Surprise mail, markets and gardens.

Oh, I wish you were here to hear the beautiful melody of heavy rain on the roof! There is no sound better with late crops that haven't yet seen a shower and only about half an inch of rain all spring! It is forecast to be on and off all week so we are hopeful.

I have another piece of excitement tonight! Bonnie Hunter at Quiltville has written a book that is completely my thing, about recycling shirts to make fabulous quilts...and the way the world is at present that is sounding better and better!

I was intending buying it, then our dollar dropped overnight and I decided to perhaps wait a while,but, lo and behold, in the mail, this appeared!

THE BOOK!!!

And it is fabulous, but I couldn't work out who it was from, Bonnie inscribed it from 'your secret swap partner', I thought maybe it was her, but she assures me it is not! I so love a mystery and can't believe someone has found the perfect thing for me, I feel like Diane Keaton in "Something's got to give"..when she says about Jack being a person who actually "gets" her!! So thank you secret swap buddy, I really appreciate being "got'!! My only fear is that i was meant to keep it until Christmas but I didn't know it was a gift and there was no wrapping, so I will just maintain mystified and thankful..and as I told Bonnie...it aint coming back!!

Huge week, as usual of late it seems, tomorrow I am hoping to do the rounds of a blogline list that I gave up checking when it hit 1000! I envisage lots of coffee for that catch up.

Had a market yesterday,

made lots of these little girl gift bags

and these plastic coated purses

and had lots of cards, the new card holder quilt worked a treat.

ta..da..

Had a great morning, lots of stuff went and I have orders for a baby quilt, a plastic coated beach bag, 5 santa sacks...and a girl wanted the ducks she saw on the cards so came and picked a heap of the little darlings up after!

I visited the local kinder's open garden on my way home, beautiful old station bluestone home. The garden was suffering a little from the hot north winds and 30's temps of last few weeks but was still photo worthy so i will leave you with it...

I loved this, succulents planted in the open bricks on top of the fence.

Have a great day, Tracey

Of mail and family sewing....

Now, I know none of you would possibly think it to look at me, but I am 39......well past any age I ever went through of caring about labels. No, of course, I, as a sensible farmwife am only interested in comfort, economical choices and practicality in my purchases.
Yes, that sounds about right...

So, today, this came in a parcel from my girlfriend who lives overseas-she is the one whose Mum is getting the 70's fabric string quilt I have shown a little recently.


Now, the sensible farmwife in me would not scream and do a Jennifer Hudson impersonation in S*x in the City when she unwrapped this.......





-and found one of those things she adores the most....a bag!!!


And not just any bag, one of these bags.....






No, a sensible farmwife wouldn't get excited about that at all....(what a lot of fun those sensible farmwives miss out upon!!)



On a completely different note, in a completely different world, I am sewing label-less baby clothes.
My little niece has got me in the mood for making clothes.
I have adapted a bigger pattern of my girl's and had a good play-don't you love elastic necklines for hiding a heap of sins!!
I don't have this beautiful little miniature sumo to model for me today....
...she was just visiting and laughing at her Auntie Tracey yesterday-all that chubbiness at 5 months old just from being B/F- Not a lick of solids has passed that double chin!

So i had to enlist the asssistance of baby Born's modelling skills to try and work out if the neck will be ok.

As my chubby cheek's head is considerably bigger than newborn I am hoping I am on the right track.
(I love working with Baby Born, she never complains when you bend her arms the wrong way and I have never heard her whisper a word of censure over the pins sticking in her!)
I haven't sewn off the elastic yet, I'll take the machine when i go to my sister's next and do a few of the tidying bits down there-I hate unpicking dress seams just as much as patchwork ones!
My clever sister spied the Heather Bailey yesterday so that is how come it is an accent to the denim! I fussy cut and appliqued one of the flowers on as well-bit bright to see, I'll have to get you a real shot when it's on old chubby cheeks!


