Reporting in

The winter has been so cold, and I confess to spending most of my time inside, and ignoring the garden at The Sanctuary, so I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I checked out the back garden over there.
Without any attention from me, quite a few things are out in flower. Maybe spring is on it’s way! Now that the Mystery Cases have been done, it looks like I better spend some time outside and pull the weeds that have sprung up as well.




10 ladies have arrived at The Sanctuary for this weekends “Pick-a-case” Mystery Retreat. Some have driven from Adelaide, and some from just over the border, and one from Bendigo, as well as the local girls. I think the SA girls are outnumbered by the Vic girls this weekend. Some have met before, but some are here for the first time, and it did not take long before the conversations were flowing, and there is definitely lots of laughter.
The early arrivals had to wait for everyone to come before we had the “allocation” process. Jean arrived early and was so sure she would get something with blue in it, that she brought blue thread to sew her quilt with!. All the cases had name tags, and the contents were a mystery. Some of the names might have given a hint as to the contents, (or they might not have). A couple had names such as Blue Diamonds, or Ella Blue, so these were the ones that Jean was watching. She even tried to “quietly” walk off with a case during the afternoon, but was caught. And then each person had to wait for their number to be called out before they could choose, and Jean’s number was nearly last. So when it was her turn to pick, “someone” had hidden the cases with Blue in the label! One of those moments when you really had to be there! And Moya decided that Irish Crossings had to be green, and she wanted that, but someone else told her it could be orange!! After they all chose a case, they could look and if they were not happy, had one more choice.

Above is Jean trying to sneak off with a blue case.

And Jocelyn thinking about what she might like.

And they are off and sewing.

And Jocelyn seems happy with her second choice, called “Dancing Daisies”, which has a lot of blue in it too. It was good that she picked a second one, because Alison was eyeing off the first choice, (which was called “They all add up”), and patiently waited for Jocelyn to change her mind, because she wanted that one! I do hope they are all happy with what they have now, and I look forward to seeing them all come together. It is almost like giving birth, (well maybe not), after creating the designs and choosing the fabrics, and now watching them come together. I told them they are all guinea pigs, testing out my patterns and instructions. Do hope there are no mistakes.

Moya’s “Irish Crossings” on the way, and it is green and not orange!

In between sewing, Val checked the cricket on the TV and kept everyone up to date with the results.

And Jean is busy cross cutting her strips to make the 4 patch units for Blue Diamonds. Just as well she brought her blue thread!
Time to get dressed and start my day. I hope to finish a quilt on the machine today, and do some food preparation, in between checking out the progress “across the road”.
Be back soon,
Blessings, From Jude

This and that summary of the week

Before another week gets here tomorrow, and work gets underway again, I better report in with newsfromjude tonight. It is way past my bedtime, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl has to do…….

More quilts

Lots of things to report on tonight. Quilting has been ongoing, and a few photos of what has been on the machine. First is a quilt from Beth, which is the 2014 Bedford quilt that she has added borders too and made a very large quilt. The final border is the blue photo, which Beth has been very creative with and pintucked. It looks good, and is something different.


And these are another 3 quilts that Sally has made for her family. They are all the same pattern, but different fabrics, and for a beginner quilter, they are impeccably made.

This is a quilt that Jocelyn made in last year’s Paper Bag Mystery Retreat at The Sanctuary. It is quilted all over with a pattern called Asti. I just love the texture this has given to the quilt. One of those I just want to rub my hands over and touch!

Pink Raffle Quilt

This is the pink Retreat raffle quilt that I made a last month, well it seems like last month, but could be longer. It is now quilted, and a good fairy put the binding on for me, and now I just need to sell some tickets for it. The funds go to the Breast Cancer Network. If you would like a ticket, or two, or three, at $2 each, please let me know. This is another quilt with a lovely texture, and it has put some interest into an otherwise plain quilt. And for someone who usually likes to blend the thread colour, I have stepped out of my comfort zone and used pink thread to add more interest!

