Easter Weekend

The Easter Weekend has come and gone too quickly.  We've had 4 beautiful days and the lovely weather will continue for a few more days.

Friday the troops came over and spent the day painting the house - I painted poles and top rails for the lattice fence.  Great niece and great nephew had an Easter egg hunt in the garden - that was a lot of fun.

Before

After

The next section of the fence has been put back in place and the last section should go in today.  My niece has painted all of this lattice and spent yesterday painting the last piece, while I painted a new little piece to go on top of the gate.

A bit of sewing Friday night to put together the first few "Pathways and Crossroads" rows.  Might do some more next weekend.

Saturday Jenni and I went shopping in Sydney- didn't buy much at all, so will keep looking for some new work clothes.  Met up with all the kids and Matt's Mum for dinner - great food at a new creperie in Randwick.

Very lazy Easter Sunday - faffed around in the morning then decided to make a Sew Together Bag.  I bought this gorgeous fabric when I visited Ballarat Patchwork last July with Helen, Jenny and Norreen.
 

It's 85% cotton/15% linen blend and looks like 100% linen.  I decided not to use the green scallop on this bag but will on the next Sew Together Bag I make.

Really pleased with how this turned out although wasn't too keen on sewing through so many thicknesses to attach the side bindings - broke quite a few needles.  Jenni came over for dinner on Sunday night and was very happy to take this home.

A few errands yesterday morning then more painting and the long weekend was over.

Backings

On Saturday afternoon I added some borders to the X and Plus quilt then made backings for some of the quilt tops I have finished over the last year or so.

Posted Picnic off to Sarah for quilting, so I'll be looking forward to that coming back in a few weeks.

A good while ago, almost 2 years, I cut into a quilt kit, "Pathways and Crossroads", that I had bought from Bec and ever since it has been in the sewing room cupboard.  Sunday afternoon I started sewing some of the pieces together and now have 5 blocks finished; 4 more to assemble.

 
These are all lovely Fig Tree fabrics and the quilt has interesting sashings, posts and borders.

Hanging out for the Easter break - catching up with family and probably painting.

Source

Almost the Weekend

Looking forward to this weekend - not a lot planned and any plans I have depend on the weather.  Was hoping it would be fine but the forecast is rain for the two days.

Finished sewing together the X and Plus quilt last night.  This was made using a "Bliss" layer cake plus some extra pieces from Marina and a few other Bonnie and Camille's from my stash thrown in to make a few more blocks.  It was Sarah's great idea for me to make this quilt.

I'd like to add borders to this quilt top but not sure I have enough of the right fabrics left.  I'll think about it for a while.

Started sewing some "Scrappy Trip Around the World" blocks together - love how it's looking so far.

Hope to make some quilt backings over the weekend - another quilt going to Sarah because it's been hanging around for a year unquilted and it's way too big for my frame (at the moment), especially considering the frame is dismantled.

Social Weekend

Had a great weekend.  The family came for lunch on Saturday.  It was great to spend some time together sitting around the table.  I love watching my kids interracting.  They are the best company.

For lunch I made Slow Cooked Sticky Asian Lamb - I've seen this recipe floating around facebook, and it's delicious.

For sweets I made Chocolate, Banana, Toffee Trifle - this is a Family Circle recipe from Christmas 2010.  Very easy to make.

600ml thickened cream, whipped
400g choc-coated honeycomb, smashed so some is in chunks and some is crumbs
4 bananas sliced diagonally dipped into juice of 1/2 lemon or whole lime
50g crushed roasted hazelnuts
1 jar Woolworths Select Gourmet Toffee Sauce (couldn't find it so used their Gourmet Caramel Sauce)
2 tubes Nestle Rolos (couldn't find these either, so used 100g Cadbury Caramel Chocolate)
2 x Flakes

Reserve 1/4 cup smashed honeycomb for decoration.  Place half of remaining honeycomb in base of trifle bowl, then half of hazelnuts, half bananas and half toffee sauce followed by half of the whipped cream.  Repeat.  Place Rolos on top for decoration and sprinkle over Flakes and remaining honeyomb (one Flake is plenty, have the other to have with a cup of tea).

Friday night I finished making the X and Plus blocks.  This one is next to be sewn together.

Saturday night I started sewing the Seville Limes blocks together

finished it off last night and made borders and binding.

Another top added to the pile (must set up the quilting frame).  Shouldn't have had that striped block in the corner.

Had a great day out yesterday - lunch with 3 friends I travelled around Europe with many years ago.  Lynell and Robyn I see quite often and it was lovely to see Wendy as well.

X Blocks

Until this year I had never made an X Block and now I have three quilt tops at various stages using this block:

Goodnight Irene Sew-along

X and + (only one block made so far)

Seville Limes

After finishing off the Seville Limes X Blocks last night I laid out all the blocks on the design "wall"

Seville Limes - 3 more rows to be added

I love how this design makes circles.

The last of the happy mail arrived yesterday:

Backing fabrics for Spell it with Moda (the alphabet quilt), X and + Quilt and Seville Limes plus some more white to use as background.

Lots of exterior painting happening at the house and it's looking fantastic.

Swap Presents

The sun is shining today - had a good storm last night but the rest of the weekend was lovely.  Some more happy mail arrived during the week - backing for Scrappy Trip Around the World and centre/border fabrics for another Scrappy Spiderweb (one day).  One more parcel of fabric to arrive (hopefuly this week) as well as new outside lights for the house and a hose.

The theme for our on-line group's first swap this year was "Gail Pan Designs" and this is the present I received from Leanne - I love the hot pink Tilda fabric and it looks fantastic with the pretty stitchery and the grey/white spot trim.

My other partner was Sue - I made Gail's "Little Birdie" sewing set (this was a popular choice - I think 3 of us made this design including Sue).

The new sewing area is working out well.  Finished putting together the Goodnight Irene quilt top

Still not pressed.

and started piecing Seville Limes.

Most of the weekend was spent packing the bedroom and sewing room furniture into the spare rooms to get the rest of the house back in order and in the garden with my sister-in-law, brother and niece.  Outside is looking so good.

Tone it Down

Friday afternoon I picked up "Tone it Down"  the APQ Quiltalong quilt from the post office.  Ripped open the package as soon as arrived home to see Sarah's quilting - it is so lovely.

First job Friday evening was to make the binding and sew it on before sitting down to watch some tv and start stitching it down.

Finished it off on Sunday night and took some photos.  Waiting for a nice day to take some photos outside to show the true colours.

 

Visited my second-favourite shop on Sunday (Bunnings) to buy a lemon tree, lime tree and crimson pom pom (love the name).

 One border was sewn to Goodnight Irene over the weekend.

The other 3 borders are ready to sew on later this week.

Swap parcel was posted on Monday and arrived on Tuesday - amazing.

Had a bit of an excess water problem on Monday - so much rain fell in the Illawarra.

All's well - furniture has been moved out, the insurance carpet person is coming this afternoon and new sewing area is set up at the other end of the house.

Good thing I have plenty of space in the house.