What I’ve Been Stitching

Here it is, three weeks into the month and I’m finally sharing what I have been working on.  I seem to have been doing a bit on this, then a bit on that, and not completing anything.  At least I have been doing something.

Firstly, the crochet granny rug has slowly been growing.  Here it is when the big ball of yarn I bought was completed.

I then bought an extra ball of purple yarn and dug into Mum’s wool stash to find a couple of other colours that would work.  I have since bought a variegated mauve to add as well.  I have used up the three smaller balls, so the rug should be finished fairly soon.

Next, I have completed the red blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. There aren’t too many more colours to go this year and then I can start the fun part of playing with putting the block together.

The other main thing I have been working on is the Laundry Basket Spring Mystery Quilt.  All of the sections have now been revealed, but I won’t have it finished for a little while yet.

I was a bit nervous about piecing Week 4.  Firstly, I had to decide on fabrics, but the main thing that worried me was piecing the diamonds.  Finally, I bit the bullet and got stuck in.  Oh my!  I have never had so much trouble piecing a block.  Jack the Ripper had a fair old work out.  In hind sight, I would have cut most pieces over size and trimmed them down.  I had to make four blocks and they all ended up a little under size, but I thought I would be able to fudge them into the final quilt. 

Week 5 was much easier, but a bit more time consuming, as we had to make twelve hexy flowers, using 7/8” hexies.  Not your usual size.  I forgot to take a photo of them as they were pieced.

Week 6 was the final week.  The work in this section was quite extensive.  Firstly, you had to appliqué eight of the hexy flowers onto background fabric.  We had a lovely warm, sunny day earlier this week, so I sat in the backyard and stitched them down. The temperature reached 20 degrees C in our backyard that day, which is rather incredible for this time of year.  I was making the most of it while it lasted.

Next, you had to cut a lot more background pieces and then piece together all the components into four identical quadrants.  I didn’t have sufficient of any one background fabric, so have gone with a scrappy version.  Having said that, each quadrant has the different fabrics placed in the same positions, so a controlled scrappy background.  It doesn’t look anything at this stage, but by the time it is finished it will be beautiful.  Next, I have to applique the final hexy flowers and then there are stems, leaves and berries to be appliquéd.  Quite a bit of work to go. 

I am going to put the Laundry Basket Quilt aside for a little while now, as I still have not made a start on my One Monthly Goal of working on the centre block of my Blue Quilt.  That will take a little while, so needs to be my priority this week.

I did work on one other, rather unusual project.  We have bought some reflective shade cloth to put over our little potting shed.  The length was six metres, and we only needed three metres.  The two ends of the length came with a hemmed casing, but I needed to stitch two more casings once the length had been cut in half.  I didn’t want to run it through my sewing machine, so it would be backstitch by hand.  What thread would be the best?  It needs to be strong and also weather resistant.  In the end, Mick suggested using braided fishing line.

Not the usual thread spool, rather Mick’s fishing reel.  I was also able to sit in the warm sunshine to stitch this.  I still have the casing on the other half to complete.  It will then just sit in the shed to be used when this one wears out.

Mick has installed the completed shade cloth on the potting shed, so it should be a bit cooler in the summer and protected a bit more from frost in the winter.

So, that about sums up all I have been doing.  Not a real lot to show for it, but most importantly, I have managed to maintain my goal of 15 minutes of stitching each day.

My stats to date are:

15 minutes a day/week = 7/7

15 minutes a day/July = 21/21

15 minutes a day/2023 = 191/202

Success rate = 94.55%

Now to get moving on my OMG.

I am linking up with So Scrappy and Life in Pieces. 

July - Winter Festival

This year is the ninth time that the Bathurst Winter Festival has taken place, having started in 2015 as part of the Bathurst Bicentenary celebrations.  We thought the novelty may be wearing off, after all these years, and now that so many other places are starting to have an event of one kind or another to make the most of winter.  However, I think ours may be one of the largest, running over the two weeks of the school holidays and continues to draw large crowds.

