Quilt displays.

I took a break from baby quilts and visited a nearby Agricultural show yesterday.

They have a craft section so I snapped a few shots for you as inspiration.

I was especially impressed with the next one, but it would require far too much precise thinking for me!

As you can see, it won first prize.

I added to my animal picture collection with this shot from the animal nursery.-Gotta love a pig that whispers sweet nothings in you ear!

My sister's family came along as well, how cute is her Daisy!!

On the way home we got a little sidetracked and ended up at quilt shop, they had just shut but their window displays looked nice, so you can have some more inspiration>

From the stitchery quilt you can tell even Australians are mixed up over what season Christmas should be in!

I also manage to track my brother and his family down so met baby Jake. Apparently he is very good and sleeps all the time! A perfect late baby.

As they are horse crazy as well as being dairy farmers the blanket went down well.

Apparently I need to answer a burning question.....

How many chook do I own? Well, there seem to be between 50 and 60 hens running around this afternoon, also about 20 roosters (all far too handsome go in the pot!) Then there are about 70 chickens aged betwen new and 7 weeks, about 30 chook eggs are under clucks (that I know about!), as well as about 30 duck eggs are under clucks. There are about 14 ducks and 15 young ducklings.....and one turkey hen-who is sitting on Indian runner duck eggs!

And yes, I sell the eggs in town, also a lot of young poultry and I sell point of lay chooks later on.

Off to wash the floor and hang the school uniform washing that I forgot all about yesterday!! Have a great day, Tracey

Second families

Remember my first babies of the Spring? You saw hatching pics and early pics, I thought you may like the update 7 or 8 weeks on...

a few changes aren't there! About half inherited their mother's 'frizzlenessness" and the rest have normal feathers. They are a scream to watch around the yard, they look like they would be better served as dish cloths!

As you can see their Mother has long since given them up, she has actually already moved to the new family and is sitting on 10 eggs under a shelf in my garden shed.

The moving onto the second family is tricky, in people as well as chooks.

My big brother is a grandfather a few times over already but a few years ago his wife left him and it is not in his make up to be by himself so after a few disasters he has found a hard working dairy farmer lady, (with 4 kids to join his grown 3)...and early in the week they made it a round 8! At 39 and 45 this is up to them, but once again I am reminded of the 'Anne's House of Dreams' book (part of the Green Gables series), where Anne first meets Miss Cornelia who announces she is making special things for a baby because, "it isn't to blame for being the eighth." Well, I feel like that as well, I think all babies deserve some fuss, so I am working on this blanket-(even though the baby's Dad only punched me everytime he passed me in the house growing up AND used to sit on me and force me to listen to "old Shep" because it made me almost hysterical with tears...he thought that was hilarious!)

This is only the top, hopefully get it finished tomorrow.

I wonder if there is any chance my brother and his partner will equal this present favourite and make it 10?

(Perhaps just for his sister's quilts!)

Have a great day, Tracey

Chook blocks.

The Church ladies morning coffee went well, 20 ladies and their kids came, the weather stayed nice and the trading table made over $350! Some of the leftover plants stayed here, and I bought a few, DH thinks we will need to expand the garden.

Having a quieter day today after all the rishing, may even take the kids into the Clone Wars movie this afternoon....(even though there is not the slightest chance of Harrison Ford!)

I love all the international relationships you form with a blog, I have had a few interesting emails this week from different parts of the world, wanting to ask about something or check on instructions..or just chat about patchwork.

Carol in the US wanted some closer chook block pictures and I thought there may be someone else out there who wanted them as well, so here are a few i have.

These two are from the shirt quilt. when you look closely you can see it is really just a few variations on the flying geese block idea. I appliqued the beak on but you could have a seam along there and sew it as a half square traingle type arrangement, that would save a lot of time. It is all in 2 1/2 inch size units. The comb is actually double layered fabric for a bit of extra oomph, sewn into the seam below. I think I intended appliquing around it once but prefer the loose, 3 D look and as it hangs it hasn't frayed. Felt would do well for this, or applique.

Here is another version of the same block, with additions like a stitched beak, appliqued comb and stitched wing.

These are some other chook blocks. This is just a flying geese block with comb attached in the seam, stitched legs and button eggs.

another variation.

applique possibility

another applique possibility

...and another variation, completely free!

She wandered out of my DH's workshop yesterday morning. She hopped back on her nest last night and I found her...she had just sat there quietly for 21 days with no-one any the wiser!

Off to the movies, have a great day, Tracey

A calf and a shirt quilt.... or two.

Okay, so once again Monday has magically turned to Thursday and have I checked bloglines and what everyone is up to...it's coming!! Hopefully after the weekend "time" will miraculously appear...kind of like those cleaning fairies I am waiting for who will make my house ready for the Church ladies morning coffee that is at my house on Saturday morning!!

