Blast from the past

Seminole band in skirt

Tomorrow being September 1 is the first day of spring here in Australia. My husband has gone over to Canberra for a week to do a bit of landscaping for our daughter and while he is away I am into spring cleaning. Took the first load of old clothes to the charity bin. In my clean up I came across this skirt that I made many years ago with a matching hot pink shirt. It has passed my fingers before during my cleanup ups but I have always been reluctant to throw it out. I think I made it nearly 30 years ago and now it would be lucky to fit my leg!

It is difficult to do clean out cupboards etc it with two little fur balls into everything as well so I have to wait until they go to bed in their house at 10.00 or thereabouts each morning. They have been in the washing machine and one tried to get in the oven this morning.

If you have time  take minute to check out our  Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings Facebook page that Anna has set up. Anna would love it if you like the page.

Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings Facebook page

Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings has a new home

Over the last few days I have set up a new blog that is dedicated to our Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings project. Bridie's Mum, my friend Anna is setting up a Facebook page that she will administer as I don't do Facebook or not yet anyway.

The reason behind setting up the page is that we have had a few request for packages to be sent to other parts of Australia and overseas. We have sent one package overseas but the cost to do this is on any larger scale is prohibitive. Similarly due to the postage rates within Australia we can only supply our Bridie's Blossoms packages to Tasmanian families who have experienced the tragedy of losing a small angel.

However, we have come up with an idea we can implement as a self funded project and that is to send one of the machine embroidered infant loss keepsake hankies that is included as part of our Bridie's Blossoms packages to Australian families who request one through the link on the new blog.

You can find the link to the new Bridie's Blossoms and Blessings on the tab on the top right hand of this page.

Embellished Dogs Quilt top and projects from other blog followers

We have finished the Embellished Dogs quilt top and the final instruction has gone out for this BOM. I apologize for my terrible picture editing as I tired to delete the carpet on the sides of the quilt

Embellished Dogs Quilt Top complete

Karen has been quick off the mark with her first Forest Owls Block

Karen's Forest Owls Block 1

Shirley has been steaming ahead with her Stack'Ems blocks. In fact Shirley had stitched out and sent me a pic of the heart block little more than 3 hours after I sent the block instructions out on Monday morning.

Shirley's Stack'Ems Blocks 1-5 

Shirley's Stack'Ems Block 6

Pat has made up a quilt to be given to a deserving charity using my Bridie's Blessings 1 metre wonder quilt tutorial

Pat's  Bridie's Blessings 1 Metre Wonder Quilt

Project report and Embellished Cats soon to be off to a new home

My sister in law is a nurse who works for the Tasmanian Branch of Alzheimer's Australia and the local group are having a fund raiser in the next few works and wondered if I may have something I could donate as the major prize for a raffle at a local fund raiser. Consequently she excitedly put my Embellished Cats quilt under her arm as I thought it might be popular with people as a fund raiser and went off to see if it was deemed appropriate by the powers that be. 

She came back and said it was thought to be the "cat's whiskers" so to speak. I told her it needed a few thread checks etc as it wasn't initially made for public perusal and I will go over it in the next few days.I hope that the quilt will go to a good home and raises lots of money for Alzheimer's research and support.

The question arose of just is the value that you put on a quilt as the prize value has to go n the raffle tickets. I estimated about $1000. What do you think , is that an overestimate?

This morning has been sent sending out lots of instruction's for my various BOM's.

Block 12 ( the last in this BOM) went out for the Embellished Dogs BOM.


Embellished Dogs Block 12

The last four blocks along with the instructions to construct the quilt went out for the Kenny Kreations Crazy Quilt BOM.

Kenny Kreations Crazy Quilt BOM Block 62

Kenny Kreations Crazy Quilt BOM Block 61

Kenny Kreations Crazy Quilt BOM Block 63

Kenny Kreations Crazy Quilt BOM Block 64

Block 6 of the Hatched In Africa Stack'Ems has gone out.

HIA Stack'Ems Block 6

along with Block 3 of the Polka Dot Giraffe BOM.

Block1 of the new Hatched in Africa Forest Owls BOM went out over the weekend.

Two days of stitching and some oldies but goodies

Wednesday and Thursday have been spent stitching out some of the BOM blocks. I think I have done all the Stack'Ems and Polka Dot Giraffe stitch outs. Just hope that they correspond with my sketchy plan!

 I have also done 3 preliminary blocks for the HIA Forest Owls BOM quilt.

I am using the Moda Me and My Sister Hubba Hubba line which has been out for a little while. They do have a couple of new line outs and the best thing about their fabric lines is that you can mix and match the majority of their collections.

Forest Owls BOM

I have been meaning to mention a website I visit frequently, especially when looking for costume ideas and baby crochet patterns for my Bridie's Blossoms items. The patterns at The Vintage Pattern Files are free so take some time to have a look around and reminisce.

BOM update and small freebie roundup

This weekend has been spent trying to fight off a sore throat and cold. To keep myself occupied rather than laying on the couch I have sent out a few more BOM blocks.

Block 2 has gone out in the Polka Dot Giraffe BOM. 

Polka Dot Giraffe BOM Block 2

I have also finished Row 1. I will be sending out Block 3 instructions( the middle double block) later on in the week.

Polka Dot Giraffe BOM Row 1

I have also sent out the instructions for four more Crazy Quilt blocks. Blocks 57-60 have been emailed out so that leaves only 4 more to do.

Urban Threads have a lovely Painted Swallow bird design until August 24th.

