Of swaps and cards and recipes...

I can share what I sent in my tea swap parcel now, as Belinda has received it. I hope she thought it was worth the wait! Shocking photo, but it was sent before I realised so it will have to do. Belinda has a pic of the stitchery on her blog if you want a better look.

Lots of cards thrown in..and quilty sticky notes-guess whose?? -plus Jodie's tea set pattern and Chicken soup for the Tea lovers soul. Thanks very much to organizer Stephanie at Loft Creations.

Speaking of cards, I am packaging off a few this week to some winner girls who are being very patient!! I had been waiting on new stock and here is some that has arrived...for them and the market i have to do this weekend.

DN is the model...

Gift cards.

And the new thing I am very excited about, promotional posters...thanks to Jodie at Ric Rac who helped me in this direction!! I am going to do the card of DN as a big poster with the verse for my sister, that's one of her favourite sayings.

CUCUMBER CHIPS or Zucchini and cucumber chips...or just zucchini chips! ( Some people call this Pickled zucchini and cucumber.-I see that more as the whole veggie!))
Put in a big bowl ....

3 lbs cucumber (or 3 lbs of mixed), 1 large onion thinly sliced, some diced capsicum, mainly for colour (red) and 1/4 cup salt.

Note: I do all the slicing on my V slicer, makes it nice and quick and uniform. I do the cucumbers, etc on the thicker side and the onions on the thinner side.

Put 3 cups of vinegar, 3 cups sugar, 1 cup water, 1 desertsp mustard seed, 1 teasp celery seed, 1 teasp tumeric, few peppercorns, 1 teasp curry in stainless steel saucepan and bring to boil.
Pour that over the vegies and let stand for 2 hours.

Bring all to boil and put in small jars with metal lids...hot jars, seal hot.

BIG thing...don't boil for long, you want cucumber/zuch still slightly opaque and crispish, not soggy and see through.

Like this!

Hot bottles, sealed hot, so you get the sound of the button clicking and sealing down on your lid.

I would do about 3 times the recipe, with huge zucchinis I often peel them, to stop it being too woody, but make sure I put in some young green ones as well for colour.
Have fun, Tracey

Too much cleaning and not enough sewing!!!

A clean office is a clean mind. Well, something like that, second only to a clean sewing room really. THAT doesn't happen much but the office had to, it is shared, a fatal mistake that we would not make again, especially in the bad old days when my sewing was in there as well!

So, while a clean office...and walk in robe, were the main things I achieved this week, there are a few other things I can actually show pics of,( my WIR wouldn't excite you!)

Longer than I care to remember, Amy, the Calico Cat, sent me my beautiful Autumn season swap and included yummy cowboy fabric for my boy,with me reciprocating with a doll quilt, in Australiana. But as you may know from swap experiences I struggle a bit with thinking my work will be good enough and pleasing to my partner's eye, so Amy's quilt has taken a while for the inspiration to hit.

Here, it is, and I even used Atet's advice, with extra assistance from my quilt group girls, to do that neat mitred looking binding finish. A first for me.

So Amy, if you hate it, you better yell quick and I will find it another home!!
You can't see perfectly without clicking on it, but it is a kangaroo scene throught the window, with other Australian animals in the flying geese.

I took pics in the gum trees in our unique Australian light to add to the Australiana feel!

Does it match our colours?



While utilising the clolours for that quilt I thought I would show you my 2 quilts found at op shops in the past fortnight. The one on the left is partially quilted, I will be pulling that out, The one on the right is fairly ordinarily hand quilted, I may pull that out and play with it on the quilting frame.

-and the cost? 50 cents for the left, $4 for the right

-and what will I do with them? Don't know but I can't leave a quilt in an op shop anymore than I can pass an abandoned animal anywhere!-thay need to be loved, not dumped.



On the run tonight, all the kids want for Easter is my little wheat chooks! Have a few other nieces and nephews coming tomorrow as well, they will all get enough choc so I am making them chooks as well, better get sewing!

My other little niece was here yesterday, she got a few things in her gift bag, liked the bag (mostly chenille and chenille lined), not so sure about this little yellow chick!!!



A safe and happy Easter to all, hope none of my blogger friends are in trouble with all that Mid-West flooding we saw on the TV tonight, where on Earth is the Mid West? I should ring the station and say, we bloggers want state names please!!

Why is this so hard?

Thank you for all the comments about the kids health, specifically my girl, she is still going well and has done 4 days of school this week. A 3-4 month record I would think.

I have made 3 quilt tops and assorted other things in the last month and you would think a simple Four seasons quilt shouldn't be just too hard then? You would be wrong! I battled to pick the colours, now I am unsure about the top. It is trickier than you think making something for someone you don't know. I can tell she is very nice...(like all quilting bloggers!)....but there is still the pressure of trying to get it perfect and not disappoint her..sigh. Anyway, maybe you can give me some assistance as here is how I am going so far.

Used the Sonnet range, which is a big enough print that doesn't need to be over pieced. I want it in a pattern that lends itself to table centre, seeing it is only to be 12-16 inches in size.

So here is idea 1-

Idea 2-

Idea 3-

I wont tell you my preference, I want untainted views!

I am also open to putting each block end to end for a table runner, didn't take that photo but looks quite nice.

Also made a bag today, I have to work out how to make a specific order so this is my practice piece, it has to have a zip-"Bah humbug"!! So hence the practice. (Therefore it is not officially something that was off the "Have to" list!!!)

And I finished off Milly's name banner to give to her grandma at Quilter's tonight.

Yay...my favourite night of the month! Should I take my camera for you, in case there is progress since retreat?

Two funny stories today, well, kind of funny eventually! DS is ok but not at school, still grumpy and cuddly (calling me the "cuddle machine!"-pleased I am useful for something!)

Today he felt like an icypole and as we were out he headed over to see how his Grandma was...Ha!- back very quickly to tell me Grandma was sitting in her chair, not breathing , talking or moving...dead!! No, I did not wimp out and call my husband to come back from the paddock, I went over and hesitantly opened the door after which she jumped in surprise and I jumped even higher!! Needless to say, not dead.

I went back and told my boy who said ok, he's go back for the icecream (how pleased I am that he had not grabbed one before coming to tell me she was dead, I like to think they are raised with some semblance of sensibility).....any way, he was gone for a while, I was happily sewing then decided a good mother would check his location, thought for a further peaceful minute or two about which type of mother I was today, then checked.

No boy at Grandma's, no boy answering increasingly indignant/panicky screams of his name, one Archie dog who is usually with him and just as this time I AM about to call his father to commence the search party, I thought I would check the house. Yep, you have guessed it, sound asleep in his bed! Now I haven't seen the human dynamo have an afternoon sleep since 2003, so I still can't work out what made me look.

Blissfully, he is still there now.

Now, a good mother may wake him soon, so that he goes to sleep at a reasonable hour tonight, but, heck, I'll be gone to quilters and you can't be a good mother all the time!!