Mid Month Goal review

August is flying by. Its the middle of the month already and time for me to look again at my goals for August and see how I am going with them. I am glad I made good progress early on cause to be honest I have't accomplished much this last week.

Always good to start with what I have done. I have completed 4 of them - I have caught up on the club's mystery quilt, made a bag holder for Fangirl (but left it behind on this trip so can't give it to her when I see her Wednesday. She is coming home for the weekend a few days later so I can give it to her then). I have also finished baby quilts for my friend Soley and my great nephew Damian. And I have made 3 hanging towels with crocheted hangers for Handmade With Love. That is 5 goals completed. 

I have also pinned another baby quilt - the one for Payton so that is another goals started.

I haven't quilted "My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes" and I haven't done any more work on the quilt for my great nephew who is due in 19 weeks.

This last week I have achieved a few other things though.

I was counted in the Australian census - on time and all. We did a paper census and handed it in at the caravan park where we were staying and totally avoided the debacle of the Australian online census website which went off line due to interference by hackers.

I have travelled to Sydney and caught up with my 93 year old mum (94 next month) and all 7 of my siblings and their spouses. 

I got some wonderful cuddles from a great niece and nephew with whom I have had very few chances to interact with before (I am now the balloon aunty apparently cause I helped them with their balloons at the party we were all at)

I have delivered a couple of quilts - one to my sister for her 70th birthday and another to a sister to be given to her grand daughter, my newest great niece (my mum has 23 great grand children with another due in 19 weeks)

And I can confess it here... I have caught some Pokemon and made it to level 13. (One of my sister's was totally bemused when I said I played it. She asked if many women my age played it and I said I knew a few)

I have read a couple of books and made one and a half scarves (crocheted). And I have managed to spell crocheted correctly before spell check has told me I am wrong every time in this post. I want to spell it crotcheted! I am just weird like that


completed
partially completed
not yet done

• Work on Jenni's baby quilt
• Quit Payton's baby quilt - pinned
• make bag holder 
• catch up on club's mystery quilt
• make items for HML
• finish quilt Soley's baby 
• finish Damien's baby quilt 
• Quilt My Cat Likes to Hide

Sunday Stash Report

I haven't done much sewing this week. Being away from home for all but one night doesn't help! I have bought some fabric though so its a case of going backwards!! 

I visited a little patchwork shop in Sarina and ended up buying .25m of another Betty Boop fabric and and the same of a nice red and white spot - so that's .5m all up. No photos to share as I didn't get around to taking one.

I am now in Sydney and hope to call in at another craft exchange place - so that might well be more fabric in. We shall see if I get there :)

The reason I have come down to Sydney is that my second eldest sister Joy turned 70 and we had a special celebration for her. I had made her a quilt and I gave that to her before the party and she was suitably delighted by it.

 My sister Joy and I with the quilt I made her which I called "Onya Bike"

With my sister's oldest grand daughter

With one of my great nephews

With all my siblings and their partners at my sister Joy's birthday (I'm seated on floor on left if you were wondering) Can you work out which are the siblings and which are the spouses? Hint there are 6 girls and 2 boys in my family 

Fabric used               00.00            
Fabric added                 .51
Net                             -.51

Year to Date
Fabric used               101.29
Fabric added               53.78
Net                            47.51


Linking up with Patchwork Times

WIP Woopsday

I forgot to do a WIP Wednesday yesterday so am going to dash one off to you now before I dash out the door. I am off again - this time to Sydney to catch up with my family. The occasion this time (read excuse) is my 2nd eldest sister Joy's 70th birthday celebration. How could I refuse. I have had to miss a lot of family celebrations over the years because I live almost 2 000 kms away from them. I have yet to make it to any of my nieces or nephews 21st birthday celebrations however I have made it to all their weddings (that I have been invited to) and am now making it a policy to get to all my siblings 70th's!

So I am leaving in less than an hour and will be gone for 8 days. I will spend time with my darling mum, who will be 94 next month and lives in a retirement facility and also catch up with as many of my siblings and nieces and nephews as I can as well as another dear family that are my adopted parents. When I was a student at college coming up to 40 years ago they supplied lots of love and home life to me whilst living away from home (at that stage my parents lived in the country - 600kms away)

Meantime what have I been working on this week. We were away from Friday till Wednesday so it was dependent largely on what I took with me. And I forgot the zips so my plans to make lots of bags etc evaporated.

I got the remaining letters of the Repeat wall hanging made although I still have to reprint another "e" and do it as somehow I got different sizes in my printing. I have removed all the papers and now have to sew them together but that will have to wait till I return as I won't be able to take my sewing machine with me this time!

I have done some crocheting in the car as we drove over to and back from Sarina as well as during the day that we spent in meetings. I have now completed 3 hanging kitchen towels. I must admit I much prefer the ones I make out of the hand towels and to which I add a cloth hanging part but many people like the ones with the crocheted hanging so I am making some of those for the Handmade with Love stall I have been crocheting since I was a young teen and make up my own pattern. Nothing fancy but they work.

As well as the completed towels I have crocheted a rainbow striped scarf for myself for Emmaus gatherings. I have already made Fixit Guy one so now we will have one each.

