Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt

I realised I have got something to show in the quilt department. I have about 3 more blocks to go and I am ready to put this one together.  It's on the list to finish over my Christmas break.  The list is a bit ridiculous and I am destined to fail really - it's a wish list rather than a to-do list!  But it's also an ideas list.  I regularly pop quilt project ideas on to it. So I'm not going to beat myself up about it - the main thing is that I spend some time creatively.  I feel totally stifled lately, due to a busy daily life and my fatigue.

Update

My fatigue levels since having Dengue Fever seem to have increased tenfold and I seem to only have energy for the necessities of work and home life.  Although I feel under pressure all the time as if I always have a million things to do/chasing my tail/not getting anywhere.  The end result has been anxiety and fatigue.  I'm limping over my work finish line next Tuesday.  I have until the 5th of January off.  I'm staying close to home.  I swing between getting excited about some days spent sewing and reading, walks at the beach, catching up on things and then telling myself not to put any pressure on myself to cross anything off a list. Perhaps what I really really need is complete rest - both physical and mental. No pressure on myself to achieve anything.  Needless to say the blog has gone by the wayside.  I've had no time to read other blogs and feel quite cut off from my creative world.  Don't worry my list of craft and quilt projects keeps growing, even though nothing is being done to finish those.  Daydreaming is what keeps me going.....honestly I am the best daydreamer ever...solidly grounded in reality ...ha!  Some are ridiculous Hollywood happy ending style daydreams, although George Clooney managed to shatter one of those by getting married.  LOL! Others are very very ordinary daydreams, that I hold dear and no-one can shatter, that's the wonderful thing about daydreaming, isn't it?

And because I don't have any quilty/crochet pics to share here a some random Christmas photos from the last few days at my house....

Sweet happy pics from my little corner of the world.  The deer is one of my newest decorations, from a darling sister on the other side of the world. The fairy is my oldest decoration and arrived on my first ever Christmas stocking, er-em just a short 50 years ago!!!

Wishing each and everyone of you dear readers a blissful time over Christmas and a wonderful 2015.

xxxooo

Checkerboard quilt

So I put my foot down on the quilting accelerator and finished one of my 7 quilt tops in various stages of development.  I've given myself a bit of a talking to and decided it's high time they got finished as tops at least - the sandwiching, quilting and binding can happen later.  Perhaps I'm just missing the wonderful feeling when you step back and view the finished top.  It's a lovely stage of the whole wonderful process for me.

I had a styling assistant help with the photos....or is it what you call photo-bombing?  Tilly takes such and interest in everything I do and likes to help at all times.

Instagram

I'm posting quite a bit to Instagram these days - it's so quick and easy, whereas the blog is a bit more effort. I like recording snippets of my day by photos - I think it's a nice gallery to reflect on. My life revolves around flowers, my dog, baking, reading, crochet, if you take a look at it.  Some may think my interests are very basic...each to their own.

Some of my activities since I last wrote.

I've been to a play - this is not a love song - brilliant
Out for a couple of yummy meals - Bivouac in Northbridge top of the list.
I've nearly finished my v-stitch crochet rug.  So a picture will follow.
After living her for 20+ years I finally visited Araluen - it was fabulous.  The colours of the tulips were awesome.
Baked and cooked a bit
I finished 'Still Alice"- an easy read and I really enjoyed it.
I went to see the film "The 100 foot journey" and LOVED it.
Out for breakfast with friends
Out for lunch with friends
Gone on lots of walks
Patted Tilly a fair bit
A little bit of quilting, but not enough!

I'm back!

So I've been away for a while.  I headed off to Bali to turn 50 somewhere warm and tropical. It was all that I could have wished for and more. A great holiday with family and friends. Then the kicker....I got dengue fever! Bit of a downer. But I'm bouncing back, well crawling back :) what a revolting few days I had with that. Anyhow I'm through that dark tunnel and back at work, back to reality.

Here are a few snaps from Bali - they are very random as my phone that I took all my photos on has died.  Hopefully, I'll retrieve them at some point.  For now I only have the ones I uploaded to Instagram or Facebook whilst I was there.

We stayed at Villa Kukka - as the description said - ''it oozed Bali funk",  It was a fabulous haven.

The door to Villa Kukka aka paradise

Birthday girl - our first breakfast

Mosaic Marilyn in my bathroom

First Bali Kopi (coffee) of the day

View from the cabana
 

Everything was fabulous, the company, the food, the pool - I loved every minute of it. It was a dream come true. 

