Of a night time in front of TV instead of sitting there and dozing off as I have done in the past I now keep myself awake by knitting and crocheting squares to be sewn up as blankets for Wrap with Love. The fabric wraps are made from leftover fabric given to me mainly by my mother and a friend. I usually use either fleecy or flannette as backing fabric. They are made to the same dimensions of the knitted rugs - 7 squares down and 4 squares across.



Of course I just had to do a bit of stash building again this weekend. I remembered during the week that there were a few pieces that I did not get last weekend and just "had" to go back for them and of course spotted one or two more and at $1 and $2per metre how could I leave them behind! I like the end one for its novelty value of cocktail glasses, cheese and crackers and olives - placemats perhaps.



This kookaburra is a frequent visitor to our garden and takes advantage of the clothesline to sit on and survey the backgarden for "edibles". I just caught him about the have his lunch. He is not at all shy and was quite happy allowing me to take his photo.

I hope everyone has had a safe and happy Easter as we did. Whilst we opted to stay home (as we always do at Easter and any other short break) we took ourselves off to the Blue Mountains on Saturday (and so did everyone else!) The main reason for visiting was to enjoy autumn in the Mountains - which has not arrived as yet - however we did see some lovely autumn colour at Mt Wilson.




Mt Wilson is a pretty little place full of lovely country meandering lanes and quaint cottages. I just love this little church.



What is beyond the gate?



On most weekends - especially autumn and spring the property owners open up their spectacular gardens to the public. As you can see the leaves have not "changed" much this year so far however whatever season you visit Mt Wilson there is always a lovely serene country charm about it.

Of course I had to do a bit of stash building over the Easter break - not that I needed anything in particular but you never know when you just need "that" piece.

I particularly like the end piece with the grapes, bottles and glasses of wine. I have been looking for something like this for sometime and snapped it up in one of the lovely little patchwork shops in the Mountains. The rest I was lucky enough to grab at the "Spotty" sale for $3/$5 per metre.



And this lot just because I liked them.

I managed to find a couple of hours yesterday afternoon to spend on the oriental quilt. I managed to sew two rows of blocks (5 in each row) together which now gives me a total of 3 rows. I am thinking of doing a part "quilt as you go" . I come up with these ideas in the early hours of the morning and my thoughts are to join up the blocks as I have done in the rows already below and then do the "quilt as you go" in rows instead of individual blocks. I will have to give this some serious thought before I get too much further along.

I would be interested to hear if anyone else has tackled something similar and if it was a success or failure. As I think the process through I cannot see a great problem but then again!!!!!!!

The photo below is taken looking across the bed



A close-up of the rows



This photo gives a better idea of the pattern and fabrics.

During the week I decided that this weekend would be "an at home" weekend to catch up on a few things that needed to be done like baking a couple of batches of cookies, sewing, planting some herbs and just enjoying our local area. All of which I am pleased to say happened!!

It is not often that I take my camera to the beach but seeing as it was such a glorious morning and lowtide off I set. Not only did I get some lovely photos of the sunrise but I was also lucky to catch a pod of dolphins playing just off shore.

A hopeful pelican waiting patiently for breakfast from a fisherman



Sun shining through clouds just on the horizen



If you look to the middle of the screen just behind the line of breakers you can see three dolphin dorsel fins just out of the water. I counted aproximately 12 or so dolphins gracefully swimming along and playing for quite sometime.



Lucky for me the tide was very low today and I was able to walk around the headland to the next beach and found this cave.



My footprints in the sand and ripples in the water





We are lucky enough to live in an area where we have wetlands virtually at our front door. This is a favourite walk of ours especially either early in the morning or just on dusk.









After giving the garden a hose the other day I noticed this spider web. I reminded me of the delicate crocheting that a great aunt of mine did many years ago.



This maidenhair fern is my pride and joy. I have learnt over many years and much expense that there is no such thing as an indoor plant. I have a few maidenhair ferns that I alternate - I give them a week in and then a week or two out in a part of the garden that has filtered sunlight but able to benefit from any rain. The other ferns are pretty but this one I am very proud of.




Today is National Neighbours Day and our lovely neighbour next door has invited us in for "drinks and nibbles" around 6 tonight. So all in all I have had a great weekend and hope you all have to.

Hello again. I have sadly neglected my blog over the last few weeks - not due to lack of interest but the usual excuse - lack of time. A very good friend of mine knows my obsession with fabric and last week this piece arrived in my letterbox. I will have to come up with a very special project for this one however in the meantime I will just enjoy looking at it and handling it.




I have had a few trips to "Spottie" over the last couple of weeks and of course you just cannot come out emptyhanded. Just as well I picked up these couple of pieces as I had a phone call from a friend a couple of weeks ago for two more "boy" baby bags.



Below you can see a photo of the two bags which I finished off this weekend. I just love the nursery rhyme fabric.




Unfortunately I have not had time to spend on my oriental quilt. Hopefully I can spend a day or two over Easter on it and make some headway.

Around to the weekend again. The weeks just seem to be flying by - almost the second month of the year has gone.

Now that I have finished my "mini projects" which are shown in previous posts I have picked up my oriental quilt again. Today I have made some progress and sewn the blocks for the first row together. Tomorrow I need to cut some more of the black sashings that go between the blocks before I can proceed with anymore sewing. If I can get the rest of the sashing cut tomorrow hopefully I can get another row or two sewn together next weekend.

I went shopping this morning and bought a couple of 55 litre storage bins. Added to the other storage bins I can now get some sort of order into my stash and I even have a little room left to add to few more pieces of fabric when I next go shopping.

Whilst I was sorting out my fabric I thought I might as well photograph it.

Food for thought




Fantasy


Tea for Two

Fun fabrics



Oriental flavours



Florals



Sewing Notions



Country cousins



Christmas



FQ'S

I was feeling a bit lazy by the time I got to photographing my collection of fq's and so I just pulled out the drawer holding them and clicked once instead of doing the sorting bit.




Now that I have had a look at the fabrics in "categories" I can see some areas that need to be improved in such as fantasy, country, sewing and Christmas. I will work on these when I next go shopping and report in!

Here is another example of fabric waving to me as I walk by. Very good friends of ours have just bought a caravan and are planning on doing quite a bit of travelling around Australia over the coming years. The fabric just screamed their name out and now these placemats have pride of place in their caravan.






We wish them many happy trips around Australia following the "maps".