The truck quilt is finished

 I had a lot of fun making this quilt. I used up so much of my black and white scraps.

Damien loved the quilt.

Playing with purples

 This month over at Angela’s is purple

https://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2025/07/scraphappy-saturday-now-in-purple.html

I saw this great tutorial on YouTube for a mini bucket bin. 

https://youtu.be/YKY-nZZBlr0?si=7EN2McqxdXjBdZnj

I wanted to give it a go. So I decided to use up some purple scraps.

Here is one

It was so easy and fun to make I made a second one..

This should fit a round margarine or takeaway food container.

One will be a gift for a friends birthday. Now what should I put in it.

A quilt for my son in law…..

A quilt for my son in law. It is his birthday soon and I have had this in mind for 2 years. It’s about time I got it done. So I pulled out the panel I had bought and showed it to my friend. A light bulb went off and I thought of how I could finish it. I was so happy that I drew up a design and pulled out my black and white fabric scraps.

Corner blocks have started

The blocks and road is growing.

Do I add the side borders to resemble the white lines on the sides as of the road.

I decided not to do the extra borders on the sides as the quilt was big enough. 

All the sewing on the top was done and I won bobbin chicken

The brightness in the sun light

The colours show differently in the shade

It was a lovely day outside this afternoon. The sun was out, no wind and very comfortable temperature. Great time to baste a quilt in the fresh air.

Another special Happy birthday to my friend Christine.

 Christine is celebrating her birthday on a special holiday with her family so I had a lovely phone call with her.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRISTINE.

Her gift has to wait to be sent so she is home when it arrives.

I have been knitting with teabag strings and finished her scarf.

It measures 2 metres long. It weighs 38grams. And used approximately 3,230 teabag strings.

Of course it depends on the size of the strings. Some are longer than others. This was calculated on 85 strings per gram. I used 4.5mm needles and 40 sts. Then just knit until it reaches about 2 metres long.

Look how lovely it looks.

It is lovely and washed up so soft too.

Time to wrap it up and get it in the post.

A special happy birthday for Colleen

 Another friend of mine celebrated a special birthday.

We had a surprise lunch for her at our local pub.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COLLEEN

The tables were beautifully set without going overboard.

As I am a bit taller than her I thought I would sit down.

Can you tell she likes purple.

Friends from the Sunraysia Patchwork Friends (SPF)

And I gave her my Sashiko cloth I have been stitching.

She loved it.

Edited: A visit to Bordertown to celebrate Judi’s birthday. Yes a special one.

 Oops. I had the wrong time scheduled.

Photos are now attached.

On our trip to Bordertown we stopped at the wonderful painted silos at Lascelles.

A fun photo while driving to send to my daughter who was doing the same but in the other direction.

Our lunch stop in Warracknabeal

Friday night zoom with the CHOOKSHED stitchers

A gift from Chooky to Judy. The flowers name is MANY HAPPY RETURNS.

I thought it was very appropriate for such a special birthday.

All wrapped beautifully to gift.

After another Saturday morning zoomwith Chooky we headed off to the Mundulla Hotel for a birthday lunch celebration with Judy’s family and friends.

Barry giving a speech

Judy doing the cake thing

I also caught up with Alison from Canterbury Quilts Store, Eaglehawk

Alison had her beautiful shop in Eaglehawk for many years but is now only an online shop and quilting service.

Happy Birthday Judah. It was a great day and thanks so much for inviting us.

Hope there are many more to come

Happy 13th birthday Xavier.

 We have celebrated Xavier’s 13th birthday 

having fun at ten pin bowling.

Lucky me won the first game and 2nd the next.

But I am so sore the next day.

My birthday & anniversary gifts

 My daughter gave us a beautiful clock for our anniversary. This is now on the wall.

Then I got a lovely macrame hanger made by her friend with a lovely cactus plant garden for my birthday. We had a special place for this as the hook was already in the main bathroom.

Next up, I am in a fat 1/4 swap with my quilt group. My choice was white tone on tones. I have received 8 so far and they are all different.

Look at the way one was gift wrapped.

And by the same person I received a beautifully hand made stitched card.

40th Wedding Anniversary and my birthday - extremely photo heavy

 After the 2 previous weeks we were looking forward to a few days away together. We had looked forward to this trip for nearly one year. Yes, that’s how long it was booked for.

We set out early as it was a 6 hour drive to Canberra from my brothers. I know some of you won’t believe it but I did see the sun rise.

3 nights away to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary and my birthday. We were drained when we got there but it was worth it.

As this was our anniversary our daughter arranged for there to be a bottle of Moët chilled in the room to greet us. Yummy.

Jamala had also put a little soft toy tiger on our bed as a gift.

Our first night was in a giraffe treehouse and we got to feed them.

Our 2nd night was with the lions

And the 3rd night was with the tigers. 

This was my birthday and there was another toy tiger on my bed.

The tigers from our room

The food was amazing.

Vegetarian canapés 

Big breakfast

Birthday lemon meringue

Mixed canapés

Breakfast, avo, eggs, bruschetta, mushrooms

Anniversary pavlova

Rack of lamb

Happy anniversary rich chocolate dome with berry sorbet

Steak, lobster and veg.

My pork dinner

Pasta carbonara lunch

Our table setting for lunch

Thai beef salad

Lunch time next to the hyenas

The animals were fascinating. 

The view of the giraffes from the other side of our room.

A funny monkey

Our setting at dinner

One side of the giraffe house.

The hyenas. I’m not a fan of them.

This fish was having a rest. I have never seen this before.

The white lions being fed next to the restaurant. They weren’t in there for long as they headed on to their compound.

The deer outside our room

The lioness coming up to the window of or room

The sun bear waiting for a feed

The rhino was having a scratch

These ostrich are so big.

These monkeys were so fun to watch. I have some videos but haven’t worked out how to put them into a post.

The sun bear having a rest way up high.

We even got to feed the meerkats.

I patted a rhino

A corn snake

And a blue tongue lizard. We had one as a pet when I was a kid.

There was so much to look at and we really enjoyed our time there.

Our time has come to an end and it was time to leave and head back to my brothers (6 hours). 

Then home (another 5 hours).

We arrived home and straight to bed, exhausted. 

We ended up with covid and we’re bed ridden for 11 days. 

I managed to go back to work but it was very hard. Coming home each night with no energy, not eating properly and so drained. Mentally, physically and emotionally. 

We are still having daily updates about my MIL. She is stable and on morphine. No improvement. Still a waiting game. So, needless to say, the month of February and March has been very eventful. Unfortunately, either side of our once looked forward to trip was not so good.it meant our feelings weren’t quite in the right place but we know we have celebrated a special time together.

Now to focus on healing.