Elly May’s First Quilt

After a bit of a play, it was time to quilt my first quilt on Elly May.

In anticipation of her arrival I threw together a very simple quilt top using a panel I had bought a couple of years ago, together with a few other bits and bobs I had.  The advantage of an oversized stash.

The automated quilting has several levels and I have started off with the basic edge to edge level.  The program comes with several preloaded patterns and I chose the one with butterflies.  It seems to suit the quilt.  I had also ordered a few more cones of threads in various colours, so was waiting for those to arrive.

Loaded, ready to go.  I did the quilting two days before Christmas.

I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

And the back.

On Christmas Eve I added the binding by machine.  The quilt is actually straight, it is just the way it is hanging on my design  curtain.

Do you think I look happy?  You bet.

Quilt information:

Pattern - None, just thrown together with a panel I bought at the Balranald Quilt Show in 2023 and stash

Measurements - 51” x 46”

Quilting Design - Edge to Edge - Butterflies E2E

Batting - Cotton/polyester

Backing - Pieced from stash

Thread - Glide - Tabrid Orchid

Binding - Scrappy from the backing, added and finished by machine

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas.

May you have a wonderful day, be it hectic or quiet.

Oh My! Santa Came Early!

Where to start?

A couple of months ago Mick suggested something that could be a final special gift from Mum.  It wasn’t something I had thought of, but having had a little think, why not?

A bit of work was required before anything could happen.

This has been the usual state of my sewing room for the best part of twelve months.  Not good and not conducive to any actual sewing or quilting taking place.  ie. Not one single quilt has been quilted in 2025.

I’ve already shared some photos of the start of my clean up here.

Then there was more cleaning out.  It’s a very long time since it has looked like this.

But there’s more:

Or, rather less.

Yes, it was time to farewell Monique.  I haven’t been using her and I suppose I am too much of a perfectionist and wasn’t all that happy with what I was doing and didn’t have the confidence to do any free motion quilting.  Having said that, she was the perfect entry level machine to give me the basics of long arm quilting and served me well in that respect.

So, what was to fill that space?

Meet “Elly May”.  Her name was inspired by her model name of Elite and a very slight nod to Mum’s name.

She is another Grace Q’Nique.  This time with a 21 inch throat, a new frame and is computer driven.  She has so much potential.

The automated quilting is a very steep learning curve and I have been watching lots of YouTube tutorials, which have been invaluable.

I feel so very blessed to be able to be the owner of such a beauty and look forward to having lots of fun with her.

Hopefully, that pile of unquilted flimsies will all be completed quilts by the end of 2026, if not before.  That would be so good.

Here is my very first bit of quilting on her.  I have done a bit more since then and will share that separately.

It’s Starting to Look and Feel Like Christmas

Only two days until the man in the red suit visits all the good boys and girls……and grown ups too, if they still believe.  We certainly do.

This year our decorations are fairly similar to the last couple of years, with just a couple of variations.  Our twiggy Christmas tree has normally sat on my Granny’s trousseau box, but during the year be bought a lovely leadlight bow fronted china cabinet and relocated the box.  Where to put the tree?  In the end, we just moved it fairly close and popped it on a stool, covered by a table centre that I received one year in the Secret Santa Christmas Swap arranged by Chooky.  Perfect.

There are just two new decorations on it this year.  Firstly, a little Bilby that I bought when we visited Charleville earlier in the year.

The second is the cute felt Christmas tree which Lou sent to me for our annual swap.  There are many decorations on this tree made by Lou.  Probably enough to have their own tree, as we have been doing this annual swap since 2009.

While I’m at it, this is the one I sent to Lou this year.  We both seem to have thought of the theme of trees.

This is what our dining area looks like this year, minus the trousseau box.

The other change this year is the addition of the little tree that Mick made for Mum to showcase her handmade decoration collection while living in residential aged care.  It now fits nicely atop the china cabinet, which holds many of her items.

Here is a bit of a closer look.  If you pop over to this post, you can see how they were all displayed in her room.

Now to the sitting area.  The mantle piece is pretty much the same as usual.

The lounge room is also pretty much the same, featuring our large tree with more special decorations collected over the years.  Some I can date back to our first Christmas together, while others have been collected on some of our travels.

I made the light hearted comment to Mick that we have done well not to buy any additional decorations this year (other than the Bilby)………I shouldn’t have……

When Mick put up our outside lights, one of the strings of the icicles that go around the gutters didn’t work!  Blast!  Fortunately, we were able to source some just the same as the other existing ones……….Then when he went to hook up the star over the garage door it didn’t work either!  What?!  Obviously, nine years is the use by date for those two strings.  No worries, off to Bunnings again to get another replacement.  So much for no buying decorations.  I should have shut my mouth.

Anyway, the outside, including our tree in the lounge room, all look good from the street.  “Skippy” and “Mervyn and Muriel the Mooses” all took up their usual positions. 

The bottom end of our street is looking very festive. When we moved here it was the top end that was all lit up, but times have changed, kids have grown up and it now seems that all us oldies down the bottom of the street have been the ones to put the lights up.

