40 years ago today.................

................my baby daughter was born, induced a week early after spending a week in hospital with high blood pressure. It was a very cold, dry winter, with many frosts and nights were spent in the lounge by the combustion heater, and is probably the only time I have ever watched Wimbledon tennis in the early hours of the morning!!

 

                   This photo was taken at the Miniature Deb Ball in the dress that I made.......

                    .....and this week I received this pic of Miss Billie in that dress, (tho the hair is not hers).

A bit of trip back through the years until now! Lovely to have a chat this morning and hope you all enjoy the sunshine in sunny north Queensland this week.

Luv from Mum  xxxx

Blessings, From Jude

The fun times are returning!!..................

The last week started out pretty good with an overnight visit by DS and family. Miss Bridie always wants to sew on the machine, but first we made sausage rolls, and she was a great helper......

........and then carefully put the trays in the oven to cook.

Then it was time to sew, and she had a lovely piece of fabric with pretty stitches in different coloured threads to take home with her. Hopefully next time she will be here longer and we'll be able to make something bigger.

Mr Tate loves my frog collection and I let him play with this one and he was allowed to take it home. B When it was time to leave, we searched the house, but the frog was nowhere to be found. And after they had gone, guess where I found him??

While they were here, it was discovered there was a drainage issue from the bathroom, so I called the plumber this week and we have a large hole out the laundry door at the moment. There is now an inspection point in place and the problem was diagnosed as lots of tree roots in the pipes! And the nearest trees are quite a distance from this area.... Modern technology has reached the plumbing industry too, as they can put a camera up into the pipes to diagnose the problem, and I could see all the tree roots and cracks in the pipes.

While out on the highway this week we came across this rainbow across the sky.

We pulled off the road and zoomed into the brightest part for a photo, but sadly didn't find the pot of gold at the end!

I quilted another 3 quilts for the Angels group this week and they are now waiting for bindings. The Angels group will be shifting their fabrics to our Patchwork group hall soon, and will continue their activities at group sewing days. 

Kaye called in this week to show me her quilt now that it has the binding on and for me to take a full photo. ( In the last post I lamented that I did not get a full photo before it left the building).

This week it has almost been like old times. Today the fairy arrived in town on the Overland Train. And another 2 friends came for a sewing day. Much was achieved along with a lot of chatter, which was so good to listen too. Another 3 friends called in and out during the day as well!! Raylene calls this the revolving door!

Ruth was busy sewing 39 blocks together after she cut the pieces early this morning......

.....and by the time her hubby came to collect her she had stitched them all together and pressed them! (she had planned to put black with her coloured fabrics, but was talked into using the navy blue instead, so perhaps there might be another quilt in this design using the black as she had already cut the pieces for this??)

Yvonne was sewing string blocks and there will be more pics of these in the next post. Raylene looked at the remaining strings and decided they needed to be sorted into colours for a "colour coordinated" string quilt and here she is pondering her decisions.

I will have more news on progress in the days to come. Tomorrow will see the arrival of more ladies as we head into a long weekend and the first "official" retreat at Number 8 for more than 2 years!! We are very excited and looking forward to a return of former times. There are some staying over and a few locals calling in on some of the days. Now I need to remember to get the camera out for photos. 

I will also have a post soon about the Churn Dash SAL with Chooky. 

Time to finish this post now and get some sleep before more preparations tomorrow.

Will be back with updates soon.

Blessings, From Jude

Quilting Update

Here is an update of customer quilts recently. I looked back and it seems such a long time (end of March) since I posted pics. I haven't been completely idle, although doing a few less than normal.

The first quilt was made by Mary and is one of the kits that I sell. Mary loves to buy the kits as she can launch straight into sewing with all the hard work of cutting and decision making done for her.

This has been a popular pattern, and has appeared in a few different colourways so far. This was quilted allover with damask rose.

This is another made by Mary and the pretty fabrics speak for themselves. This was quilted allover with a leaf design.

I quilted this strippy quilt for Kaye who is gifting it to a friend. I am sorry that it's the only photo I have as it went "out the door" before I remembered to take more photos. This is also one of the kit quilts and has also been done in a range of fabrics before. It was quilted allover with a rose pattern.

Erica made this small child's quilt and it was with an allover pattern. Once again it 'went out the door' before I remembered to take more pics.

Lois made this sampler quilt called Sylvia's wedding quilt. This was quilted allover through the centre of the quilt and a separate border pattern in a blue thread to add some interest to the light fabric.

Sherrel made this purple sampler quilt and it was quilted edge to edge with Plush.

The next 2 were made by Jenny and both quilted allover.... the first one with Fandangle...........

                          .................and this Geometric quilt with a Zig zag pattern.

This is a Wendy Williams pattern, Over the Hill and made by Carol. This was custom quilted.