Cheaper than therapy

A great book

Last night I read this book - what a great read.  My daughter had picked it up on a visit to Sydney and was showing me her holiday purchases.  I sat down and read it cover to cover last night (it doesn't take long).  So much of it resonated with me.  It's going to live on the coffee table so I flick through it regularly. I'm probably the last person to hear of Austin Kleon, so I'm glad I reached out from under my rock and caught this little ray of sunlight, or rather was yanked out by my daughter into the light.

A burst of colour in Perth's grey winter!

 

Perth is enduring a very, very cold, windy and wet winter.  Perfect for hunkering down and crafting away.  Not that I can - I have a day job to go to :) 

 

I am methodically sewing in ends on this crochet throw - nearly finished a year or 6 ago!  Also on my crochet granny squares and I'm starting to join them AND working on my V-stitch.  The colour burst makes me feel alive at the end and beginning (I'm having a coffee and crochet a few trebles first thing in the morning, sssshhh don't tell my walking buddy who's away in Europe, that I'm shirking my walking duties, but it's far too wet anyhoo, Margaret :)

 

Colour and crochet make me happy!

Crochet: V Stitch

 

I've taught myself a new stitch this past weekend and I am loving it long time!

 

It is really super easy and progress is super fast - like one of those AGV or TGV fast trains in Europe - this is the Vroom Vroom fast train stitch of crochet.  My thoughts whiz around in my head.  Dreams chattering wildly to me.  It's like sitting on one of those trains.  You sit whilst colours and scenery flash by, taking you to a new place, so you're stationery and mobile all at the same time.  It's an exciting feeling.  I really feel it on trains. Much more so than on aeroplanes.

 

I'm doing what I always seem to do with my crochet.  Totally random colour - just grab the next ball - one colour per row for this throw, so who knows what it will end up looking like. It's a total adventure. :)

 

Knitting frustration

 

What am I doing wrong - I'm sure the neck isn't meant to look like this after you've picked up stitches around the neckline!!  I tried you-tubing a video tutorial but obviously I'm still wrong.  It looks ok around the back of the neck, but jeez it was hard getting the needle through to knit a stitch.  It's the front panels where I've decreased that are not right. 

 

Maybe it doesn't matter in the long run.  I'd just like to know I had the right technique for future project.  It's so long since I knitted a garment, I'm way out of practice.  My knitting has been hats, bags and 1/3 of a sock more recently. This is for a wee bairn in Scotland.

 

If only I lived near my mum, who could show me what I was doing wrong.  I will take it to the local wool shop and see if they can enlighten me.  I love the colour, so happy for a bonnie little girl.

 

 

 

 

a lovely rose on one of my morning walks.  Soon it will be time to prune them all back.

 

Autumn colour up the street from me.  Look at the tree right beside it.  It's a Maple Tree too and was the most amazing dark red colour, darker than it's neighbour.  But it lost all its leaves much more quickly.

Hexie Heaven

Count so far....drum roll.....1088 hexies! It now fits across the top of my king size bed, but doesn't go down the sides far enough for my liking.  I would like it to cover the top mattress of the ensemble.  I have this ''thing'' about doonahs, that sit on the top and still show the sheets.  I want this to hide that, so it's more like an old fashioned bedspread...or should the word be retro or vintage these days? I much prefer the drape over the sides look.  Which means... I need to keep going, making my hexies and sewing them together and watching them grow.  It's lovely to step back and take photos.  I call it my daughter's inheritance, as they have watched me work on it for years.  The investment of my time and love...won't they have lovely memories in about 50 years time!!  Trouble is I have 2 daughters and this one quilt, and it's not even finished.  Guess I'll have to make another one.....

Inspiring Quilt Show

 

 

On the weekend I popped into quilt show at the Moore's Building in Freo.  It was my kind of quilt show.  Geometric, modern, bright scrappy quilts adorned the walls. Totally inspiring.  The above pictures give you a taste of it.

 

 

A little bit of knitting

It was a long weekend here in WA so I saw 3 movies, went out with my daughters for a late lunch, caught up with friends and bought some wool for a new little knitting project.  It felt great to pick up the sticks again.  I love the rhythm of knitting, don't you?

I'm making a little cardigan for my namesake.  My Godson, Jamie and his wife Katie, had a daughter named Matilda Ann (my middle name). Readers may remember I went to their wedding in Scotland last year.  I'm so honoured and thrilled to get a look in with the name!!

