Australia Day

Happy Australia Day to all.  Enjoy you day whatever you are doing .

Evelyn's Keepsake Quilt.

I have been working on my granddaughter's keepsake quilt. Before she was born Emma had a baby shower.  Her sisters phoned and asked me ,if they asked everyone at the baby shower to bring a piece of fabric would I put a quilt together. 

I really was not sure how to put together a quilt with such a wide range of "un-matched" colours and patterns.  So I decided a crazy quilt with off set rectangles going in vertical rows might do it. Emma's request was to simply sew all the pieces together.

The guests were asked to bring an 8 inch by 8inch square of fabric but there was enough fabric to do the front and the back of the quilt. Some bought strips, some bought panels, some actually bought the squares and there were photographs and a hand embroidered owl.....but it was all very lovely and fun. One piece even came from Sweden.

So here is the journey so far.... a really crazy quilt.  Almost double bed size. 

         

                                              Ready for the quilter ...

On the design wall

Such a variety of fabrics

Then there were the border fabrics - every piece had to be included.

The Final Result - a quilt of many colours, memories and good wishes.  I will also do a quilt journal and include a patch of every fabric with the name of the person who has given it to her.

The quilt will be backed with even more fabric . owls, fairies and frogs.

Vintage Cakes

At the end of the year we do a secret santa at work, the lovely "young" Kate gave me this beautiful "Vintage Cakes" cookbook so I thought I would try some.  

It is written by a Canadian lady and I must say I have never cooked a cake with so much butter or eggs in the cake and in the icing. 

 They were delicious though. The ingredients were a little different than we are used to but it contained some good cooking tips.

A double layer banana and wallnut  cake. Sorry- the lid of the cake dish squashed the top.

A Texas Sheet Cake - a very nice chocolate cake.

Remember the little jeans for Evelyn....Soooo cute.

A little Shopping

Just thought I would share some shopping I did on the way home from our Northern holiday...It is good to be home....especially when I can smell rain in the air... we will see.

Back to the shopping .  We stopped at Wondai, and happened to be across from a little shop selling antiques and second hand items. Mr Bird decided to go have a look, which was amazing in itself...must have been meant to go.

By the way Aussie girls if you ever drive past that lovely tourist info place its well worth a look ... a beautiful display of wood carving telling the story of the timber industry in the area.

We are not collectors of antiques but we both like the odd old thing. I fell in love with this little table. I thought if I  reline the inside it would make a great place to keep some stitching beside my chair... $ 60 ..I thought it was a good price but as i said I am not into it. Did I do well??? If you know anything about it let me know???

Mr Bird fell in love with this cutlery set for sentimental reasons... His dad used this type of cutlery every  day. May be we will too. It just feels good.

In a lovely oak case

 At our last stop " Moonie" we found these... by Wrangler . We both decided Evelyn needed them.  Summer jeans for babies... LOL

Finally when we got home .. dinner was quick with produce we had bought away.

Maggie Beer's Tomato and basil  Sugo ( pasta sauce) and some Italian pasta....  

 Have you seen this pasta before. We got it in Atherton.. big Italian population in that area.  Love Italian  food.

It was multi coloured stripes, about an inch wide and serrated on the edge... Interesting .. you needed a knife and fork to eat it not a spoon and fork.  Wasn't sure if I was eating an octopus or a ribbon. Tasted good though....   Hopefully my next blog will be stitching...

Take care all our American friends who are freezing and snowed in. 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all my blog friends.  I hope you have the best year ahead and take some "me" time to stitch  and  sew and be with your family and friends.

We went tripping around over the Christmas break we went to Atherton NQ on the way we came across this fellow.

Gubulla Munda is a 60 metre carpet snake sculpture located in Plantation Park AYRE Nth Queensland.

Gubulla Munda is a 60 metre carpet snake sculpture located in Plantation Park AYRE Nth Queensland.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/87791108@N00/2176016255/

We have visited Bundaberg many times but this time we actually visited the Cooperage (the place where barrels are made. )  and then went to went to the Bundaberg drinks factory. We will visit the Rum Factory next time. In Australia "bundaberg rum is very famous and the logo is a big polar bear, you may have seen it on television.  They use the barrels in the rum factory and you can actually have your own barrels made at the cooperage.

The drinks factory entrance  ( a big barrel)  famous for its ginger beer.

Finally finished a Rosalie Quinlan stitchery, this has been totally done while travelling in the car. Its taken a while ...
It will be a cushion soon .... Sorry no iron.

The world should be full of this 

This is my next car project .......I will frame it for Evelyn's room at home. Another of Rosalie's projects but I am doing it in pink not red.

 Sorry about the photos but this is all I could manage if I wanted to get this blog done.