HRH

Last Friday Sarah sent through some photos of "Tessellation", which she had just finished quilting.  It looks so wonderful and I'm very much looking forward to it coming home.  The quilting design is "Squares All Around".

Very busy weekend with little ChaCha staying over for 2 nights.  We washed the car, vacuumed the sewing room floor (ChaCha wearing my high-heeled orange sandals as one does to vacuum), folded washing and a few other jobs with lots of playing in between and then entertained visitors for dinner (the guests brought dinner - they can come again!).

There has been some sewing and 4 quilt tops are ready to go to the quilter this weekend.

The backing fabric for the Kaleidoscope and Dresden Plate cot quilts is so cute.

On Friday night I started sewing "Clambake" pieces together.  This quilt goes together very quickly once the layout is sorted and it was together by Sunday night.

I had cut out too many pieces for the lap-sized quilt and, after cutting out another 12, had enough to make the cot-sized "Clambake" as well - this went together in 3 hours!  Will definitely use this pattern again.  The fabric colours are showing up much better in this photo.

After months of preparations and very hard work (by others) we had lots of excitement at work yesterday.  Our main foyer was used for an event where HRH Prince Andrew, The Duke of York KG, was the special guest.  He was a guest of the University for the whole day and going by the photos in the local newspaper, it looks as though he really enjoyed his visit.

The event MC was also a VIP - Adam Gilchrist (legendary Australian wicket keeper/batsman) is a University Ambassador and such a great person.  He spent ages with the school students attending the event and enjoyed playing with the virtual reality equipment.

Last night Michael sent through a photo with the caption:  "Bikie gang terrorises locals" -hilarious!

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.