T'WAS THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS.......

and all through the house........lots of creatures stirring!

Well not really but we have been a little busy putting in air conditioning....what luxury!

We have denied ourselves for twenty odd years in this house, and we dreaded each run of hot weather. In Melbourne we get north winds that heat up over the desert inland and blast all moisture from the air, hot hot hotter.......then a cool change arrives as the winds turn south and come in over the sea from Antarctica....temps can drop 20 degrees C in 20 mins. We love talking weather in Melbourne because we really can have four seasons in one day.

But what that has meant for me is a little disruption in my scared space, the sewing room

The duct needed to go through the room as we didnt have roof space, lucky the room was extra long. Anyway my creative and wonderful husband suggested we made the cover high enough for me to use as a cutting table.....hooray.....I am very happy about this.

So there he is cleaning up and doing manly things....I love a man that can set his mind to practical pursuits. 

So when its finished I will have MORE ROOM .....hehe....actually I plan to take over one day, but gently gently.....and I know that I have a lot more space than a lot of you out there, but then again not as much as others....so lets not get despondent just keep dreaming of the day you will all have all you need and desire.

So in the meantime, I have been concentrating on small projects, which I think I love more than large quilts. Working in miniature has always fascinated me, I have loved dolls houses, and dolls and dolls clothes since forever but strangely never fell into that craft.

Ta Dahhhh.........1/2 inch hexagons, all scraps and I love it!!
A lot of the scraps were donated by a good friend, and her fabrics really enhanced my stash.......another friend was admiring the purse, and every piece she loved was one donated....my friends all have good taste...which why I am their friend....read that whichever way you like.;-)

The inside.....now I initially glued the purse into the frame, then stitched it on. The ribbon serves to cover the stitches.

I made a few errors along the way, but I never expect my prototypes to be perfection. The next one will be just that bit better and then I will be motoring along by my 100th.

I also whipped this up in my spare time.

I had some let over large plastic buttons from a coat project with my daughter, and just got to playing with them one day. I layered the large buttons with my vintage buttons and this was the result.
I like it, what do you think?

And this I finished last night, it is from the latest booklet from Anni Downs called The Simple Life. I fell for this little pincushion, and was smitten by the hexagon construction.
It is quite clever the way hexagons, pentagons and half hexagons are sewn together to get this dome shape. It was not too complex, and the instructions in the booklet were very easy to follow.

Turtle on his back....the fabric again was donated by my friend, she has great taste , I think I may have mentioned that.
So I have been a busy person of late, but not frantic, refusing to do frantic at my age, it just sucks all the fun out of the air does frantic.

So busy blog friends until next time, dont do frantic OK?

SORRY, SORRY, SORRY

Ohhh, I do seem to be saying this a lot lately! Am I really sorry, well not as sorry as I would have been if I had spilt your drink but sorry in the fact that I seem to be rushing from one thing to another and being ever so slightly late in arriving.......and I pride myself on being on time........usually.

So sorry that these pictures from The Houston Show are only now being revealed. ( do you hate people making excuses?...sorry...see I said it again)

This could be a picture heavy post, so I will try and edit and show the quilts that I thought made the most impact.
Seriously this is stunning, both my children liked this also, another one to put on my to do list.....which is possibly bigger than Santa's naughty list....or not.

This time I also tried to remember to capture any interesting story behind the quilts. I dont know this method but isnt it effective?

This was a winner in a group project category, a picture or photo was taken and then cut into pieces, each member of the group was then given a piece of the picture to go away and work on as they saw fit. Then the patches were reassembled back into the picture. I like this idea and the ideas are endless, internet project with like minded quilters maybe?

This was only one block of the farmyard quilt but I was fascinated by the glow of the lamb due to the choice of fabrics used, a lot of Kaffe Fassett, and it was very realistic as a whole.

This was a long quilt that needed two shots to fit in.

I loved the design, almost surrealistic...maybe...Salvidor Daliesque?...perhaps?

Anyway as I was admiring it, a lady behind me exclaimed, "that looks like a crazy Australian quilt" in her American accent, I couldnt resist, I turned to her and replied, "What makes you say that?"..in my Aussie accent...
She laughed and explained it reminded her of our famous desert scapes and Ayers Rock, or Uluru, which is its native name.
Yeah I will give her that....but we aint crazy!!! :-) 

No this isnt me without makeup, it was a little doll, the kids think it was a little spooky, but I thought it was really adorable, I do have trouble threading my needles and I dont think it is going to get any better.

The winner!

Her quilt!!

I was blown away by the thought and effort and precision in this quilt, I did listen to her explanation as to the symbolism in the design but as I am very ignorant about the US and its history I forgot a lot of what she said. But apparently the number of stars and points and swags and crystals all added up to significant numbers in US history.
My friend and I laughed softly when we first saw the quilt and speculated that this was obviously done by an older lady with no children at home and a very supportive spouse.....ding dong...so wrong...young, pretty, three young children, sewed in the hours of the evening after children were in bed..10.30 until 1.00ish most nights.
It was also all done on a domestic machine , all of it, including the perfect quilting. SIGH....some people have a lot of talent and tenacity. A deserved winner, she was very sweet and quite emotional about the quilt, and I could understand that.

Well this catching up is all I can manage right now, running off to the next thing, slightly late.
But as you know I love animals, and couldnt resist taking a photo of this gorgeous creature....and the horse was quite good looking too!

This was what greeted us at the Bank Of America in downtown Houston....they better not rob that place cos they will be hunted down by the sheriff. I love it.
Well if you can stand it I will post some more pics soon, may as well drag out my trip, if I am clever i could keep this up until the next time I visit the US......NO come back only joking..