"Occupy Your Sewing Room"

Hello,

I recently participated in "Occupy your Sewing Room" which ran from the 3rd to the 10th December. This was organised by Barbara

Here is what I got up to.

I finished the quilt I have been working on. This one is designed by Paula Stoddard and is called "Jacks on Six."  It is a very cloudy day here not great for taking photo's. This quilt has been on my "to do list" for the whole of 2011. I will probably hand quilt this one over Summer.

I made a start on six place mats. These have been machine embroidered with historical buildings from around West Australia.

Hopefully these will be finished by Christmas. If not you can give New Year's presents can't you.

I had this  Teapot design saved on my sewing machine for quite a while.  I used some Insul-Bright for the wadding. So now we have a hot pad especially for our teapot.The hot pad measure 12 inches long by 10 inches wide.
This design took 57 minutes to stitch out because it had 27105 stitches on it.

Thanks so much Barbara for Hosting this sewing event. Make sure you check out and see what everyone got up to.

I also have received two prizes from recent giveaway wins. The first one to arrive was a facial scrub which is for Ian. I won this from Craft Gossip.  This site is wonderful and has  lots of different ideas. The other one is the Quiltmakers Magazine which I won from Heidi.  Heidi has another Friday- Night -Sew- In this week. I plan to get the binding on a quilt. What are you doing on FNSI?

Whatever you do,do it with a smile from your heart.

Happy days.
Bev C

"Makes Me Happy Monday."

Hello and a huge big "Happy Monday" to everyone.

I have been away from the computer since my last post. We have been busy here at Kainga with visitors, I think I have seen more suitcases coming and going than hot breakfasts.

The big news is why we have had all those visitors. Lucy came back from her year in New Zealand on Wednesday. We were waiting at the airport for her and photographers started arriving then a few more then camera crews. We thought this couldn't just be for Lucy!!! No it was for Paul Collingwood the English cricketer. Though I had no idea who he was Ian knew. The blokes who were at the airport and a few young girls quickly got out there cameras.

Lucy had a wonderful time while she was away. The last three weeks was on a tour of the South Island. She met some wonderful fellow travellers and did things we wouldn't do.

Like jumping into canyons in a plastic garden chair. It was so much fun watching DVDs of these two jumps and her Nevis Bungy Jump. Which is 134 metres down!!!! You think Lucy would have wanted a few days rest when getting home, no on Friday we had a trip with her Gran to Goomalling for some shopping and lunch at our favourite place to eat the Go-Cafe. Then on Sunday she and a few friends left to go camping for the week. So glad to have you back home Lucy.

I have managed to get some machine embroidery done over the last few days. Can you guess who this fellow is?

Since I haven't been on my blog since last week I noticed my Header has changed size. Has Blogger been playing with things while I was away????

Whatever you do make sure you have a "Happy Monday."

Happy days.
Bev C

"Sunflowers and that rain."

Hello,

Yesterday was a computer free day, I was planning to join in Tuesday's Treasures but the weather controlled what I did. I woke at a quarter to five to a double rainbow outside and the blackest skies. The rain came then left us for a while. So I washed windows floors and curtains and cooked cakes etc. All the while there was lots of lightning around the place and huge claps of thunder. Bonnie came home at lunch time and showed me a photo of the hail that had fallen at Dowerin. It was the size of golf balls. In the afternoon I decided to wash the patio table and chairs and generally wash down everything along the patio and back verandah. Ian rang to say that a huge storm had just gone through his workplace. By then it had started to rain here at Kainga. Well within minutes you could hardly see anything outside the rain and wind had come. We had 18mls of rain in a very short time,maybe 5 to 10 minutes if that. The road down the bottom looked like a river and a small river was running down the side of our block. The hardware store in the main street got struck by lightning and the Christmas decorations in the main street came down. The Shire will be busy over the next couple of weeks cleaning up the roads and broken trees. Today the sun is shining and everything looks clean and fresh though there are more weather warnings today. At least we weren't one of those who were stuck on the tarmac at the Perth airport. Passengers had to wait up to 8 hours on the planes after landing because of the lightning.  It wasn't safe for them to disembark.

 I did get one of the sunflowers appliqued on the outer block for the quilt I am working on yesterday. Two and a half to go.

Hope you have a great day, we are here at Kainga.

Happy days.
Bev C

"Makes Me Happy Monday."

"Happy Monday."

Today I am happy to share a recipe. Nothing better than a cake recipe that is so easy to whip up.

I will give the recipe then tell how I changed it to suit the ingredients I had on hand.

Tea cake.

1 cup mixed fruit
2 cups self raising flour
125grams butter/margarine
1 teaspoon mixed spice
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon bi-carb soda
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Place fruit,sugar,butter and bi-carb into a bowl. Pour over one cup boiling water. Stir in flour,spices and beaten egg. Grease and flour a loaf tin. Bake in a moderate oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

Now I didn't have mixed fruit so used sultanas. I used a mixture of butter and margarine because I usually use butter in cake making and only had a little left so melted the butter and margarine together and added to the mix. I used only 3/4 cup of sugar. You can always do with less sugar. One teaspoon of mixed spice is never enough for me. I added about 4 teaspoons. This makes a lovely moist cake.

I am so happy, can you see the apricots in the photo above. I picked them on Sunday morning. This year our tree is bearing more fruit. Last year was the first year it had fruited, I missed it. I found the only apricot it had grown on the ground all soggy. So this year I was keen to make sure the fruit ripened and was  then picked on time. I had covered the fruit with a net so the birds couldn't find them. It was wonderful to eat these fruit which haven't been sprayed with anything.

Very happy to have the blocks finished for the centre part of the quilt I am working on. Today I hope to get some applique on the next section done. I cut out  the shapes yesterday and plan to start the applique today doing button hole by hand.

Happy days.

Bev C

New blocks and seeing the light.

Hello,

This week I planned to get into the sewing room each day. Today I spent plenty of time un-sewing. Gosh putting one half of a block the wrong way up was causing a huge problem. Of course it all fell into place once I had worked out what I had done wrong. The next block came together in a matter of minutes. I am working on a quilt which has 16 blocks in the centre.

The size of the completed blocks is 9.5 inches. I have made ten so far. Hopefully tomorrow will be a un-sewing free day. The blue fabric in the block above is some Indigo fabric that came from the Stone Store in Kerikeri in New Zealand. It is such a beautiful fabric, I love the smell of it when you iron it. This type of fabric will age beautifully.

Yesterday I received some lovely mail all the way from America.

It was the most useful light a Beam N Read. I was the lucky winner from Jocelyn's blog "Happy Cottage Quilter."  Thanks so much Jocelyn. If you haven't read her blog make sure you do. Thanks also to Beam N Read. I found another use for this light. It would make a great light for a home made light box. Using LED lights it doesn't heat up. The Beam N Read is so light and only takes 4 AA batteries to run it.

I hope you have a wonderful Friday doing something you love. I will be in my sewing room.
Happy days.
Bev C