Now its February

Eek February. So much for my goal of getting back to blogging regularly. Life continues to be busy but once upon a time I had 4 kids at home, was working as a supply teacher regularly and my husband was working long hours so not at home to help out as much. Now we are retired empty nesters and some days I am still so busy. Well too busy to blog it seems.

I had a quick trip to Brisbane and Sydney at the end of January to see family. My sister Joy has MND (Motor Neurone Disease) and I am getting in as many visits to her as I can. My mum is also 95 so frequent visits to her are also essential. Joy has been been a patchworker longer than I. She is still sewing. She makes simple quilts that are given to refugees through Sydney's House of Welcome. Because of her detirorating health she can no longer get down on the floor to pin her quilts (and she doesn't have a table) so each time I visit her I pin the quilts that she has ready. She then quilts them and now she has friends from a quilting group who are helping her bind them. Over the visits I made in September, November and January I together with my my trusty minion (I had a different one each time) pinned a total of 22 quilts. Here's a photo of me pinning quilts with my latest minions, My definitely non crafty oldest sister Beth and Joy's daughter Jude

Joy in the background, Beth and I on the ground pinning! Notice how we were all so colour co-ordinated. The 3 sisters all in blue, pinning a blue quilt and even a blue quilt on the couch (that one I made my bil for his 70th birthday)

My niece and I pinning. No quite so colour co-ordinated this time but Jude and I matched up in our black. Joy also was wearing a black and white top.

I have taken over as co-ordinator of the Handmade With Love group but so far that has just entailed taking possession of all the stock for sale and getting the forms to change the bank signatories. Not a whole heap. I have started to take photographs of the stock to put onto the Etsy shop. That is going to be a long process. I have to represent the group to the monthly meetings of the Our Rainbow House and present a report. We are also on Facebook if you want to look us up and follow us there Our Rainbow House Handmade With Love.


Speaking of the Etsy shop have you popped in to check out what we have there? www.HandmadeWithLoveORH.etsy.com Please do. Even if you don't buy anything if you could favourite the shop and some items in it that would be great - it helps bump us up the algorithms and directs more traffic to our site. Sales have been steady - not huge but ticking over a bit.

Exciting news on the travel front is that I am off to Zambia in May to visit the school, "Our Rainbow House" that we support. I am going with Peggy, the former co-ordinator of Handmade With Love.

Peggy and I - off to Zambia in May

We will work together in the school with the kids and staff - maybe some sewing, some music, some teaching, - not exactly sure what we are going to do... probably all of the above and a whole lot more. I am not sure how much in the way of photographs I am going to be able to put on the blog, especially of the children themselves, as the charity is very strict about privacy to protect the children but I'm hopeful that I will be able to share some of the experience with you.

We are also off to Fiji in July for a wedding so that is going to be exciting too.

The latest project I have been working on for Handmade With Love have been produce bags, to use in the fruit and vegie section of the supermarket. Our state (Queensland) is banning single use plastic bags at the point of sale later this year and it is promting awareness of the use of plastics. A tv show "War on Waste" has also been instrumental in raising awareness of ... well waste.  Anyway I made a set of 6 bags and a little pouch to put them in. I put a photo of them on Facebook and asked my friends if they would be interested in buying them at 6 of $10.

 In 5 days I had orders for 35 sets!! I sewed madly for the next week.

Initially I used up some lace curtaining and netting which I had on hand and then I went to the local second hand shops and purchased a couple more curtains and a bag of netting scraps. I made 24 sets from those. I  bought some more netting from Spotlight and made the rest of the bags I needed. I had hoped to have some left over to put on Etsy but as I sewed and posted updates on my progress I kept getting more orders and thus all 36 sets I made were ordered. 

The price is going to go up after this as in order to have a consistent product on Etsy I will be using new fabric. From now on they will be $15. I don't mind that my friends got a bargain. Many of them have been very generous supporters of the charity over the years. Its been a crazy few weeks. 

To be honest the reason I took the photos was to put on this blog. I had started writing this post and mentioned the bags and thought I should photograph them... once they were photographed I decided to share them on Instagram and then shared it to Facebook as well. Things got so crazy so quickly I didn't get back to finishing this blog.... and then I had to rewrite a heap. Talk about crazy.

