Thank You!

I thought this blogging was great for my patchwork motivation but you are also proving amazingly good for the soul!

The encouraging words were great after a restless night spent trying to sleep on my girl's floor. She slept well and coped ok with the double blood tests. Some results are in this afternoon, 95% likely it's not appendix but as you know appendix rows it's own boat. The UTI and Coeliac tests are due tomorrow and full stools to be done as well. So it's all well and truly being looked into. Hub due home later tonight, he's definitely rushing back but not admitting it! I told him it's probably just a UTI but he's still keen to see her.

Anyway, all your nice words definitely mean you need some photos.

Here is my Gratitudes, attached to the 'wall of wonder' that is now doubling as the basting/tying wall. This is an idea I had to save by back-and knees-I'll be able to tell you soon if it actually works! My builder made it for me when he did the studio. Gratitudes is heading for the 2.5 metre square size-perfect for my bed. The borders are different to Judy's and a bit hard to see. I'll show another photo when it's tied.

A couple of cute little farming photos, feel free to jump straight to the cushion if you so desire.
I was hoping to get photos of the hatching process for you but the slight health crisis altered those plans. Anyway here the little turkeys are still wet. This is the 8 under a nice reliable clucky chook. Turkeys are unreliable sitters and ordinary mothers usually so I thought I took all the eggs off the savage beast but when I noticed she was still sitting a few days later I checked and saw she still had 2. They have hatched as well but I can't get anywhere near them without losing a limb!


The last photo is my cushion that I made for a play with some of my Moda bed quilt scraps. I'm playing with a few rose ideas and this was an offshoot of that. It's kind of a log cabin come crazy patchwork hybrid-I think it will look alright on the bed when the quilt is finished. I have made 3 different tops for this, I'm thinking of framing the other two, they look quite arty.

I think some r&r is in order, A double end of season episode of ER is on tonight and I think something happens to Luka-I like him so hopefullty they don't leave me dangling. I will be asking for info tomorrow if they do! Cheers, tracey

Should never have mentioned the tummy pains.....

Just home from Emergency and having a small stiff drink while I post. The tummy pains came back with a vengeance tonight so I have been in Emergency with my girl for the 2 and a half hours. It is either now a totally- un-related -to -the -last -6 -weeks- of -tummy- pains urinary tract infection or appendix that have taken 6 weeks to cook.

Antibiotics now, full blood tests and Doctor appointment tomorrow and straight to the Emergency tonight if there is a deterioration. Why is it Murphy's law that the minute hub is away everything packs up here? Yesterday the 3 year old Fisher and Paykel washing machine blew up and blew the house power, I fixed that then my iron blew up in my hand and flamed at me, that blew the house power, I fixed that, now the daughter is threatening to blow up! I'm very hopeful it's the UTI but am about to clean the house that has been neglected while madly finishing quilts, then I'm going to get together my hand work bag....just in case! here's that picture of my girl and me I tried for last week. Have a great day. Tracey

As many turkeys leave us.......

I can actually hear my 10 little turkeys peeping in their shells tonight. Tomorrow, bar a thunderstorm (that kills them in their shells) or foxes getting the mothers, I should have little turkeys. I do not have the poultry equivalent of green fingers with Turkeys, I never seem to be able to get the little ones to adulthood. Hub thinks I am a sucker for punishment that I continue to keep them but I have always appreciated a challenge-or I would never have married him!

I am thinking I really need to have a little "post notes" piece of paper around the house for all the times I think, " could blog about that," because later when I sit at the computer I have forgotten!

It is well past midnight here, I have been putting Gratitudes together while hub is away again. I don't sleep that fabulously well when he is not here, so I normally get lots of sewing done. When he usually goes for up to a month I get a lot done but he gets home and my eyes are hanging out of my head with fatigue!

I was very naughty on Friday, I made a lovely little bag for an 8 year old's birthday and forgot to take a photo! I also spent yesterday at a Christening (for baby George, whose whole family loves his blanket) then had to dash to a quilting friends to try to put together 2 farewell gifts for our 2 quilt group members moving to new areas. I will definitely take a camera to our Chris Cringle dinner on Sunday to get a photo of these-Fruits of the Spirit stitcheries.

Pleased I didn't go to hard to get Gratitudes finished tonight as Blogger once again will not let me put up photos. I may try again tomorrow. Oops. just tried again and it's let me, I must have smiled nicely! This is my version of Underground railroad, copied from a picture. It is a metre by a metre as making it larger started showing some of the transgressions that come from having to make it up as you go along! I like it so it has stayed. It's made out of Sheridan sheeting remnants with an old eiderdown as backing and wadding. The whole thing cost me $1!.
Have a great day-oh, and the Quilt cleaned up quite well, thanks to all who were concerned... I didn't try too hard to get off the last little mark-that is so it pricks my memory in the old people's home in 50 years when I have dementia like my Nana!

