Faith is the Substance

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

That has got to be my favourite verse in the Bible. I have faith in people and a lot of faith in God. So when Kristy was looking for volunteers to try out inspirational words with her new 'Just my Type' paper pieced patterns - I snapped up 'Faith' in the lower case letters.

I think I must be getting better at paper piecing because there was definitely LESS unpicking this time. And even though some of the pieces are teeny tiny I still managed to do them right. I did have momentary panic when it looked like I had sewn my 'f' back-to-front. However it turned out that I was sewing a 't' by mistake and had it up-side-down. Hehehe.

With the green fabric I used a few leftover 2-3" strips leftover from the back of Fussy Fairytales. The 'white' was just homespun from Spotlight as per requested.  Kristy is gathering all of the words to assemble into a donation quilt for the recent bushfires. But now that Queensland and NSW have added massive floods to the January disaster list I think we will be making donation quilts for a while in 2013.

And Sew On

Now the February block should be out soon (poor Kristy is having a phone and internet crisis with her new rental) at Quiet Play. So just keep checking. I was so pleased to see over 40 blocks made it to the January Link Up (if you sneak over to her Craftsy store the Jan block is still FREE for the moment). I am ready to post out my bag of fairy goodies to a happy entrant.

Update: The details for the 'You Little Ripper' February ASO block are now up and posted at Quiet Play. Remember that the pattern is only FREE for this month (only 28 days) and that the link up will be open only slightly longer to allow for the time differences. Great prizes on off for this month too.

Linking up to....TGIFF over at Quokka Quilts today.

Wild and Woolly

Since yesterday morning weather conditions have deteriorated at our place and up and down the east coast of Australia. The wind and rain were shrieking outside last night and I found it very hard to sleep. That and the frightenned children who snuggled in and forced me out from about 4:30am.

A wet and bedraggled rooster yesterday

I have been worrying about our chickens and hoping no large trees or branches fall on their coop. Fortunately the roost is brick and there is access to a run and a couple of nesting boxes, however it is wet. Unfortunately we have re-scheduled our plans for a BBQ and backyard cricket lunch with friends until next weekend. Conditions on the road would be hazardous with fallen trees and large volumes of water. We've had 70mm of raing in our gauge in 24 hours.

Fran was drying the hens but it was a fruitless task given the
weather conditions and that the chickens would wander out into it.

But it has forced me to finish a few sewing projects I have been avoiding. I did some alterations and repairs to clothes and then labelled all of the kid's school uniforms, swimmers and towels. There was no fun in that but a tiny amount of satisfaction.

I did manage to complete some paper piecing blocks including my own version of the 'Measure Twice' block. If you plan to join us for the Quiet Play 'And Sew On' paper pieced Block of the Month - you have only three days to get FREE January pattern. And the same amount of time to enter your block in the fabric give-away.

Sad to hear that the folks of the Lockyer Valley have been evacuated last night and that Ipswich and Brisbane are expecting moderate floods again. It seems that the floods of 2011 are NOT a distant memory. The weather is just crazy! We still have bushfires in Western Australia and some folks in Bundaberg got hit by five tornados. I hear that the northern hemisphere is experiencing freezing conditions right now. So keep safe people.

Update: 10am - We have whole trees and lots of branches down around our 5 acres. The gusts are increasing in velocity - some clocking 100km per hour.

That's our house and in the foreground is our driveway.

Sunday Stash #48

Something Sweet This Way Comes

This week I ventured to my local quilt store, Rainbow Patchwork (see this post) but I did not escape without spending a bit of cash on some lovely fabrics. Remember this cushion on display there?

These were ALL in the $11 per metre section. I bought half a metre of each. It's 'Sugar Pop' by Liz Scott for Moda.

Australia Day Long Weekend

This weekend is traditionally one of getting friends together and outdoor activities, however the remnants of tropical cyclone Oswald have turned into very large rain depression all the way from Queensland and into half of New South Wales. 

So from bushfires to cyclones tofloods all within the month - This is Australia! So that means our Monday BBQ and backyard cricket plans are now in doubt. It may leave plenty of time for sewing and board games instead.

My family playing beach cricket earlier this month

But to brighten up my weekend was yesterday's release of a Union Jack block tutorial over at Molli Sparkles. I am keen to try one of these blocks. Molli will also be hosting Sunday Stash on February 17th.

And thank you to Rachel of Sew Happily Ever After and Allison of Dreaming in Patchwork for signing up to host Sunday Stash in May and June respectively. So nice to have folks want to help out. 

And Sew On

Don't forget that the link up over at Quiet Play, for January's block, will close on the 31st of January. Great prizes available plus the 'Measure Twice' pattern will only be FREE until then too! I have not done my block but I am kind of excluded from the prizes for Month 1 due to a slight conflict of interest (I am one of prize sponsors).

Anything added to your stash lately. Feel free to link up below.

The Great South (flooded) Land

Well the flood crisis in Victoria and the south west slopes, Riverina and plains of NSW continues.  On the weekend, parts of Gundagai were well underwater as the Murrumbidgee River swelled to near 1974 record levels. 

Sheahan Bridge crossing the flooded Murrumbidgee River at Gundagai - Monday 5th March 2012

My husband worked as an engineer on the duplication of the Sheahan Bridge, across the floodplain, in 2007-2008. So a second of his flood evacuation bridges came under pressure to perform in the same week. It held up swimmingly. See video here.

