We have just had a long weekend here in Australia, this weekend celebrates the Queens birthday.It has been an extremely wet weekend but I have not been perturbed one little bit as I have spent a good deal of it sewing with a clear conscious as I could not do anything outside.
I have finally finished the centre of my basket quilt (hexagon rosettes and stars) it is time to start constructing the borders appliquing baskets filled with flowers and leaves.
I think the best approach to constructing the borders is to applique all of the baskets then to fill all of them with the flowers and leaves rather than doing one basket at a time.
I need to have loads of stems for all of the flowers that are going to grow from the baskets , I figured that it would be beneficial to make a selection of bias stems before I start then I can set up a production line when I am ready to start appliquing all of the flowers. 
A long weekend affords a little cooking time , we always have plenty of friends and family calling by when we are at our weekend shack so I enjoy offering something sweet to have with coffee.
Following on with my addiction to sewing Hexagons I made yet another little sewing purse. This time I did not cover papers. I used 3/4 inch size but any size would work depending on how big you wanted the purse to end up.
I did a little book shopping this weekend, this is a book I have admired for sometime and the local Angus and Robertson were offering 30% discount over the long weekend. I have to say I feel really sad that the bookshops here in Oz are experiencing hard times. I know that times are changing and we can purchase from overseas for a lot cheaper than we can here , we can also download soft copies so that eliminates storage space however if we don't support our local stores we won't have them. I enjoy nothing more than strolling into a bookstore and perusing the shelves and flipping the pages. I am still trying to get my head around soft copies of books, it just isn't the same looking into my computer for a book as going to my bookcase and pulling out a book. I am trying so hard to embrace the changes and I am very aware that I could fall into the Dinosaur category if I don't keep up with the times. What are you all thinking about this.
This is the Tea cosy that really inspired me to buy this book. I am not sure whether it is the colours that have attracted me although I do think the whole thing is rather funky. I will probably never get around to knitting it , I don't even drink tea but I have some friends that do , and can you believe that tea making can involve such a ritual, milk in the cup before the tea and the water needs to be fresh boiled, you cannot boil the same water more than once. !!!!!! You know who you are.
Until next post happy sewing
j