Gratitudes should be the next post if daughter's tummy isn't troubling her tomorrow!

A chocolate Crisis!
Last night's sleepover turned out very well for the Mother/Daughter relationship...but not quite so well for the old bed quilt.

As the photo (hopefully) shows there was a little bit of a tragedy with some chocolate truffles. I'm not sure what is sadder-the empty box or the melted choc on the quilt. Two chocs must have slipped out of the box ...and in the dark and drama of the Little House on the Prairie episode where their baby boy dies and Laura runs away to the mountain to offer herself as a swap......it melted on the quilt! I have left it until today to scrape off dry and I am about to start working on it so all the evidence is cleared up before the boys get home!!

The quilt was one of my first and seams seem to come apart everytime I wash it. That's why it is about to be replaced by my Gratitudes and/or the pink and Green Moda you all helped me with. The maroon is the leftover hem of my curtains, the cream is an old Laura Ashley dress and I only bought the black. I've given you a bigger shot to look at my indiscretions!

When we went to the Agricultural Show last week we also visited my 91 year old Grandma in her hostel that is close by. She has dementia and luckily recognised us enough for the kids to be happy. They were selling these cute little button dolls there to raise money and I thought they were so cute they deserved a post.

The quail are continuing along happily as you can see by the little egg, but all is not so well with Yoda the cat. After being introduced to the World on the Net last week he must have decided to retire from the limelight-the paparazzi was proving too much and he has disappeared. We have searched all morning with no luck but I am still hopeful it's just because we hadn't gotten around to that little cosmetic procedure Tomcats require and he will come back after he has found love!

Have a great weekend.Tracey

An Australian day of Thanks.

I have been post surfing in the last few days and reading all about every-one's Thanksgivings in the U.S. What a fabulous reason for a celebration. We don't have anything like that here and I think that is kind of a pity because it is always great to give Thanks and it would also be lovely to catch up with all the family for something other than Christmas.

We have a family ritual every day about giving thanks, because focussing on the joys is very important to me.

When we all sit around the table for tea everyone takes turns talking about the best thing that happened in their day.-parents as well. This has been heartily embraced by the children and I have found it very illuminating to realise how little it takes to make the children happy. I often make the mistake of predicting the big things as highlights and it is an excellent lesson to hear that the main thing the children enjoy is the little things that we have done for them or special time spent.

Today I am preparing for a girl's day. The kids have report writing day off and hub had to go up North to the Harvest for a load of grain so he has taken his boy with and wont be home until tomorrow afternoon. This has caused great excitement and planning here. We are going to our favourite aniques and coffee shop in a little while for a Devonshire tea, then sewing together, a birthday party later in town and she is sleeping over in my room tonight-do you think chocolates and the portable DVD player in bed would be going too far?

The whole plan almost came crashing down at 6.30 this morning though. The boy awoke grumpy and said he'd miss his Mum. I have never seen his sister apply herself so fully to the task of breaking him out of it! It all ended well when he fully woke up.

I have posted a recent picture of my girl and me. (no, I haven't as blogger says he will but isn't! I'll try to add it later.)
Have a great Thanksgiving day.

I give Thanks for:
1. A healthy, happy family.
2. A very happy marriage.
3. Great old friends.
4. A new Blogging interest that has reinvigorated my Patchwork and bought new people.
5. Being born with optimism.
6. Living exactly where I want to be.
7. A comfortable home with lots of quilts.
8. My new sewing room.
9. Chooks and chocolate.
10. God, without whom there would be nothing.

The World...and my associated responsibilities... have dared encroach upon my quilt finishing time!

Major encroacher: the lack of fabric at my quilt shop to allow me to do the big wide border I wanted so that my enlarged Gratitude would be even larger and fit my QS bed! So yesterday I had to get inventive and make another 5 scrappy squares to cover the lack of fabric! There ended any chance of completion! (Especially on another 37 degree celcius scorcher of a day!)

Extra encroachees:
1. Farm work called and I answered.
2. School swimming organisation called... and I answered.
3. Quality time with husband prior to him leaving again called...and I answered.
4. Back appointment in a town an hour away called- a town with Christmas Shopping shops and my sister, so......I answered - and have now effectively finished the "shop" part of the gifts. (Found 7 brides for 7 brothers, Little House on the Prairie, Oaklahoma and Singin' in the rain-how much fun are the daughter and I going to have these Christmas Holidays!

So now I will just surprise you next update with something finished..or something interesting at least! ps the new quail laid an egg about the size of a marble-how excited is daughter going to be when I take them for Show and Tell tomorrow! Have a great day.

From one extreme to another!

