Celebrating 60 years

It has been a very busy few days here and at The Sanctuary. And now that my blog is about more than quilts, and includes bits of my life story, I need to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and tell you about it.
Last Sunday was Mother’s Day here in Australia, and it also happened to be my birthday on the same date this year. I had not really intended to do any celebrating, as I have hesitated about turning 60! Maybe it’s where you look back at your life, and wonder if you could have changed things??? I know that I have given it a lot of thought. It was decided that we would have an afternoon tea for family and friends at The Sanctuary on the Sunday afternoon. That sounded simple enough, so I agreed. I know it was a bit tricky for some,who needed to be with family that day, and I was fortunate that I could combine both at the same time.
This post has lots of photos, most of which don’t need comments. First up is one from the garden of the only tree I have which loses its leaves in autumn. It wont be long now and they will all be on the ground, but it does look pretty.

We had a bit of time sitting around the fire the evening before. There is something really peaceful about watching a fire, but only when it is contained, and a few drinks usually bring out some good stories. It is amazing what things your children tell you about, that happened in their childhood, that they would never have told you back then.

Preparations underway on Sunday morning, making sandwiches, decorating and arranging flowers. A lot of these photos were not taken by me, I was banned from being there.

 

       

After the bonfire the evening before, I was woken by a knock on the window…. “Mum, I need the stapler!”… I did not ask why, but next day I could see. And don’t the chains look very festive decorating the pergola at The Sanctuary.

After attending a party last weekend, and listening to speeches and formality, I went home a bit worried. A public speaker I am not, and suddenly I was confronted with the thought I might have to say something! I had not even considered this possibility when I agreed to the ”simple” afternoon tea. So there I was, trying to go to sleep and all these things going around in my mind. Lots I wanted to say, but couldn’t, so maybe I could write something instead. So I got out of bed that night, turned on the computer and started to write it down. And then when I finally went back to bed, I went straight to sleep. Lots of times I plan a blog post at night, and think about doing it next morning, and then I have lost all the words. Perhaps I shall get a notebook in the drawer by the bed?
So I had my words all written, and thought I would add a bit of humour and tape all my pages together and fold it up accordion style and just unfold it, making people think I had written a book! But even then, I could not say the words, so fortunately DD2 read it for me.



Following are just a few photos taken during the afternoon.

                                   

           

  And the last photo of my beautiful family.

It was a beautiful sunny day, made to order for the occasion, and a fantastic afternoon with family and friends. And as this posting is to be a record in my book, to be read by my family in the future, I will include a copy of my speech……

When you are young, you dream about growing up, leaving school, working for awhile, getting married, having kids and living happily ever after. (Maybe it’s not quite in that order these days, but this was 60 years ago). And when you are young, you think that someone who is 60 is old, well that’s the scary part, because I am there now. It did not seem to take very long either. And we all know now that it does not really happen like that. “Stuff” happens that you did not dream about, or even know about.

 It started out pretty good, and I married the love of my life, who I had met and dreamed about from when I was age 13. By 19 years I was married, after which the next 4 loves of my life, our 4 children, arrived. During those years a lot happened, I lived in 12 different houses, I was married to a stock agent, who then decided to be a dairy farmer. Now I shall let you know that, even though I had been brought up on a farm, I had no idea that cows needed to have a calf every year so that they could produce milk. And I only ever got caught once, with that warm, thick, brown stuff running down my body, when I stood underneath a cow in a herringbone dairy. Then we moved onto the farming life, and started out by buying our sheep for $15 per head, and having to shoot them by the end of the same year, because there was no market for them.
Each property we bought needed work on it, and every house we moved into had to be painted. Then I spent 15 years working as a cook at a roadhouse. And all this time, our family was dealing with the associated effects of a husband and father who suffered and was eventually defeated by depression. And then more recently, a few of my health issues, dealing with breast cancer and other surgeries.

But, in amongst and in spite of all these things, there have been some amazing blessings. You just have to deal with each day as it comes, try not to stress about what is yet to come, and to leave the past behind. As a child I was blessed to have and still have my parents and 4 siblings. Thanks mum, dad, Doug, Geof, Dean and my little sister Beverley Jayne, who arrived in the family after I had left school. Love you all lots. As children, and living on a farm, there was not a lot in the way of material possessions, clothes were handmade, or passed on from cousins, toys were few, but very special, often home made also.

 But we had what mattered most. Neville and I were blessed with 4 beautiful children. He was, and I am very proud of them, and I love you all lots. It is hard to let your children grow up and leave home, and watch them make their own life choices. I guess it was like that for my parents too.

