Easter Weekend

On the Easter weekend we took my parents down to Victoria to catch up with some family and to visit with our son Joshua who lives at Cribb Point near the Navy base HMAS Cerberus.

It was a lovely trip down firstly stopping at Gunning for morning tea. Lunch at Holbrook then travelling onto Albury for our first overnight stop.

Next Morning we left early and called into Glenrowan where this BIG Ned Kelly was to be found and of course there just has to be the obligitory photo of the family with Ned.

We arrived at our destination Hastings late Friday afternoon. Went to visit Joshua at his unit. On Sunday it was Greg's birthday and Josh had planned a barbeque and had even baked him a cake. He forgot to get candles so Greg had to blow out a lighter. Took a lot of blowing. the lunch was great and the cake was tasty as well.

On the Saturday we went to visit my Dad's sister in law and my cousins that I have not seen in almost 40 years. They have always been great travellers and have lived in lots of different places but have been in Glenn Waverley for the past 20 or so years. It was lovely to visit with them and reminisce about our younger days. My Aunty Connie is almost 91, my Dad is almost 85, my Mum is 83.

This is a family shot from the left; Joshua, Carl, my Mum, Greg, Christine, me, Lynette (Carl's wife) ,my Dad and Aunty Connie.

Before we left on our journey home we went for a drive to Westhead on the Morning Peninsular. It is a beautiful coastline very rugged. We had a great time on our trip to Victoria. Mum and Dad were happy to see Joshua and to visit the Navy base where he is stationed but after such a long trip we were all glad to be home and be able to sleep in our own beds

Works in progress this week

My aim for the next few weeks is to get as many of my WIP's (works in progress) completed.
We have had this little side desk in the garage for a few years now and my Grand daughter Kaitlyn wants it for a desk in her room so my DH filled all the holes and it is now ready to be rubbed back and painted which I hope to get to this weekend.

These two wicker chairs I rescued from my daughter Danielle's garage they were going to be dumped. I have already rubbed them back and they have their first coating of paint. They will look great on my front verhanda. The kids gave their Dad a compressor for his birthday so I think it will come in very handy to spray paint the chairs with the final coat of paint.

I have been working on these Santa blocks for about 3 years now. I have 4 more corner blocks to complete before I can put it together. When I started these blocks I was very keen to get it finished but of course something else just had to be done so these went into the UFO box.

This is the almost finished Mystery quilt I made about a year ago with my Quiting group. Last week I sent it of to have it professionally quilted so that I know it will be completed. I still have many more in the UFO box that have not seen the light of day for quite some time. But I WILL get them all finished one day.

Just this week I have finished this little embroidered pillow for my Mum.
Unfortunatly my Mum has been diagnosed with mild Alzhiemers so a long road ahead for us especially my Dad who is at present finding it a little hard to deal with.
Mum loves pansies and her favourite colours are mauves and greens, I'm sure she will love this little gift. She is 83 and still knitting and doing embroidery herself. I hope she can continue on with her hobbies for as long as she can.

Quilt Camp

Two weeks ago I was counting down the days till Merroo Quilt Camp up at Kurrajong. Now it has come and gone where do the weeks go? Quilt camp was great. I went with 7 friends from my quilting group this was my 8th. year. We leave on Friday and have a wonderful time visiting all the patchwork shops and thrift shops on the way. This year I chose to do a class with Dianne Johnston called Shattered Glass an easy technique for stained glass work. My friend Diana and I chose to call our work "Fractured Fairy" I only managed to get my fairy to the pinned stage by the Sunday but have managed to get some of the stitching done this week. This technique is really easy and can be adapted to original stained glass patterns.

The first photo is my fairy without her wings, the second photo is Dianne Johnstons fairy and how mine will hopefully look one day soon. Beautiful isn't she? Although a bit blurry!!!

At quilt camp on the Saturday night groups are encouraged to put on some entertainment, each year there is a different theme. This year it was Sports, this being the year of the Olympics. Our group decided on the Grand Parade, we all dressed in different sports clothes carried our banner, an Aussy flag and the Olympic rings and marched to the National Anthem I think it was the best of the night we were awarded 2nd. place. It was loads of fun.

From left to right Me, Ann, Helen, Diana Kerrie, Kerry and Barbara.

More Sewing

Again I have been making padfolios for gifts, they are so much fun to make and those that have received one from me just love them they make a very useful gift. The "Shabby Chic" one I have made for my daughter Danielle as she has made me some beautiful jewellery which I just love. Certainly is a great way to use up some of my stash.


I have mentioned before that I do an Arty type class once a month with my friends Barbara and Kerry. Recently we had another trip to Bowral for a class where we were shown how to embroider on our painted paper bag which once scrunched up over and over again, feels very much like a piece of fabric. I call my piece of embroidery "Pattisons Curse at Texas" I had taken a photo on our recent trip so used this as my inspiration. The other piece is called "Passion Pods" I constructed this from a piece of fabric that I had painted, actually started out as toadstools but turned into pods. I machine and hand stitched adding beads and the leaves. This is really not something that I can really get into but have had fun with the classses.

Unfortunatly my photo has turned out a little blurry

A close up of the stitching if you look sideways with head to the left you can just make out the original toadstools.