Wednesday 27 April 2022

Memories..........

 While scrolling through facebook tonight I came across a couple of posts from friends which reminded me of where we were 4 years ago today! Thus I have been back in my blog files to see what I had posted on the 27th April, 2018. I was on the trip of my life as we had spent the day at Hamilton, USA, the home of Missouri Star Quilt Co! What an amazing town, with so many shops all full of quilting fabrics and associated 'stuff'. I might have helped the economy of that town quite a bit that day, if fact we all did and many boxes of goodies were posted home as our bags were getting pretty full by this stage of the tour. 

This is our group photo taken with the famous Jenny Doan! 


It was almost the end of our 2 week tour and here are Michelle and I all packed ready to get onto the bus for our trip home. 


I am so pleased I made that journey when I did, as I would be very hesitant to go now, with what has occurred in the world recently. We all have some great memories.

Blessings, From Jude


Sunday 24 April 2022

Retreating and Road tripping....................

 It must be time for another newsfromjude update. So what news is there, you might ask? Blog posts these days are certainly not what they used to be before that C word changed a lot of things. This Easter was lovely, with a smaller, gathering of friends. There were some stayers and quite a few callers at different times over a few days. We also enjoyed the company of other friends for evening meals accompanied by good conversation and lots of laughs. (Almost like old times).

Sunday morning we attended the Sunrise service at the local lake. It was not such a chilly morning as it often is, but the atmosphere as the sun rises over the lake is awesome. The service was followed by coffee and hot cross buns and much chatter.

On one of the days, Lois brought show and tell of a few quilts that she had recently finished............ 



........................and the girls then set to and solved the problems of the world!! Sometimes I think it would be a good idea for the policy maker's to attend a quilting retreat and listen to the conversation!??

                   In amongst the conversations there was also lots of productivity happening...........


...................as Raylene finished knitting a fidget muff that was requested by a friend.......


.......and then it was time to get to the machine for some strip piecing.........


..and before long there was another donation quilt ready for the quilting queue!


As well as the other items that were found in the recent clearing and sorting was this little quilt. It was formerly made to advertise a business and the centre block had the name on it. As this is now going to be donated, we thought that the name should be covered........


...and this was appliqued over the top. Raylene has taken these little things back to the city to a group there who is collecting little quilts.

Yvonne called in for a chat and catchup and came bearing gifts of yummy fig jam, which was gratefully received by all.


Robyn decided it was an opportune time to do some clothes sewing and set up on the kitchen table to cut out the pattern pieces..................


....and over 2 days made this outfit!


Pat is in the process of making 2 quilts for grandson's wedding gifts.................first this one.........


.........which will be reassembled with these quarter units sometime..........


..and then these blocks..............


...have been laid out and will be sashed with a burgundy sashing and black cornerstones.... and then borders.


I spent time finishing off things. These panels have been sitting around taking up space for some years now, and they have all been made into cushions and put aside for gifts. 

Monday morning Edit- seems like I missed the photo that should have gone here........


I posted this pic as a UFO found in the sorting....................


..........and now has been made into a cushion, and gifted to my mother for mother's day.


And this little quilt, that was made by GD2 many years ago, but never finished.............


........has now been finished..... the basting removed, stitched in the ditch and the binding fairy has finished it off. Fortunately I was able to find some of the lilac check fabric used in the quilt for the binding. This will be passed back to her for a keepsake when I see her soon.


It sure feels good to get some of these items in the "done" pile and out of my house! But there are more........... and the next task was to finish the applique of the Windy Hill Farm blocks that have also been waiting their turn. (You can't hurry these things you know!)


By late Tuesday evening I had finished the applique stitching and now they are in another queue, waiting for me to work out how I will sew them together, as I am not following the original pattern. Hopefully I will be back sometime in the not too distant future with my plan.


It has been many months since I have ventured up the highway to the city, in fact last October, which must be a record for me, who used to be on the road all the time a lot. I had not even been to Murray Bridge since Boxing Day and have been quite content in my bubble. But there comes a time, and I must have had a case of cabin fever or something? On Sunday we decided to do a quick trip to Kingston and Robe after we had been to the Sunrise Service. My car must have wondered what was happening, after doing little runs to the street and back for many months! This was the first stop at Kingston and a photo opportunity.......


The lighthouse at Kingston.........


and this 'fellow' is on the side of the road on the way to Robe............... my apologies to Robyn as I must have had my finger over the lens............. but you get the idea.............


..............there was a sign in front of him which said........."Here lies Murray, like so many others he didn't make it through the toilet paper crisis of 2020!"
The weather had changed by the time we arrived at Robe, so the photographer didn't get any good pics.


On the way home we thought that it would be a good idea to purchase a crayfish at Kingston............ but you will have to accept a pic of the plastic one in front of the shop............the price probably wasn't too bad (what we expected anyway) at $75/kg, but the only size they had was 2.5 kg and a decision was made that we didn't want to allocate $187. 50 for one crayfish.

