Long weekend sewing

Happy Australia Day everyone.     Officially Australia Day was celebrated on Saturday but today has been declared a public holiday.    As Friday was my day off work I was lucky enough to have an extra long weekend so I took advantage of the  time to do some sewing.    Sometime ago I bought the fabric below just because  I thought it was novel.   Having little things on sticks, umbrellas in drinks, plates of cheese and biscuits and olives reminded me of a celebration  and so Saturday being a day of celebration I thought it in order to make some new coasters and an tray mat on which to stand a bottle of wine.

Now as you have gathered by now I am someone who does everything by machine and  yes I admit even my bindings (I hope that the quilt police are on holiday)  but I have always sewn the binding on the back first and then brought it around and machined it down.    I saw a tutorial when I was  blog hopping the other day on  CluckCluckSew at http://www.cluckclucksew.com/search?updated-max=2013-01-10T04:29:00-08:00&max-results=4  that she did the reverse to me so I gave it a go on the tray mat and now this is the way that I will  do all my bindings from now on.    I am very pleased with the result.  

In Australia we have been experiencing one of our hottest summers on record so a rummage through the stash revealed some fabric that I had sitting around for sometime to make myself something long, cool, loose and pretty to float around the house  in on these hot nights.  

It seems to blend right in with the cover that is on the bed for summer.  

All is calm here at present but in Sydney we have been warned about the tail end of a cyclone which is moving down from the north.     Strong winds and driving rain are heading here and expected to hit sometime late this afternoon/evening.    Hubby has been around the yard and moved anything that is likely to be washed/ blown away.     I think that there will be a sleepness night ahead for many of us.

Happy sewing until next time.    

Big girls and their dollies

Clare from clare's craftroom is having a giveaway on her blog which can be found at http://clarescraftroom.blogspot.com.au/.   Now I often pop over to Clare's lovely blog to see what she is up to from time to time and I am never disappointed.     When I saw her latest post during the week I knew that us "big girls" love our very old dollies even more now than when they were given to us.   So why don't you pop on over and join in the fun.    I am off to check out  the other blogs that  have well loved dollies on them.  
Back soon.

On the 20th January......

40 years ago today hubby and I tied the knot.   In the photo below we can be seen signing our marriage certificate

 And I am very pleased to say that it is still firmly tied and no sign of fraying around the edges after all these years.    We decided to stay local to celebrate our anniversary and due to the record high temperatures and fires burning all around our State we now realise that this was certainly the right  decision.    On Friday we started the day off with a lovely breakfast at a restaurant just opposite the beach - and this being the hottest day on record for Sydney it was definitely a good move.   A very appropriate design on the top on my breakfast coffee

Yesterday we had lunch at our favourite restaurant right on Narrabeen Lakes which can be seen behind us.  The food, service and ambience are second to none.

  Today we had a celebration lunch with our family.

 
I think that we have held up pretty well over the years.   A couple of extra kilos here and there and a few stray grey hairs have made an appearance but all in all not too bad.  

The picture below shows the lovely floral arrangements, gifts, cards and bottle of champagne that we received.

 Thanks hubby for the last forty years and heres hoping that there are many more to come.     Cheers.  

Gorgeous flowering gum trees

I am not a fan of gum trees especially when they are in my yard as can be seen below.    We have a very old gum tree which attracts many major mitchell cockatoos.    Now if you live in Australia you will understand what I am saying.     Whilst they are an attractive bird to look at they are very destructive.   Some days we can have as many as 20 or so feeding in the tree.    I only caught one in the act yesterday

 And this is the mess that is made at ground level - we clean up around the same amount  like this most days.

Now comes the gorgeous flowering gum trees that my post is about.   On my way to work of a morning I walk pass these two trees and they are now in full flower.   I just had to take my camera with me yesterday and take a photo.   My favourite is the first one.

But then again the red in the one below is gorgeous also

I hope those pesky cockatoos do not find these lovely trees and end up stripping them.

I had to have one

I saw this cover for a cushion here http://www.quiltingboard.com/pictures-f5/folded-fabric-cushion-pillow-t153832.html  and I knew that I had to make one.   Having spent the last two weeks off work I found an afternoon to go to the website, work out what I needed to do, gather the fabrics and start cutting and sewing and this is my version.

I just love the look of the pleats and I know that I will be making a couple more to go into my "giftie box".  I have already picked out the fabrics for the next one.

Next time I blog I hope to have one or two more to show you.

In the meantime happy sewing.

Hello my name is....

Dolly and for the past 25 years I have lived in the very back of a cupboard in the owner of this blog's garage.       I was given to her when she was about  5 years old as a beautiful bride doll.  We can be seen in the picture below together.

She has been on holidays over the Christmas break and decided that it was time to do a big clean up of the garage.   Two piles were created - the keep pile and the throw away pile and I ended up on the top of the throw away pile.    I stayed there for a couple of days and then I was picked up and looked over.  It was decided that even though I was very dirty and my clothes had fallen off me I was to be taken and given a second chance.   I was not allowed into the bathroom because I was just too dirty as can be seen below.
 

So I was taken to the laundry and plunged into a bucket of lovely warm soapy water and given a good cleanup with up a facewasher - whilst I was soaking in the bucket along came another dolly and she was given the same treatment.   After we had both been scrubbed  we were taken out and wrapped up in a nice fluffy towel to dry off.   Here we are all nice and squeaky clean ready for some new clothes.  

After a couple of days we were both presented with a new dress each and underwear - don't we look pretty.

P.S We are both over 50 years old but I think that we have aged quite well.

2012 the year that was......

Kind to me.    On the work front I was able to successfully negotiate a 4 day working week.   This is a real bonus as I enjoy my three day weekends.   It gives me time to do what I need to do, what I want to do and other things as well.

On the personal side I celebrated   an "0" birthday this year with strict instructions to DH that under no circumstances was he to  give me a surprise party.   All that I wanted was a lunch with my family and he organised this splendidly.  

On the sewing/ quilting front I was elected to the position of secretary for my quilt group.    This entails producing a monthly newsletter which I enjoy gathering information for.   I  sometimes think that I spend far too much time trawling the internet and looking at other peoples blogs for ideas and articles.  Now what have I achieved in the sewing arena this year.    Perhaps not as much as I would have liked however having said that I did conquer my fear of foundation piecing earlier in the year but I still have two WIP's that need to be finished off using this method.   I did finish off a couple of snuggle quilts, tablerunners, tabletoppers, placemats and a few articles of clothing.  

Now it is around this time that everyone makes New Year's resolutions - in the past I usually find that I have made them only to break them  but there is one that I made a couple of years ago and that was to save all $5 notes that came my way and I am pleased to say that I am still doing that.    This year again I hope to mainly sew from my stash and only buy a piece or 2 or 3 or????  if I cannot match it from what I have and also to finish off the two WIP's spoken about earlier.    See how I go.  

This brings me to our very exclusive New Year's eve party which hubby and I host each year.    It is attended by us only - LOL - we treat ourselves to a nice "bottle of bubbles" along with some yummy cheeses, nibbles, choccies and fruit while we sit back and watch the fireworks in the comfort of our loungeroom.  

I hope that 2012 was a kind year to you also and that 2013 is a good one for us all.

Happy sewing and I hope to be back soon.