Grow old together, my darlings

Friends and work colleagues had come along to celebrate with Ben and Sunny.

A few of my favourites, just to finish off my posts on the big event.

 

Sunny changed into a celebratory red hanbok for the reception, at a venue overlooking Sydney Harbour and the Opera House.

 

Beautiful mother and daughter!

I think Ben’s just a little proud, don’t you?

 

How appropriate that our little Princess should help her Mummy and Daddy cut the wedding cake.

And that, my friends, ends my wrap-up of this very happy day in our family’s life. Ben and Sunny chose Lior’s “Let’s Grow Old Together” for the bridal dance - another song that always reduces me to tears, hopeless case that I am - and I pray they will do just that.

I’ll be back with some more quilting-related posts very soon.

Di

Happy families

The bride and groom (below) with the bridesmaids, the Princess and her little friend and fellow flower girl Miss M.

Ben and Sunny’s marriage is a wonderful blending of Korean and Australian cultures, and her mother and sisters looked so elegant in their national costumes (hanboks).

 

 

We were all delighted that Nana could come, and she looked so smart in a co-ordinating black and white jacket with chiffon trim around the collar. Even her walking stick was decorated in a black and white pattern! 

Here we are – the whole family including the adorable Mr J (on his Daddy’s arm), his Mummy on the other side of the photo, and Sarah, looking very glamorous in scarlet and cobalt, who flew home from the USA for the occasion.

It warms my heart, as a quilter, to see young Mr J sporting a super-stylish patchwork jacket!

 

Di

Happy the bride that the sun shines on

The Lord couldn’t have given us a more perfect day for the wedding of my son Ben and his bride Sunny yesterday.

The sun shone brightly on an unseasonably warm winter’s day, and Moo and I had decorated the church with sunshine yellow gerberas, lilies and daffodils.

The church bells rang out across the neighbourhood and cars slowed to see the beautiful bride and her attendants walking the short distance from our home to the church for a 1pm wedding.

Just as the Princess’s drawing had promised, love was definitely in the air as her Mummy and Daddy were finally married at St Mark’s.

 

That’s the groom below with his groomsmen. He’s the very relaxed-looking young man wearing the white tie .

I created a romantic garland for the arched church entrance.

 

The ceremony was so moving. Sunny started it: once she began to cry happy tears I couldn’t help mine, and I doubt there was a dry eye in the church as they took their vows.

But the tears gave way to smiles and applause as the newlyweds emerged after signing the register.

More to come

Di

I finished THREE queen-sized quilts in a month!

So, how was your July quilt-wise? I finished three queen-sized quilts.

Oooh, I love saying this. THREE!!!!

Quilting with me is like waiting for the #10 Bus. You wait for ever, hopping from one foot to the other, and then three of the darned things come along together.

Confession time – I might have finished my quilts in a month, but I sure didn’t start them just last month. To be completely honest, two of them have been bubbling away for well over a year, so it was high time for a reveal. Or two. Or three.

Today I’ll show you my first finish, the Whirligig quilt by Australian designer and teacher Sue Ross, who also designs those scrumptious co-ordinates from A Day in the Country.

Apart from machining the background squares together, my Whirligig is entirely hand pieced, hand appliqueed and hand quilted. Now you know why my quilt journeys are more like leisurely meanders than sprints. I’m what you might call a plodder!

Sue came along to Paddington Patchworkers early in 2010 and over three x monthly classes taught us the finer points of making her quilt. Up to this time I had pretty much been a reproduction girl, a lover of muted, dusty tones.

The Whirligig quilt marked a radical departure, for me, from my soft colour-washed florals, and though I still dip into them from time I prefer my florals on the modern side, teamed with clear, crisp backgrounds and co-ordinating hues that make them pop. 

For my Whirligig quilt I delved deep into my growing collection of glorious Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

I pieced the whirligigs after cutting the shapes from plastic templates, and then each finished whirligig was appliqueed to its background, either a fine black dot-on-white or a plain white.