I have my crochet with me to do work in the plane and whilst visiting my family. I am going to miss my sewing machine. I should have organised myself some other handwork to do but I can always buy more wool whilst away and more tea towels if necessary.

I have heard that there is a craft exchange place in Sydney not too far from where my mum lives and I am hoping that I can make a trip to that as well as to my favourite patchwork shop in Sydney that is conveniently between the sister and stay with and my mum's. That is probably why it is my favourite one.. its the only one I can easily get to.

Hope you have had a good week and made progress with your projects.

Sorry no photos of any projects but here are some shots of where we were camping earlier in the week.. absolute beach frontage. We had walks each evening along the beach it was gorgeous

Linking up with 

Stash Report - 2 weeks worth

I didn't get my stash report done last week... not sure why  but it didn't get written. This week I am writing it from the beach and the internet speeds are pretty slow so there probably won't be any photos.

I have a few finishes. 

Firstly there were 5 table runners using the fabric I had bought at the Craft Exchange in Brisbane. They were all the same pattern but varied a little in size. They are all for Handmade With Love. Total of 4.71m

I also made a plastic bag holder as per a request from Fangirl. I am pretty sure she is going to like it. .23m

And I also finished off 2 baby quilts. One is for my great nephew Damien, born 15 weeks premature. He's 4 months old now and making good progress. He's still in hospital but growing and thriving. It features some of my mum's embroideries and its called Bessie's Bears 2. 3.57m

The second quilt is for my daughter's friend. They met when they were both exchange students in Malaysia in 2003. Soley is from Iceland. 5.09m.

I enjoyed 2 visits to a speciality quilt shop near Fangirl's home in Brisbane. It carries lots of licensed fabric and I indulged well. I ended up buying 8.53m including fabric featuring Pokemon, Starwars, Minecraft, My Little Pony, Betty Boop, Space Invaders amongst others.

So for weeks 31 and 32 

Fabric used               13.60             
Fabric added               8.53
Net                             5.07

Year to Date
Fabric used               101.29
Fabric added               53.27
Net                            48.02


Linking up with Patchwork Times

August Goals - 1 week down

Its only been one week into the month but having made some progress I am keen to check in. Isn't it always the way.

No photos sorry as the internet connection speeds isn't fast enough for me to do it.

As you can see from the side bar I had 8 goals for this month and I have completed half of them! Yes!

I have made the bag holder for Fangirl. I might make her wait till Christmas to get it ... or I might give it to her next time I see her.

I have completed the quilt for our friend Soley's baby boy. I know his name but it is still private. In Iceland the baby's name isn't made public till after their baptism. She told me the name so I could put it on his quilt label. Now I have to post it off to them.

I have also finished the quilt for my great nephew Damien who was born 15 weeks premature. He's now 4 months old. He is still in hospital but making great progress.

I have also pinned the quilt for my friend's grand daughter Payton. It's ready to be quilted. So whilst not finished I have made some progress

I have also caught up on our club's mystery quilt. Funny story - I got the first 5 units done (one per fat quarter) and couldn't find the clue for the 6th fat quarter. I was about to text my friend Lyndi to ask for the clue... and then I realised that I was up to date and the 6th unit step had yet to be revealed. LOL. 

There are 3 goals I haven't made any progress on - no items made for Handmade With Love, no progress on my niece's baby's quilt but the bub isn't due for a while yet so no rush! Also haven't made any progress on My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes. Its pinned and ready to quilt. I would have bought it with me (we are currently at the beach for a few days) but I tend to not quilt on my little Janome Gem. The throat space isn't that great. I have bought some projects to work on for HML but I won't get any finishes - just realised I left the zippers and clips behind. Ho Hum.

WIP Wednesday

This week my Twilters "Birds in the Air" block swap blocks arrived. It took a little while for them to fly back to swappers on this side of the world. Lyndi and mine arrived together

Its been so much fun seeing the designs that others in the swap have worked out.

I worked out my design and have managed to get the centre of the quilt together. Now to work out a border that will set the lovely blocks off

I've got sore fingers tonight. I pinned 3 baby quilts today at our Patchwork Group sewing day today. Usually my friend Lyndi helps me but she had her own mission today and baby quilts don't take so long. Trouble was that 2 of them had minky backings and they have to be really well pinned to stop them going wonky. I used up almost all the pins in my box. Mind you I do have another one already pinned so with 4 quilts ready to go its no wonder I have very few pins remaining!!

Tonight I got 2 of them quilted. I did very open and simple stipple. I've cut the binding but have yet to stitch it together. I would love to get them finished off this week.

Yesterday at Handmade With Love I stitched the ribbon hangers on the little mini Christmas Stockings I had finished off last week. I have left them at HWL and we will sell them at our Christmas markets at the end of the year.

I worked on finishing off the table runners over the weekend. It was good to get them all done. I dropped them off at HWL yesterday too.

Friday we are heading over to Sarina for a few days. We are taking the caravan and as well and so I will be able to sew whilst we are away. So I am prepping a few projects whilst we are away. I have my eye on making some of these bags

I've done a little preparation. Will have to make sure I have all the rest of the bits and pieces that I need. I am also.

So... its been a busy and productive week. How has your week gone?