On Sunday night we hosted the neighbourhood Christmas party in our back yard.  It has become quite the tradition we all look forward to.  One of our neighbours is a very talented crafty person and she gifted us a resin angel that she just whipped up that day.  Isn’t she gorgeous.  We now have to find a special place to hang her where she will show up nicely.

A Day in Sydney

We haven’t been in Sydney in the lead up to Christmas for many years, so thought it was about time to have a day trip to play the tourist.

Lots and lots of photos here, so grab a cuppa.

The planets aligned for last Monday. Our calendar was free, the weather was forecast to be 23C and some friends were free as well.  We caught the early train down.

Our first Christmas tree - on the Town Hall balcony.

The first stop was morning tea with Karen at the Queen Victoria Building (QVB).  We have tried to catch up a few times before, but something always foiled our plans.  As Mick and I had breakfast at 4.30am, we treated ourselves to a second breakfast of French toast.  It was so good.  Karen’s banana bread was pronounced excellent as well.

Check out the floor in the cafe.

Now that we were fortified, it was time to start exploring.  Firstly, the Christmas tree in the QVB.  No Swarovski crystals on the tree these days, but it was still impressive.

And huge.

A kind lady took our photo.

The obligatory photo of the stained glass.  It’s hard to believe this building was nearly derelict for many years.

Time to have a wander through the CBD.

Surprisingly, many businesses had no Christmas decorations at all, while others were lovely.

The Strand Arcade is always a show piece and this year did not disappoint.  We loved how the main decorations were gum nuts and gum flowers.

A fun view of Centrepoint Tower.

Next, it was Martin Place, with its flower stall and Santa’s hut.  It would look lovely during the evening, when everything was lit up.

Another kind lady took our photo in front of the huge Christmas tree.

As we wandered along Mick and I were taken with a sculpture in front of one building.  I wonder why?  We have seen another of this artist’s installations at Forbes.

We also stumbled up on the art installation of bird cages to commemorate all the birds that used to live in what is now the CBD.

As always, there was lots of construction taking place and Mick had to stop and watch the crane lifting some air conditioning ducts to the top of a very high sky scraper. 

Once we reached Circular Quay, Karen headed off home.  It was great to have an explore with her.  Hopefully, we can catch up again at some stage.

We had a bit of time to kill before our next catch up, so had a wander around the Opera House precinct.

Looking back towards the city.

There was a bit of a traffic jam with all the ferries on the harbour.

There are plaques set into the pavement to commemorate Australian literary figures.  This is just a small sample.

A.D. Hope was a poet and received his high school education at Bathurst High School, so a bit of a local connection.

We then met up with Betty and Stephanie for a quick bite to eat before heading off to do some exploring through The Rocks historic area of Sydney.

The first spot that Betty took us to was underneath the YHA building.  It is a large building tha only received building approval if it was built on stilts to expose the archaeological dig on the site, which is called “The Big Dig”.  Very original.

All this exploring was thirsty work, so time for a cool beverage at the historic old Australia Hotel.

From here we wandered along, with no real direction to be followed.  There are some wonderful views, showing the vast contrast of our first settled city.

As we walked down one lane way we came across an art installation like the outline of a terrace house.  We didn’t think too much of it and didn’t take a photo.  Nearby was a cordoned off set of very narrow steep steps, with a more accessible set nearby.  We went down and discovered what appeared to be the footprint of rooms with bronze sculptures of furniture in the them.

It was set on the side of a small sandstone cliff and there were even more really steep steps going down.  

The handrails around our pathway had the cutest little bronze terrace houses as finials.

And looking back up.

We were suitably intrigued and were happy to find an information board that advised that there had been eight homes on the side of this cliff and that they were demolished in the 1930s.  There was a photo from 1908.  Oh my!  I can’t imagine living like that.  A little Google revealed that we had been visiting Foundation Park, which was established in the 1970s.  You can read more about it here.  

Once we reached the bottom, we passed through a narrow passageway into the vibrant section of The Rocks.  Such a hidden gem.

And, we found another giant Christmas tree.

From here we took the light rail from Circular Quay back to the QVB and a bit more wander around the shops, before farewelling Betty and Stephanie.

Mick and I continued to wander around and found a couple of more intersting shop Christmas windows.

A gaping hole in the Christmas landscape was the famous David Jones window displays.  The only Christmassy one was advertising their Christmas shop.  This was so controversial that it made the news on the TV and newspapers.  It will be interesting to see if they take note of the backlash and resume their windows next year.

Anyway, the day was getting on, so we walked back to Central Station to wait for our train.  There were some nice trees there as well.

We caught the later train, so didn’t get home until nearly 10 o’clock, so a very long day.  The “Bathurst Bullet” may be the slowest bullet in the west, but it such a wonderful service.

It was a rather enjoyable day, made all the better for being able to catch up with the girls.  We did all that we had hoped to do, as well as the bonus adventure around The Rocks.  We need to do it more often.