The kids and I have been desperately trying to get pics of the cats sleeping on Archie. The problem is when we sneak out the door to shoot they wake up...this is the best we could do this morning.
-Arch is such an accommodating shagpile, I mean dog!



Must be off, there are still a few "how to hold my bag so that you can see the label" poses I need to try!!!
Have a great day, Tracey

Heather Bailey fabric play and new ducklings.

We had a beautiful Spring weekend, the crazy kids even jumped in the pool, then yesterday poured and we even had some hail-not enough to damage the crops though, thank goodness. They are all insured for hail but I think the world needs the grain more than we need the insurance.

I have been playing with my Heather Bailey fabric. I adore this fabric but I struggle a bit with it's big bright prints when it actually comes to putting something together, you seem to lose it amongst all it's sister florals.

I decided to cut some 2 inch strips and have a play before I did any serious cutting.

This is the resulting blocks from the yellowy tones. I have mixed the florally Pop garden

up with some more of the more solid Bijoux complimentary range.

I put some of the pink and ice blue floral strips together and definitely thought they looked a bit characterless so I cross cut them and added in black and white polka dots.

I had a couple of strips left so I worked on a post and rail type arrangement with the dots again.

The photos are taken in a huge wind with the yellow canola crop in the background. There are so many people coming out this week to get photos in the crop that DH says we should be charging! There is also a constant stream of planes, we have about 500 acres of it and a lot of the neighbors have it as well, so it is a sea of yellow. Well, we think it is either the canola they are coming to see or Brangelina have moved in next door!

And last but not least after my "playtime"- a bag of course! This was what I originally thought I would like these fabrics for. It is just waiting for a button. It has a plaited handle of the pink and black dots. I just love the big pink floral feature fabric.

Now, I was full of promises last post so I had better deliver on part two, the ducklings.

I took a couple of before shots for you. (The 'ducky' reference is for all you NCIS fans!)

And then we have the afters.....

.

Didn't ducky-and his yellow friend, turn out cute!

and cuddly.....

and fit in your pocket perfect......

Have a great day, Tracey

Swap bag successfully globetrots to the US!

Stephanie dropped me a line today to say that she had received her bag from Linda's swap. I will take her word that she was happy!

I can show you now......
Stephanie is a fabulous bag maker, she comes up with great bag ideas and I was a little daunted about just sending something she could just as easily whip up herself. I had a think and remembered the fabulous photo she had shared of her favourite corner of the house. Her husband had made her a flying geese stain glass window that I was in awe of, also a lampshade, and she had them with her antique sewing machine.
I didn't think she would mind if I uploaded the pic for the greater good, then i converted it to Colouring book with some old Kodak software-

Via the lightbox I traced it on some Osnaberg and we ended up with this
I just highlighted the lighter parts of the stain glass lamp, I practised on another bit of fabric trying to outline the whole thing but it just came out messy.
Stephanie said she liked green and red so I used some Madeira fabric to turn it into a tote.

This was a really fun swap that challenged me to try something I hadn't done before- a great part of the swap process. Thanks to Linda for organizing it,
Have agreat day, Tracey

The best laid plans....

Now Tracey...what should rule #1 be? You should know by now....never make plans!!

Guess where I was going today? I was taking my girl to the city on a bus trip to see 'Wicked', the musical-it was a big treat to make up for another dicey year with her, she really cannot take a trick!-(between fish tank accidents and gastro and her semi-recurrent tummy pains.) And am I just getting home, exhausted? Well the exhausted may be right but that is only from trying to get her temperature down from 42 degrees!! She got the awful f'lu on Friday and has been miserable ever since-so Wicked tickets were the least of our worries.

I think she may be slightly improving, didn't seem quite so hot today but the best she could still do was lie on the couch and watch new DVD seasons of The Brady Bunch and Mork and Mindy (there are worse fates!)

Meanwhile this did mean that I got to dash over to my neighbors this afternoon for cake for my Godson's 5th birthday. I voided out the cake by riding my bike the couple of kilometres each way.

