HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY, zoom & GREEN sewing for Betty

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY

last night Chooky held a zoom session and continued today, AUSTRALIA DAY.

https://chookyblue.blogspot.com/

It was so hot here today so it was best spent inside and under the air conditioner.

I think we got to 45 degrees Celsius, 113 Fahrenheit.

Tomorrow is supposed to be 48 Celsius, 118.4 Fahrenheit.

I finished the day working on my Bonnie Hunter mystery, Lupine and Laughter, border.

I started Sunday night and continued on Monday with my sewing for Betty @ https://rainbowconnectionquilters.blogspot.com/ for her charity rainbow row quilts. I decided to jump ahead and do a green row of terry Roland blocks. These measure 4.9” finished.

And here they are all joined together in a row.

Now, on the blogger, google and apple (iPad & phones) front for doing posts and adding photos. What a nightmare. I have spent hours trying different things. Signing in and out, a different log in, emailing to blog and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. So if you see a photo know that I have been pulling my hair out.

So cheers to everyone for a great AUSTRALIA DAY.

 

A great time sewing on zoom

 Friday afternoon a message came through there would be a Chooky zoom for FNSI.

Yes, I am home and haven’t done any quilt sewing for months. I’m joining in.

I pulled out this project. I had already paired them up and drawn on the diagonal lines to sew on.

Now to sew two lines on each one.

All sewn together.

That was it for Friday night. It all started again early Saturday morning. I was a bit later.

Now give them an iron and start to cut down the centre.

All cut down the middle.

And ironed open nice and flat.

Trimming down to 8.5”

Putting them in their piles so I can work out a pattern. I do not even know how many blocks I have. I just cut as many as I could from the fabric I had.

All the trimmings are building up.

Thanks Chooky and all the other girls for making my day a great one. It was so good to have the chatter all while managing to do some sewing.

Join Chooky on her Zoom Cancer fundraiser

 Everyone knows someone with cancer or has/had it themselves. Why not sew along with friends and join Chooky on Saturday 26th October to fundraiser for Cancer. 

https://chookyblue.blogspot.com/2024/10/zoom-cancer-fundraiser.html

A quick post

 It was great to see the email come through from Chooky for an evening zoom for the Scrub Stitchin gals.

I had a newly quilted quilt sitting ready for hand sewing the binding down. I got my washing on, leftover dinner reheated and the heater on. On to zoom to stitch and chat away. It was a small group but great conversation. I got 2 sides sewn down.

Chooky has a new logo for the zoom girls called CHOOKSHED STITCHERS. here

It was also FNSI with Wendy. I have linked up here

Happy Birthday Chooky - ZOOM - RSC 2022 - TABLE SCRAPS 2022

 What a weekend I have had so far. I have not done much sewing since being unwell but Friday that changed. I was in the mood to sew. Hubby was away for the night. So I cleaned off the kitchen table to use as my cutting surface, put on the QUILTED HUG tutorial on YouTube on the main tv and away I go.

A couple of years back I took a tub of all my scrap green fabrics to retreat, used the go cutter and cut them all into 2.5” strips. They were all different lengths but I had so many. Now they are finally getting used.

This quilted hug project you need 33 full of strips. I’m sure I had plenty and I wanted to make 2 Hugs. I went ahead and sewed all the strips end to end until they were all joined. When I measured I had more than 66 metres of length. Plenty enough.

I cut my polar fleece to rough size and started to sew my strips along the selvedge edge. This is different to how the tutorial says. They say to sew all the strips together to make a top then layer and quilt it to the fleece. Of course I changed things. Sewing straight on to the fleece, quilt as you go style, saves a lot of time because you are only sewing the seams once and not having to go back and quilt them.

As I said earlier hubby was away. I enjoyed sewing away with myself and I kept sewing. Looking at the clock it was now 2am but I was nearly done sewing the strips on. I kept sewing until I finished covering the fleece. I went to bed at 3am. 

Next morning I got up and joined Chooky’s 10th birthday on zoom. CHOOKYBLUE

I continued with my HUG. I made the pockets and attached them. Now the binding gets done. I made the first hug with machine sewing the binding on but my machine didn’t like this as I had many skipped stitches. I changed the needle a few times and it still skipped. 

First HUG nearly completed. This one just needs the closure tab.

On to the second HUG. This one I machined the binding on to the front.

Don’t you just hate sewing on a binding and you come to a corner and there is a join in the binding at the same point. So frustrating. I was not going to unpick and redo.

I spent the rest of my Saturday, still on zoom, to hand stitch the binding on the inside. Much happier now. Zoom finished about 10.30 pm and I continued to complete the hand stitched binding.

I am very happy with my finishes. One is for charity and one is for my mother in laws 90th birthday in June.

I am linking up with Angela and Soscrappy Saturday and RSC 2022 where the month of May was to sew with your green scraps.

And linking up with Joy and The Joyful Quilter and her Table Scraps Challenge. This year we do not have to stitch something  made for the table just anything small. So long as it uses scraps and the colour of the month for RSC 2022.

Now to spend my Sunday quilting a quilt for Aussie Heroes.   See next post.

 

Zoom, a special visit and baking

 I was out to dinner with my daughter and Chooky called an impulse zoom. I could join in when I got home to see her finish another binding. Progress is great. So fun to chat.

I got a call from  Janice  and she was camped nearby. So we agreed for her and Mick to share morning tea with us the following day. Well I know they love baking and eating cakes. So off into the kitchen straight away. I decided to make an apple and walnut cake. I had everything for it except my usual cake tin. Who knows where that went. So it was made a bit thinner into a small casserole dish. It still cooked ok.

Janice bought along her slice and we swapped recipes. 