And now I am also blessed to have 6 lovely grandchildren, to watch their characters grow, and to watch them do the same sort of things that their parents did to us!
 We were blessed to have wonderful neighbours, who supported us when times were tough. I especially remember the time when our neighbours stepped in and did our whole shearing for us. It was a very humbling experience. Thank you so much, and for being great friends as well.

There is a saying in the quilting world…… When life gives you scraps, make quilts. And so I did. It was a place I went to when things were pretty hard, and it was my sanity at the time. I started making quilts, and this led to me starting my own business, Cornerstone Creations Machine Quilting. A whole new world has opened up, where I have met some wonderful people and new friends. I have been blessed to win awards with my quilting, had quilts published in magazines, and travelled Australia to quilt shows, conferences and attend classes. And now this has led to me buying The Sanctuary, which is another house that needed “doing up”, and painting. This has been the venue for some great weekend retreats. It has all kept me “off the streets”, and enabled me to work from home. And a special thankyou to those lovely friends, and family members, who helped me with this place, and propped me up when the going got tough, and dragged on so long.

Through all of this, I can say that God has given me peace in all circumstances, and provides the strength for each day. He has led me thus far, on this journey of life, and will continue to as I trust in him for the future, whatever it holds.
 A big thankyou to the family for all their work in putting on today. You have done a great job. So thanks for listening so far, possibly more than you wanted to know.
 Thankyou all for coming and for whatever part you have played in my life. Love you all lots. THANKYOU.


 It must be time to finish the post, I have been sitting here for a long time doing this, and if you have read this far, thankyou very much.
Tomorrow is another day, the excitement is over, the family have all gone home, and it’s time to get back to quilting again.
Have a great week, whatever you are doing, or whatever part of the world you live in. Thankyou for reading my blog.


Blessings, From Jude

Heading for the border

This week was the start of our Patchwork group project.

We met on Monday evening for the reveal of our centre blocks, and to pull out of the tin, the next design element for the first border. And now we all go home and have 2 months to add a border which includes square in a square. You can see the variety in all the centres. It will be interesting to see the progress, and we have 19 ladies participating in this project. Some were away, and you can see 14 centre blocks below.

Mine is the pink and green, and this was started back in 2005, so I thought it was a good project to try and finish. Trying to work out, just what I shall do next. and hoping I have enough fabric to work with, and would like to add something to “tone” down the pink a bit. Amazing how our tastes change over the years, as I would definitely not choose this background colour now.

Will post progress photos as we go.

Blessings, From Jude

A bit of this and a bit of that…..

Time for another update, before I get any emails asking if everything is ok. It has been a full week, with finishing some quilts, time spent in the garden planting and fertilizing, and the ever ongoing weeding. We had the angels sewing day yesterday, and I have been continuing with my sorting and decluttering and cleaning the house jobs. Still away to go, but it sure feels good to get at this.
First up is Rosie’s quilt, that she made for her daughter’s wedding gift. A tree, filled with birds of all kinds. Quilted around the tree and outer border with freehand leaf design, and very simple border designs.

And some photos from the garden this week, with a bit of autumn colour. Chrysanthemums in flower.


And my tree dahlia which has some buds on it.

Last Sunday The Sanctuary was the venue for a friend’s 70th birthday party. The following 2 photos are some of the table decorations, which were made by her sister. Very creative work, especially from a non-quilter!

Sorry you have to turn your head for this one, it was the correct orientation when I sent it to blogger, but now I don’t know how to change it from here.

The birthday girl on the right.

All eyes on the son in law who made a fantastic speech.

Well, that’s all folks, time to hit the shower, and get started with the day. Have some sausage rolls to make, a bit of shopping, a fire to light at The Sanctuary, to warm the house for more guests this weekend. And another special party at The Sanctuary on Sunday. Expecting rain today again, but hoping for another lovely day on Sunday.
Hope you are enjoying you day.
Blessings, From Jude

Paper Bag Mystery Report

I know I am a week late with this post, but better late than never is what they say?
It was a fantastic weekend, and I need not have worried about how the bags would be received. Because I had extra bags, changes were made by a few. The first photo shows some standing around the table, and checking out the bags. I put some letters on the front, which were clues to some of what was in the quilt. A few clever ladies worked out some of the letters. We had a little story to read, and the bags were passed to the right, or to the left as these words were read out in the story. There was a bit of confusion sometimes, when someone did not hear a left! Was a fun start to the weekend.

