WIP Wednesday

Its been another busy week for me working on different projects. I finished off the two quilts that I had been working on last week - Twilter Birds in the Air quilt and my niece's baby's quilt, which I wrote about in this week's Stash Report . I also worked on my Repeat quilt and got it finished off as well. 

Speaking of birds... walking in the botanical gardens Monday I saw two kookaburras that allowed me to get quite close so I could get these photos on my phone.

I have been prepping projects to take away with us next month - well in 8 days time actually. I was given some heat and bond to use and have prepped a couple of zipper purses with it... not sure how it is going to go but I got the stuff ironed on without wrecking my iron, ironing board of the fabric so that is a plus. I have never worked with it before.

Yesterday I worked on a Christmas stocking for my great niece and then today I worked on a 2nd one. My sister asked me to make it for her new granddaughter.  She has stockings for all her immediate family at her place each year and she usually buys commercial ones but decided to ask me to make one for her newest grandchild, with the money to go to Handmade With Love. My biggest hassle is going to be the embroidered name. She wants it done in the same style as the other stockings and I am not sure I can manage that. I was going to get a friend to do it on her embroidery machine but both my friends who have such machines are now away and don't get back till after I go away... so maybe I will have to get it done commercially. I have the front of the two stockings completed now, apart from the name. The backs will be plain. I've made 2 so the baby can have one at home as well.

I saw a gorgeous string block quilt on a blog on my wanderings through blogland last week. It was made to one of Bonnie Hunter's patterns. I fell in love with it and have decided to make it. 

I have cut the 48 bases for the string piecing and will take it away with me to work on. I am not sure who or what it is going to be for but I love it. I have 2 containers with strips already cut that I can use.

There is another project that came up on my Pinterest feed that has also got me excited. It uses doilies hankies. There was no indication as to whose work it was and there was no pattern but it seems simple enough. 

I have a container of doilies and embroideries that I have inherited from a variety of sources including my mum, mother in law and aunty. It will be great to put them to use.  

Today at Patchwork I started to cut up the doilies. I went through the box and sorted out all the ones that were stained or torn or were mass produced ones. I feel easier about cutting up the damaged ones. Not real sure about cutting up the ones that are still "good" even though I have no use for them. (I already have a pile upstairs that are in use)  I trimmed them - to 6.5" square where possible but smaller if necessary. These ones I will mount on some backing fabric to make them big enough.

I like the scrappy sashings in the picture. Once I lay the cut pieces on the design board I will decide on what colours I will use for the sashing and the cornerstones. I do like the scrappy look but will want to keep them to a "family" of colours.

Neither of these projects were on my goals list for this month... but guess that is okay as I have basically accomplished all the goals already.

I am going to have to concentrate this coming week on prepping of projects to take away and tidying up my sewing room. We leave next Thursday for 4.5 weeks. Its going to be fabulous. I won't have electricity to the van the whole time (we plan on free camping a good bit) but when we do I shall be sewing up a storm I know. I had better make sure I have some hand projects to do as well. However my husband knows that I am going to have to have regular access to my sewing machine to keep me happy and sane.

What have you been sewing this week.

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.