                                         

There was another custom quilting job that has been done, but sorry there are no photos yet.

That's all for now. 

Blessings, From Jude

Summarising May.............

 Once again I need to think about the happenings of newsfromjude for another post. It's much harder to write exciting and interesting blog posts since Covid came and took away the retreats. I find it interesting that we spent over 2 years in some sort of isolation and restrictions and our state, and in fact most of the country had minor cases of covid. Now that we have been "let out" and most restrictions have been abandoned, there are thousands of cases and often hear of someone I know who has "it". I know that a lot of countries have had a harder time with many more losses. Anyway, enough of the doom and gloom talk, that C word has taken up far too much of our conversation and thoughts for more than 2 years now.

I did summarise part of May in a recent post and looking at the whole month it seems like there has been some quilting with Max, (which will be a separate post), a few visitors in and out the front door, hardly any time in the garden, hardly any time housecleaning, a fair bit of time in the kitchen cooking, not a lot of stitching time, a lot of computer time with PowerPoint and sending out newsletters and quite a few medical appointments and dealing with health issues.

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Our local group had their Annual General Meeting and we had just enough to make a quorum, and it was a struggle to fill the vacant positions. Since the shut downs, some have not returned to meetings, so we are hoping that will change. We meet in the local CWA rooms and thankfully there is heating, as you might note by the coats that it was a cold evening. 

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A friend needed to go to the next large town for some day surgery and needed a driver, so I had a day out. Another friend needed an xray so came along for the drive. We did enjoy lunch at the local hotel while waiting for the patient to be released and might have propped the local economy up slightly.

                            It was a very cold, dreary day and the trees were all losing their leaves.

While I am on the subject of medical stuff, my recent medical appointments have included the eye specialist, more blood tests which have shown up some interesting results and a CT scan which has finally revealed some answers to an issue that I have been dealing with for 2 years now. Now this all needs to be juggled to work out an answer going forth. I won't bore you all with the finer details as I had been told that I have become 'obsessive' talking about it all. But I do think that the "get up and go" that had "got up and left", just might be starting to find it's way slowly back??

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A trip to Mount Gambier was taken last week and this is what came back to Bordertown, for 3 lucky ladies.

I found this cartoon and wondered if one lady had to do this when she arrived home with her purchase??

Robyn is giving her purchase a workout already and making herself a nightie.

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We enjoyed the company of friends calling in one day, although Elaine did manage to walk out the door without taking her handbag and did not realise until I phoned when they were 2 hours away!! ( As I made the call, I did wonder if her phone might ring in her bag?)

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I'll finish with a couple of cute photos received from DD3. Miss Billie had a lovely day out with her mum during the school holidays. She loved having her nails done, and isn't she growing up so fast?

                 

Looks like Mum's makeup had a trial run, doesn't he look 'beautiful'?? This might be a good photo to save for his 21st!! ............... I remember DS being madeup and dressed by his older sisters and a couple of photos being taken. We would always tease him that they would come out for his 21st! But he really had the last laugh, because when his 21st came around, those photos were nowhere to be found in the albums!.... Might be different with digital photos though as there will be more than one copy.

    

              

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           Last Sunday afternoon a group of us enjoyed this movie. Without spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen this, after watching the ending, I wonder if there will be any further movies. If there are, it just wouldn't be the same!

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Winter has definitely arrived this week, and some parts of our state had severe storms earlier in the week and heavy rains. We missed most of that, but I did wonder the next day if the storms were about to hit us when I saw this cloud. Not long after it rained for just a couple minutes and then passed us right on by. While we have recorded about 15 mls this week, it is very light on to a lot of areas.  The temperatures today feel like they are coming straight from the South Pole and the wood fire is definitely burning!!

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In spite of neglect, the garden always surprises and this was my green harvest this week. Sure looks rather healthy doesn't it?

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I have lamented the lack of retreats and weekend sewing sessions in recent times. I have had some conversations with a few with the thought of getting back to former times. But it has been mostly talk and little action. Today I received an email from a former "retreater" asking if anything was happening for the June long weekend and she said......"need to get my act together!"

I also had a phone call from another lady who is wanting to compare diaries soon to organise a date, and another couple of friends are hoping to meet up here sometime soon.

I am taking all these messages on board, and as a result I have "got my act together" and planning some stitching times to return again............If this interests you, I look forward to hearing from you.

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My current job is at the desk and computer and working my way from October to end May with the financial details as the end of the financial year is coming, ready or not! How did this happen so quickly?

I do have more customer quilt photos to show, but they will come in a separate post, sometime soon.

I am now going to pick up the paperwork and head to the kitchen table which is close to the fire, and much, much warmer. Be back sometime soon. Meanwhile, stay warm!

Blessings, From Jude