I've Fallen Weeks Behind

I've been so lazy with my blogging these last few weeks. I had a marvelous school holiday and even escaped to the beach for a couple of days. It was crispy autumn weather. We went to Point Nepean. On the left is the peaceful bay and on the right is the open ocean. We walked through the park and caught the shuttle. It used to be an old army base. There were some very cool rusty relics.

We sat on the beach and walked and drank coffee and ate yummy food.

The boys are studying for their mid years. Hard Life!

I took my hexies with me. They are so portable.

There is no plan with these guys. I am just adding on scraps as I go. No paper piecing. I'm just drawing the lines and sewing them together with running stitch. My textile teacher way back at uni would be horrified but it works! 

I loathe to throw away even the tiniest bits of fabric which is why I am getting so much pleasure out of this project. I also have been using my scraps to make these.

I got the idea from One Shabby Chick. I have linked her straight to her tutorial on how to make these little purses. They are so easy to make and use up lots of scraps.

I think they will make great end of year presents for some of the teachers I work with.

During the holidays I had to baby sit Phil, my class pet. When I first introduced him he looked like this.

During the December holidays he lost his exoskeleton and now looks like this.

He is no longer brown and 'twig like' but green with yellow horny legs and hard to find amongst the eucalyptus leaves. He is also nearing the end of his days. I found out that he is a Goliath Stick Insect which makes sense because he is probably 10" long.

I finished Rivka's quilt for her brother. It really is fun. It's binding was from Denyse Schmidt's new range. Although I can't say I love the range, the colour was perfect for the binding.

I think there is still more to tell but that is for another day.

Its not that I haven't been doing anything...

I missed my weekend blogging because I went away for a beautiful weekend to Blairgowrie. Although it rained in Melbourne we had two relatively pleasant winter days at the beach. We went on three walks with a couple of breakfast breaks on the morning walks. At night we entertained, cooked up a storm, lit the fire and played scrabble. I did finish binding one of my quilts while we were away. Thank you Lisa for letting us stay at your place.

Last week I also managed to go to Kazari to buy the fabric for my Japanese quilt and that binding is also completed now. It was so good to go there. There were so many choices and I was lucky to have a friend with me to give a second opinion. Sometimes it can be so confusing and I really believe that the binding on a quilt can make or break the final piece.

So here is my over the top Kaffe Fassett/Brandon Mably quilt. The colours are way to crazy. I contemplated pulling it apart and making the inner strips of sashing from a smaller print fabric but in the end I just let it go. It's on my son's bed already and although I still need to do some stitching in some of the larger squares it's found a home.

So I have been sewing but not blogging. Four quilts were basted too and Castle Peeps is ready to have its binding stitched down. Phew, soon I will back at school and all this fun will be over. Love holiday breaks!

Beach Days and Redback Spiders

I just spent 2 blissful days on the beach in Blairgowrie. The weather was fine, the tide was out so we could dig around for crabs and creepy crawlies, the walks were long and beautiful and the food was delicious.

As for the Redback, it was huge and in the outdoor fireplace but my photo was not so good of it. The snake was a baby Brown Snake-very poisonous so it fit in with the theme of the Redback. Lucky it was squashed before we got there. Anyone would think the coast was dangerous.

So going on the theme of Redbacks, today I was helping a friend baste her quilt. She took her fabric out of the bag and out popped a spider. Yep, another redback but the bag was from her son's bedroom at home in Melbourne. I don't know that I would be sleeping in that room tonight.