This time last week we were preparing to have our coldest November day on record, 9 degrees celcius,(or about 48 Fahrenheit if my conversion calculator is to be believed!) It was snowing close to here! Now we have just seen today and yesterday pass 36 degrees celcius, (or 97 fahrenheit!) Today was of course the day my daughter went to School all day and I had 6 hours in the sewing room- a sewing room my husband offered to put air conditioning in but I opted to save money and have a fan instead. It wasn't so bad because I was very busy-very busy with something that is so close to finished that Iam not going to give into temptation on and post my progress. No, no, if you wait until tomorrow and I don't have to spend all day in town organising School stuff and swimming- you may see a finished quilt top!

Spent a lot of fun time in the pool this weekend instead of sewing, even the hub got in, much to the kid's delight-it really must be hot! we also went to my old local Agricultural Show. It's an hour and a half trip but I met my sister, her kids and Mum there so it was well worth it. A great little Show. The kids picked out a duckling and a big fat pair of quail to bring home as new pets. We really need new pets! It takes me an hour a day at least to feed and attend to them now.
Let's see how I go at preparing a list, -let's call this a farming wife's "Meme"!(let's hope hub never finds this blog and realises exactly what he is feeding!)

POULTRY
-About 40 normal mixed variety bush chooks. Everyone looks different and this 'good Shepherd' knows them all.
-4 pekin bantams
-5 silky bantams
-15 mixed roosters that need homes or to be soup. (Too amorous-lucky men don't meet that same fate!)
-6 good quality pretty roosters to stay.
-Trio of purebred frizzle bantams.
-7 frizzle crosses.
-I turkey gobbler and 1 turkey hen sitting on 10 eggs.
-Trio of Indian runner ducks.
-5 Khaki campbell ducks. (one sitting on 5 eggs.)
-4 Muscovy ducks.
-2 muscovy/Khaki cross 'mules' that the kids insist on keeping!
-1 chook sitting on 10 duck eggs.
-2 chooks sitting on eggs.
-7 chooks with broods of chickens (46 chickens total)
-11 young ducklings.
- 2 new quail and a duck!

GENERAL
-24 calves reared this year, one I am still feeding.
-6 pet lambs, thankfully weaned!
-Archie the dog.
-Yoda and General grievous, the cats.

Still room for enlarging there-unfortunately hub has drawn the line at a goose, goat or pig but we may bring him around. He seems to be under some illusion I have enough jobs!

Thank you for all the lovely comments about dad's quilt. It's obvious that you have all had similar 'good stuff' experiences as well. One day, when I'm hormonal, I'll tell you about the response I got to a quilt I made my MIL, but that's another story.....

The little bright quilt pictured was a way of playing with some leftovers from strip bags I made. I like it so it has not yet managed to be given away. It's an unusual size as well, a table centre or doll's bed throw really. Basically just an excuse to try a different technique. Have a great day and hopefully some good patchwork progress tomorrow.

A very special quilt for a very special dad.

*oops, post update, I forgot to say that this is actually me presenting Dad with his quilt and as I'm not likely to be seen much, you had better apply face to name today!

My dad turned 70 back in February. He swore that he wasn't having a party and there was not to be any fuss. But I knew this was just so that Mum, who doesn't really enjoy organizing things, didn't have to go to any trouble so I organized all of his friends and family to go out for tea. It was really great, but it was especially great because two years ago he really shouldn't have got to his 70th.

He decided to enter a shearing competition, (at 68!) because he loves shearing and a bit of a challenge. Well, the shearing part wasn't the problem, perhaps getting overly keyed up was and he proceeded to lose strength down one side, general dizziness and a headache. Being a man, he just decided it would go away and not to mention it. Well it went away enough that he could function but not shear so he had to tell Mum who took him to hospital and the rest as thet say, is history. A stroke and a particularly fortunate mild warning one as one of his carotid (neck) arteries was fully blocked and the other had 5 % blood flow!! Two ops and a month in Melbourne followed and he recovered.(but certainly not back to 100 %)

So the Birthday was looming and I felt people wanted to share and celebrate so invites went out, he had specifically said no presents but on the Tuesday before the Friday night birthday I realised that a quilt is not so much a present as an extension of love so I started! The log cabins are all made from what was in the cupboard that night and the back is calico where I had a go at printing photos of the family and everyone wrote a message of love and support at his party (Which he loved.!!) Only you people will understand when I say that it HAD to be made and you are probably the only ones who will be able to empathise with sewing the bindings on during the trip to the party!

