Quilt Show, Carnival of Flowers Week

This week the annual Carnival of Flowers has been on here in Toowoomba and this means Toowoomba Quilters have their quilt show as well.   A lot of time and effort has been put into making this years show a huge success.  If you click on the link above you will be able to see photos of some of the quilts each day.

I had a couple of favourites, but of course my photography is nowhere near the professional photos on the Toowoomba Quilts blog.  So pop over and have a look and this interesting site.

I just loved this floral applique design. 

Here is a collage of some of the quilts that took my eye.

The theme for the art quilts this year was a self portrait.  Do you recognise anyone on this set.  You may need to enlarge it but the clue is she is a favourite of many.

This year one of the fund raising events was for breast cancer so a challenge was thrown to the members to make art bras.  The colour was purple so we have quite a few on display.

These are just a few the other photo was too blurry to post.

Two other projects for the members were making table runners, and small hangings with the them Tea for Two

The members who participated put in some excellent results.  There are a lot of accomplished quilters in this group.

Many of the members gave demonstrations on various techniques relating to quilts and Dianne was kept busy with interested visitors wanting to see how to use the circle cutter.

Last but not least.....I went shopping.   We had a lot of traders stalls, and I could not resist this one.   If you go to the website you will find WackyJacky.com.au where you will find the most wonderful colourful batik fabrics.  Here is Jacky on her stall and below that are some of the fabrics that were irresistible. They have made my fabric pages zing.......yes that is right I could not wait to enhance my fabric pages with them. Di has a new blog eatplayquilt.blogspot.com

Unfortunately I have not been able to get round the gardens this year.  The weather has been quite hot...33degC today.....so when not on duty at the quilt show demonstrating embroidery, I have just been slothing around at home, sewing and sleeping.

Busy Week and More Pages

I have been home a week now, and during that time I have ruthlessly de-cluttered my clothes and paperwork.  Out of all the "ideas" we tear out of magazines, how many do we actually use........when we find we have them 10 years later then the answer has to be not many.    I cant believe I paid to have so much useless paperwork moved.  But it is a good feeling to get rid of it. 

The clothes did fit me in those days.  But now I have gone from 83kg to 69kg everything was just falling down.

So I packed all the clothes that no longer fit me into  large plastic tubs.......just in case my willpower ever leaves me and I outgrow my "skinny" clothes. . I now have 3 tubs of clothes that dont fit.

I can hardly ever bring myself to throw clothes into the bin.....on a property there is always a need for old things for round the yard and with red soil they soon get grimey and then thrown away.

 Anyway, if I hadn't worn it for 4 years, out it went.  Unfortunately I still seem to have a full wardrobe, but not a crushingly full one. So I am pleased.

Does anyone else find they tend to wear the same things all the time because they are favourites.

While at the shops I found this little gadget that I can use to pick out the letters on the tiny keyboard on my phone.   My fat fingers just dont cope very well as anyone who has ever got a confusing txt from me knows.   It has a little rubber pad on one end and on the other a soft screw to push into a hole in the end of the phone.  I am very excited about this.

 Managed to get a little bit of sewing done this week as well.  I now have 16 pages completed, 10 to finish embellishing and 6 to find background fabrics for. Hopefully will find just what I want on one of the traders stalls at the quilt show.

 Here are som pics of the latest completed.

This is the verson I had at first looked at it for ages before deciding a big NO!

Here is flotsom and jetsom version that I prefer.  I feel the neutral cords dont take anything away from the embroidery. The background is also a neutral print cotton.

Chevron stitch round the duck embroidery.  Chevron is used in smocking and fits well into sircles. The ratstail cord is couched on

Triangular feather stitch.  The lovely tatting pieces are from my friend Sue from Suztats. The orange buttons were just perfect to match the tatting.   There are also some woven chain leaves

Since I came back I have also been able to complete the leaf sampler of stitches that have come up in Tast, and a couple of others that I like.

The outside edge of the leaf is buttonhole herringbone in a variegared stef francis thread.  Inside the leaf from left is chained cross stitch, wrapped coral, scroll, buttonhole bullion, scroll st, up and down buttonhole, twisted chain, breton stitch, knotted chain, sailors edge, portuguese stem stitch.

On the right side of the leaf starting from the bottom are buttonhole triangle, barred chain, spanish knotted feather, zig zag chain, crested chain, coral stitch, chained cross, top knotted buttonhole.

In the centre vein french knots lead to long legged bullion.  To the left is a spray of up and down feather, with bullion and buttonhole bars for the flowers.

The background fabric is a cotton which I coloured using acrylic paints and fabric medium.   The leaf is sitting on some dyed crepe.

I am going to use the leaf idea to show a new set of stitches to some of the ladies at quilting in November.

Sunday today, and since I have had lunch, it could be time for a nice nana nap.

 

Birthday Party, Flowers and Wildlife

What a busy 2 weeks I have had.  We were fortunate enough to experience fine weather for the whole two weeks.

For the first week I cleaned and scrubbed everything within an inch of its life in preparation for the big weekend.   I did make time to take  photos of some of my flowers in the garden including the last of the orchid.

The last of six sprays of flowers on the orchid

Bauhinia

The azaleas made a lovely display

We  had some wildlife visitors as well 

The ducks from the dam going for a walk and met up with a bunny

There were two mothers and babies coming in to feed among the male wallabies

This scrub turkey became quite a nuisance

I always feel very peaceful out there, and the view never disappoint.

View down the valley from the front patio

Himself turned 80 while I was there and I had organised to have a BBQ lunch for his birthday with friends and neighbours.  I collared one of the husbands to cook the barbie.  Another neighbour presented himself with a medal on a ribbon on which was engraved  O.B.E......which stood for over bloody eighty.

The day was wonderful with fun loving happy guests, and much laughter.

Himself with his badges

His very favourite dessert is pavlova so Julie made this for him for a birthday cake

Friend Dianne bought this delicious roast pumpkin and baby spinach salad.

The happy crowd blue was the colour for us girls.

BBQ ready to eat

Yours truly with some of the salads yes I have the same top as Denise We I went shopping and both loved the same one so said what the heck she lives in Brisbane and I live in Toowoomba and never the twain shall meet.

The day after the party I began the job of setting up the E Reader we had bought him.....well what a job......three whole days of frustration and still could not get the damn thing to work.....I was sitting up watching movies the third night but my mind kept returning to technology so back I went to the laptop.

I have decided that my brain works best in the middle of the night because.....wallah!!!! the lights turned on and one of the things came into focus and when I clicked on it there it all was.... I had only been reading half of what was there!!!!

So then came the job of teaching himself to download books......halfway through I just wanted to run away and go home.   I don't want to know when he gets round to doing it for himself....the mind boggles at what could happen.

This is the E Reader and friend Dianne made the lovely bag for it to live in. It even has an extra pocket for the cords and attachments.

It is always good to come home to my little domain and this was no exception.  Sorry there is no stitching but I have one piece to show in my next post along with some more fabric pages.

Byeee