We chatted away. I showed off my messy sewing rooms. The guys chatted about their toys. Bikes, campers, travel etc… so many things in common. The time went fast and we had a great time.

Then for the photo shoot. A close up with the messy back ground.

And from the other direction. Thanks Mick for your camera skills

It was wonderful having you visit and we can’t wait to meet up again and go on a bike trip with you both. 

It has been a while and I have a few things to share

Thank you to all of you who have messaged concerned with my absence.

I have been flat out at work and come home mentally exhausted. So have not been in the mood for sewing or any crafting. I sit here of an evening watching rubbish on tv. At least I don’t have to concentrate. I think there has been a build up of many things which are being worked through. So this morning I felt up to doing a post. A long one too. 

Thank you all quilting friends for caring.

Are you ready. Maybe grab a cuppa first.

Work has begun on the repair of my ceiling. It only took about a month to get it started.

Anyway it has. We now have a nicely cut square in the ceiling ready to be patched.

No more hole and Watching plaster/paint dry

It has now all dried and is back to the way it should be..

Beautiful 

The local Arts Theatre was putting on a stage show ‘MAMA MIA’. We both have been to Melbourne and seen this live too. We thought how nice it would be to go out here to support the locals. It was a fun night and of course we enjoyed a bubbly together.

A few weeks ago my friends came over for a little bit of fun for my birthday. We had a cook up play around day with my new Thermomix. It was brilliant. While this was happening there was also a Chooky Zoom day. So I kept popping in for a laugh. We had a great day.

I have spent a week away on holidays catching up with friends but more importantly we finally got to see my MIL who we haven’t seen in over 2 years. She lives in a home in Paynesville so we thought we would surprise her and that we did.

We had not booked any accommodation because we did not exactly know when we would be there. When we arrived in Bairnsdale our usual motel was booked out, so was the next one. After driving for 4 hours we just wanted a room. We pulled up at this motel and there were 3 rooms let. 2 of which were at the front on the busy highway with trucks passing all night so we splurged and got this room at the back of the motel After-all it was my birthday.

When we got back home I have a few days to rest and I finally got up the enthusiasm to clean my sewing room and actually sew something. The first time in weeks. 

We have a round robin SAL happening at our group. As I have not been in the sewing mood I did not want to commit to something large so I have decided on a small kids quilt. This cute dog stitched block had been donated to me soi thought this was a great way to use it up. We are going to have about 6 rounds total and each month one will be drawn out. All I knew is that I needed to use red, black and white. 

The first month drawn out was STARS. Our round had to have something to do with stars. They could be embroidered, stitched, pieced or appliqué. 

I had in my head what I wanted to do but had to work out how. Start sewing small star points. 

Those red squares are cut at 1”. 

My border finishes at 2” wide. Scattered stars. I am happy with the way it frames the centre blog.

Our quilt group celebrated INTERNATIONAL QUILTERS DAY with all meeting in the park and having a wonderful sit’n’sew day.

 I hope you have enjoyed my catch up and I think I might actually sew another placemat today.

It’s the end of January. Where has the month gone.

 This month has been hot. The car temperature got to 50 deg Celsius. Did I say it’s been hot. I really haven’t been in the mood for sewing, crafting, blogging or anything really. I’m not sure what is going on with blogger but I now find I cannot comment on half the blogs I follow. I go from one to the next comment then the next one won’t allow me to. So please know I am reading them but cannot leave a comment. Work has been extremely busy. So thank you Chooky for the chance to have a few short zooms.

While on Zoom I also started knitting another teabag scarf. Photos on another post to come. But for sewing I made another zippered placemat. It went together very quickly. I have started another one for a demonstration/tutorial I am doing at quilt group. 

I am using all the scraps from left over from a mystery quilt I made.

Having fun sewing them altogether.

Zip step 1

Zip step 2

The zip is in

The top is all together

I’m ready for quilting

My red table scraps don’t meet the criteria with the snowmen but they are red.

https://thejoyfulquilter.blogspot.com/2022/01/january-2022-table-scraps-challenge.html

Sewing along with Angela and my red scraps 

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2022/01/scraphappy-saturday-week-5-wrapping-up.html

And yes, you were right Deana. This new placemat will be a gift for a friends birthday soon as she really loved mine when I showed her. She also goes on a lot of picnics so it will be used a lot.

I have had the grandsons for overnight where we had pancakes and icecream for breakfast. Their dad thought I was crazy. They boys loved it. We have also celebrated the youngest grandsons 11th birthday. It was fun. Sorry . No photos of that..

I idi a little sewing job for a friend and sewed some patches on his leather jacket. I said a bottle of wine would be a nice Thank you gesture. Well, he got the message and gave me 3 dozen bottles. I think I owe him a huge thank you.

Also had a great all day sew at our quilt group. I worked some more on Bonnie Hunters RT mystery. I have not got very far. I also made an accordion purse but it is not completely finished. The girls on zoom got to see where I was up to.

My daughter has been a bit sad after hearing news of a friends decline in health. Friends have started a go fund me page as they need help to make what’s left of her life a little easier. A lovely 40 year old with a loving husband and very young son has to deal with the terrible disease, Alzheimers. I had one completed charity quilt left to donate and my daughter wanted to pass it on for comfort and later on as a memory of her. My beautiful scrappy BUTTERFLIES. So tonight I sewed on the label and it’s ready to be delivered.

Please help out if you can.                  https://gofund.me/426383ff

Look at the perfect matched label.

Well I haven’t been able to find a finished photo so must get one before it gets sent of to its new home.

If you have reached the bottom of this post… Thankyou.

I have not felt like doing a post for a while so it is all in one. If you see my side bar the last 2 years I have not been up to where I normally was. Is this due to covid.

Looking forward to February