If you are interested in buying some produce bags you can drop me a line... or wait till I get them up on Etsy and order that way. I'll let you know when we actually go live with them. (if I ever get through my back orders)

And Sew to travel

Our recent overseas trip was just over 6 weeks in duration. I didn't have time to organise myself a hand sewing project to travel with. The time leading up to our departure was taken up with sewing items and getting organised for my stall at Comic Con which was immediately after our return. I'd posted a status on my FB page stating the number of projects I had completed and was promptly bombarded with requests to see the items. I was delighted to oblige although it necessitated the photographing of all the items and loading them up on facebook. That was followed by a flurry of orders from my friends (and their friends) for various things which I then had to package up and send off all over the country.

That's a long story to say..... no hand projects. I was content though. I had a project to do on my computer - (well my husband's computer since I didn't take mine) - sorting and labelling a bunch of photos that I had scanned from my mother's negatives. That would entertain me sufficiently I felt on the long flights we were undertaking. 

So I had resigned myself to 7 weeks of not sewing at all. 

However - that was not QUITE the way it turned out. Our first stopover on our trip was with our Japanese host son Sho and his wife Yuri (and our beautiful host granddaughter Suzu). 

In the corner of their living room I saw a treadle sewing machine. 

Yuri's treadle machine. It was a Janome. I have never seen a treadle Janome before. Usually the machine was  kept packed away because of their 2 cats whom they felt might damage it.

Yuri had bought it second hand because it was such a beautiful piece of furniture. She had sewn a couple of things but during our stay asked me to help her sew something for Suzu. A dress perhaps she suggested. Now I am not much of a garment sewer and wasn't sure that we would be able to manage it in the time we had available but was game to have a go. However Yuri saw the photos of bandana bibs that I had made for stalls and we decided to have a go at those. 

I love those bandana bibs. They are simple and affective and quick to sew. In about half and hour we managed to print the pattern, cut out the fabric and sew them up. 

Yuri did the machine sewing and the ironing and I did the hand stitching - sewing on the press studs and sewing closed the opening left to reverse the bibs. 

It was perfect and so much fun to sew with her. The memory still makes my heart sing.

And of course the model was extra beautiful!

A few weeks later we were in Norway, visiting the home of our host son J and his brand new wife (we had attended the wedding just days before) M had a sewing machine but it wasn't sewing properly. She had hand sewn her wedding gift (called a Morning Gift in Norway) for J as her machine wasn't working. 

J is wearing the apron that M had hand sewn for him as a Morning Gift.

 Fixit Guy had a look at the machine.

 It was all siezed up. A trip into the city to buy machine oil and he had it running again. I then had to take over. It wasn't sewing properly but after I found that the machine needle was in backwards all was good. 

It had gotten too late to do any sewing by the time we had the machine operating properly but since our return home I have been sent a photo of M using the machine and the message that it is working beautifully.

Back again

Hello! And I am back! Its been a while hasn't it! Since I last wrote we have been overseas for 6 weeks. I had planned to write whilst away but I didn't take my computer with me and decided it was too hard to write on my ipad (which I took with me specifically to write blog posts) so that was pretty slack of me but I am in truth rather unapologetic.

We had a brilliant time overseas. I outlined our travel plans in a previous blog post here and I can now tell you that our plans worked out perfectly and we had an absolute blast. We got to meet our Japanese host son's wife for the first time and also our beautiful granddaughter. 

Our barge boat cruise in the Czech Republic was so much fun. We made some good friends and really enjoyed the daily cycling. I managed all the rides without any problems.. well I did walk up a couple of hills but so did a lot of people. Mostly the ride was alongside the river and was pretty flat so easy riding. I did pike on 2 rides. One was on our rest day. 

There was an optional 50km ride (25km out and back) but I took the opportunity to explore the town of Litomerice that we were moored beside. Fixit Guy rode it. We had done a 10km ride in the morning, into and around a nearby town of Terezin, so I wasn't completely slack. The other ride I didn't do was the last ride back into Prague. It was raining and forcast to rain more. I chose to stay on the boat but Fixit Guy and one of our new friends braved it. They got thoroughly soaked so I felt justified in not riding.

We had a lovely time in Germany with our host daughter from 2006 and her family and then had a weekend in Amsterdam en route to Norway. 

The reason for our trip was to attend the wedding in Norway of our host son from 2005 and that was a wonderful experience. We spent a week with him and his family and fully immersed ourselves in the whole event which was just wonderful.