WEEK 1

The opening night was on the first Saturday in July. We made a bee line to Renzaglia Wines to get our annual mulled wine fix (forgot to take a photo) and then went for a general wander around.

Firstly, Machattie Park.

There is a lovely star arch at one entry to the park.

The fernery in the park has lights throughout.  Rather a different look to the traditional Victorian fernery that it normally is.

Let’s just go for a wander.

In the lane way from the park to Kings Parade there is a long brick wall which has been converted into a giant computer game.

Lots of people were playing, but we just enjoyed looking on.

As we continued on our wander around the Kings Parade precinct we took in the illumination of the courthouse, which has become a central feature of the event.

Then we enjoyed watching some ice skating.  The local paper advised that as of Monday, which still had nearly another week to go, 16,800 tickets to skate had been sold, with 40 per cent being sold to people living outside our local area.  That’s pretty good and a great draw card to the town.

The Ferris Wheel is always present and looks lovely all lit up at night.

This year the Anglican Cathedral was illuminated and the bell tower looked rather effective.

By then we were getting a bit peckish, so time to adjourn to a pub for dinner.  It was delicious.

WEEK 2

The second Saturday of the school holidays hosted another evening event.  This time “Brew and Bite”.  Sadly, the weather was rather miserable that day and there ended up being a tiny bit of rain, but it didn’t dampen the spirits.

This time Machattie Park was the main venue.  There was a large variety of food vendors as well as local brewers, vignerons and distillers selling their wares.  Once again, we made a bee line to Renzaglia wines for another mulled wine fix.  Yep, I forgot to take photos once again.

The band stand was the stage for various musical acts.  Not exactly the bands that would have been envisaged when the band stand was built, back in the day.

A couple of fire dancers were putting on quite a show.

Back over at Kings Parade, a  feature that has not been here since the original event is a mirror maze.  We went in with some friends had had a great walk around.  We worked out fairly early on which was an actual walkway and which was a mirror, but it did take us quite a while to finally find our way out.  Great fun.

When we went back outside, the breeze had picked up an it had started to drizzle.  The trees in front of the courthouse looked so good, swaying with the illuminations on them.

As we had seen most of the event the previous week, we decided to get some fish and chips and head home.

The evenings were great fun, once again.  The festival runs until Sunday, finishing off with a “Pet’s Day”.  I think it has been really successful and look forward to seeing what is on show next year.

Yet Another Day Out in June - Sydney Craft Fair

On the last Wednesday in June we hopped in the car and headed down to Sydney.  We hadn’t been there fore a few years and now we have been in the area several times this year.  Hopefully, this will be the last for a while.

Our destination was Homebush for the Craft Fair, held in the Dome at the Showground.

Some background.  The big craft fair that was held at Darling Harbour had the Quilt Guild quilt show and the trade section was run by Expertise Events.  Last year there was a split.  The Guild now holds their show at Rosehill Racecourse in September, in conjunction with Craft Alive for the trade section.  This show is Expertise Events and the quilt show can be entered by anyone, not just Guild members.  It was much smaller than the Darling Harbour event. However, we still had a really great day out.

As normal, we headed to the quilt show section first.  Mick is always happy to see these, as he considers it to be an art exhibition, just in fabric.  So true.

One of the guest artists was Lorena Uriarte.  I hadn’t heard of her, but her work is stunning.  She had quite a few quilted jackets on display.  

Oh my!  Can you imagine cutting up a Dear Jane quilt to make a jacket.  I’d be terrified of ruining the whole thing.

This one was super cute.  All her jackets had fun fabrics for the linings.

Lorena had quite a selection of her quilts as well, covering quite a variety of styles.  She is one extremely talented artist.  I figured it would be easier to show her quilts as a collage.

The other featured artist was Karen Cunningham.  I have been familiar with her work for many years and it was lovely to see a collection of her quilts displayed together.  She used to do classes at Bathurst but I never had the opportunity to take one.

