WIP Wednesday

This week I have been involved in the meetings of the Queensland Synod of the Uniting Church. I am a representative. The sessions have run from 8.30AM till 8.30PM Saturday, Monday and Tuesday. Sunday we finished at 6 and Wednesday we finish at 3 so its been pretty full on. Of course we have plenty of breaks for meals and morning and afternoon tea but even so... full on. 

Teashop Quilt

I have been able to do a lot of handwork and have made great progress on appliques for my Tea Shop Quilt. I have completed the two larger blocks that I had prepped and quite a few smaller ones too.





I am glad that I bought the patterns, extra fabric and vlisofix with me so I can make some more blocks as I am getting through these at a great pace. I might end up with enough for a couple of wall hangings. 

Jean's Jean Quilt
I have been making steady progress on my denim circles quilt. I heard it described as a mock cathedral window somewhere and that works too. I had a big day earlier in the week (well the week since I last wrote my WIP) Thursday I think it was... or maybe Friday. I got all the circles that I had cut out and marked with the 5" square internally, sewn together into either 4 unit blocks (56 of them) or 2 unit blocks (15 of them) plus a single. Actually I have more than that because I had made more than I needed for this quilt. We shall see how this goes. I might make the quilt larger or make something else. I also got them pressed which was good... pressed the leaves of the circles open which made it easier to add the coloured fabrics. I have also completed 22 blocks completely ie with the fabric added and zigzagged around. I have made the effort each morning before heading out to the day's meetings to sew some of these units. Its been great. As I say I have 22 done and have also pinned about another 8 ready for me to sit down at and zig zag around. I am really loving the look of the zigzag coming through on the back. The flower effect on the front is being echoed on the back. 

Meetings finish for me at 3 and then Fixit Guys and I are heading south. Not sure how far we will get before we get too tired and need to stop We are going to motel it that night. Hoping to make it to Lismore. My cousin whom I haven't seen for years lives there and we are hoping to link up. 

Then Thursday we are going on to my sister's place near Newcastle for one more night before we head into Sydney on Friday and staying at Lane Cover River National Park We get to stay put there till the following Wednesday.
                             
 We are going to be staying with powered sites so that is good. I might get some more sewing done there in between visiting my mum in her aged care hostel, catching up with other family members and  going to the theatre. We will be going to see "The King and I"  We are taking my mum and my other mum to see it and I am really looking forward to it. 
                       


We are also booked in to see Potted Potter.
 
 Here is a blurb about it.

PLAYING TO SOLD OUT HOUSES all over the world, POTTED POTTER takes on the ultimate challenge of condensing all seven Harry Potter books (and a real life game of Quidditch) into seventy hilarious minutes. This fantastically funny show features all your favourite characters, a special appearance from a fire-breathing dragon, endless costumes, brilliant songs, ridiculous props and a generous helping of Hogwarts magic!


Linking in with 

 

Sunday Stash Report

Its been another nil all draw this week. No stash bought or used. Despite the fact that I went to the Brisbane Craft Fair I didn't buy any fabric. I did buy some thread, a pattern, buttons and cutters but NO fabric. So my numbers are the same as last week.

Used this week:                               0.00m

Added this week                              0.00m

Year to Date Used                       123.13m
Year to Date added                      90.82m
Net Used                                          32.31m

I have been making great progress on both my denim circles quilt, Jean's Jean Quilt and my applique project. I have made 56 4 circle blocks from the denim circles and added the fabric to the centres of 15. I have the 15 2 circle units made as well. 

I am working on the applique during the meetings I am attending from 8.30 AM till 8.30 PM the last 2 days and which go on till Wednesday so lots of progress there. I have completed 2 blocks and started a third.

Hope you are all making inroads to your stash as well

Linking up with Sunday Stash report @ Patchwork Times

Fitness Friday on Saturday

I'm using the blogger ap on my iPhone. I just wrote a post and went to add photos. Had to alter privacy settings on my phone and in doing so lost the post. Grrr

I haven't kept up my usual number of steps this week. Being away from home and the dog who loves his 2 walks s day will do that to the routine. As a result my weekly step average is down as is my ranking. Never mind I'm not doing badly!

