RAIN RAIN RAIN GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here in Gladstone Central QLD it has been raining non stop for three days. Yesterday we had a wild storm that dumped a heap of rain on us in a short space of time. Check out these photos to show you the impact the deluge has had!

This fence here has been knocked down by the water. It is the boundary fence of the airport. That river flowing through there is usually just a very small creek.

The pic on the right is of the same creek above but on the other side of the road. It actually came up so high that it flooded across this road. One house on the left out of shot actually had about a foot of water under their house.

Picture on the left is Police Creek near the Big W complex. Those trees are usually high and dry as they are on the side of the creek!

The picture on the right shows the speed the water if running. The fence there goes down under the bridge above and divides the footpath from the creek bed! You say what footpath! Yes there is a footpath/bike pathway that usually goes under the bridge in the picture above!

The pic on the left is the footy field behind our Kmart shopping center. The river you see in the fore ground is usually just a very very small creek! But as you can see its turned the footy field into a lake!

The pic on the right shows the path that leads to the walk way under the Police Creek bridge, well actually it doesnt show it LOL cause its under water! You can tell how deep the water is by looking at those palm trees!

Better picture of unsewn and resewn quilt.

Fixed My Mistake

Well I couldn't let this quilt become a UFO. So I have unpicked and fixed up the mistake. What mistake you all ask as you couldn't see it. It was in the greens on the left hand side. I only had 3 greens and then the reds started. All the other had 4 greens then the reds. So consequently the strips on the left were one row short! SO I unpicked between the last green and the first red and added another green row in. See if you can see the difference:

The fixed version is the smaller pic on the left hand side. Sorry i couldnt get two pics exact same size so you could see the boo boo. LOL

Sunday Superbowl Bargello

Well its Sunday in Australia and even though we dont celebrate the Superbowl my aunt and I decided to join Bonnie from Quiltville Chat in the Superbowl scrappy bargello sewing day. The US girls are probably just waking getting ready to sew and to watch the superbowl.

Here are some photos I wanted to share of Gail and I making our bargellos. I had a slight hiccup with mine right at the end however think it will be easily fixed.

The first photo above is of Gail and myself sewing our bargellos together. Hehe you can see mine behind me hanging on Gails curtain.

Gail has steamed ahead of me and alread done her first border and also part of her braid border. Psssttt ssshhh you know why she is ahead of me..... she sewed until 4am this morning! When I arrived at her house this morning she was still sleeping and I went into her sewing room and OMG I found all her strips sewn together!!!

Anyway here are some pics hope you enjoy.......

This is my scrappy bargello. Each strip is different but I organised them into colour groups. I have made one mistake though, can you see it?

On the right here is Gails quilt. Its so scrappy and so fantastic. The photos just dont do it justice. The photo shows the first border on and the braid border in progress.