When I started I wasn’t so keen on the floral applique border Sue had designed, but it grew on me and her advice, to use a black and white stripe for the bias vines, paid off, I think you’ll agree. When I took this photo I hadn’t yet quilted the border.

I echo quilted around the flowers and vine in the border, and quilted 1/4 inch inside the seams on the whirligigs, and I made plastic templates from one of the flower motifs and used this to hand quilt the background of the large blocks.

 

I love the look of a striped binding, and this one picked up on the narrow inner border and the many fresh greens, pinks and yellows in the quilt.

It could probably have been a tad stronger in colour, but I think it works well enough. You live and learn.

I’ll try not to leave you waiting too long for the next bus quilt.

International shipping–the sublime and the just plain ridiculous

I just love the convenience of internet shopping. Ebay, Etsy, web surfing, there’s absolutely nothing, it seems, I can’t find somewhere in the world by just sitting in my PJs (or snuggling under the covers) and letting my fingers do the walking.

When it comes to shopping, even though I live “down under” in Australia, these days the world’s my oyster.

Trouble is, sometimes you find a pearl, and sometimes there’s just a lot of grit.

Today I received a package of fabric from Sew Dear, an online quilt shop in Waverly, Iowa, and I can’t praise them enough for their wonderful customer service.  I’d been scouring the internet for nine metres of fabric from April Cornell’s Nature’s Notebook range from a few years back, and was over the moon to see the object of my desire on the Sew Dear website.

A quick email to them before I popped off to bed elicited a warm, friendly reply by morning. Yes, said Deb, she could supply me with my whole nine metres!

My quilt fabric, weighing a hefty 3 lbs, was promptly despatched, via USPS Priority Mail, and arrived on my doorstep this morning, just 15 days later. The shipping cost was a very reasonable US$46.40.

Go Deb, and the staff at Sew Dear!

What a contrast to my experience trying to buy this little item a couple of months earlier from Lightwedge in  Massachusetts .

It’s a KIndle cover, beautifully crafted to look like a vintage leather book, and as soon as I saw it on the Lightwedge website I knew it was the perfect gift for my Kindle-loving husband for our 40th wedding anniversary.

It weighs a feather-light 7.7 ounces, according to the website, but can you guess how much Lightwedge wanted to charge me for shipping?

Sit down first.

US$144!!!!!!!

When I first saw this I was certain it was a computer glitsch, but no. Christina Woods, Lightwedge’s Customer Service person, assured me it was correct. In fact, she told me in her email, Lightwedge’s international shipping starts at US$100.

Stranger still was what happened next. I asked for my gorgeous Kindle cover to be sent (domestic postage was free)to Sarah in Virginia who promptly repacked it and sent it to me via USPS for the very realistic cost of $11.60.

There are questions I can’t avoid asking, but I‘ll resist putting them into words here. I simply want to ask why, if an ordinary citizen can post this cover for $11.60, can’t Lightwedge do the same?

My DH is enjoying his beautiful gift now, and I would really love to recommend you buy one too, but definitely not if, like me, you live outside the US.

This company clearly doesn’t need my business, so they’ll not be getting it again.

Di

Just popping in

Life is rather full for me this week.

Marvelling … at the difference a week makes to the beautiful magnolia in our church garden.

 

 

Arranging flowers … with Di B for the funeral of our dear friend Robyn’s mother tomorrow. Robyn wanted bright colours because her Mum is now in heaven and happy with the Lord.

 

Getting mighty excited … at the prospect of this gorgeous girl’s arrival home for a visit in just a couple of days.

Finishing … this project (all will be revealed soon!)

Listening to … Death Comes to Pemberley by PD James, on my iphone.

Getting fitter … taking late afternoon walks and watching the sun set over the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

 

I’ll be back before too long, but for now, I must run …  

Di