Mackenzie

look at my baby - Mackenzie is doing work experience this week at a retail outlet in Wollongong and I couldn't resist taking his photo as he was leaving



I'm a very proud mum, hope he does well

Student roundup

Yesterday was an enjoyable day spent at Horsley Patch http://www.horsleypatch.com.au/ in Horsley Park NSW, teaching a class, this was day 2 of Spinning Flowers and below is the 3 lovely pieces produced, 2 of the 3 ladies have decided to do another set of flowers to extend it to a single bed size so that is why the borders didn't go on, that is my sample in the foreground and look how the pattern changes when you turn the block on point.
Visit the website and if you get a chance call in, Linda has some great fabrics that I haven't seen in other places.



I thought seeing as I was showing some students work from yesterday I would show a few pieces from some of my other classes.

I do a monthly "Fun with Fibre" class at the Quilters Garden http://www.thequiltersgarden.com.au/ in Albion Park NSW and here are a few pieces.
2 lovely faux felted scarves drying on the bike rack.

Chris is our over achiever, she decided she didn't want to make a scarf and made 2 square faux felted pieces and made this cute little vest for her 2yo grand daughter.

I also have a Monday night group at The Quilters Garden where the ladies work on a few different projects, they usually start off on the row x row quilt and learn to become proficient with their cutting and piecing, this one was made by Mas and has just recently been delivered to a niece in Perth.


Now I'm heading out to my studio - TO DO SOME SEWING, sorry to yell, I haven't sat down at my machine to just sew for ME for a couple of months, it's all been samples for classes or projects squeezed in between working at the shows

Great weekend

Have had a busy but very enjoyable weekend, Saturday was our monthly face to face get together of the local gals from our Internet group, we have a new baby in our ranks and it was lovely to see the hand full of other littlies happily playing together, we had 2 lots of mother, daughter, granddaughters there for the afternoon, the next generation of quilters continue.
Yesterday (Sunday) saw Mackenzie (15yo son) and I drive up to Sydney to see a friends show at the Sydney Opera House, if you get the chance go and see Frank Woodley in "Possessed" it is very very funny, the show is travelling around Australia and they head overseas next month, try and catch it if you can.

I have been very prolific over the past few months with sculpture pieces at art school, here is a series that I've been working on, can you work out what they are?



It's amazing what can be done with offcuts of old wood from a local foot bridge and a bucket full of old window catches.
Called in for a cuppa with a friend on the way to Sydney yesterday and it is council cleanup time in her area and it took me ages driving down her street checking out all of the rubbish piles - I just love working with roadside cleanup stuff........

Perth roundup

well I'm back in the land of blogging, have been hassled by a few friends that they haven't had their morning read, especially Robyn, so I'm back........

my life has been a tad hectic over the past few months and somethings had to give and unfortunately my blog was one of them.

Last month I flew over to Perth for our SCQuilters (Southern Cross Quilters online group) retreat, held annually in a different part of Australia each year, so this year I was lucky enough for it to be in my home town so I was able to catch up with family and friends at the same time and stayed on to work at The Quilt and Craft Show the following week.
Below is an assortment of photos from the trip.

how much coffee can a little frog drink........Gladys couldn't help but pose

this is the only photo I took at the retreat, this was one table Sunday afternoon with a "Coffee Stonehenge" as their centrepiece.

now who's table was this I wonder????????

I took a few of the retreatees, Wendy, Mary-anne & Sally to The Thread Studio - it is an Aladdin's cave of STUFF - we wanted it all......
Wendy had to ring a friend to share the experience and you can see Mary-anne in the background with her arms overflowing

when in Perth I have to go to my favorite beach Cottesloe, I sat there for about an hour watching the waves and inhaling the wonderful ocean smell, just thinking about it I can recall the smell mmmmmmmmmm wish I was there now
this is the famous Cottesloe Tea Rooms

my poor foot had an augment with the car door one night, slight hill, door to quick and my foot not quick enough - ouch

Today's round up

I am at the end of a very busy day, here's a readers digest version.

I'm participating in a scarf swap on a felter's list that I'm on, this is my needle felted scarf that I packed up and posted off today, wonder what fab piece I'll get back.

I put the finishing touches to this piece titled "Ocean Rocks" to be entered into Thirroul's Seaside Art and Craft show miniature section 10x10x10cm.
They are 3 beaded silk paper pieces over Timtex mounted on a painted canvas.

Over the past week or so I've been finishing off a quilt project for a magazine, of course I can't show you the finished quilt but I can show you the fabrics, yesterday was spent writing the instructions, this morning I was making samples to acompany the instruction.

I also manged to get 2 loads of towels on the line whilst doing this and make a sand bag to rest my lump of soapstone on for carving in class.
Talking of towels......Mackenzie had been complaining on the weekend that there were no towels in the cupboard so I said "go into your room and find me all of the towels hiding in there - there must be at least 20 in there", he came out about 10 mins later and said "Mum, you exaggerated - there were only 17"!!!!!!!!!!!!!
one wonders what else is lurking in there............ what else have I lost lately?

So after my busy morning at home, off to school I go to play in the Sculpture studio for the afternoon, one of the great finds I had at the markets a week ago was a bag full of old window catches, this is what I did with them today.


After class I hot footed it up to Thirroul to drop of my little piece then finally home to a good cup of tea........

Scatterdays X

I'm getting in early this week with my Scatterdays, this weeks letter is "X" but no categories jut 3 photos starting with X, be warned with last photo if a bit sqeamish....

this for me was real easy as last Sunday when I went to our local Trash 'n Treasure market I picked up a 1964 wooden Fisher Price Xylophone which no doubt will find it's way into a sculpture somewhere down the track,
I'm looking for any old kids wooden blocks, domino's or wooden game pieces of any sort, any one got any lurking in the shed?


I'm lucky enough to have a niece called Xandri, she is married to my only nephew Gerry and here I am with Xandri and their little boy Liam when I caught up with them in Melbourne before the SCQ'ers Bendigo retreat last year, isn't he cute.

Do I win with this one ------- Xray of my new hips

Scatterdays N

Life gets way to complicated sometimes, MIL is still in hospital but on the mend and then my mother goes and has a fall and has broken her wrist and hip, she has had surgery and is also on the mend thought a little slower than Tim's mum.

Our computer hasn't been happy with very intermittent coverage since the thunderstorm a few weeks ago but we finally now have a new wireless router installed that Mackenzie (15) got organised for us yesterday, so here is this weeks Scatterdays, better late than never.....

This weeks letter is "N" and the categories are, Little Things, Human and Mineral.
So I hijacked Mackenzies Nerds before they quickly disappeared.

Here is the "Human" Nana Noeline last xmas (MIL)

Now for Mineral we need to do a little searching, in there somewhere in the Multi Vitamins is a mineral starting with N, trust me it's there