This is me cutting out my strips from the tubes. Do you know how hard it is to smile for a picture and trying to cut at the same time with the rotary cutter. I wouldn't suggest anyone try this at home!

~~~~~~~~Gail sewing her braided border.~~~~~~~~

COMING SOON:

Photos of the completed quilts!

OMG another bloomin' project!!!

OMG I have gone and started yet another bloomin' project thanks to Bonnie from Quiltville http://quiltville.com/carolinacrossroadsmystery.shtml Between now and her next mystery she has decided to do a one day quilt called Scrappy Bargello. Its for next Sunday when the super bowl or whatever it is in America is on. Being an Aussie I wont be on at the sametime but have decided to make it anyway. BUT LIKE do I really need another project!!!!???????? NO WAY OF COURSE NOT!

On the positive side its all from scraps! Check out my mess everywhere in my sewing room today: I have piles of colours everywhere!

The picture below is of my nice little pile of 16 inch strips by 2.5 inch wide.

Recyled Denim Bag

After seeing Sharon from NZs bags she has made from recycled denim I decided I just had to do one. My one has a sewing theme. There are two nine patch blocks that are 3 inch square that have mini plastic safety pins on them as though they are ready for quilting. On the other side I embroidered I LOVE SEWING with my embroidery machine. I also have used some gold tone sewing buttons on that side too. It was so much fun creating this unique one of a kind bag!

Australia Day

Well everyone it is Australia Day long weekend in Australia this weekend. Its meant to be a time of rejoicing and celebrating our countrys birthday. Its a day that families should get out and about togther and have a picinic or something groovy like that.

What will we be doing? Well the other 5 inhabitants of this house will no doubt be planted in computer chairs staring at their computer screens playing WOW. What will I do??? Well think I will sew!

Last weekend I made a design board. I used 4 meters of felt. Cut them into two lengths of 2 meters and sewed the two pieces together. I then put a hem on the top to slide a rod through. THen I placed 3 large cup hooks into the wood part around the doors in my sewing room. I then hung it up there and wammo a design board just like that. When I had finished with the design board i rolled it up and used those blue plastic hook/clips that you put on quilts when quilting. They held the design board really well and that way I got to leave my quilt inside the roll.

Here are some pics to help explain what I am trying to describe!
First one is of the design wall when its rolled up when not needed. The quilt stays inside it.

If anyone is wondering, NO behind those doors is not my stash cupboard! I wish!!!!! Its actually my laundry!

The next pic is of the design wall when its down. The quilt on it is my dissappearing nine patch made from 30's charms squares I got from a good friend Sharon in NZ and some from Lissa in NSW and some from Marg Fulton - no not the cook from QLD. I love my net friends! Thanks heaps girls!

The picture below is to show all my friends at C-R-A-F-T that my sewing desk is not always tidy! Everytime in the past I have sent pics of my sewing room my desk has been tidy, today its not so heres the proof!

Update On Arrick

Arrick has his arm out of plaster now. It will be just a matter of time and healing until its totally better.
I had a win with my arguement with Pacific Palms Motor in at Marcoola Beach. They finally agreed to give us our money back on the accomadation we had paid.

Arrick and his Broken Arm!!!!

Well after a few drawn out days and lots of twoing and froing from the hospital Arrick had a cast put on his arm today. We had to cancel our holiday plans to the Gold Coast when he first injured himself so we decided on the Sunshine Coast. Well now due to the doctors wanting to do more xrays etc next week we now have to cancel the Sunny Coast holiday.

Oh by the way Pacific Palms Motel are the most empathetic people I know. The gave us a full refund on our accomadation NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A***holes wouldnt even give us part of our accomadation costs back! They kept the whole lot!!! Yep the whole lot! I had paid for the whole entire 5 days of accomadation and not just a deposit. Gotta mind to keep the booking and just not show up! At least they cant let the room out to someone else and earn double for it.!

Anyway back to the little man in question here is a picture of him with the temporary cast they have put on him. Its huge! Its soooooo heavy too. He has it for a week then we go back and they will remove it and do more xrays and decide from there if they put another one on him.

He looks so cute. Its so hard getting his clothes over the cast so he is wearing one of my singlets!

Its amazing how quick they learn to susbtitute! He can now use his left hand perfectly to operate the computer mouse!

Budding designer in the making?

These pictures are of my son Arrick who is only 7 but likes to sew when I am.He has his own machine and table and sets himself up next to me when he feels like sewing.

The photo below is of his work in progress!

Just a few of my other quilts

Well seing this is such a good idea and a good way to show off stuff thought I would add some more photos.

This quilt is called Pansy Passion and it is a few different quilts of Jenny Haskins combined into one.

This quilt is called Old World Quilt. It is for my nana but as of yet I have not been able to give it to her as I have not seen her. Hopefully will see her next month to give it to her.

This quilt was made for my daughter for her 18th birthday. Antionettes favourite colours and also the theme colours she had for her party are green black and purple (yeah its actually a purple colour not blue).

Who needs Gold?????

Meet Benny.....

Benny is Alana's (my youngest daughter) pet python. NO he aint a snake he is a python and NO he doesnt bite. Benny recently got a friend her name is Stevie. She belongs to Alana's boyfriend. Maybe in a few years time they will have babies - hmm Benny and Stevie not Alana and her boyfriend!!!! i aint ready to be a grandmother to a human yet!!!!!!!

What I am curently working on........

well gee where do I start. I have been trying to work on a bargello quilt in blue tones but oh man I have so lost the motivation to do anything with it. We (a bunch of girls I met at the local Janome shop) now get together on a Saturday morning once a fortnight. We had been going to the shop and making a set item in a class. So we decided we would continue it at our homes when the shop stopped having Saturday morning classes. Anyway back to where I started we decided to do a bargello quilt as our "group" project however the week after we started I started the co-ordination of castle and chrisco hampers at work so for the next 6 weeks was busy with that. So I have not had a chance to get togehter with the girls to continue doing anymore on it. They are mostly finished theirs and mine well hmm lets not go there.

Apart from that I still have on the go a couple of UFO's but we wont go there either. I did sign up to do Bonnies mystery quilt from http://quiltville.com/carolinacrossroadsmystery.shtml but havent found the motivation to start it HOWEVER I have started playing with some 5 inch 30's fabric squares that I got from a friend in New Zealand as a part of a christmas swap. I am using a pattern found at ...... http://quiltsatcs.blogspot.com/2007/04/disappearing-9-patch-tutorial.html So far I have made 7 blocks and they are so quick and easy to do take a look..........

Close up of the Harry quilts quilting

This is a close up of the quilting I did on my embrodiery machine! MMMMMMMM my hubby is cooking tea tonight and the smell of roasting chicken has just reached the computer room.......

Anyway the quilting design is about the size of my hand just to give you an idea of size.

Another quilt done this year (thats 2007)

This is my Harry Quilt. I have called it the Harry quilt as it reminds me of my grandfather. He use to wear all plaid check flannel type shirts. I have had these fabrics in my stash for a while now and we recently hmmm well August is recent isnt it??? made this quilt at my Saturday arvo group I go to. Its only "struggle" rug size. Think I am going to put it in the car to use as a picnic rug. OH I quilted this one myself using my Janome 350 E embroidery machine which is my new toy this year. Hmm need to rephrase that as my new toy is my laptop and my new desktop computer. Hehehe girls gotta splurge on new toys!

Watermelon Quilt

Ok everyone the watermellon quilt is completely finished now. Its been quilted (hehe I cheated and it professionaly done on a long arm by a lady in Rockhampton by the name of Glenda Aitkin. She only charged me $130 to do this queen size quilt using a stippling design.) The binding is also done hehe usually this takes forever but I was a good girl and got it done quickly. I love it if I say so myself.

OMG I found it

Oh boy I have found what I lost after I first started it over 12 months ago! It seems these blogs are all the go so started one and then promptly forgot about it.

This is the latest quilt that I have finished. Well technically it aint finished as its not been quilted yet its just the finished top! LOL I am going to have this proffessionally quilted as it will be a big job to quilt.