I have been blogging for 10 years, in the early days there were not a lot of comments. I appreciate that for many reasons a few ladies find it difficult to do so, and some leave one and then are unable to do it again. I often receive messages via email or phone text. Jean McGee was the closest with her guess of 3,435 and in fact the answer was 3,450! 

OUR GROUP NEWS

The planning is underway for our group's scheduled quilt exhibition in October, so committee meetings have taken up time. We are making plans but are well aware that in our world today that things can change at a moment's notice. As it is the 25th year of our group we are planning to have a slideshow of photos covering our 25 years screened onto a large TV. Much time has been spent going through my photo files which are scattered over 2 computers, many USB's and also saved on hard drives. So far there are more than 1500 photos which need to be checked for duplicates etc. It has been a real trip down memory lane and I have printed off many pics that I put into an album.

The Angels had a sewing day where much was achieved, but no photos were taken.

Our 25 year history books have been printed and delivered which was exciting.

QUILTING

With the looming deadline of our quilt show comes the urgency to get member's tops quilted with bindings and sleeves to be done. Counting back on Max's files I note that since July 1st I have quilted 30 tops and 6 of these were custom! I am feeling good about where I am on the schedule and hope there is a little time in September to get some of my own quilts done as well? I will be back soon with a separate post of customer quilts.

This is the next custom quilt waiting to talk to me!

DELIVERIES

This heavy box arrived at my door one afternoon, so it was exciting to check out the contents.

Who can resist a 50% off everything in the store online sale? It was a good chance to stock up on a variety of wide backing fabrics. Thankyou Alison from Canterbury quilts. 

I ordered my next blog book on August 10th and this afternoon, the 23rd, it arrived at my doorstep. That's a very prompt printing and delivery from the USA!!

News Years Day was spent zooming with Chookyblue and friends so I chose that photo to go on the cover of my January to June, 2021 book.

SOCIALIZING

There have been a few social occasions to enjoy, including a trip to Murray Bridge to visit with Mum. DD1 and DD2 travelled from their homes to meet up there. It was a beautiful sunny day with blue sky and few white puffy clouds, which was very welcome after a much cold wet and wintry weather.

DS and family visited on their way home one Sunday morning. It was lovely to see them and the piano got a good (?) workout by Miss Bridie and Mr Tate.

Mary celebrated a special birthday and the Bible Study group enjoyed coffee and cake with her.

APPOINTMENTS

A portion of my time has been spent going to appointments, including medical and financial. It was a nice trip up the highway for one of these and as I had a driver I was able to photograph the spring scenery. But I think I left my moment too long as I didn't get the view from the top of the hill that I had intended!! I did manage to get a lot of sky though!

My 92 year old neighbour has not been in good health recently and I have driven him to appointments and helped him with meals. He is currently in Respite care and hoping for his health to improve.

LEARNING CURVES

Recently I made the decision to trade my car in for another. I plan that this may be the last time I do this if I don't travel the km's that I have done for the last few years. Covid and lockdowns has certainly reduced my recent highway travel.

There is definitely a learning curve associated with current vehicles. Perhaps they are getting too smart for us "older" drivers?? (Like those SMART TV's and phones that you need a University degree to operate?) It was quite disconcerting to feel the car drive itself back to the centre of the road when I veered too close to the white line at the edge of the road! Does this tell me I like to be "in control"?? 

This is my current reading list, and there is so much I don't understand. I just want it to start when I turn the key. I am pretty happy with it, but did do a lot of complaining because cars don't have CD players in them anymore. I like to play my music while I drive up the highway and wasn't happy. 

Yesterday a friend was here and showed me how to get all this music onto a USB so that I can listen in the car. And I have to say that perhaps it's much better that now I have what I want to listen to on this little thing, and don't have to have all the above discs floating around in the car? Here endeth my complaints for now.

Thankyou Robyn.

I guess that summarizes recent weeks for you and explains to me why I haven't had much spare time? Chookyblue had another Zoom day last Saturday and I had intended joining in while I did some binding, but the day had other plans for me. I have been trying to get some order into my garden again, as winter has been very cold and wet and I've not ventured out too much. Seems like you might have heard this story before? I am way behind in reading blogs, and when I do 'almost' catch up, in 2 days I am way behind again! Life at the moment is separated into before exhibition, and after exhibition!!

Time to finish this post and head to a warmer part of the house. Be back soon with a quilting post for you. Thinking of all that are in lockdown in the eastern states. 

Blessings, From Jude

A bloganniversary!

 

It was July 31st, 2011 when I made the first post of newsfromjude! Where has that 10 years gone? I can say it has been an amazing decade of my life. I made the decision to blog as a way to advertise my business. I had been machine quilting for customers for 9 years by this time, and had just finished the renovations of The Sanctuary, the house I purchased "across the road' for quilting retreats. Most of the early posts were about customer quilting and retreats held in the house. Later other events in my life were added and thus it  became the story of my life and almost a diary. 

Every year I ordered a printed version of the blog and more recently there were 2 books a year as I added more photos to newsfromjude. This is my collection in the bottom of the bookcase. The first book I had printed was for 18 months and is the thinnest one there. Does that mean I am having too much to say these days? Perhaps I'll blame it on all the photos!?

I have decided that 10 years is an achievement worth celebrating and so we are having a competition. The case below is the prize and will be filled with as much "quilty" goodness that I can fit in there. 

I would love to hear from as many as possible, and because some of you have trouble with leaving messages on the blog, I will accept email entries as well. (International entries welcome as I will post to you too.)

I am asking you to tell me how many published posts there have been on my blog in 10 years, up to and including this post. ????? I will leave this open for one week, closing next Saturday evening, SA time, August 7th...... 

edit - see the next paragraph!!

Well..... I posted this last night and when I checked this morning, the first comment had the exact number of published posts!! Amazing guess I thought! And then another comment also!! What is going on? Well I then went back and had a very thorough look at the blog and what did I find, but alongside the archives is how many posts there were in each month!! So, an errr derrr.... moment. I will send Jo and Di both a case for being so clever, when I was not. But I am now changing the competition, and ask for you to tell me how many comments have been made on this blog instead. Sorry for my stuff up, but thanks for visiting! Nice to hear from you and thankyou to those who leave me a comment.

Blessings, From Jude