A Landscape Quilt For Christmas Part 1

My Mum and Dad mentioned early last year that they would like a nice quilt cover for the bed in their new caravan. Something simple. Something Australian, oh and their favourite colours are Purple and Yellow, oh and one more thing we would love a bit of turquoise thrown in there.

On the way home I started scribbling out ideas on the back of a napkin. That progressed into sketches, then into a full size 1.5 meter x 1 meter 1st draft.

After a few weeks research and teaching myself through watching you tube videos and reading up at the library, and most importantly much guidance, explanation, demonstration and priceless words of wisdom from a wonderful lady called Jane.

Jane is the owner of Patchwork 33 at Wyee Point, and Jane has quickly become my Yoda in the world that is quilting.

I started by pressing and adhearing the background layers using visa flex. First you adhere the visa flex to the back of your fabric, pressing a hot dry iron firmly for 5 seconds. easy right? Well that is until you realise each piece is 1 meter or so long and your iron only covers a small area at a time. Next you cut the piece into shape, peel off the paper backing and press for 7 seconds with a hot dry iron. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

You get the idea.

With all my background layers in place I began the long learning curve of free motion quilting.

Pebble stitch on the far away mountains.

For the sky I had a go at this random pattern, you alternate sewing a ( W ) or a shape that looks like the end of a bone continuing the line upwards sewing a mushroom cloud. That is how it was described to me. My 1st thought was "What The" then i watched the you tube video and it made more sense.

Next I layed down the tree trunk and started laying down the leaves. Jane had made a few suggestions on how I could have created my foliage. Of course all of these ideas just didn't look right to me, they probably would have been a hundred times faster but hey. I'm an obsessive perfectionist and being a gift for my mum and dad it had to be the very best of me, that meant cutting each and every leaf out individually.

Yes I am insane, but that's why you love me right!

I played around with the different shades and layering and decided I was just going to have to bite the bullet and go for it. I pressed down the tree trunk and started free motion stitching some detail and texture onto it to create the bark.

As you can see I tried to give texture to the bark with sharp upward motion and a few knots thrown in the mix.

A close up of the leaves with detailed stitching.

To be continued....

Cheers Donna

9 Kids Christmas Party 2011

As always we had a great time at the Chanel 9 kids Christmas party.

Diego came to visit us while we were lined up to see Santa.

Next we said hello to Rudolph and Christmas Bear.

Then we headed to the face painting table.

Of course Sophie wanted to be a Yellow butterfly.



Next we headed out to the big slide.

We had so much fun on the pony rides.

Sophie even got to fly a space ship.

Next we headed inside the studio for the go Diego go show.

Sophie quickly made a new friend and they had so much fun singing, dancing and screaming at the top of their lungs. Well what else are you supposed to do when Diego asks you the same silly question  3 times over?

All in all it was a great day.

Well that's all folks

cheers Donna.

Not Long Now - Australia Day

          Oh how I love Australia Day. A great day to celebrate what it means to be a fair dinkum Aussie.

                                         I have been pondering what we will do this year???

Last year we went to Australia Day Live in Canberra for the Wiggles concert.

The year before we had a picnic down by the lake.

Maybe if the weather improves we can go fishing on Daddy's new boat and then have a BBQ?

What do you do to celebrate Australia Day?

well that's all folks

cheers Donna.



Fun at Lake Burley Griffin - Canberra

I'm playing catch up.

I'm sooooo.... behind with my blog it's not funny.

I'll post all about the quilt I made for my Mum and Dad for Christmas which took up every moment of my time for 6 months!

But back to the topic at hand.

Lake Burley Griffin. We had a great day out whilst in Queanbeyan for Easter.

On arrival we were greeted by some beautiful swans.

We headed onto the wharf and strait onto the boat for a guided tour of Lake Burley Griffin. Our tour guide was hilarious we laughed our socks off and learnt so much. It's great having a local guide the tour. He knew all sorts of interesting tid bits.

I was surprised how entertained Soph was. I expected the novelty to wear off in the first 5 minutes, only to hear the inevitable "I'M BOARD". But I was wrong she had a great time and asked loads of questions. She giggled and giggled at all the jokes our tour guide told (even though I think most of them went strait over her head!) 

"Look look everyone. Nana your not looking LOOOOK"

A quick pic of mummy and Sophie.

We passed the fountain at just the right time.

As we headed back under the bridge we passed lots of these pedal boats and knew we had to have a go on these.

We pedled all the way down the lake under the bridge and down to the fountain. Thankfully the fountain was not going at the time or we would have been drenched.

We took turns pedalling and although our legs felt like they were going to drop off towards the end we powered on and made it back to the wharf.

What a great day out

Well that's all folks

cheers Donna.



Easter Adventure In The Capital

I was looking through some photo's and came across photos from our Easter trip to Queanbeyan to see my family.

We had so much fun on our friends Clem and Carolyn's farm.

Clem took Steve, Sophie and Dad out on his tractor to collect wood.

Sophie loved going for a ride on George. George was a circus pony and there fore is extremely affectionate and just loves the company of people and the other ponies.

What a character Soph was giving George hugs and he was blowing horse raspberries and laughing.

Sophie loved pretending to drive the tractor. Especially with Nandad's cow boy hat on.

This one is a bit squinty, the wind was howling so we decided to take a walk and explore the property.

The dam was a breath taking oasis in the beautiful bushland. Surrounded by native trees and shrubs. The water was still and native flowers were blossoming. "Hows the serenity?"

This is the new farmhouse. I just love it and as I wondered around I dreamed of a farm house of my own. "Sigh".

Sophie insisted I take a picture of the water tank. When I explained how the water tank uses gravity to feed the water down to the house she was so impressed she ran strait to Daddy and told him "I need you to build a water tank for our house, then we can have special gravity water."

We headed into the farm house to warm up in front of the fireplace and enjoy the fresh scones I had baked that morning. Needless to say they didn't last long.

We all piled into the 4x4s and headed out along the track to the road. We had to park our sedan out near the road as the track leading into the farm is dirt, bumpy and full of wombat holes.

What a great day we all had. We can't wait to go back and visit again.

Well that's all folks

Cheers, Donna