I was enjoying spending some time in my sewing room today. Really getting on with this project by Bonnie Sullivan. It is all hand sewn. Bonnie is our guest tutor for girls day in the country next month. I am looking forward to it.

I also whipped up a quick strip quilt as a baby quilt for a little friend . I just have to applique her name on it and quilt it.

Cute Fairies.

A Visit with Chooky

We are now home after our first 2 week trip in our Van.  ( not counting the one day practice trip to Nindy Gully).

We had a fantastic time and I am sure we will be using our caravan often in the future.  

On our way home we decided to take a side track to visit ... Guess who ... the lovely Chooky and her crew.

We went in this ...

Found our way across this ....

  I put together this......

We shared some of this ......

And Yes ; we did do some stitching..... just a little bit......  Mr Bird and I had a lovely time.....
Thank you Chooky for your kind country hospitality.
Thank you to fairy girl, bookworm and Mr Chookyblue  as well . It was lovely to meet the whole family.

Thanks to everyone for bearing my holiday snaps be back to sewing and stitching now......

Stitchers Dream Day Out 2012

2 weekends ago my stitching buddy Gail and 2 more friends from our group Jo and Margie went to Toowoomba to "Stitchers Dream Day Out" run by Marion at "Quilters Angel" at Highfields. It is a most wonderful day. The designers were Natalie Bird of Birdhouse, Gail Pan of Gail Pan designs and Nikki Tervo from Nikki Tervo Designs and Brandy Gully Patterns . We had a blast. My bag of goodies included the cup bag and a little stitching purse designed by Natalie Bird. But of course I bought fabric and accessories for all 3 designer's projects...... naughty me.

Some of us went for tea after and met up with Marion and her crew. She is always so welcoming. Nikki and Gail Pan were there and we told some stories and laughed a lot. Nikki ended up driving my Gail, Gail Pan, Di  and I home . I think Di was from Melbourne. So we all then went to our room and ate chocolate and told more stories stitched and laughed. What a great night.  Nikki, Gail and Natalie were all so lovely and so talented. Now all I have to do is make all of their projects........

Natalie Bird's design that I am making.

I love this quilt by Gail Pan.

Gail, Jo,myself and Margie

The theme was Past Times.....

Well from stitching  heaven to wine heaven  Mr Bird and I have been enjoyed  a few days away at Mudgee....Food....mmmm.....wine......mmmm..

Just had to taste !

Love wine barrels but couldn't take it home...

High Valley Cheese factory ...

On the way at Dunnedoo

A little nostalgia at Coonabarabran 

Add caption

Beautiful PArk at Dunnedoo

Mr Bird at Lowe winery

Enjoy the pics

Weekend at Stacey's at the Gap

It is so wonderful to sit and sew all weekend. Our quilt group went on retreat at Stacey's at the Gap which was an old school camp at the top of Cunningham's Gap between Ipswich and Warwick in South East Queensland. Now it is a retreat. 

 Inside there was a beautiful warm fire and lots of places to sit and  sew and relax while chatting with friends.  Outside was beautiful by day but freezing by night. 

 We sewed all day and night until 10.00pm.  The lovely Leonie and Mal looked after us cooking for us all weekend, talk about spoilt, Mal even carried all our things to the car for us..extra spoilt I would say. 

We all worked on our own projects and their was a lot of productivity. many quilts finished and many started and we have all booked in for next year.

Safari Quilt- my own design

 Another view of Africa

I went to Nundle with a friend early in May. This is the quilt I made its by Abbey Lane "Match Box" I put the last border on over the weekend. 

Comfortable accommodation

The best place to be it was so cold Sunday Morning

In the Garden

I am making this for my niece's  baby

Introducing a friend to quilts

Cottage on the  Hill Entrance - nice sign Kerry

We have just had the best weekend. I took a friend to Kerry's ( Cottage on the Hill) for the weekend to introduce her to quilting. I think she is now hooked. My friend Stef has never quilted before and has never sewn either so I think she did fantastically well. She did an amazing job and almost finished her quilt top. Kerry was her amazing helpful self and made us all feel really inspired and capable.

We shared the weekend with some ladies from Sydney and a local Tamworth lady, they were all lovely and we had a lot of fun.

The boys came with us so we made a real weekend of it.  We took the long way to Tamworth via Delungera to visit a winery there. We then drove around via Copeton Dam to Bingera , Barrabra, then onto Tamworth.  We wined and dined at the pub, the boy went trout fishing and to the Great Nundle dog races while we quilted. 

Stef's first quilt

My quilt

Stef and Jen quilts May 2012