The final leg of our trip was 12 days in the UK, mostly spent exploring Scotland. We were able to catch up with some of FG's extended family ( An aunt and cousins on his dad's side). 

Whilst we were in Scotland we got the news that our Japanese grandson was born. I couldn't resist this treasure from the Edinburgh Castle gift shop

After almost 7 weeks of travelling we arrived back in Australia. Tired but thoroughly delighted by our wonderful time. I have lots more photos and experiences to share but for now.. this will have to do it.

WIP Wednesday

I haven't posted in WIP Wednesday for almost a month. I have been travelling and not sewing or crafting too much plus this blasted fatigue has been hanging around for a bit too which is sapping my energy and making me disinclined to actually do much.

However the news I got yesterday has revived a little - or at least inspired me to push through the exhaustion on a crafting front at least. 

In 2004 we hosted a lovely young man from Japan for 11 months through the exchange program AFS. Sho became our son and called us Mum and Dad and we loved him dearly. 

Taken in December 2004 shortly before his departure. I think Doug and Sho are the ones who have changed the least.

He has visited us once here in Australia with his parents and siblings and we have travelled to Japan to see him and his family twice in the intervening 12 years. Last year he was married. We didn't attend the wedding but did enjoy the photos we saw of the event. 

Yesterday we got a letter from him containing some photos, not only of their wedding but of their daughter who was born in June. 

The baby is absolutely gorgeous and is our first grandchild - not by blood but by love. He mentioned in the letter he wrote he was worried about seeing us again because not only has he forgotten much of the English he learned but also because he was worried we would have changed. I think the biggest reason he has to fear seeing me again is that he didn't tell me about his baby till she was 2 months old!

So of course I now need to make a special quilt for this darling little girl. But before I start it I need to complete several of the projects that I have piled up waiting my attention. 

Yesterday afternoon I sat down at my machine and quilted a baby quilt that I had pinned waiting for my attention for several weeks. I got the label and binding done and dropped it off to the recipient this morning. 

She was asleep but her mum and brother were on the spot and the big brother was very taken by it. It was great to have a finish again. Its been a few weeks since I had completed anything

And then this afternoon I put "My Cat Likes to Hide In Boxes" under the needle. Not sure how I am going to quilt it but for the moment I am stitching down the middle of the sashing and will have a look and a think when that part is done.

Apart from finishing off that project the only other craft work I have done since I last updated my WIPs has been crocheting. I have completed 9 hanging kitchen towels for Handmade With Love. It might have been more than that... I lost count. I prefer the long hand towel ones but they are too big for many people (and just not what they are used to) and so the ones made from tea towels cut in half are much better sellers. 

The first ones I completed were tea towels supplied to me. They were a bit thin for my liking although at least they were white backgrounds. 

The last four were made from hand towels I bought and cut in half. So they are the size people like but the material is thicker and more absorbent and NOT flowers on a white background. Those ones get so discoloured so quickly. I have already sold them... to my sister who had told me that they were the only things she was likely to buy from a handcraft stall. So I made them and she bought them. Well done me (and Beth). I posted the 4 off to Beth and gave the others to our stall co-ordinator before photographing them.

The other little finish I have had is a size 2 top for Handmade With Love. Some one had made the leggings and we decided that a top with it would make it more saleable. I haven't sewn clothes for a long time and not ones from a non-stretch fabric since high school. My friend Lindi helped me cut it out and I managed to get it together. Its not perfect but hopefully the cute factor will persuade someone to buy it.

Hope your week is being productive too. Let me know what you have been doing or link up on Esther's  blog too

Linking up with  

Wip Wednesday

I have been working on Square in a Square variation for the quilt that I call My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes. My kids had a much loved book by this name and its so true of cats. The fabric in the quilt features cats... its a panel and co-coordinating yardage. I'm sorry I can't tell you the name of the panel or line as I bought it a few years ago and don't have the selvedge here with me to read (I prepped it all at home before we left on our holiday.)

I had the panel cut up, the yardage cut up as well as all the pieces for the block, the sashing strips and corner stones all prepped and ready to go in little bags in a plastic clip top carry box. 

The panel had 8 different cat pictures about 10" square and I fussy cut the yardage which featured the same cats scattered about to be the centre square. I based it on a pattern from Quilters Cache called Square within Squares 2  but I varied it a bit.

