A Quilter's Moving Tips

A friend of mine told me last week that I must be pretty good at moving by now. I suppose so. I have after all moved more than 17 times. The 17 are just while I was married. Before that, well, who knows how many times I moved. I lived in 6 different countries before we were married.. so,... that is a lot of moves.

I thought therefore, that I might give you some moving tips. From a quilter's point of view of course. These are instructions to be followed very closely, and make for a stressfree move.

Tip #1



The week before you are to move, start a new quilt. Be good, use what you have. Don't buy new fabric. This is so that you don't need to pack as much fabric, you see. All those little bits you cut off can go in the bin instead of having to move them.

Tip #2


Cook meals for the freezer. This is much better than packing. After all, you don't want to waste money on take-away on moving day.

Tip #3


On the Saturday before you move, ask your husband to take you to the cute little quilt shop an hour's drive away to buy the above parcel of fabric. You have researched it thoroughly - it is the cheapest place to buy the kit for Life is a Celebration, Homespun's new block of the month. It is also for a very good cause - reasearching ovarian cancer. And you have saved money by cooking for the freezer, remember...

Tip #4

Open your new fabric kit and drool over it. Nicely of course. Without getting the fabric wet.

Tip #5



On the Sunday before you move, surf the web and join a new quilt along - Patchwork Round Robin. Get out your scraps (so that they are easier to move), and start on the first part:


Tip # 6


Not only sign up for joining in on the Patchwork Round Robin, but also volunteer to help with the design. Just because you have a bright idea. And because you don't want to pack. And because having fun is so much nicer than facing reality. I get to add to the design on the 22nd of March! Yay!

Tip #7

Go to bed on time! After all, you are moving TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!

Sunday Sewing and a Parcel

Today I did some sewing. Well, I did some sorting in preparation for packing and came across some pieces of curtain samples. I thought I'd quickly deal with them... ie turn them into something before I packed them. Good idea? I thought so. It was quick and easy. I sewed them together and made a patchwork cloth to put on top of my washing machine:


Well, it looks better in real life.... but you get the picture. The samples were all cut out with pinking shears, so I left it at that and then to stop the fraying (because it will fray), I used one of my pretty designs to sew around the whole thing. Now when it frays, it can only go so far:


I was pleased to finally do this. I had been meaning to make a cover for the washing machine for a loooong time. I still have some samples left, so I shall make some potholders because the pair I have now are really, really grotty and old. Not today though.... it is nearly bedtime....

During the week, instead of packing, I decided to do something with one of the charm sets my sister gave me for Christmas. The one I get to keep. The other one is expected to be put together and sent back for her Christmas present. Hee hee, I have a cute sister :)

Here is a photo of the first steps of organizing myself to make the quilt:

I organized the squares into 9 groups of 4, and 6 left over. I sewed all the four patches together and now I need to cut binding and the remaining squares. It is going to be cute, and it is my own design - not very exciting, but for me, it is :) If I like how it turned out, I will use the same pattern for the one for Christie.

And finally, how could I forget to show you what Alice sent me for my birthday last month??? Bad me..... It was such a fun parcel too!! Here is what was in it:


Aren't I spoiled? Yes, very, and lovin' it :) There is a calendar to go on the wall in our new house... strips of fabric to use for the strings challenge... 100 Blocks? Well, that should last me a while :) Thanks Alice dear :)

Now I'd better head for bed. I really need to start packing. Bukra Inshallah (Tomorrow, God willing) as we used to say in Saudi :)

Not Quite Sewing

Just cutting and buying. Cutting this:

Forty-four 10" squares. Not very exciting, is it. I didn't think so either, but what it will become one day will be more interesting. These squares are on their way to the Northern Territory to my sister's house. She is in charge of the craft activities for their local MOPS (Mothers of Preschool Children) group. It is their 10 year anniversary and they are making a quilt. So they will all get a square to decorate and then turn it into a beautiful quilt to hang on the wall at their meetings :) I will make sure Christie takes a photo of the finished project... or else I might since I get the feeling I will be putting it all together later in the year.... hmmmm...!!!

More exciting was the buying of this:


The jelly roll and matching fabrics to to use for the:


Alice thought we could join in even if we were moving... hahahahahahhahahaa! If we can do it, it will be nice. I chose the Wiscasset jelly roll from Moda. I love the colors. I wanted blue for the border, but of course there was none, so I went for the pink instead. Once I opened the jelly roll I saw that some of the "pinks" looked more red, so I hope it will still all blend in nicely.

Now to wait for the 1st of March. If you want to join in, go here to sign up. I'm going to go and see if I can actually do some sewing now.... must practice my applique and quilting... must, must....

The Quilting Song

I am going to learn the words to this song, and sing it while I quilt :)

Moving again....

For those of you who know us "in real life", you will probably chuckle and shake your heads because, yes, we are moving again... I think this is our 17th move.... in 17 years of marriage.... :)

We've always had good reasons to move, though, and we do again. Our little farm is just too much work for dh at this stage of our life. Too much time and money needs to go into it, and we don't have enough of either. As we were discussing this problem just before Christmas, we decided we'd get a real estate agent in to see how much our place would be worth, and decide whether we could move somewhere else.

