Australia Day Long Weekend.

I don't mean to go for another long winded posting BUT its been a long weekend and I have done lots!!!!

First of all I will start off with Saturday. We went out to visit my folks at Moura as they have friends up from Broken Hill. So it was nice to catch up with them.

Over the past week we have had huge rain fall. In some parts they had minor flooding as they received so much rain in such a short space of time.On the way out to Moura we managed to miss most of the storms and massive rain clouds. We could see the rain in the distance it was raining so hard in some places. Anyway we were driving along and watching a storm/cloud form and it was just amazing watching it go really black and then it just errupted. It was hard to photograph but managed to get it.

Not sure if this photo really did it justice. It was amazing though.

Check out the next photo....... see what the yellow road sign says!!

Just in case you cant read it... the sign says..... Dry Weather Road Only.

We had a lovely night in Moura catching up with mum and dad as well as the Dungys. They are dads friends from the Army days. They had lost contact many many years ago. However as a part of dads surprise 60th a few years ago I tracked them down.

SUNDAY:

After double checking that the boys stuff was all ready for them to go back to school I ventured into yep you guessed it MY SEWING ROOM. I started fiddling around with a quilt that I partly made and had started quilting at retreat last year. It is another one of Jan Phillips's workshops. See the link on the side bar for Jans website. This one is called Freedom. Its all about free cutting using just the rotary cutter. NO RULERS! No I wasnt drunk when I made it.... the seems are all wavey and crooked Thats why its called freedom! I decided not to square up the quilt but add to its style by leaving the edges wavey. Jan also showed us how to do her freedom quilting that she does. I just couldnt get the hang of it. It required me to go slow. Ever known me to go slow? So I decided to just use the free motion quilt foot and basically just pretended I was doodling on paper.

Its more a bed topper or wall hanging. I plan to hang it on the dining room wall to add a bit of colour to the house! hehe everyone will need to leave their sunnies on when they come in!

The photos below are close ups of the quilting.

All I have to do is finish hand sewing the binding down. It was fun to do and very different!

MONDAY:

Today I finished another UFO. Gee I am being good with my new years resolution so far!!! This brings it to a total of 3 UFO's finished. Well partly finished! The tops are done! HAHA that means finished to me!

Anyway this quilt is another Dissappearing Nine Patch quilt. This one is made using all breast cancer fabrics. I am going to finish this one off very soon as it will be easy to quilt as its not very big. Only knee rug size.

The Expanding Bag

Well today I used my brain and made a bag without using a pattern. Adi if your reading this and its not your birthday day do not continue!

Anyway one of the girls at works birthday is tomorrow and I decided to make her a new work bag. She usually brings her stuff to work in one of those green Coles or Woolworths shopping bags. So using the dimensions of one of these I have made her a bag using Purple which is her favourite colour. BUT made a little twist. I put tabs on the side of it so that when the bag is not full it can be made smaller but when she needs to pile lots of stuff into it she can make it bigger. Check it out..............

The closed not so full look.

The OMG I am going to burst at the seems look.

New Sewing table top

I have been wanting to do something with my sewing table so that my sewing machine would be level with the table. I have seen many new tables that I would love to own but my current table is attatched to the wall and it still works fine. I thought about cutting a hole in the table and lowering my machine but I felt that it would then be too low. I then thought about buying the table that Janome has designed for my machine. But then I would cut down too much room in my sewing nook. But I like to have my machine to the front of my table. So that didnt work either. So I designed a table top that would just sit straight ontop of my current table that was shaped to go around my machine. I took this to a cabinet making business and for $170 they made me exactly what I wanted. Loads cheaper than the tables I was looking at. So check it out............

BEFORE PHOTO

After Photo

Latest Sewing and wot not

Today I finished a bag I started last weekend. Its a Laptop bag. I wouldnt recommend the pattern to anyone! It was really confusing and not very thorough. I ended up just doing my own thing to get it finished. The first photo is of the font of it, the second is the back and the third is inside the bag. Inside it has 3 pockets. It also has another zippered section just under the front flap.

Last weekend I finally got around to finishing my Celestial Hearts quilt top that i started at CQ Patchwork retreat in September 08. I have yet to decide how to quilt it. Jan Phillips the designer actually hand quilted hers but I dont think I will be attempting to hand quilt this one! You can see Jans at her website http://www.quilttherapy.com.au/

Also wanted to show off my cupboard that Ronnie from www.cathroncountrydesigns.com/ made me.

Just in case your wondering........ No I am not going for the world record for the longest blog post just thought it was time I got some stuff up on it seeing I have not put anything up for sooooooo long.

Ok next on the agenda we have a photo of a quilt that I finished ages ago. OOOPPSS mean quilt top. For some reason all my quilts get completed into tops and never seem to progress from there. I keep telling myself one day I will quilt them. By the time that day comes maybe I might own a quilting machine LOL

Anyway the pic is of the Orange Crush quilt I made of Bonnie Hunters. She is a big time scrap quilt maker and has give so many patterns away for free from her website...... http://www.quiltville.com/ This pattern was one of her mystery quilts. Her recent mystery quilt is just beautiful so check out her site.