Congratulations or commiserations to the US ladies depending on their leanings. An unbelievable amount of coverage of your election here, live feeds on lots of channels and an incredible amount of information. Almost more so than with our own elections.

I can't help being reminded of the Goodies episode where Tim and Bill take on each other as a type of Evita Margaret Thatcher vs. Che for the leader of Britain and the telecast is so engrossing no-one shifts away from the TV to vote! Those boys were way ahead of their time.

The thing that fascinates me is that you vote on a Tuesday. We vote on Saturday as people have it free. The lines look enormous, do you get time off work to vote or how do you manage it? I also have trouble getting my head around voting not being compulsory, we would be fined if we were over 18 and didn't vote here.

Anyway, enough of that, I have had a few emails about my last post, mainly regarding the shirt quilts. I also am non the wiser on who my swap buddy is. You will need to trawl back through my posts but you will find plenty of quilts made from my shirt stash. A couple I still had around here were.....

This one that I made up and hangs in my bathroom.

And I thought i would introduce you to the latest 'sucker of my time'...in a good way... Harry. Harry proved a most accommodating display board..

for my shirt chook quilt.

.......mostly

...except when doing his rodeo exercises...

And finally Harry got his reward, still enjoying his shirt quilt.

The problem, (or good thing depending on your mood) with having a coffee morning is that you also need to tidy your garden. When I get gardening I wonder why I don't do it more, then I get sewing and wonder why I have a garden....... Perhaps I need to be like the lady I met after my weekly attempt to hold back the fat tide at the gym yesterday...she said her hobbies were exercising (!!!)...and just stick to one thing. But I can't see it happening...especially the exercising!

I was repotting succulents and unfortunately this one was in a round pot and there was only one choice-

-the radical one!!

I thought it's roots were well worth a picture, they reminded me of something off Doctor Who, something that would come creeping around a door jamb to eerie music whilst the Doc and his latest assistant took off in another direction to investigate where the people were. I have just decided there is far too much British tv in my past!

So off I go to in the vain hope that those fairies visited as i typed! Have a great day, Tracey

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

Horse and canola pictures

So hot and windy here that the canola crop is just about finished flowering, but last weekend it was still in full bloom and friends bought their horse out to get some pictures, they also bought a professional photographer out with them, there isn't a lot of difference between our photos so I could have saved them a few hundred there!

I know there are a lot of horse lovers out there..and a few canola lovers by the sound of it, so here are a few I liked...

I taught the young lady on the horse in 3 yo kinder, then in Prep, now she is close to finishing school-kids growing up so fast makes me feel old!

The mountains are the start of the Grampians mountain range, great climbing, lots of School camping grounds and tourist spots up there. They start about half an hour from here and go on for hundreds of kilometres.

Off to spend some quality time with a Dh who is going to have to start cutting hay that isn't really long enough and even some crops tomorrow, not overly happy about that but you can't make it rain.

Leaving you with one of my latest cards as my thought for the day-our babies aren't babies for long!

Winners, shearers and a displaying cards quilt.

How did the promised Wednesday post turn into Friday?

My darlingest favouritest husband shared his illness so I have struggled to keep up with the shearer's cooking let alone the computer, even missed a meeting last night and that doesn't happen much! This is going to be the all time quickest post as well as it is the shearer's cut out party here tonight, feeding between 20 and 30! I have made two of the best pavlovas of my short catering career so i am getting organized.

Shearing looks like a good career when you think cut out party and meals supplied, especially these jam and cream scones...yum!

And then you find out you have to actually do this....

And more of this...

and a bit of this...

..and the job isn't looking quite so great! They average about 150 sheep shorn a day each.

The harnesses they are in are hooked to a high pole and are tosave their backs-but it is still an incredibly hard job.

My boy was very busy on his day off, keeping the floor tidy and chasing sheep to his heart's content.

DH is off in his truck delivering the bales of wool to the wool stores. Did another load yesterday for his brother. The wool is all pressed up into 200 kg packs.

And yes, i do actually sew still! This is my new display board(quilt) for some of my cards, i wanted an easy way at markets, I can now just tie this to the clothes horse or hang it to display the cards. I used clear plastic from when I went through my plastic coated bag stage.

I think you can see the plastic better here.

Finally, some winners! Thank you so much for your lovely comments, was the only bright spot there for a day or two when I felt like rubbish! My girl helped me to draw some commenters and Robyn and Barbara (no blog) were the lucky recipients of a happy pack (that I guarantee will get there before the next millenium!) They may like to drop me a line.

Have a great day, -I'll think of you as i vacuum! Tracey