I have the centre of the quilt complete. It consists of the panels cats cut up into individual pictures and 17 of the square within squares blocks done in a scrappy design. I sashed between the blocks in brown with corner stones of different colours used in the blocks. 

I got that together last night and today I have been making piano key borders from the same fabrics used in the blocks. I am not sure if I have made enough.... tempted to measure it tonight but it is getting pretty late so I have stopped. I didn't have the strips precut as I wasn't sure what I was going to do for a border. In fact I think I bought the left over yardage (well fat quarters and yardage) to go into the backing. Whatever I have been trimming strips as I got. I cut a whole heap and sewed them together (matching strips of similar length) and then pressed the sewn strips and cut them into 6.5" pieces which I sewed together. I couldn't work out why it wasn't going together faster ie the 4 strips for the sides wasn't growing as fast as they usually do ... then I realised. Usually I make 5" piano key borders and this time I opted for 6.5". Doh

I am continuing to enjoy sewing in the caravan. We have had some lovely days exploring the countryside we have driven through and I have a long blog post about our travels that I haven't finished off yet to post... still wanting to add some more photos but will try to get that up tomorrow.

Today we have been in Forbes, an historic goldrush town. We have done a little exploring but mostly we have been catching up with my lovely nephew who lives here and his wife and gorgeous daughters. Today (Great) Aunty Pip has bounced on the giant pillow thingy, 

climbed a play gym and gone down a slippery dip, 

played with Barbies, my Little Ponies, 

read a story to someone sitting on the toilet (!!!) and had lots of delightful conversations with a bright and bubbly four year old and had some snuggles with a little 8 month old bub.

Tomorrow we head for Orange and another house full of cute great nieces and nephews. Travelling is fun!!!

Sunday Stash Report - catch up

I haven't done a stash report for awhile. Being away has done that to me... 

I have bought some fabric. Yes I have to confess that BUT I have stuck to my aim to only by fabric for specific purposes. Whilst in Mackay and Townsville I visited Spotlight and succumbed to some lovely fabric which I planned to make bibs for Handmade Love. These fabrics have featured in all the bandana bibs I have made over the last couple of weeks. I do still have some of the fabric left but most of it got used up including the metre (or was it 1.5m...I forget) for binding. Its all basically gone so it doesn't really matter. I got 2 fat quarters of funky Michael Miller Christmas print and 3 co-ordinating spots for the bibs. I got .3m of 2 other funky Christmas fabrics for bibs as well. Its all just about gone. I have bits and pieces of each fabric left. I could make a couple more bibs but not sure that we need more for the stalls. Thinking I should try some pot mitts or towel hangers.



I have acquired some more fabric from my mother in laws linen press. Sigh. If I am honest and count it all it is going to blow my stash numbers out of the water.

My MIL's cousin Ruth was about 10 years older than her. She  never married and was always very fond of her little cousin Nancy and family. Ruth had a heart of gold and was always very generous but... well her gifts whilst well meant weren't always as useful as she would have liked them to be.

Cousin Ruth in the 1950s - in her 30s

At some point she acquired some bolts of fabric - rather thick heavy cotton (like a heavy homespun) that she decided was ideal for sheets. She proceeded to make several flat sheets for the family. Trouble was... the fabric was of course not wide enough so had to be seamed down the middle and some of them she patched together to make long enough. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to sleep with a seam under you... or over you for that matter. So these sheets, made from quite good quality heavy cotton, were largely unused because they were uncomfortable (another time she did a stretch knit course and learned how to make men's undies. She promptly sewed a heap for my brothers in law (Fixit Guy had left home by this stage) but being economical she used every skerrick of fabric and this meant that many of them had seams down the back of the undies. Again... not comfortable. I think the young teenaged boys that my BILs were at this stage weren't keen on them at all so I don't' think they got very used at all. Ruth and my Mother in Law were always very close although they were 11 years apart in age. Ruth died towards the end of 2005 and my mother in law died just a few months later in February 2006.


Ruth was very practical and no nonsense - bit rough and ready but loving and generous so the family never told her that her gifts weren't always appreciated. The sheets were still in the linen press till I liberated them this trip. They should come in handy for backing of quilts at some stage. But it is hard to count them into my stash when I don't have a use by date on them.... Just tallied it up 4 sheets and some curtain fabric... just over 14m of fabric. Oh that hurts.

Then when I got home I found a Massdrop parcel had arrived with my fat quarter bundle. Neko by Hyakka Ryoran. Isn't it gorgeous. 