 

During the week I received a message from GD3 who wanted a catchup with Granny, so the next day I drove to Murray Bridge to meet up with her at Mum's place. We enjoyed a lovely lunch and conversation before I headed home again. Wow, 2 road trips in a week. Is this a sign of things to come once again??

                                This is the Mosaic Mural at Coonalpyn on the way to MB.



Of course we had to have a socially distant photo taken to mark the occasion.


That's all the newsfromjude for now. I will be spending the evening at the machine again, working on another UFO, pics to come in another post. The week's sure seem to go quick, especially with all these public holidays and short weeks. I have an appointment with Max for a few days while I am working on another custom quilt. 

Blessings, From Jude


Thursday 21 April 2022

Happy Birthday.........

 

              ............ to my special second baby girl, who was born in a hurry 45 years ago today. 



                  Hope you had a lovely day and enjoyed the cake your family made for you.

                                                                Lots of love from Mum xx

Blessings, From Jude





Thursday 14 April 2022

What has been happening?

 Here we are half way through another month, and so it must be time for newsfromjude again. The family birthdays have quietened down and the photo files don't tell me a lot. So much of life seems to happen lately without me searching for the camera. Life is certainly different without the retreats and no trips up the highway to report on. 

There has been more sorting and going through 'stuff'. I had to move the accumulation of 'stuff' that had found a home under Max over the years before the mechanic arrived. This was all thrown into one of the bedrooms "out of sight!". 



This bedroom is needed this weekend for a small Easter retreat here at Number 8, so it was time to clear the room. I will admit that some of it has gone back under Max for now, but I have found a few things and sorted some more.
So what did I find?? 

This was a little quilt made when I first started my business and was to be quilted and hung at shows. It seems that I did get the quilting done, but there was no binding. My binding fairy has now put binding on and it will be donated.


This was another of the same design and I started the quilting, but not finished. This also now has binding and is in the donation pile as well.


And here is another UFO, and no attempt at quilting, although it did have the wadding and backing with it. I have decided to finish this with quilting, and make it into a cushion cover for a gift. Hopefully this will be done over the weekend sometime.


Here is another UFO, which was made by one of my granddaughters, many years ago. It was basted and she had started quilting it. I have now quilted in the ditch and the fairy has added binding and it is done. I will be donating this back to GD2. (Photo to come later).


I had lunch with GD1 when she was in town last week, which was a lovely catchup after not seeing her since Christmas.


I "attended" a wedding in India via Zoom of the daughter of friends. The wonders of modern technology is amazing. 


This post was on the 2022 Call for Quilts - Australian Floods facebook page. That's an amazing tally of quilts so far and I know there are other collection points doing a great job too. 


The last 3 quilts for WCH have been quilted and I am pleased to report that my binding fairy has returned to complete the job.


 (A friend send me a message this week, stating that it must be nice to have my own personal binding fairy, and I have to agree with her!) I will do a separate post of all the WCH quilts in due course.

STITCHING TIME

I had a lovely sewing day recently when a friend was in town. We both enjoyed our chatter and stitching time and we achieved a  lot. Lot of red strips were sewn into sets and more half square triangles are ready for another project. 


I crosscut the strip sets while I was watching the zoom wedding. I had the laptop turned away from me, hoping I wasn't visible as I did have my dressing gown on!


After that I made 9 patches and picked out sashing and border fabrics........ 


.........and needed another row, but was running out of red squares. There were lots of smaller bits from the end of the strip sets, and I decided it was patchwork and so joined the pieces..........


...and after pressing the seams are hardly noticeable are they?


Ta daa...... a finish. Another donation quilt.


There is no rest for the binding fairy!!


A few days later a friend called in a talked me into trying this ruler. I had some fabrics left over from one of the Ready Set & Sew kits so decided to have a play.


This was the first attempt and I had thought to put 4 blocks together to make a star in the centre........


.............or this design............


..................but after making quite a few blocks I changed my mind........ as it might work if all the fabrics were the same tone, but with all those solid, darker fabrics.... and quoting a friend.... who said "It's a bit everywhere!" She was more polite in her thinking than I was! 


My "assistants" got busy and rearranged the blocks to spread out the solid colours a bit more.


Plan B then came out and I decided to sash the blocks which I was very happy with!


And Ta Daaa, borders added and another donation quilt is done.


One lovely sunny afternoon we had time in the pergola and the binding was finished.


After all this stitching, I knew that I should give the machine a good clean out and defluff! I said to Raylene to remind me to clean it out..... and this lady is the queen of making notes... and later I walked past the machine and look what I found! So of course I had to clean it and found lots of fluff.


I have enjoyed my stitching time and hope to get some more this weekend while we are chatting away. It will be 'almost' like old times. 

A few more customer quilts have been done with Max, and a little time has been spent in the garden. The local surgery did Flue injections 'drive thru' style this week while I sat in my car, which was great. 

I'll be back with a report of our weekend. Hope you are enjoying whatever you are doing this weekend. The weather is lovely this week, so we will make the most of it before the cold arrives.

Blessings, From Jude