Saturday 5170 900km in a car knocks walking time about

Sunday 7325

Monday 10 244

Tuesday 7 967

Wednesday 14 540 (yay for craft fair walking and associated walks to and from buses and trains)

Thursday 6 330

Friday 18 455 lovely beach walk and 2 walks to conference centre and associated walking about our camp site

The meetings start today so walking will be limite but will try to get some in

We had a Blood Moon Wednesday night but sadly also had cloud cover. This was my best shot

Our beach walk yesterday 

I haven't put the link up this week. Sorry. No time to work it out and can't do it on the phone ap. Might get it up later

Throwback Thursday

I have many nieces and nephews (being one of 8 children who all married and had between 2-4 children each you tend to get that) My parents had 24 grandchildren (and currently 18 great grandchildren) 

In 2002 on of my nieces,C,  developed anorexia. She was 16. It was a really worrying time for all of us - especially her parents. At the time I was a member of an online group of Christian quilters. 

I had shared my niece C's story and my concerns with the group and they were praying for her. They decided that they would like to contribute hearts to make a Healing Hearts quilt for her. The members of the group stitched brightly coloured hearts onto 6.5" squares of cream calico or muslin squares and sent them to me. I stitched them into a quilt using some of my hand dyed fabric and some 9 patches from swaps. The back was pieced from hand dyed fabrics. I quilted it with various heart motifs

.

The back of the quilt

The great news is C recovered from her illness. We nearly lost her but she fought back and regained her health. She went on to complete her high schooling and complete a nursing degree. Today she is a great mother to two adorable children (who have of course received their own quilts from Great Aunty Pip) and she works part time as a nurse as well as caring for her lovely family.

C with her daughter little C!

Linking up with Throwback Thursdays at Quiltin' Jenny's

WIP on Thursday

The week has slipped by and Wednesday has come and gone and I didn't get to do my WIP Wednesday post so here it is on Thursday

Camping Holiday
After a delayed start to the camping part but not the holiday, we are at last camping at the beach at Maroochydore. We have our camper trailer set up, awnings all pegged out. We can't actually see the sea from here but we couldn't be any closer, There is a small sand hillock with some trees on it between us and the beach. We can hear the waves and can be on it in about 30 secs so its pretty good. I only have a couple of days to enjoy it really as from tomorrow night I am in meetings. Synod starts with a worship service and the induction of the new Moderator. Then Synod itself gets underway from 8.30AM tomorrow and runs through till 9PM Saturday to Tuesday (we get Sunday evening off actually) and then 8.30-3PM on Wednesday so pretty full on. We are a about 2 km from the venue so will walk up there each day and that will get me a few steps on what will otherwise be intense but sedentary days.

We got a text message on Tuesday at midday to say that the camper trailer was repaired which was wonderful. Fixit Guy picked it up yesterday whilst I was enjoying a day at the Brisbane Craft Fair. I then caught the train to Nambour and he picked me up from there. He had got to Maroochydore and had set the trailer up before coming to get me.

Brisbane Craft Fair
I caught the bus into the city and was able to spent 4.5 hours wandering around the craft fair, checking out the stalls and also the magnificent quilts on display at the Quilt show.

 Wow. There are some talented people out there. As it was 30 years since the Queensland QUilt Guild had been formed they had a special display of past winners of the quilt show so extra stunning quilts on show in places.  I was super excited to see a gorgeous quilt by my friend Peggy not only on display but winning a ribbon too... she

Peggy with her quilt "Jerry's Owl" (Peggy's photo)

Peggy's Ribbon and award

I also got to have a coffee with Peggy as she was working at the show and we ran into each other in the lunch area. Yay. Bonus. I missed out on catchin up with my Sister in Law Christine due to me having the wrong phone number for her which was disappointing.

I also saw Podcaster Charlotte Scott aka The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady's dragonfly quilt hanging in the special exhibition there too. Woot. Got super excited then too. I was talking to the curator and she was very knowledgeable about Charlotte (I think she listens to the podcast too) and as she said "Our Quilts will travel where we can never go".