Even the spiders had to head to higher ground as the floods rose.

Last night the Murrumbidgee River came about 10-20cm short of breaching the levies around the city of Wagga Wagga. 9 000 people had been forced to evacuate the night before. 

And as the floodwaters spread out and isolate farms, livestock, roads and properties, the towns further west are also bracing for their inundation. We pray for mercy on Forbes, Griffth and Leeton.

WiP Wednesday


Meanwhile back at the ranch....


the dolly quilts were feeling very neglected so their creator selected some vintage sheet fabric. 

Cut and taped it to the tiled floor.

Threw down some batting and laid on the quilt top.

Then pinned away watching 'Deadliest Catch' reruns. Sig made his crew do a 40 hour grind to make the quota, Keith lost his temper with another greenhorn, Jonathon was on the crab again and Phil was recovering in hospital after a blood clot in the lungs.

And so Dolly Quilt #2 & #3 were basted.

The creator then  used a 'King Tut' variegated thread in pale green, yellow, pink and blue and shadowed the ditch in SLQ - Straight Line Quilting.

She tossed up the idea of quilting on the diagonals but the centre squares were already appliqued and she wanted to keep it simple.

Now the Dolly Quilts #2 & #3 were quilted.

And happy because they looked very matchy matchy...

on the front and on the back.

After much agonising, she decided on another vintage sheet to make binding. And that's as far as the dolly quilts got.

Notebook #4

I did have a bit of fun making another notebook cover though. This time I used 4" squares that were from a scrap bag.

Here they all are looking delicious together.

This week's stats:
Completed projects - 2 notebook covers
                                            2 Craftsy March blocks
                                            6 'garden gate' blocks in grey and gold for QCA March Bee

New projects - 1 = baste and quilt 'HR Far Far Away 2&3 Fussy Fairytales' quilt

On Hold - 1 = Feb  scrappy log cabin quilt - once all the blocks come in

Currently in progress - 1 dolly quilt to be basted
                                             - 2 dolly quilts - basted, quilted and ready to be bound.

I am linking up with WiP Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced....come and check some other blogs out.

Flood Gates and Garden Gates

Well it's now officially Autumn in Australia but you would not know it. There's a huge low pressure trough causing lots of rain right from the top end, the central deserts and down to south eastern Australia...and it is moving  s-l-o-w-l-y. We have had more floods this week in the southern part of my state, New South Wales. 

Satellite image taken 2nd March 2012 courtesy of the BOM

Towns like Goulburn, Cooma and Bathurst are evacuating residents in low lying areas. Even my beloved town of Tumut has copped many hundreds of millimeters of rain and the new 'Little River' bridge (replacing the old one that was washed away in a previous 2009 flood) is now underwater. You would think that they would build it higher!

And speaking of building, the new Cotter Dam in western ACT is still under construction and is now overflowing!

The old Cotter dam is completely submerged for the first time in its 100 year history! 

And in Western Sydney the Warragamba Dam is expected to breach the spillway tonight.  In 2007/8 my husband was an engineer on the Windsor flood evacuation bridge and thankfully that will help residents downstream once the spillway opens automatically. 

At least the eels will be happy about that. During the drought they were all trapped there for years. Now they can make their migration back to the warm waters of New Caledonia to spawn again. The great migration of east coast eels is an amazing story...see it here. 

I only heard about this about 10 years ago when a boy in my class did a talk on it. His dad is the chief engineer at Warragamba and he brought in a map and photos of how these elvers come from the Coral Sea, swim up the Hawkesbury River, climb the cliffs next to the dam wall, enter a culvert, wait in the drain until they can wriggle out, slither across a round-about and into the dam. I was incredulous and I really didn't believe him. But it's all true! And he later brought in an article from 'Australian Geographic' to prove it. I had so much respect for him and the eels after that! (it was a brilliant talk Nathan!)

March Bee Block - Grey and Gold Garden Gate

Anyway March is the month for my friend good Marieka's QCA Bee. She chose a block called 'Garden Path' from a tutorial written by Hyacinth Quilt Designs. In black, gold and grey it makes a stunning impression.

I was seriously lacking these colours from my stash though and put out a call to the girls in the Bee. Kay from Shocking Hocking and Jane from Coffs Fresh Quilters, came through with some great prints.

All cut and laid out for block number one.

Ironing block number four.

Sew the tops onto the middle square.

Then the sides on.

We are using generic white homespun for the duration of the Bee. But to be honest all white fabric looks the same to me and I didn't label mine and separate it. So I took out my white fabric and cut and sewed...all looking great as you can see below.

And then I ironed them and the white fabric kind of distorted by shrinking inwards in the middle and outwards on the ends. I don't know if you can see the subtle differences in the two photos but it's there. My nice parallel seams now looked all wonky.

Talk about frustrating! However the blocks still came together...they just don't look so great on the back.  I have no idea what white fabric blend I picked up but I will definitely label this one 'do not use again!'. Sorry Maz.

Anyway I got 6 blocks out of the scraps and stash. I put the leftovers into a bag ready to post along with the blocks on Monday.

Anyway the report just in, is that the Warragamba Dam reached 100% capacity at 7pm tonight and the spillway is now OPEN! Go the Eels! It must be like a giant waterslide for them.