Do you remember Joshua? Last year he was the worthy recipient of this;

His much loved quilt.
Today when i arrived and he saw fabric in my bag he said, "more quilt!!!
Well, not quite, just a treasure bag filled with treasure.
He is just as cute as last year!Here he is showing you his bag.

I have also finished and mailed off my bag swap bag, hopefully it will be liked, it is such a tricky thing making craft for someone you don't know. I have taken pics but can only show when it arrives, it is a little too personalised to be general.
Better get off to bed in case I am up again in an hour! Have a great day, Tracey

Bag swap arrives!!

Wow, have I ever received good mail. I went in Linda's bag swap and this beautiful bag has arrived here in Aussie for me from Betsy at Quilting Fiesta.

I love the card from Betsy, she said she read my blog from start to finish (whoo-hoo, poor Betsy!!) and that she thought this pattern was right. Too true, Betsy, I love it and my girl also thinks it's gorgeous. (High praise indeed!)

The bag hanger is an antique wool bale hook-wooden handle.

Hand pieced hexagons and all!

-and beautifully quilted!

-with a pocket that has a little purse and needle case. too spoilt!

My swap bag isn't quite finished. It has been little bit of a stitching marathon, but the end is looking well worth it. I am dying to share, but a full photo would really let the cat out of the bag (get it...out the bag!!) so you only see this very uninspiring snippet.

I also have a huge confession to make now-I'm in love.... and look how cute he is!!!

He goes to my Bible Study and seriously distracts me.

Thursday is his first birthday and his name is Clancy so I whipped up this little naive stitchery for his wall. I am about to go and attempt to add in a horse seeing he wasn't at Bible study today so I have a few more minutes up my sleeve-also think I may tidy up the "at" on closer inspection!.

This is from the classic Australian poet, Banjo Patterson's "Clancy of the Overflow". Banjo's poems are very much perpetuators of the Australian legend, the Australian bushmen....usually compared to their city counterparts. This one is written from the perspective of the office clerk who would like to "take a turn at droving" (walking sheep and cattle through the bush for long periods of time) rather than stare out of his office window.

Out "pops" a surprise!

A frosty morning turned into a beautiful Spring day today. DH And I have spent the morning replacing a garden fence, now I am off to finalise the questions for the School quiz night we are doing tomorrow night.

We have our first Spring hatchlings,

There are 5 of these little darlings that walked out of a pumpshed on Tuesday. The start of many for the season no doubt.

I received my Heather Bailey in the mail yesterday. The two 'tone on tones' at the right are from her Bijou and the rest is Pop Garden. There is a layer cake there of the range, just to tempt me.

The fabric did tempt me already! So lovely and bright I made a bag from it, complete with lining and zipper!

I decided that Jodie at Ric Rac is not the only one who can do stuff with selvedges so I rescued one from the range and added it as a label-too pretty to throw away! (i can assure you the label is on straight, it is the bag that is sitting creased!)

I need to get to town so I better run, I took these of the pets last night, can you pick a favourite? I want one for a card.

Have a great day, Tracey

She sews!!

I have a list of projects a mile long.

Next week, i am going to get out all the fabrics and paraphenalia (?) associated with making them and photograph it, then post it here with the order it all needs to be completed.
Weeeell..... that is the organisational Tracey's theory anyway.
But things pop up that push chook quilts, baby quiltsx2, niece's 3rd birthday quilts and everything that goes on from there, down the line.
I remember once, in a galaxy far far away (that is known as "Pre-childrenville") when I questioned a parent on why he was putting raffle tickets in his teenage children's names...."why don't you just write them all out for you?" I naively asked. He looked at me with that 'you are SO young and stupid' look and said, "one day, when you have children, you will find out!"
And wasn't he correct. Aside from the fact that when you have children you effectively just dangle your heart outside your body to be damaged for life evermore, you also want to do things for them......
-and so , back to the list of projects.
It is long and should be set in stone. Heck, some of these babies will graduate before the quilts come, my DN may get a custom made quilt for a bed she no longer fits in, but when the daughter makes requests all these considerations go out the window.
You see, she is well enough to go on her 3 day School camp on Monday and she can only sleep with the required number of quilts on. I think I may have conned her into foregoing one or two for a sleeping bag but she still needed a quilt bag for camp...like you do!
So here is the interloper to the list, made in my precious sewing moments yesterday.
It is made from the plastic coated Moda I love, and fully lined. It even has one of my new labels on it...and a zip! My girl thought it was very clever-the lamb thought it was something to eat.
Seeing I was working with the plastic coated I also diverted a little to something for me. I have been needing a new purse and tried out a prototype
here is the front...

