Up, Up and Away

Tomorrow I'm off to Vietnam and Cambodia.
The last few weeks have been mad. I've had end of year parties, finishing up the term with my gorgeous students, cleaning and shifting classrooms, professional development sessions for the new National Curriculum, writing Maths activities for next year, birthdays, going to Sydney last weekend for a family celebration.
I am exhausted!

View from my cousin's balcony in Sydney

So now I'm packing, cleaning - because I know no one will do anything while I'm gone and doing my usual panic.

We've got friends coming tomorrow from Perth in a campervan and I am going to miss them. They have been driving all over Australia for a couple of months. Really sad not to see them.

I haven't sewn anything serious for weeks but I have packed a couple of Staring Girl embroideries that I hope I can work on whilst flying. As long as they don't deem my sewing needle too dangerous.

Anyway I will try to keep up with what everyone is doing in Blog land but I probably won't be posting for nearly a month. I don't know how I will cope but I hear Vietnam has cheap internet access so maybe...

Fabric Shack to the Rescue

40 days ago I ordered some fabric from a very well know internet retailer of quilting fabric. Unfortunately the fabric did not arrive in the usual swift manner. I emailed the seller and although several emails were exchanged, it seemed that the seller was not prepared to resend the fabric and simply advised me to sit tight!
Normally, I think I could have been patient but the fabric was required for a commission and my time was running out as I am going overseas in 10 days.
The seller-who-must-not-be-named was getting less and less inclined to believe me or offer a satisfactory outcome so I decided to reorder the fabric from The Fabric Shack. 11 days later my new order arrived.

Today the quilt was finished. I didn't even use all the fabric. The Urban Circus is really lovely and soft too.
Meanwhile.... my other parcel is still lost and the seller-who-must-not-be-named is not being nice to me. It's not my fault the parcel is missing.
Whilst I was fretting and worrying, I just had to order more fabric because it makes me happy and I ordered some from Fabricworm
Their parcel arrived in 5 days on a Sunday!
I made this with it but that was the day before the Urban Circus fabric arrived so I had to leave it.

So this is the finished quilt. Ready to be shipped overseas to a new baby boy.

Its not much but at least its something

Last weekend was a sad attempt to sell some of my cot quilts. I had a stall at a school market but despite lots of advertising the event was really down on numbers. Melbourne has had ridiculous amounts of rain and that Sunday was really cold and really wet. The few that came were not my kind of customers. I did sell a few toys though.

Good bye Super Boy

I also had some fun starting a little embroidery project because I need something to take overseas with me that is not too bulky but keeps the fingers busy.

This is 'Staring Girl'

She is a creation of Tim Burton.

I love his drawings and his poetry is hilarious and brilliant.

There are a few drawings of Staring Girl in his book and I hope to make a series of them.

So last week was rain, rain,rain and this weekend its boiling!

GJ's advertised a 25% off sale. They are a good hour's drive from home and I was cursing the heat and time in the car but it was great once I got there. They had stacks of fabric I had not been able to buy in Melbourne and although I am trying to be really frugal with my fabric buying, I picked up these bits and pieces.

 Love, love love!

Endings and New Beginnings

The kids used up all our internet allowance about a week early so using the internet was very difficult. They just can't control themselves and seem to watch every you tube video, sport results video, Skype with friends, Facebook and download music so I couldn't really do much blogging. It was a finishing off week for sewing and all 4 Dick and Janes are finished now. They were quilted and had their bindings done.

The final part of the binding was put on this

A few more pot mitts were quilted

And then I got stuck into a new project.

I am a Bruce Springsteen tragic and my brother dropped in a couple of his DVDs to watch. I never really get much time to watch anything but somehow, yesterday I found myself with the house all to myself.

On went the DVD and out came the sewing machine.

I didn't really watch, so much as listen to the DVD but the music was turned up really loud and I started this quilt top.

It was finished today, but with a few hiccups. My measuring wasn't all that good and a few seams ended up being 1/8th to lengthen a few sides - oops. I guess that's why it's known as 'patchwork.'

It was inspired by this

Mini Beasts

On Thursday my co teacher and I went on a school excursion to the Botanical Gardens and Melbourne Museum on a search for mini beasts. The Gardens were beautiful and we looked at insect repelling plants and plants that attract insects. We found the herb garden which was the centre for medicine making 150 years ago in Melbourne. It supplied many of the herbs for doctors in the early days.

We smelled the different plants and made little pot pourri bags to take home just as the rain started tumbling down in earnest. But not to be deterred these intrepid 8 year olds marched onto the Children's Garden where we learned about and played with worms.

And fished for  bugs in the pond.

 It was really cold.  Of course few were well dressed for the occasion.  After all, it is nearly summer.

I really got a buzz out of finding this active bee hive in one of the trees.

The museum was equally inspiring and some of the mini beasts were alive. Ants in colonies, giant stick insects, spiders, locusts.....

I loved the beetles the most. The colours and varieties are just incredible.

We came back to school tired but totally mad about bugs!

A Quickie

On the weekend I just had to go back to Amitie to have a last look at what was still on sale. I found a premade pack of fabric for half price that I thought might be fun to try out.

In just 2.5 hours I had this cut, sewn, recut and sewn to make a quilt top. Apart from the pattern, I realised how cleverly the colours were picked to be put together. I've always relied on buying fabric from the same maker because ranges are matched for you. From this little pack I learned that one fabric was the basis of the range. Fabrics were chosen that were in some way the same as the first print. Small prints and large designs were also chosen as were solid colours and more 'watered down' with white prints. In the end I thought it made for a fine balance.

Baby Pepper

My niece just had a baby girl. She is as sweet as can be. Her name is Pepper! I have been working on an embroidered, wool, baby blanket for many months now. It's not as babyish as I would like it to be. The colours of the wool felt was a bit too sombre but there are lots of little animals to look at.
I used some of my Ikea fabric for the back because it brightened the whole thing up.
Putting satin binding on cashmere wool and the cotton backing is always a nightmare. In the days before I learned how to quilt, it was worse and I used to unpick and re do continuously. Now I stretch the cotton backing and pin the whole thing, just like a quilt. The binding is hand sewn on first and then machine zigzagged. It's still laborious but at least I didn't have to unpick it even once!