Fifty Posts!

It's a little weird to me that I have posted fifty whole posts!  I'm not much of a stick-to-it type of girl, and I'm pretty proud of myself that I've stuck to this enough to last for fifty posts.

Now whether it's fifty posts worth reading is another matter!

I don't have any pictures today.  But....I have ADSL!  After three years of paying for very expensive wireless broadband because our brand new house is in too old a street (??) we now can join the land of the living with enough download to last me forever.  So hopefully I will be able to be a bit more prolific with the photo side of thing.

I'm struggling taking decent photos to show you, I must admit.  Doing this blog was all part of me wanting to learn the computer a little more, to get better at things that I can do, but not very well.  Photographing blog worthy stuff is one of those things. 

I've been making half square triangles for most of my week.  I've been working on another scrap quilt, just because.  And it's all half square triangles, big and small.  I'm just about over half square triangles. 

Most of my fabric for the Bountiful Bouquet Block of the month has arrived, though of course the most important one  - the background fabric is still to come.  Hopefully it'll be in my hot little hands after I got to the post office (no delivery from the mail man here, we're old fashioned in my part of the woods) and I can get a start on that over the weekend. 

So until tomorrow

Suzie

I'm back!

Hey!

I'm here!

I'm still on wireless but I have been told that I can now get broadband so in a coupla days, I'll be cruising the information superhighway like I haven't in years!  When will I quilt?  There's too much internet to see with so much gig download allowable!  Movies!  Songs!  Podcasts!  Ebooks!  All the treasures of the universe are out there for me now!

I've been sewing a lot while I've been away from the blog, and have a couple of finishes for you.  They are all rather boring, I admit.  I've started so many things over the last twenty years and I think the reason they have stayed UFO's for so long is because they are pretty average and boring to do, and even more average and boring to look at.  I am eager to get as many of them done, so that I can can begin the business of creation and start to do some really pretty things.  One day....

But for now...

Blah. 

This is something I'm not immensely proud of, I don't like it and it's toooooooo much but it started as a design for the shop and it just didn't work.  So it got bundled up and chucked in the 'don't wanna work on it' pile for YEARS.  But now it's done.  I'm thinking that border is too wide so I'll probably cut that back before it gets quilted.  If it ever gets quilted.

Now for number two:

This was another design we had done for the shop.  It was based around the border print, a most delicious design by Jennifer Sampou called Rainforest.  The original shop design had taken parts of the border, like the fish and the birds and we'd appliqued them randomly over the log cabins.  It looked so pretty.  But we didn't have enough fabric to finish this one that way, and so it remains a little bare.  But this is another one of those twenty year old UFO's and therefore I am very proud it's done.

Finally, the oldest UFO I have in my cupboard.  And I love this one.  I'm emotionally attached to it. 

My apologies for the crap photo but I don't have anywhere to hang it.  This was begun before I was married, before we had the shop, before I'd ever quilted before.  It's got the hair of old dogs and cats long since gone on it.  My dad was alive.  When I pulled it out of the bag, it smelt like his cigarette smoke.  He's been gone nearly as long as this quilt has been started. 

It was a design from a Family Circle magazine, and it was all template based, and done in centimetres.  Now, Australia is a metric country but for the last how ever many years, we have done our quilting with inches, just like the rest of the world.  I put this design away because at the time, I didn't know how to adapt a pattern to inches, and it was all too hard.  After twenty years of designing and quilting, I know now how easy it is to fudge a bit here, make a border a bit wider to fit the flying geese in, all of those little tricks. 

This one will definitely be quilted soon.  It's supposed to have a further border on it, but I've run out of so many of the fabrics that were in it.  They were those lovely Joan Kessler florals from Concord that were EVERYWHERE a decade ago.  Now it's all trendy and modern and not my style at all and poor old Joan Kessler fabrics, I don't know where you would find them these days.  I think it looks fine.

So that's my show and tell for today.  I hope you liked it, and I shall see you tomorrow.

Suzie

p.s. I haven't forgotton about the block of the month instructions.  I'm still waiting for my Nancy Halvorsen fabric to arrive from America.  It's taking a lot longer than it usually does.  I'm so terribly spoiled with your American postal system.  Sooooo much faster than the Australian one.

Still on a go slow

My internet is still not working quickly.  The technician who was going to ring on Friday (hand on heart, I really truly promise) didn't ring.  Of course.  So I have the weekend on a go slow. 

It's amazing how quickly we get used to the finer things in life, such as fast internet.  I can only get wireless here, though the technician is supposed to be ringing me to tell me that I can get ADSL broadband instead.  If that happens, I can go from six gigabytes to one hundred gigabytes.  I doubt very much even I could use one hundred gigs. 