Border Quilt Update

I have set up my machine and cut the pieces that I need to sew for my hourglass border on my Head to the Border quilt. This is the one that I unpicked after I “found” the right fabric. And as there are still 2 borders to add after this, I need to move, as it needs to be hanging in our October exhibition. I hope my quilter can fit it in!! I figure that if it is all prepared and set up, that each little 15 minutes will add up?! Tell me it will.

“Pick-a-case” Mystery Retreat

Next Friday 10 lovely ladies will arrive at The Sanctuary for the “Pick-a-case” Mystery retreat, and I am busy designing and cutting and writing instructions for a few more cases of fabrics. I like to have some spares, so that everyone can find something they like. Well, that is the plan. I need to work out the menu and do some shopping and cooking this week too. Always a good weekend to look forward to. Ladies are coming from Adelaide, just over the border, Bendigo and local. There will be a full house.

This is my “little” stack of fabrics still waiting to be cut, and also some of the leftovers after cutting. I think that cutting just breeds more scraps. It is hard to know just how much fabric to purchase when you don’t know what you are going to do with it, so maybe I buy more than I need?? I don’t think the stash is decreasing with all this cutting.

Carpet cleaning and Angels Day

The week has been pretty full, with the quilting, doing the cases, quilt deliveries and pickups, and a visit from a fabric rep. I also had the carpets in 2 rooms cleaned this week, so that meant a bit of a shift of furniture for that to be done. ( And now it is true confession time, as the carpet cleaner also steam cleans bathrooms…. and my bathroom is the one room in the house that is sadly neglected, because no-one else goes in there but me……so I “bit the bullet” and asked him to clean it,…… and hoped he would not be horrified……. so it is now nice and clean!!)  It was not good carpet drying weather, so I had 3 heaters going, and adding to my power bill to get the sewing room dry enough for the Angels sewing day on Thursday. It was a good gathering of angels and they achieved a lot.

Baby Update

I will try not to bore you with baby photos, but just one occasionally. I had not seen a photo all week, and was surprised to see this one tonight, and she looks so different! She will be 3 weeks old on Tuesday. She has not been such an angel all of the time, but it is a learning curve for the baby, mum and dad.

So, all in all it has been a pretty full on week, with all the usual work stuff and the extra planning for things to happen at The Sanctuary. And then you throw in the worry when there is an emergency visit to the hospital for one of your  family members, and it adds to the load. The emergency has passed and they await further testing. Am hoping and praying for a good outcome, and thankful that it could have been much worse.

Giveaway Winner!

If you have read this far, I thank you. I have left this news until the end, just to keep you in suspense. Sorry it has taken me a week to announce this.
There were 14 names entered in the draw, and I thank all those who sent me comments, either on the blog, or email, or phone, or text. I love to hear from you all. All the names entered, would have been worthy winners, but the winner this time is Raelene. She will know who she is, and I will just wait and see how long before she reads this. Not sure what the giveaway will be, but I have a few ideas! Raelene is the lovely lady who wrote the poem for me, that I posted about last week. She also is the angel who hand stitched the binding to the Pink Raffle Quilt for me. Thankyou Raelene, and congratulations on winning…. well something, when I get time to put it together!! I still like the idea of giving away one of my WIP’s, don’t you?
That’s all the newsfromjude for now.
Blessings, From Jude

62 years married

Today is the 62nd wedding anniversary of my parents, so before the day is finished, I better acknowledge this. The top photo was taken last weekend, and the bottom one I “borrowed” from my brothers facebook page. This was taken this morning, when he took them out for breakfast, before they left for a couple of days away. (I see that Dad is wearing the same jumper, so guess he likes it and it’s warm.)

They “scrub up” pretty well for 83 years old, and still live in their own home and look after themselves. Mum has had a few health scares along the way, but Dad takes no prescription medication, which is pretty amazing.

Hope you had a great day, and enjoy your little holiday.

Blessings, From Jude, who knows that it is time for a blog post, but it will happen. (I have been busy, quilting, cleaning, writing and cutting). And an announcement will be happening about the winner of my giveaway. I have not forgotten!

Family

I had a few hours out yesterday afternoon to attend a family gathering to celebrate the wedding of my nephew and his bride. They are not into lots of fuss and formality, so they went off to Fiji last month for their wedding with immediate family. And they thought that was done. But they did not bargain for another gathering yesterday, with a cake and more photos and a speech.

