I've Been on a Little Trip

Recently I had a few days off work to take a little trip to Queensland and attend a family wedding in Sydney. 

The trip to Queensland was to spend some time with my friend Diann.  Diann booked us in to the Stitchers' Dream Day Out in Toowoomba and we travelled up there on the Friday evening.  The room was set up beautifully.

Libby Richardson, one of the designers for the day, is well-known for her painted bears and she gave us all lessons.  This was a first for me.

The rest of the time away was spent relaxing with some knitting

and a little bit of shopping for pink fabrics to add to my stash for cot quilts.

I'm making a couple of little pink quilts at the moment for friends who are having granddaughters.  One is Cluck Cluck Sew's "Kaleidoscope" design, which I have made many times

and the other is a Dresden Plate design.

 

The Dresden Plates are all stitched to the background and the background has been trimmed from the back of the plates ready for the blocks to be sewn together tonight.

This same pink has been used as background for Kaleidoscope - the colour is better in daylight.

The centres for the Dresden Plates and Kaleidoscope blocks are from the cutest fabric ever, "Old and New 30's" by Lecien.

Over the last little while I've been collecting fabrics to make another Medley Quilt (a special request from a friend).  The final pack of fabrics arrived last week and I'm looking forward to starting this quilt later in the year (or perhaps early next year).

Last Friday, my cousin's daughter, Gabby, was married.  Jenni came to the Hens' Night with me a couple of months ago and Elizabeth came to the wedding.  So lovely to have a night out with Elizabeth.

The wedding was beautiful, the bride stunning and the groom was in tears during the vows - perfection.

The ceremony was held in a park in Watsons Bay and the reception followed in the Watsons Bay Boutique Hotel.

I made the Pineapple Quilt for Gabby's recent birthday and I was tickled pink to see the gold pineapples used for table decorations at the wedding.

A Birthday

Jenni turned 30 on Saturday.  The family met up for lunch to celebrate with Jenni at a terrific restaurant (Jenson's in Kareela) and we had such a wonderful time (there might have been a glass or two of Prosecco as well).  Gulli and ChaCha were so excited to see each other - just delightful and they kept all of us entertained.

One of Jenni's presents was in this parcel:

 

Not-finished Tessellation Quilt (designed by Allison Glass) and made using some of Allison Glass's beautiful fabrics, 

  

along with Moda Bella Solids and fabrics from my stash.  The quilt was started at Easter at the Stitching Girls' sewing day but was pushed aside again and again until I ran out of time (bad mumma).

Finished sewing the quilt top last Thursday night, wrapped it up for Jenni to see on Saturday and yesterday it was posted to Sarah for quilting.

It is a large wallhanging/lapquilt size.

The purple rainbow wool knitting is finished but not sewn up and I've started knitting up some Bendigo Woollen Mills "Bloom" wool in Rust colourway for some tiny newborn baby outfits for a friend who's going to become a grandma shortly.  The colours might be a bit strong but they look cute in these designs.

I'm collecting fabrics for another "Medley" quilt, to be made late this year or early next year.  I think there will be more than enough to use in the quilt.  This quilt is for a friend and she chose the turquoise fabric lower left and we've been adding co-ordinating fabrics.

After all the foundation piecing in Tessellation, I'm very much enjoying chain-piecing some Kaleidoscope blocks for a pretty cot quilt.

Leftovers

While trying to use up the rest of the Bendigo Wool I bought last year for Peta's blanket and scarf, I needed to buy a couple of extra balls of wool to add to the mix to make the pompom jumpers and that created more leftover wool (vicious circle).  The last of the wool has been knitted up into a vest that might fit my sweetheart next winter or the winter after.  She is very tall so I knitted size 3 width and size 4 length.  The cute buttons were a present from Awesome Auntie Jenni a couple of years ago.

My friend Karen had a ball of Bendigo Woolen Mills "Bloom" in Rainbow leftover and gave it to me.  There was no more Rainbow wool left on the BWM website so I bought a ball of purple to add to the mix.  The pattern is from Shepherd Yarns Book 1002, which was one of my sweetheart's Granny's knitting books.

Life is very busy these days and I have no time to sew on the weekends and very little time during the week.  I am working on some secret sewing and have 8 blocks to go before I can start sewing the blocks into rows.

Going to see "The Wharf Review" tomorrow night with Mum and Robyn - it's always such a funny/clever show.

Looking forward to seeing both of my sweethearts on Friday and Saturday.

Rainbows

Rainbows (and the rainbow flag) are a very topical symbol in Australia just now.

A few months ago this brightly coloured wool appeared in my Instagram feed and I knew Elizabeth would love it, so bought 4 balls to knit something for my granddaughter.

The jumper and beanie will fit next year or the year after.

Last week Mum and I went to see "Dunkirk" - I've seen so many rave reviews about the movie but I could have done without seeing it.  I think the main problem was the sound was too loud in the theatre - probably would have enjoyed it more at home.

Had a very busy weekend.  Saw a local production of "Wicked" on Friday night - so, so good (except for one character) then the rest of the weekend was spent in front of a computer at Wollongong Song and Dance Festival - troupe weekend is always huge.

Hoping for a quieter week coming up - have some sewing that I really need to get on with and haven't switched on the machine for ages.

Crochet Wreath

Over the last few months in my lunchtimes I've been crocheting all sorts of shapes:

Stars

2 Layer and 3 Layer Flowers

Holly and Leaves

Bird

Little Balls

 and making more pompoms

 all to be stitched onto a covered polystyrene wreath

 to make this

for my daughter-in-law's birthday present.  She was thrilled to bits with it.

All of the designs are from Lucy's blog - loads of photos and very detailed instructions.  Lucy is very generous sharing her very clever ideas.

Still no sewing but maybe back into it tonight - working on a special present at the moment and have a deadline.

Pompom Mania

Last year I bought a load of wool

to crochet a rug

and a scarf

for Peta for her birthday.  There was a fair bit of wool leftover so I added a couple of other balls of wool from my stash and knitted jumpers for the two little ones for next winter.

 

I think the wool is magic - there's still more leftover.

Spent yesterday with my favourite little man - we had such a great day.

No sewing over the weekend but I did cut out two cot quilts - Kaleidoscope and Dresden Plate.  Looking forward to starting these when I finish up my current sewing.  (Think it's time for a new ironing board cover.)

A Big Few Days

I've had three trips to Sydney in 5 days and all for wonderful, fun events.

Saturday's trip was for Gabby's cooking class hens night

and Monday night's was to attend the annual Helpmann Awards (Australia's answer to the Tony's).  I go for the entertainment as there are performances by the casts of shows currently running (or coming soon) in Australia:  "Kinky Boots", "Book of Mormon", "Aladdin", "My Fair Lady",  "Greenday's American Idiot", "Construct", "Beautiful", "Velvet".  Any opportunity to see Michael James Scott (The Genie),  Reg Livermore and the hula hoop man from "Velvet" perform - count me in.

Last night's Sydney visit was for a genuine treat -

a birthday present from Jenni, Kurt, Elizabeth and Matt.  kd lang is a truly exceptional talent and I was thrilled to be at her show with Jenni and Kurt and Kurt's family.

Nothing to show from The Pink Room - all secret stuff happening in there; and there is secret crocheting at lunchtimes:

The jumpers for my sweethearts are almost ready to be sewn up.  Lots of ends to sew in.

Hopefully a quiet weekend coming up.  Might take Mum to see "Dunkirk" - looks like WWII is movie flavour-of-the-month these days.