The back

and the lining and card holder section.
All bag zips are from opshops.
It needs to be about an inch deeper. It was, but I had some trouble figuring out the lining and a little bit of depth asked to be sacrificed. As you can see, it is a bit over 2 credit cards long. when I get another break in the project list I will have another go.
As regards my last post.
I fully support local fabric shops in general, and I encourage you to do the same. If, however, you are like me and the choices locally are very resticted, you may like to look at the Australian stores online or, if feeling brave, try the US stores. It is a free country and this is up to you.
The trick is looking into their shipping rates before you fall in love with hundreds of dollars of fabric that seem cheap. I was caught out once with $100 shipping charge on an order totalling not much more than that because I dealt with a company that bills you for the shipping after they get the online order. I had dealt with other companies and thought mine would be in the $33 range. A hard lesson to learn. I have also had the fun of filling an online shopping cart only to find they don't deliver to Aus!

Some favourite U.S fabric suppliers that I have tried and like are:
Fat quarter shop.- Fixed rates of postage per $ values spent, good sales.
The Thrifty needle.- Fixed rate again, discounts off the Australian post and throw in extra fabric/surprises depending on spending. good backings.
Z & S. -Generally a cheaper standard yardage rate. Postage on par with first two.
Shabby fabrics.- Standard $11 postage to Australia no matter what. Not often on sale, but the reduced postage makes up for it. Have a 10% off coupon for your entire order in an ad in most recent quilt mags.
I haven't linked, you can find them in google as easy as I can!
Have a great day, and add in any of your favourites as well....especialy if you know they deliver to Australia AND reasonably!

Of cricket, pets and sewing.

"They" must do something about this Indian cricket on all night here! It has well and truly got me in and there are about 45 days to go! "They" have been very clever and put a few Aussies in every team, also made it fast paced and exciting and I can't pull my eyes away! Last night I had the whole night's worth set to tape on the hard drive and I still watched until the light tower power went out at about 1am! Too tempting.

I tried to maximise my time by cleaning the kitchen and sewing bags for the School market and a bucket for my friend Robyn's birthday today. She looks just like the quilting "love is patient" pic.

The sewing went well, the photo shoot this morning was far trickier!!

I couldn't pick a favourite so you get them all. I was pulling my hair out over uncooperative kittens who play with the props and the DD,who is still home with the flu and somewhere underneath quilt and kittens, piped up with...."it says, Love is patient, Mummy!" I should have that on my wall, especially with sick children..lol

I have new babies.-I just SO needed more pets! We picked them up yesterday and they have all successfully had their first feed, here is one....

Cute, isn't he.

Unfortunately Sigmund is not seeing the funny side of being upstaged. I think I overheard this conversation between old and new...

"Who do I look like to you......Danny out of the Partridge family, Willis, out of the show whose name eludes me right now or perhaps an Olsen twin (my hair is looking a little in need of a brush).-But all that is beside the point. I have been an international blog star, immortalized on cards and covered in quilts, and you upstarts think you can just move in here and take over because I am leaving the cute stage. It'll be you here one day, don't say i didn't warn you!!"

His mate knew when to get out and start looking for a new career before they made him star in celebrity reality TV.

Hey, any openings in the chook yard for a calf in a chicken suit?

Considering that is the number who followed me just to feed the calves, I think that answer would be NO!!

Have a great day, Tracey