 
There were 20 fat quarters in the drop which was 5 yards or 4.7m I do have a project in mind for this lovely fabric so we will see how we go.

I have already told you in other recent posts that I made

16 bandana bibs and 12 baby bibs (4x10" long and 8 x8"long)
  
I also made 2 hanging towels for my sister in law. I found the new hand towels in my mother in laws linen press (despite the fact that she died 10 years ago, much of her house on the property is as it was when she was there including the linen press. I raided it this trip for a few bits and pieces myself and found these hand towels. My SIL uses them. Like me she likes a thick full towel rather than the little half towels made out of tea towel. They were green and I happened to have some green with me... the spotty stuff I had used for binding as well as some darker green check. She seemed very happy with them... no photos of course.

So the stats for the last few weeks 

Weeks 39- 44
              Fabric Used                  3.01
              Fabric Added              18.90

Year To Date
              Fabric Used               138.29
              Fabric Added               76.70

Net Used/Added                         61.59 used

Linking up with Judy at Patchwork Times

Summary of our holiday

Fixit Guy and I were away for 18 days. It was somewhat shorter than the 5 weeks we had originally planned a few months ago but things happened that crimped bits of the beginning and the end and then we had something very special in the middle... so instead of going all the way up to Lawn Hills and getting in lots of camping and kayaking ... well we didn't do any camping or kayaking at all. In fact we ditched the camper trailer a few weeks ago and then on the morning of the day we were leaving we ditched the kayak as well.

We headed for Mackay for the first weekend where Fixit Guy attended a lay preachers workshop. I did a little bit of sewing, a little bit of shopping and a lot of catching up with 3 lovely old friends. We were all Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellors together. The 4 of us had first a coffee and then lunch together whilst we chatted and caught up with what each other had been up to over the years.

After church on Sunday FG and I headed for Townsville where we caught up with 3 more of my former ABA counselor friends for dinner (and one husband)


Monday we spent the morning doing some shopping and messages before heading up to the older of FG's 2 younger brothers. We spent a week with them at their property. FG got busy helping with life on the property as well as fixing a variety of things for them. On the property some jobs get left till they have time and when you are into your 4th year of a drought there isn't much spare time. So ... there were a good few jobs for him.

And then on his 2nd day (I think) he managed to scold his leg with boiling water whilst helping them slaughter a couple of pigs. That put a bit of a dampner on things for a few days for him but it didn't really slow him down. He was back on his feet helping where he could.

The next weekend we had our niece's 21st birthday... 80 people aged 4 months to mid 70s celebrated in style over the weekend. Most people slept over night - camping in their cars, tents or stashed all about the house, workers quarters etc.

FG and I didn't know a lot of the people there, or at least didn't know them very well but there were various family members and some old family friends that we enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with them.

The second week of our holiday we spent at the other brother's place. His wife had hurt her shoulder and so I was able to do a bit to help her - hanging out clothes and cutting up vegies etc.

Both properties like much of inland Queensland is incredibly dry. They are in the grip of a 4 year drought. There is no grass left on the place and they are feeding the cattle salt lick, molasses and cotton seed to keep them alive. In the week we were there 6 cattle died as a result of the drought.

I helped out in the house where I could, cooking a few meals, making biscuits and cakes for smokos (morning and afternoon tea) and I spent a day doing the mending.

We were really hopeful when we saw some storm building up but unfortunately they went around us.

Because the property is so isolated our nieces and nephews did school by correspondence till high school and then went to boarding school in Charters Towers (as did my husband and his brothers although they went to boarding school for a couple of years of primary school as well) The kids are weekly boarders coming home on the weekends. There is a bus that brings them to the turnoff from the highway, an hour from the house Each Friday my sister in law drives to the turnoff to pick up our niece K (in year 11) and nephew A (year 9) and they have the weekend at home. Then Monday morning she drives them back to the turnoff where they catch the bus back to town at 7AM.

It was great to have the kids home and be able to spend a bit of time with them. We had seen A at the party the weekend before but K hadn't come to the party as she had prior engagement. 

We came home Tuesday this week getting in rather late. It wasn't really a holiday that we had but it was great to have the time with family and to be able to help out. It was also a change from home and our commitments here.

Now we are back and into the swing of everything already. The dog and cat were glad to have us back, although they had been well cared for in our absence.