Just a few of the family sitting around after the BBQ. The little boys, (and some of the bigger boys) were on the back lawn kicking the footy, and some of the women inside doing the dishes! And my niece is very close to her due date, so we are waiting for the newest family member to arrive in about 2 weeks.

This is one of their wedding photos, that I “borrowed” from facebook, thankyou.

I have a list of names that I will find a winner from for the giveaway. And as my day promises to be a busy one, this might happen later in the week. But I will get to it.
Do hope your day and week is a good one. It’s time to head to the shower and get started on my day.
Blessings, From Jude

Updating…

 

I just can’t believe just how fast the weeks a whizzing by. Here we are at another weekend, and I have to sit and think about what I did in the last few days.

It is nice to work in my tidied desk area, although things seems to creep in when you are not looking and take up space on the desk! It needs to be an ongoing process to keep it sorted. I managed to find some more WIP’s that escaped the big reveal, so will do that later. It seems to a bit of an epidemic in blogland, that lots of people are sorting, and decluttering their “stuff”. One day I shall get around to putting up the quilts that I have.

I have enjoyed the comments that you have been leaving and have had some email messages and phone texts as well, which has been fantastic. Thankyou all for coming and visiting my “place”. I am still thinking about what to give away, and jokingly said to one lady, that maybe I could give away one of my UFO’s! Then I would have one less.

I received a lovely message from one lady, who sent me this poem…..

“Your sanctuary is a place we treasure, 

Our weekends there give so much pleasure:

Your caring deeds, and thoughtful ways

Give us all such happy days.”      

I thought it was worthy of a blog post. Thankyou so much.                                                                

I remembered that I had not posted photos of Heather’s quilt that I finished a few weeks ago. It was her collection of Oriental and indigo fabrics and I quilted it with a very simple all over pattern, which was called clouds. The fabrics speak for themselves. It was a very large quilt.

I received a visit late Thursday afternoon from a couple of lovely ladies, who were driving home to Adelaide from Canberra. It was fantastic to catch up with you, and thankyou for calling Maxine and Dot. We enjoyed a lovely evening meal at the local hotel before they finished their journey to home.

The planning is happening for the “Pick-a-case” Mystery retreat in 2 weeks, and there are 2 places left for this weekend. If you might be interested in coming, I would love to hear from you. It is always a great time of fun and sharing with other quilters. A weekend to be looked after, no meals to prepare, and no dishes to do either! Come and join us.

Well, that’s about all the newsfromjude for today. After church tomorrow I will be heading up to the family gathering for nephew and his new wife. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Blessings, From Jude

Special dates, and quilts, and more……

 

It has been a very eventful week, with all that has been happening, and I had intended to do a post on Friday last week, but it slipped by. July 31 was the date, 4 years ago that I started writing my blog. I am still amazed by the number of people that seem to visit and read what I write, but in the overall scheme of things, my statistics don’t rate that high. But that is not my reason for blogging anyway, as this is for my own records. But I thank those who do visit, and especially those who leave comments. One blog I visit and read celebrated 9 years of writing, and something like 1800 posts in that time! So far I have managed 4 years, and almost 480 posts.

July 31 was also special for another reason, as it was 43 years since my husband proposed to me. And today, August 4, it is 42 years since I was married. That time has gone so fast and lots of water has gone under the bridge. So while I might not celebrate today, I will certainly be thinking about the day.

Below are 2 quilts made by Pat, both with the same range of fabrics. They will be made into quillows for her great grandchildren. First one is quilted all over with Popcorn.

This one is quilted all over with a pattern called Pearl Stream, which gives it a very different texture.

The next 2 were made by Margaret, and the Puzzle quilt was also quilted all over with Popcorn.

And this one was quilted with a pattern called Dancing Hearts.

The next 2 quilts are the same design, and made by Sally for her family, and both quilted all over with Dancing Hearts.

This week there will be a family gathering at my brother’s to celebrate the wedding of my nephew, which was in July. They had a very quiet family wedding in Fiji, attended by their immediate family. I am looking forward to seeing some photos.