This is for all you Lucy Boston fans. Lovely muted colours in this version, and the wide border makes the most of only sixteen blocks.

This one is entitled “Miss Happiness” and it does look like a very happy quilt.  When you zoom in, it is quite a simple quilt featuring fussy cut squares and long diamonds in a rectangle.

I think this was my favourite, entitled “Fairy Wrens”. Once again, fairly simple piecing, with great colour placement.

The centre blocks with the needle turned appliqué is the real focal point.

The judged quilt show had some lovely works.  I’ll start with the “Recycled and Restyled” section, as that seems to be what I was drawn to.  When I’ve reviewed my photos, the majority seem to be in that section.  Zoom in on the labels to read the details.

This one was quite different.

And the winner is…. Isn’t it wonderful.

However, the 2nd prize winner was my favourite….

Here is Karen with her quilt.

I took loads of photos of the various sections.  It is created from twelve separate sections, joined together.  Most seem to have a tapestry or cross stitch in the middle, mostly found at op shops.  Karen said the tapestries are surprisingly soft to work with.  The back is a grey patterned fabric and the layers are held together by being tied with a matching thread, so they are barely visible.  I cannot imagine how many hours went into this quilt, but it apparently took about eighteen months to create.  Just beautiful, in my opinion, although I think it would be more a display piece rather than a quilt for your bed.

Here are just a couple more.

And finally, the best of show.

Check out that quilting.

While we were looking at this quilt, a lady introduced herself as reading my blog.  She recognised Mick in the crowd.  It was lovely to meet you Beryl. I’m pleased you said “Hello”.

Funnily enough, another lady came up to us while we were having lunch.  We used to see her and her husband at classic motorcycle rallies about 25 years ago.  It was really nice to catch up with her too.

There was an exhibition of the AQC Challenge quilts, with a theme of “In Full Bloom”. There were so many interpretations on show.  Here are just a few.

The final exhibition we enjoyed was the Cavalcade of Fashion.  This year the theme was how women kept warm through the years.  Such a nice variety of styles.

After lunch it was time to have a look at the stalls.  Yes, of course I went shopping.

My favourite stand had to be that of Anni and Pete Downs at Hatched and Patched.

I possibly added another pattern to my collection waiting in the wings for their time to shine.

The only thing on my shopping list was some rotary cutter blades.  Tick.  I also bought a couple of pairs of snips to use with Monique and some sticky dots to stop my rulers from slipping.  It will be interesting to see how they go.

Sashiko seems to be the flavour of the month lately.  I do have one panel here to work on, but bought some more.  There was a table runner kit for sale, but it would be too big for our table, so I bought a few smaller panels and some multi coloured threads, so that I can emulate the one I really liked.  We’ll see how we go.  Now, did I think to buy a needle?  Don’t be silly.  Why would I think of that?  I will get one locally and then give it a go.

There was one really interesting stand.  It was The Achieve Sewing Basket.  They have four shops throughout Sydney and are run by Achieve disability support. They are staffed by people with a disability and volunteers and all the stock of fabric and other haberdashery and craft items are donated.  They had quite a variety of fabrics for sale and I bought some panels suitable for donation quilts, as well as some Deynse Schmidt fabric and a length of Yuwa fabric which should make a nice backing for my Laundry Basket Mystery Quilt. Everything was very reasonably priced.

My final purchase was this light bar for above my sewing machine.

We started to head home by about two, and the weather had turned wet and miserable.  We were thankful for the little courtesy train that took us to and from the car park, which was quite a distance from the hall.

As we left the plains of Penrith, it looked like we were going to have a misty trip home.

Yep.  Not the best driving conditions.  At least we were home by dark.

So, my overall thoughts on the show.  To be truthful, we were a bit disappointed, as we were used to the Darling Harbour event.  It will be interesting to compare it with the one at Rosehill later in the year. However, we will probably be away at that time.  Would I go again?  Yes, but probably not every year.  Maybe this one, one year, and Rosehill the other.  We’ll see.  We did still have a really nice day out and are glad we went along.