Summer Dragonfly - Charlotte Scott

I didn't go crazy at the stalls. My most expensive purchase were some buttons for a pattern that I bought. They cost more than the pattern. I was a bit shocked.The pattern is a Scarlett and Grace Design called Road to Bethlehem by Meredith Griffiths 

My other little bits and pieces purchases included some pigma pens, scissors snips and unpicker, a bundle of rotary cutting blades and some threads. No fabric that I would have to count in my stash report though. I have trained myself to only buy fabric that I have a particular project in mind for. Its a 

Jean's Jean Quilt

I finally got to start sewing on this. I got it all prepped to go on this holiday and it has been so hard holding off working on it till we started. But now I get to work on it. I did some sewing whilst we were at our sons' place. First though I had to do some mending. Jeans would you believe. One pair couldn't be fixed but I sacrificed it to mend the other pair.

Then I got to work on the Jean's quilt!  Joined heaps of circles in pairs

 and then joined pairs in pairs and then added the centres

Its trickier than it looks and things aren't lining up perfectly but as with lots of quilting projects I've been fudging it a bit and it is coming together okay. So far I have made 11 of these 4 circle blocks and have about 80 pairs of circles joined. 

Tea Shop Quilt

Another project that I have been saving up and having finally got to start. Did a little bit of applique in the car coming down and a bit more in the train yesterday.  I expect to get heaps more done in the next week with all the meetings I will be involve with. Stay tuned.

Just one of the many blocks I have for this quilt

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Sunday Stash Report - and our camping trip

Another nil all draw here this week. Nothing in nothing out.

I didn't even get to work on very much during the week. I did get all the disappearing hourglass blocks made for my Vanishing Hours quilt - eventually - having made and then unpicked the pinwheels blocks I had made by mistake. The blocks for that are now all packed up into their own little plastic box and await my return from our camping holiday in 10 weeks. I did bring the left over bits and pieces to work on the border for the quilt should I get to it.

I am not sure if I will be able to resist fabric whilst I am away as I may call in on the occasional local quilt shop should we happen to pass by any. And this week I just may get to the Brisbane Craft Show since it starts on Wednesday whilst we are still in Brisbane. When I travel I do sometimes buy fabric as my souvenirs for my trip but I usually collect to a theme of for a particular project. Since I am trying to NOT buy fabric unless it is for a project I am not sure if I am going to be able to resist or not. I don't have a project on the boil that I need fabric for so we shall see how it all goes.

This week's figures are the same as last week
Used this week:                               0.00m

Added this week                              0.00m

Year to Date Used                       123.13m
Year to Date added                      90.82m
Net Used                                          32.31m


Our camping trip started yesterday morning when we headed out from home with our camper trailer attached and 2 of our offspring on board. We were taking Fangirl to Brisbane with us to go to a show and returning Boyo to Brisbane after his mid semester break for university. Everything went well till just after lunch. We were only 19 kms down the road from our lunch stot when we broke a spring in our camper trailer.

The broken spring hanging down under the trailer

Great. An hour and a half's wait and the tow truck arrived to take our camper trailer back to a workshop to get it fixed.

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We were able to continue on with our trip to Brisbane as we needed to be here for commitments today. Not to mention that we had free accommodation in Brisbane and not in Chinchilla. We are staying with our sons in the town house we own and can stay here till our camper trailer is fixed. Not sure how long that will take. Its a long weekend here in Queensland so the mechanics workshop won't be open till Tuesday. Then they will have to order in the parts and hopefully that will be able to get there the next day and so maybe it will be fixed that afternoon. Who knows. Our next commitment is Friday when I am a representative at the Uniting CHurch Queensland Synod. It starts Friday evening and runs through till Wednesday in the following week.

A ray of sunshine. I will be able to go to the Craft Fair. Fixit Guy even suggested that I go to it whilst he goes to pick up the trailer if its fixed on Wednesday. What a man

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Not a great start to our camping adventure but could be far worse. Heard today from a friend whose daughter and family were heading out on a long awaited camping holiday and they weren't far out of town when they wrecked their car. Its a right off. Our trailer is totally fixable.

How has your week been? Hope its been more successful than mine

Linking up with  Stash Report@Sunday Times