And of course we had the arrival of my grand daughter last week. So with all these events in mind, I have decided that it is time for another giveaway on my blog. Not exactly sure what I shall “giveaway” yet, but if you leave me a comment, I will enter your name into the draw for something. I will accept email and phone messages, as I know that some find it difficult to work out the comments on the blog. I shall take comments until Sunday evening, and draw on Monday. Overseas comments are welcome.

Looking forward to hearing from you,

Blessings, From Jude

Day 2 clean up

 

Here is my report of today’s clean up. Maybe I should call it clear out too, because the rubbish bin has lots of “stuff” in it! It feels so good to get this far, although the other side of the room needs the same treatment. That will have to wait until January, when life might slacken off for a little bit??

Before photo…..

And after…… I have shifted the table that was there, and replaced it with a smaller one, because I could not open the drawers in my desk. I have taken some file drawers from the desk and put them under the desk out of sight. That was after I shifted all the things that were hiding under there! I never used to have the table by the desk, but found it useful when I was doing the Paper Bag Mystery quilts, as I could cut at the table and the laptop was directly behind to write up the instructions. At least with the smaller table, I won’t be as tempted to fill it up with stuff will I?

When a customer brings their quilt in, I put it in a plastic tub with the name on it. These were stored in a few places, and now they are all under the cutting table in one place! Wonder how long that will last?

I found some more projects today, and first was something I purchased recently. I have quilted so many of Michele Hill’s designs for customers and would really like one of my own. Don’t know when I shall get around to making it, but here’s hoping. I purchased extra background fabric so that I could have more space between the blocks, for quilting of course!! This is her quilt called “Dear William”. This was one of that stuff under the desk! It now has it’s own labelled box.

And of course I have my Head to the Border quilt that is a WIP, and needs to be finished for our exhibition in October. Now that I have the fabric I need, I have unpicked the last border that I had done, and recut my hourglass blocks. Perhaps I should leave it on the table in my now tidy sewing area???

And another plastic tub down under the desk contained this project. It is a quilt called Sixty-Five Roses, and was in a magazine years and years ago. I looked for a date in the magazine and found an ad for something in 1998, so it goes back doesn’t it? This would have to be my oldest WIP, or UFO. It was not long after I started patchwork and I was wanting to make a quilt for DD3, who was still living at home then. She picked this out of the magazine, and so I started. I have done a fair bit, and only have the outside border to applique. All the leaves and rose buds are made and the pattern is marked on the background.

My problem now, besides the time factor, is my applique. The machine that I was using then had a blanket stitch. But, if you turned at the wrong time, it did this backward stitch and you can see what has happened. I think my standards are a bit different now, than it was a few years ago. So, I ask you, am I being too picky? Would you unpick and redo, or keep going? Maybe the quilter can fix it? Would value your opinions?

DD3 laughs about the fact that I was keen to make her a quilt, and that it is still not finished! She says that she is “over it” now, and her tastes have changed too. But I will surprise her one day. She is the only family member that does not have any of my quilts in her house!

I had an email from a friend today, who commented about my blog from yesterday.

………I loved your latest Blog. I would not be game enough to even photo unfinished objects let alone publish them.I did count up the number at end of last year but I have added more and not reduced the number, also I have conveniently forgotten the number.
It is my intention to finish some and make up fabric bought for certain
projects into new or old projects so I can easily find things……..

I am hoping that by “putting it out there”, that I might be more motivated, to finish some things. Am now that I feel a bit more organised that will also help me to see clearer just what is there. And I do have a few other WIP’s hanging around the place as well.

And this is another corner that has been tidied. This is all of the Angels fabric that our group uses to make quilts for others. I have shifted the drawers from here to my area, and replaced it with a shelf so that we can see what we have easier.

It feels so good to have all this done, and hopefully I can get back into the quilts tomorrow with a clearer head. I can work in a disorganised state for only so long, before it needs to be sorted.

Hope you are having a good weekend, wherever you are, and whatever you are doing. It is a chilly day here, with alternate spells of sunshine and then showers. Will be back in a day or two with more quilts to show.

Blessings, From Jude