So the guy came to look, and next thing we knew he had a buyer and we found another house that is bigger than this one and has less land... but still is just under an acre, so we have space to move. The best part of the new place is that there is a sunroom which will become a sewing/school room :)

I have to say I am not looking forward to moving yet again, and have been sticking my head in the sand. But I will need to start packing soon, as we will get the keys to the new house on the 1st of March. I won't be getting much sewing done in the next month..... :( Oh well, once I am there, I can at least unpack all my fabric and sewing stuff and scrapbooking stuff and other stuff, stuff, stufffffff :)

Hmmm...... well, I shall still be dropping in here before we move :) I'll stick my head in the sand a little longer I think......

Don't Look Now Part 2

Today was our second class with Kellie from Don't Look Now. For all you Aussies, if you can do a class with her, do it!!! It was great to have this second chance to ask her questions and practice her techniques again. We all enjoyed it so much. It was also so cool to see what the other ladies had done between last classes as well. We all had different color choices and projects, but they were all just as gorgeous as each other!

I worked on this one, which is going to be for Elizabeth:


It's a bit wrinkled from folding up... but still very cute don't you think? It is a section of Kellie's Rainbow Lollipops quilt. I was going to do two kitties, but this turned out big enough - maybe I'll have to tackle the whole quilt next!

Kellie did some more sample quilting for us:


I started quilting the tree block from last class, but had a lot of trouble. I think Nina needs a service, hopefully that will help, but I am also wondering if it was the background fabric I chose. It's the cream on white I got from the souk, and the needle had trouble going through the paint. It seemed to work better on the plain homespun... I hope this isn't the case because the kitty has the same background. Nina was skipping stitches when I hit the painted bits... oh well, we shall see. I think I will need to plan a trip to Bendigo soon to get her serviced.

All in all, it was another great day, and I'm so glad I signed up for this class. I have learned so much. Now I just need to keep practicing!!! Thank you Kellie for coming all the way to Ballarat to teach us :)

Fruit of the Spirit Block 2 - Love

You knew it was going to be love, didn't you? It must be, because it is February :) I think I like how it turned out... I hope you do too! I really need to get some borders on, because it will look even better then :)

The pattern is up on JJ's, so go HERE to download it!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

1 Corinthians 12:4 & 5

Girl's Hair and Quilting

Thank you everyone for your sympathy with the loss of little kitty. This morning I just wished I could go out and get another one to cuddle, but made do with the other monsters. I think they can sense that the little upstart has gone, and they are most cuddly!! I do love them too... :)

Ever since I found this blog The Story of a Princess and Her Hair, I have been hassled by Elizabeth to try new weird and wonderful things with her hair. Of course my mistake was showing this blog to her. I shouldn't have. I know I shouldn't have. But, the styles were just soooooo cute, and I had to.... and of course she wants me to try each of them! Silly me ;) Anyway, this morning I tried a new one. It doesn't look anything like it was supposed to, possibly because her hair is too short or probably because I just can't do it properly... but it still looks nice I think:


In between school, dishes, cooking, and doing Elizabeth's hair, I have been quilting. It is a special project that hopefully I will get done soon. I am up to the quilting part and I am mostly happy with how it is going. Of course there are always spots where I am getting stuck and it is annoying me. But anyway... here is a peak:


I am determined to get the hang of it :) Better get back to work.....

Sadnes....

We had to take kitty back to the vet.. his eyes got worse again, and the verdict was not good. The vet recommended putting him down, so we had to leave without him. Poor little fellow, he had put up quite a fight, but it was a bit too late. There were a few tears. After buying some chocolate, we went home and cuddled the other cats. Another life lesson for Elizabeth - sometimes no matter how hard we try, we can't always fix things.... We gave it a good go, it's a pity it had to end this way....

So, the day was not so good. I am blaming it on the macaroni cheese from last night. It started when I dropped my mobile in it. In the mac cheese. Suddenly Cameron was speaking to me from inside this big pot. It is a strange thing when your dinner starts talking.

I wiped off the mobile.... and then today Cameron said he couldn't hear me properly when he called. He said it was like I had a whole bunch of hankies over the phone. I told him it was the macaroni cheese.

I think he thought I was going mad.

I think he might be right.

There was this little tiny hole down the bottom of the phone. It wasn't the charger hole, and I didn't think it could be too important. When Cam started complaining he couldn't hear me, I decided maybe I'd better clean it out after all. Amazingly enough, after the dried up mac cheese came out, he could hear me again :) Moral of the story - tiny holes in mobile phones should not have macaroni cheese in them.

And so, it went downhill from there.... it was hot and I couldn't sleep,... Daniel had trouble with Math all day and sulked,.... we had to give up the cute little kitty..... and it was all because of the macaroni cheese. I am sure.

Sadness... but, I'm sure it says somewhere in the Bible that joy comes in the morning.... I'm holding on to that thought :)