Now the sewing begins, and they are all reading their instructions and looking into the bags of fabric.

Some stayed sewing into the night, and you can see through the window that it is dark outside,

and some decided they had achieved enough for the day and relaxed.

Saturday came and went, and then it was the last day. Some had a little shopping spree at a local shop, and then it was lunch time. A few ladies still had a way to go to finish the centre of their tops ready for the photo, and in true quilting spirit, those who had finished helped the others.


Time for the photo, I took about 6, it was like trying to get children to behave, as they were either talking, or not looking, or making faces, but this one was good. The results of a great weekend.

This was Val’s quilt, which had some applique, otherwise it was very simple piecing, except for when the 4 patch blocks did not fit, because the designer “stuffed” up the measurements! Lucky there was some fabric left. Turned out rather bright.

This quilt is not my design This was taken from a magazine, with minor changes to the borders. The pattern is available from Kate Conklin designs, called Whirly Garden, and can be purchased from her website. I had some packs of charm squares, and was able to use them in this design. It is something different and very modern. Jenny loved her quilt, which I called Juggling Summer, because the fabric range was named thus.

This is Lyn’s quilt, which one lady decided she did not want, because it was orange! We spent the whole weekend telling her it was not orange, but marmalade, or butterscotch! Turned out lovely, with the white background.

This was made with a jelly roll and a layer cake of the Moda range, Old Glory, and Sherrel was pleased with how it turned out.

The others still have borders to put on them, so hope to see the finished quilts soon.
All in all, it was a top weekend, lots of fun and something a bit different to the usual mystery quilts, as you have no input to either the pattern or the fabric! I hope to do this again soon, as I enjoyed doing up the bags. It was a challenge, because I was using a lot of precuts, so had to design something to make use of those.
Have had an early start in the garden this morning, just some last minute weeding. A friend is having her 70th birthday party at The Sanctuary this afternoon, and so far the weather is looking good. The rain has stopped and the sun is shining, so hopefully it will stay that way for the day.
Have a great day, whatever you are planning,
Blessings, From Jude

I am still here

 

It must be time for another blog update, and it seems like a long time since I have posted quilt photos. These are going back to last month, and as May is about to arrive I better get them out.

First is Val’s quilt, showcasing a range of fabrics, very simple piecing, but it looks great.

And this is Kath’s, and very simply custom quilted, as I find it hard to do an allover and quilt over all the applique.

And these 2 were made by Mary for a friend, and very pretty in pinks.

The weather has turned wintry this week, and it was fantastic to wake up one morning to glorious rain. Not sure how much we have had, but think about 25 mls or 1 inch in the old measurement. I think that will be enough to turn the taps at The Sanctuary back to rain water in the house, which will save buying cartons of water to drink.

I still have to write a report from last weekend yet, and it is coming. It was a great time, and the Paper Bag Mystery”s pleased them all.

Had a trip to Naracoorte today, another medical appointment, and while there, had another little shop up at the garden store, just a few more bits of colour to plant in the garden at The Sanctuary. Getting ready for an afternoon tea birthday party this weekend. I have been busy this week, with loads of washing, and a quilt deadline that needed to be done by May 1st. I just scraped in as i have taken the quilt off the machine tonight.

Well, time for bed, lots happening tomorrow.

Blessings, From Jude

The bags are ready….

 

for tomorrow when the mystery will be revealed. All the bags contain a quilt design, the instructions written out for it, and the fabrics cut and ready to be sewn. (And there are a few other goodies in the bags as well??) We have a few letters stuck on the outside, which could give a hint as to what is in the bag, and I wonder if anyone will be able to decipher the meaning of them?

I have nearly finished the gardening, and will be back there early tomorrow morning, before spending time in the kitchen preparing food for 9 quilters for the weekend.

The weather is lovely during the day at the moment, and we are still waiting for opening rains. But the nights are rather cool, so I think we may be lighting the wood fire at The Sanctuary for the first time this year. Might be a nice idea to put the feet up tomorrow evening, and maybe a little sip of something will go down well, and enjoy the company of quilters!

It is another public holiday here in Australia tomorrow, for Anzac day. A time to remember those who gave their all for our country. There will be lots of dawn services around the country in the morning, and some major towns have street marches of the returned soldiers.

Be back soon, with a report on how the “bags” are received and whether everyone will be happy or not?? It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I am now a bit anxious whether it was a good idea or not!

Blessings, From Jude