But I need him to ring back and confirm it.  Why is it that no one follows through on what they promise?  I pay these people good money and yet they'll get to it in their good time.  I don't think I'm too pushy, they promised they would ring on Friday, and they didn't.  I think I have a right to be cranky. 

And it's our national phone carrier, so my choices in transferring to another company are fairly limited. 

Anyway, it's letting me post words, just not pictures so until tomorrow, I hope you have a good weekend. 

Suzie

Hello again

I've not been away, but I have had the double combination of visitors (so no time) and slowed internet.  Not a good combination.

I've been sewing quite a bit though, and have really got down to business with some of my oldest UFO's.  The one I'm working on right now is older than my marriage, and I've been married nearly twenty years now.  I should be finished soon, so I'll show you my photo then.

I can't show you anything now, because my internet is slowed, and even though I just spent an HOUR trying to upload one measly little photo, my computer went all 'Oh no you don't...' and so I can't.

So, I'll try again later, when the computer is behaving.  But I've taken lots of photos and when I do get back into the land of the living and have appropriate internet speed, I'll show you all of them.  In one hit.  You're welcome!

Talk to you tomorrow.

Saturday

No time to take photos as promised today.  I don't know where my time goes, I really don't.  Kids, shopping, laundry, cooking, cleaning.... where's the sewing time in all of that?  Don't you love how you work your butt off and get to point zero (house clean, clothes folded and ironed and put away, dinner cooked, dishes done and put away - you get the idea) and in five minutes it's all gone pearshaped and you're further behind than you ever were?  That's my life at the moment.

Still.  I doubt my life is any different to thousands of other working mothers.  I'm luckier than most, I guess.

So some pictures for you.  What shall I show you today? 



Ahah.  Here's some.  Long before I had my own children (I was an older mother) I had the pleasure of becoming auntie to four delightful girls and one lovely nephew.  When the girls were smaller, I lavished home made gifts on them.   Here is a couple of quilts I made, which I have been told were much loved and much washed.  And that's all I wanted - I didn't want them to be put away in a cupboard.

Both of those girls are mid to late teens.  Bit too old for teddybears.  But I think they've kept the quilts safe.   I hope so.

Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Quiltville

I'm supposed to be doing my shopping list right now.  That can wait.

I've long been a fan of Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville.  This is one of her designs, http://quiltville.blogspot.com/2005/06/smokey-mountain-stars.html or Smokey Mountain Stars.  It turned out ridiculously delicious, and was all from my five inch square box.  I make a lot of scrap quilts, and most of them look very nice, some of them look okay.....not brilliant.  And a rare few look delicious.  This is one of them.

Tomorrow I'll be spending some time photographing some of the things I've finished this week.  It's been productive for me, lots of after hours sewing while DH is away working.  I can get lots done if I don't have to talk to him every night.

That's a joke. Mostly :)

******************UPDATED************************

So I've just checked my hotmail for this account which I forgot I even had and I found a whole heap of comments over there. 

I'm so sorry, I feel like a terrible blogger!  I didn't know that you were posting over there too and that some of you have been having trouble commenting directly on the blog.  Especially Tiny - I've done as you asked so now hopefully it'll be all good.  I'm still really new to all this, so please forgive me if I don't respond quickly, or if I don't respond at all.  It's not me being rude, it's more me being a doofus because I don't 'get' blogger very well yet.

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Till tomorrow,

Suzie

Birdlover

I've been working on UFO's today and have nothing photo worthy to show you, so I dug this one out of the archives.  I didn't make it, my clever mother did.  My husband is very keen on birds of prey, and this is an Australian Wedge Tailed Eagle.  She gave it to him for his fortieth (a little while ago).

I think she's a smart cookie really.  I'm not sure I have that patience.

See you tomorrow.

The Quilt That Started It All

You know, the scary/sad (I can't quite decide) thing is that I'm sure I still have half a dozen more pastel quilts.  I do actually quilt other colours, too. 

This one was for my first daughter, and it was a Chook Shed design.  I'm sure it will be known to Aussie Quilters.  I've seen a lot of them.  She loves it.

And more pastels....

Love, love LOVE this one.  It came from my favourite book 'P.S. I Love You' by Possibilities.  It was template done, and I didn't think I could make it, and I totally did!  Now it needs handquilting and I'll try to get to that sometime before I'm ninety.

And even more pastels.....

I have two little girls.  I have a lot of pastel quilts.