I was reminded of this quilt twice in the past weeks, one sadly and one humourously! Dad had another small stroke that meant no driving and that he is now at a 50 % chance of a major one that will end his life-to the extent that they are not going to worry about a few minor prostate concerns 'as the Vascular disease will mean that is not a problem.' This made me so thankful that I had made the effort but did make me think, "where are they keeping that quilt, I haven't seen it" and presumed it was on their bed. Then my daughter came home after our date night and said that Ma had asked if it might be alright for Poppy to use his special quilt because he's getting cold of a night!! She had put it away for 'good'. When is 'good' when you are old? I just laughed as that is so how I was brought up-use all the old cheap stuff everyday and have every good nice thing put away! I do not live like this anymore. I was very fortunate to marry a man who says, if you like it use it, if it breaks, buy another one! Boy, did that take some getting used too!!

Mmm.. this was going to be a very short post and I was mainly going to tell you that husband is concerned about the new me (the one who is not going to let things bank up and overwhelm her)....concerned I may be pregnant!! Seems the kind of change where I did actually iron the clothes straight off the clothes line-AND his hankies.. must warrant a bigger change! Fortunately doctors would be sued if pregnancy was the cause so I shall just have to keep it up and prove it's a permanent non-hormonal thing! Cheers and enjoy your weekend.

A November New Year's resolution!

Today's post is another one of those..."and now for something completely different" ones.It's time for a big change here! I'm not a depressive person but sometimes get weighed down with my responsibilities and especially getting things done right and just so. (Yes... desire to please, etc, etc,) But not anymore! I have realised that the weight aspect comes from putting off these more hated responsibilities-school swimming organising, funding applications, all farm bookwork, bill paying, business calls, everything that sounds too hard... I worry about it, let it hang over me and then it takes away my enjoyment of other stuff I do. (Read: patchwork, playing with kids, etc.etc.)

So, as of last night I have become a person who does the stuff as soon as it arrives or presents itself and I feel fantastic! Everything is faxed, lists are made, bills are paid, all swim parents are contacted, RSVP's are in and I feel free as a bird. If I am not careful I may even iron the clothes straight off the clothesline-oh wait, I've not changed that much! What would I do while I watch ER? ps, are they putting it on at odd hours over in the US, as this is upsetting my routine here-I have to watch taped episodes, and has Abby had her baby?

The sleepover went well. I am really, really genuinely pleased that he had a brilliant time and did not seem to miss me at all, really I am! But the fact that he did not want to hug me when I came in at 7 am to do the breakfast shift did upset me ever so slightly-especially when he then asked, 'wasn't I meant to be doing breakfast?' I said I was and he said, 'well why aren't you down in the kitchen then!?' Ok got the point and bid dignified retreat, realising this was only the first of many times. Sniff..maybe I'm not feeling that great anymore after all!

Something to cheer me up. This is one quilt that will never be given away. I made it on a weekend quilting retreat 2 years ago at Port Fairy-a cold old Winter weekend that was warm with sewing, friendship and laughter. I thought I took a 6 inch square from all my stash (then got home to find I had left out a few boxes of stash on top of the cupboard.) then I had a great time turning them into this quilt top. I was sick of giving away all my favourite fabrics and wanted a lasting memory of them. This worked really well for that. It lives folded up on my kitchen couch. I wish I had included those last boxes of fabric as then it would be big enough for my bed. I'm very naughty, the yellow border is not yet quilted ...and is coping with that neglect! The rest is done to enhance thae colour lines. Have a great day, it's pretty much the weekend here!

A land of ice ...and rain... and even snow!

Brrr, did those clouds ever pull through!. We ended up with the coldest November day on record, hail, rain and snow down to 500 metres. This climate change thing is too confusing! We received almost 70 points or 17mm and I enjoyed spending the best part of the day sewing warm quilts with my heater on and watching hilarious episodes of the English comedy, Vicar of Dibley.

The results are pictured here. Two chenille quilts, with normal cotton fabric prints in between. Nice and simple but I think they are quite effective. As you can see they are mostly done with just a few outside borders still to be attached. In the top one I have included a cheap and handy sewing tool, as requested by Angie. (or was it Libby... anyway..) It is a huge ruler, over 1.2 metres or over 50 inches . It has metric and imperial on it and a handle and I use it all the time for squaring up big quilts and big anything! I purchased it for $15 in the farm tools section of a field day and it's great. My other favourite tool is that little quarter inch foot that changed me from idiot to someone slightly advanced from that!

My girl is managing her half days O.K but sleeps for an hour at least after I pick her up. I think they will have to continue for a while yet. My boy is on his first excursion and School sleepover today, so excited-he was up and dressed at 6 am! He seems to be coping alright with the idea of no Mum, we'll see!

Oh, I included a picture of Yoda self-serve shopping! I suppose it has entertainment and nutritional value, what better pastime could a cat have?

An Add-on: Tic -toc biscuits are lovely little biscuits iced white, yellow or pink with a clock face set on the other side! I'm sure that any pretty iced biscuit would do for the "cups of tea".