DH and Iwere in Berrima last Sunday and saw these lovely blossoms trees while meandering around the lovely quaint shopping village - via the patchwork shop of course!

It really does feel like Spring has Sprung with the smell of jasmine in the air, the azaleas just about to break into flower, the air warming up and shedding some of the layers of winter clothing!

The following is a photo of the current BOM and in keeping with my theme of using 3Christmas fabrics I am pleased with the result. I am looking forward to the annoucement of next month's block. Before too much time gets away I am going to start putting each placemat together as I do not want to have a great rush the week before Christmas trying to finish them off.



I found this fabric a while ago which should be perfect for the backing of the sea theme quilt- also come to a standstill like the oriental quilt. Maybe next weekend I will find some time to sew.




I did however find time over the weekend to pre-wash the next lot of fabric for a quilt using muted autumn tones. It is done with 5" blocks and has 9 white blocks with the block adjoining each of the four sides of the white block forming a star. It looks very effective in the photo I have of it.





I am looking forward to finishing off the other two before I start on this one. Then of course there are the Christmas placemats somewhere in that mix and during the week one the lovely ladies from the Craft forum very kindly sent me a pattern to make the cutest mice and I can see them looking good in the scraps left over from the placemats.

DS celebrated his 30th birthday yesterday with a party themed on "come dressed as someone you wanted to be when you grew up"

DH always wanted to be a teacher, and did, hence his outfit in the photo below and I went dressed as "I wanna be teachers pet". As you can see I am standing on my tiptoes to give "teach" a peck on the cheek and then give him an apple.



Some of the other outfits were quite amazing and fun - a transformer complete with laser gun, wrestler, Audrey Hepburn with her breakfast at Tiffanys outfit, horseriders, mad scientist, gymnasist, magician, airline pilot (birthday boy) and doctor to name but a few. A fun night was had by all.

After seeing that photo I have made a mental note to myself not to ever wear a gathered skirt again. Not very flattering around the hip area.

Sadly I have to say that not much progress was made on the sewing front again this weekend. I only managed to sew the backing together for my oriental quilt. I did put a deadline of September for completion and hopefully I will still be on track - well maybe if I extend it out to the end of September!

The weather over the weekend was very conducive to sewing. Whilst it was lovely and sunny yesterday the air was cool and today was just one of those grey, cold, bleak winter days - what better than to lock myself in my sewing room and sew after hubby and I treated ourselves to breakfast at Manly then did a bit of retail therapy on the way home.

I managed to get the top sewn together on the "sea theme quilt". These fabrics remind me of seashells and sand, ripples in the water, white caped waves and clumping seaweed with the border bringing all those themes & colours together.



I also finished off my third mystery BOM and looking forward to the next one. I found this one went together much easier than the last one.



I am tossing around some ideas for another quilt. I have a few fabrics that go together well however I am off to Aussie Patches and the Craft Depot on Saturday and will take those fabrics with me just in case I see something else.

More on that as time goes by.

My son is having his 30th birthday party in a couple of weeks time and the theme is dress up as someone you wanted to be when you grew up. Well what I wanted to be was to work in an office, which is what I do, however that is very boring when it comes to fancy dress. I also found the time to whip up my "costume" today. Cannot say too much on that as my dil sometimes pops in here. All will be revealed after the party.

I cannot believe that it has been soooooooooo long since I updated my blog! What have I been doing.

I have managed to sew all the blocks together for my oriental quilt and sewn the boarder on. All I have left to do now is the backing (which is cut) and waiting to be ironed, sewn together and then the mammoth job of pinning all three layers together, the quilting and the binding. Here is a photo of my progress. I am a little disappointed in the colours as it was a very sunny day when I took photo.



I have also finished making my second mystery BOM - which caused me some grief - however I am pleased with the end result. I have cut out the third BOM but it is still waiting to be put together. Maybe this weekend.



I also have another quilt on the go at the moment using the colours of the sea - shades of blues and greens. If it turns out as I expect this maybe my first Christmas present. Time will tell or perhaps will make a nice comfy bed for the cat if it does not turn out as I expect. It is cut out and waiting to be sewn up. I hope to make a start this weekend. I need a long weekend by the sound of all I have lined up!

I have taken this week off work for a break. I cannot believe that I have been at this job for 12 months! Where has the year gone? We have covered quite a variety of areas during the week including the Southern Highlands which is a favourite area of ours and only 2 hours from our front door.



This is a lovely old pub and a great spot for lunch - it is very conveniently located right across the road from one of the prettiest patchwork shops around. A good place to spend sometime especially when it is cold and drizzly outside as it was when we were there. Typical Southern Highland winter weather.

We also became "tourists" in our own city and caught the rivercat to Abbotsford for lunch at the Sydney Rowing Club. A must to put on the "to do list" again.



Some much photographed icons of Sydney but I never tire of looking at them.





We then set off the the Blue Mountains rugged up with coats, scarves and gloves. A must especially up towards Blackheath where there always seems to be a cold wind blowing. The air is definitely much clearer and crisper than in Sydney especially along the coast where we have very high humidity for most of the year. This photo is taken looking across one of the many valleys that make up the Blue Mountains.



I also had to do some stash building whilst popping in and out of all these delightful patchwork shops found in country areas. The bottom row of fabric is for my next quilt that I am planning with a sea theme. I love these blues and greens and with the white they should make a good contrast. I managed to also find some backing fabric (not pictured) which will fit in nicely with the other fabrics.



The top row of fabric is because I liked them - especially the end one with blue sheep. What better thing than to have sheep on a quilt!

I have also found time to work on the oriental quilt and pleased with the progess. I now have all the rows stitched together with the next step being to cut and stitch the borders. I hope to get this done tomorrow.



I have set myself a challenge to have this quilt completed before September which is when I take another week off work. I will keep you posted on my progress. I also have to do my second block for the mystery BOM which I am working alongside other craft forum members.

I am feeling very spoilt indeed - as you can see below I was given a gorgeous bundle of fat quarters from my ds and dil for Mothers Day and the card just fits in with the theme. I think I will just have to savour them for a bit before cutting into them.

Last Sunday morning I spent an enjoyable couple of hours at the Eastwood Patchwork Quilters exhibition held at Brush Farm House Ryde. As you can see from the photo below this lovely old house certainly lends itself to a quilt exhibition. There were over 100 quilts to look at and be inspired by.




The ladies on the craft forum are doing a mystery BOM and have been paired up to swap blocks for a period of 9 or 12 months depending on the size of the quilt they chose to go with. I decided to just "plod" along at my own pace and join in each month challenging myself. For my theme and fabric I decided that I needed new Christmas placemats hence the choice of Christmas fabric seen below.



This month's block is the pinwheel. Below is a photo of my block which I worked on today. I am looking forward to the announcement of next month's block.




I think I need another 24 hours in each day just to get through my reading pile that is piling up in the spare bedroom. I am currently reading "Dear Fatty" by Dawn French and I think that my next book will have to be James Herriott but then again? Underneath that pile of books lurks a pile of quilting magazines that are just waiting to be studied for inspiration!




I hope all mothers enjoy their special day tomorrow.