I'm knitting the jumper for a 6 month old, to alleviate time pressure.  I chose a bright hot pink wool - for bright and happy.  Little Tilly has already brought so much joy. It's a very happy knitting project, not that every project isn't, but perhaps because I haven't knitted for a while, I'm just remembering how much I love it.

 

 

 

Below is a picture of my brunch from Toast in East Perth.  It was so, so delicious. A potato pancake topped with salmon and eggs and crème fraiche. I can see myself heading back there to eat the dish again. We followed it up with a decadent slice of chocolate cake with 3 forks.  We agreed we could have eaten a whole slice each it was so yummy.

Autumn

 

With Autumn leaves falling around me it seems the perfect time to quilt.  I have a yen to make a series of seasonal quilts.  I've spent many pleasurable hours sorting my fabrics into ''seasons''. Should I make them all the same basic pattern, or should the pattern be the different?  How to connect them as a series, or not bother about connecting them in any way...Will I just make them each a fusion of seasonal colour?  I love the ideas playing around in my mind.  They feel like an autumn wind, blustery one minute, gentle the next, floating around, swirling and dancing, unsure of where they will land. They blanket the ground, just as a quilt wraps or blankets us, coating us in a wonderful display of colour and wonder.

 

A week in review

I've had a head cold for over a week now. You just feel so blah don't you with a head cold? I was so lucky that my mum was staying when I came down with it! I had a nurse :) she made me soup and hot lemon and honey drinks and cooked dinner for everyone. How wonderful it was, not to have to keep functioning. The big downer was my psychotic reaction to Codral! I got so depressed, felt like I would asphyxiate if I feel asleep. Couldn't sleep, but when I did sleep I would have amazingly vivid dreams. In one I was escaping the nazi's through tunnels and cupboards and then on boats and lakes. In another I was caught up in riots in India! Fascinating stuff! As good as any book I've read. On a darker note though, I contemplated taking a whole bottle of diazepam to end the madness and wrote a note. I thought the stress of my life had finally caught up with me and I was having a breakdown. I was exhausted in the aftermath of the 21st party. My employer was not understanding and offered no reassurances that I just needed to get better and not worry about work until I was back on my feet. Instead he sent me a text venting about an urgent order. I think this is totally out of order but is this how it is now in the technology age? I was livid. I have 5 weeks+ sick leave accumulated, as I have taken next to none since I started, and they couldn't get through 4 hours. By this time I was in my Codral haze, so I rang him and told him what I thought. Needless to say I then thought I'd just done myself out of a job!

I tell you never a dull moment around here!

On a lighter note, I caught up with my best friend from my high school years - Jeannet! She is in Perth for a week long conference, so I picked her up from the airport and took her down to Bib & Tucker for lunch. What a wonderful afternoon we had! 32 years plus later and on the other side of the country. It was very special. Leighton beach was alive with  kite surfers capitalising on the blustery conditions. It was totally invigorating and their energy was transferable. I could feel it charging me. I often find the beach in winter has that effect. The energy is so different to summer, but no matter the season, I always come away from the sea feeling fantastic. Perth is amazing for its beaches and it's one facet of life here that I cherish.

Up close to a Bluebottle stranded on the beach - aren't they amazing looking and such an incredible colour?

Leighton Beach Kite Surfers

New Liberty at Materialise

Part of my latest Liberty Tana Lawn acquisition.  oooooooooh the goody goodness!  Is it weird that if I won Lotto, one of the first things I would do is buy a MASSIVE  amount of Liberty fabric and not just in my usual 20cm minimum cut pieces?

Happy days everyone!

#theyearinbooks

#theyearinbooks

My current reading...I like Jennifer's quilting stories.  This is only my second one.  It's an easy read.  The 2 novels together cross over quite a bit, but I don't mind the weaving together of stories.

Georgia Anne's 21st

Yours truly as Carmen Miranda



the guest of honour in blue with her sister

Me and my sister Helen

Georgia Anne on drums!

One of the props - I painted a themed Head in the Hole Board
 

The party was fabulous - every one had a great night - most importantly Georgia Anne loved it.

I can't believe I'm old enough to have a 21 year old daughter.  How did that happen?  In the blink of an eye.

Georgia Anne's 21st Party Preparations

Here's a sneaky peak at the hive of industry that is party preparations for Saturday night. The atmosphere is electric around here....the creative energy is AWESOME. I can feel the roof lifting and straining to keep the lid on the house. We might just lift off - UP style. 

In no particular order......

Guest of honour

floral embellishment

Glitter parade
 

Put your head in the hole
 

Lolly land

Sherbert Fizz Bombs

Props

 

Photo memories