Don't forget to stop by the Bernina blog. A new Alpha has been running there called Tea Time alpha. Once on the freebie page click more posts at the bottom of the page and all the recent posts will be brought up including the links to each letter to date. there are also some great bag tutorials. You may need to hit the translate button in your browser for each new page.

The days are getting longer and some of my spring bulbs have already been out in flower and are now passed their best. It will soon be spring cleaning time and when the sun shines in the window it shows all those little dust bunnies we pretend are not there.

Drum Roll............... - the Crazy quilt is Finished + 2 others

After a smidge under 2 years I have completely finished my Crazy Quilt BOM. Now it is on to writing up the remaining 8 block lessons to send out. I decided against putting a border on as I did nto want to take away from the cololur wash effect. It has a lovely burgundy jacquard backing and black satin binding. The quilt weighs over 7 lbs and does not have any batting in it. It is just a showpiece. It is one of those things that if you had to evacuate the house in a hurry it has most of your treasures stitched on it. Think I will tell my family that when I die instead of putting flowers on my coffin they should drape this quilt with all its sparkle over me.

The final lesson Block 12 and construction pdf have gone out in the embellished cats BOM so that one is now concluded.

I have also put the binding around my Hoopsisters Mystery for 2014 , the Modern Baltimore in my favourite red/black and white colour colourway.

I have restitched some of my blocks in the Polka Dot BOM and will hopefully have Block 2 lesson out to everyone doing that popular BOM tomorrow or early weekend.

Change of plan and BOM update

A couple of weeks ago I bought this lovely giraffe fabric from Spotlight here in Australia. I had already started my Polka Dot Giraffe BOM in the pastel colours when I bought this but I have been prevaricating and tossing up whether to use it or not. After doing another block today I have decided to use the colours in the giraffe fabric I bought so it is now back to stitching out some replacement blocks. If you are looking for this fabric in Spotlight it is on the roll in the cotton fabric section not in the patchwork fabric section and it has a cot panel that co-ordinates with it.

Block 5 has gone out in the Stack'Ems BOM and Karen has been quick of the mark and this is her stitch out to date.

Blocks 55 and 56 have also also gone out in the Crazy Quilt BOM.

Super Moon and More Quilts Delivered

We have just been outside to take some pictures of the super moon appearing in the sky. It is magnificent. Of course it is only called "super" because it is closer to the Earth in it's elliptical orbit. Love being able to see the craters on the surface

Super Moon August 11 2014

This morning I delivered 14 more quilts to our local shelter.

 Pat and Karen forwarded these quilts to me to deliver the as well.

Pat's Quilt 1

Pat's Quilts 2

Of course Karen's lovely quilt had to be given the AOK by the quality control team before I folded them up and handed them over.

Karen's Quilt

Two of the quilts I took today were UFO's belonging to someone who kindly gave them to me to reconstruct and finish off.

Imagine how many quilts we would all have to donate to worthy causes if we dug into our UFO's and finished them off.


This morning I bought the new Forest Owl set from Hatched in Africa. I intend to make a BOM quilt with these down the track. Think they may still be on introductory special for a couple more days. Please email me if you would like to participate. We will not start for a couple of weeks

Busy, busy and a whinge again.

It has been all systems go this week as I get soe more quilts organised to donate to the local women's shelters. We delivered 18 of them on Wednesday to a group in Launceston. I am planning on doing another delivery of approximately 12 early next week and then I need to put some time back into my BOM's for those who are  patiently waiting for lessons.

Shelter Quilts 1

Shelter Quilts 2

Shelter Quilts 3

I have had to take a deep breath and suck it up this week. Once again I have had a couple of people request that I set out my FREE tutorials differently so that they do not waste their ink printing them out. Could I remove the watermark and the borders? I need to say that again, my FREE tutorials. Am I being too sarcastic and judgemental?

I also want to say a very big thank you to those people who take the time to spend a minute or so sending me a thank you  note after I send them a tutorial or list the links to a number of BOM's that they want. As I have said before for every 10 requests for projects or BOM's  that I get I will get one thank you email. People are very quick to get in contact with me again if I have not answered their emails in a couple of hours or they have trouble downloading. I send out a few hints for them to help them download and never hear another thing. Perhaps they are disappointed with my tutorials.


 Oh well, it is the other lovely people who appreciate my lessons that make it all worthwhile. Thank you , thank you ! You all know who you are.

What a week!

We have had the week form hell in terms of weather. It was officially classified as an extreme weather event.  It is winter here in Tasmania but we have had a week of dreadful weather. It started last Monday night around 6.00pm when there was a terrible roar for about 1 minute like a freight train was coming through the house. We had a mini tornado come down our street. We had a tree come down in the back yard and the garden arbour out the front was demolished. 

The house next door had part of its fence demolished and our neighbour lost a window. The wind then went in a line about 400 yards from us as the crow flies and tipped up this office block. All in  all we got off lightly compared to these people about 30 minutes away.

It was then a week of prolonged gale force winds, frequent power outages, heavy rain and very cold temps. Today we have bright sunshine but it is very cold with snow not too far away on the hills. In  fact the first night without the gale force winds was a bit eerie.

I got to the stage that I no longer restarted my computer with all the power interruptions as it was happening too frequently. I did bunker down and quilted the stack of my Bridie's Blessings quilts that needed doing so it is just onto finishing the binding and checking them ready for them to be delivered this week. It was a bit disconcerting to be sewing away and then nothing as the power made its frequent disappearances.