Glow in the dark eggs

I can't find my camera, which is annoying - I think one of my girls borrowed it and didn't give it back - grrrr - my pet hate - usually it is my hairdryer.

I have been busy patchworking - I got the two bushfire quilts off to Victoria, and completed a queen sized top which my daughter Clare has claimed - I did promise her a quilt for a wedding present, but was a bit busy before the wedding doing the dresses!

I have another two or three tops on the go. I spent a good part of the weekend cleaning out some of my 'stuff'. We will be putting the house on the market later this year, so I have to have a huge declutter before moving. I am going to clear out years of accumulated stuff that I thought I needed at the time.....you know how it is. Also, I think it really is time to decide what I want to do and FOCUS. So I will rid myself of all sorts of things that I thought I would like to do, and maybe exprimented with for a while, but then decided I wasn't really interested, didn't have the patience, the fad passed - you know how it is. So watch this space for details of a mega sale in the second half of the year - if you live locally and can come by of course. If not, well I think I will have to put together a couple of blog giveaways so some of my stuff can go live somewhere else in the world!

Work is very, very busy - anyone who works for the government will know what it is like in the lead up to the Federal budget - not just crazy, downright ludicrous.

Autumn is definitely here - a real nip in the air.

My middle daughter had her baby shower last weekend - I forgot to take pictures. Her favourite gift, and a huge hit with mothers to be at the moment (apparently), is an egg - yes, an egg - check it out here.

Depending on the colour, it tells you whether the room is too hot, or too cold, or just right for baby! Imagine. In my day, you just looked at the baby! But then the babies don't come with an inbuilt night light, so there you are - the wonders of the digital world. Makes me wonder how our babies ever made it successfully to adult hood without all those gizmos and just their mother's good sense to guide them.

Weekend away

We had a wonderfully relaxing long weekend away at the coast. The weather was perfect. Despite that, a small boat capsized as it was crossing the Bar at Narooma. The sailor seemed to walk away okay - at least he was able to walk to the ambulance. The boat was another matter. Here are some of the locals trying to recover it on the beach.



The next day we went for a walk and had a closer look. Hmm - don't think that will be sailing the seven seas again. A graphic reminder of how powerful the sea can be - even in seemingly benign weather.
This little one just seems to have decided to lie down and age gracefully on the shores of Lake Mummaga.


My mind is very much on the sea at the moment. One of the reasons we went down was to check out our place - this is the current house - perfectly horrible - an owner builder job from the early 1980s where everything was done on the cheap. It is being demolished in a few weeks to make way for our 'retirement' home. We did a walk through to see if there was anything at all worth salvaging - three CFL light globes! That's it.


The outlook from the block of land is wonderful - that is our backyard in the foreground. We will be able to go asleep at night to the sound of the sea. There is something magical about that. We arrived late on Thursday night, after I had flown back from a work meeting in Sydney, tired and frazzled. Yet just walking on the sand and hearing the gentle, endless sussuration of the surf lulled me into a very mellow mood.


I love the textures and colours on this old boat shed, down on the flat at Narooma. It used to have a registration number on the side, but it appears to have fallen off into the mud flats somewhere.

For the past three or four years, the locals have been building a wonderful bike path along the foreshore and headlands from Dalmeny through Kianga to the Narooma boardwalk. Here is a picture of me whizzing down the path from Yabarra point. Our house is in the group in the centre of the photo, nestled among the spotted gums. (Click to enlarge)

On a quilting note, I have been finishing some bindings on quilts to donate to the Victorian bushfire families. I HATE doing bindings, which means I have a cupboard full of quilts that are all quilted, but just need bindings to finish (no, I am not joking!). I gather that they particularly want queen sized quilts for couples. I happen to have one, so that is in the process of being bound. I have a couple of smaller ones ready to go too. And a top that I am enlarging to make it QS. Trouble is, I have dismantled my home quilter as part of trying to get this house packed up and ready to sell, so not sure how I am going to get that top quilted and ready to go, but I will worry about that later. I will post pictures of the quilts as soon as they are done.

Bonnie's 8 pointed star antique quilt

Like thousands of others, I follow Bonnie's blog over at Quiltville - that woman is amazing - so much energy!!

Her recent post Antiquing through Virginia bought a lump to my throat and a tear to my eye! She went to visit Mt Vernon quilters in Virginia, one of several chapters of Quilters Unlimited. Yay....I used to be President of Mt Vernon quilters - can you believe it??!! It was 15 years ago now, while my family and I were living in the US for three years. We lived in Northern Virginia - my girls went to Washington Mill Elementary school, named after the mill which serviced George Washington's estate - which is called..................you guessed it, Mt Vernon.

Oh what happy, happy times we all had there. I absolutely fell in love with the two antique quilts Bonnie purchased. I have already made myself a basket quilt on point, so was drawn to the second one. Despite being up to my eyeballs in bridesmaid dresses, I just had to drop everything and start making that block.

It wasn't hard to figure out that it is based on an eight pointed star grid - the octagon in the centre is a dead give away! Some 8 pointed star blocks are trickier, and on first glance almost look like nine patches, but you soon find out your mistake if you try and draft it that way.

I ran to my fabric stash, pulled out a pile and quickly made two blocks. Because of the inset seams, these are an ideal candidate for hand piecing. Most of my quilts are machine made, but I do like to have a hand piecing project on the go. It is portable, and pick up and put downable and rather soothing. If you are going to go the trouble of hand pieceing, it may as well be something tricky with inset seams or strange shapes that have to be cut from templates - can't see the point of hand piecing a nine patch which you zap out with a rotary cutter!

I don't know how long it will take me to get enough blocks to make a quilt- it doesn't matter. There isn't a deadline and I am making this for me, so I can go at my own pace. I do know that I will want to hand quilt this one - probably with Baptist fans, which I love.

It feels good to get back to doing something soothing - and recreating antique quilts is a wonderful link to the past. I hope my grand children and others cherish my quilts when I am gone - and even if they end up anonymously in an antique shop - or, heaven forbid, an thrift store, as long as they go to a good home, where the new owner fondles the worn softness lovingly and wonders about the long gone woman who held the needle that made every stitch - well, I think I will rest peacefully.