Rainbow Scrap Challenge and Betty Block for September

Earlier this week I finally sat down at the sewing machine for the first time this month.

The first thing I worked on was this month’s block for Betty’s group quilt.  It came together very quickly and simply and was popped in the mail straight away.  Tick.

Next it was time to pull out the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.  The colour this month is purple.  

First up, the Potato Chip Blocks.  They are always a simple, quick place to start and they went together well.  Tick.

Next, the crumb blocks.  I checked my list and I already had three made, so only one more to make.  I had fun working with the tiny pieces in my purple scrap tub.  I completed the block yesterday, but didn’t get to add the shadow.  Overnight, I suddenly had a thought…. don’t I only need three blocks?  Yep, only three needed.  Doh!  Oh well, that is one ready to go for whatever my next crumb block project will be.  I already have an additional five pink blocks, so there will be another project in the future.

Finally, to work on the solid crosses blocks this morning.  I do enjoy making these.  All was going well until I went to do the pressing of the final seams I had sewn.  That doesn’t look right.  Goodness me!  Not only had I mucked them up, it wasn’t the final seams, rather earlier ones in the block.  Time to get out the quick unpick.  

OK, let’s try again.  All good…….until I laid them out for the photo and noticed this!  I really don’t know where my brain was this morning.

After some more unpicking, third time lucky.  Phew!  That took longer than expected.  At least we got there in the end.

I will link up with So Scrappy on the weekend.

Only one more colour to go.  Regardless of what the nominated colour is, my colour is lime green, as that is what I prepped at the start of the year and will work well with my projects.

My Wishes For September

It seems a bit silly adding this post now, as we are already over half way through the month.

I will also clarify that to date I have done very little on the stitching front.  I think that last month being so productive has left me a little flat.

MY MAIN MONTHLY GOAL

I did have grand plans for this, but the month is getting on, and I won’t be in my sewing room for a little while yet, so I’m going to keep it to something that I think should be achievable. I want to complete the little Aeroplane Quilt.  It should only take a day or so.  There, it’s now out there, so it should get done……fingers crossed.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour this month is purple.  I should be able to manage this.

BETTY’S BLOCK

I have the fabric and the pattern, so that will be done and sent off.

I’m not aiming to do any more patchwork this month.

USE ELLY MAY

See my Main Monthly Wish.

CROCHET

About the only thing I have been doing is crocheting my Corner to Corner Squares. They are mindless, and ideal to take along to my stitching days.  Mind you, I have only been home for one week to go along.

KNITTING

My jumper is not going all that well.  I think my tension may be a tad out and I will have to make some minor adjustments to make it work.  I can see what I need to do, but my brain has not been engaged sufficiently to sit down and write it all down.  It is on pause for the moment.

I do need to knit another oatmeal coloured beanie for me, as the last one was too large.  That will be my aim for this month.  Once I get going it won’t take too long.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I started off well, just doing a bit of crochet, but seem to have petered off.  I’ll try to lift my game.  Getting my blog up to date has been the priority over the last few days.  

OTHER GOALS

1.    Try a new recipe - I’ve already managed that.

2.    Read a book - probably won’t happen, but I may surprise myself.

3.    Have a fun day out - already achieved.

4.    Have a caravan trip - this was not to happen.  The van was washed and put to bed…….and then taken out again.  Details to follow.

5.    Keep my blog posts up to date.  Wish me luck.

We’ll see at the end of the month how I fared.

The Rest of August

This is just a quick post to share what else we got up to in August that hasn’t already been covered.

I had hoped to try another new recipe.  Well, I seem to have been on a roll and tried out another three recipes.

There was Coq au Vin - photo courtesy of the Coles magazine.

Orange and Almond Cake.  This recipe was given to me by our next door neighbour when we lived out of town.  We have been back in town for 12 years and she gave it to me a little while before then.  It was about time I actually made it.  Delicious.  I won’t wait as long to make it again.

A quick Berry Cobbler recipe popped up on Instagram.  It sounded good, so I made it that night.  Yummo!

Not a bad effort once again.  I have really been having fun with this.

I managed to read one book.  It was rather light reading.  I had bought a few by this author last year at the church fete and this is the first I have read.  I will read the rest and then pass them on.  In the meantime, they sit on a stool and lift my iPad to the perfect height for Zoom sessions.

Our garden started to wake up a little.  I didn’t get around to taking many photos, but I did like this little grouping of our special daffodils.

I’ll finish with this fun rainbow that showed on one of our doors.  How perfect to be a hexy.  It shone through the strip of hexies on our glass door.

A Stitching Wrap Up of August

This is rather late, but I wanted to get our trip posted first up.

Let’s see how I went with my wishes for the month…..

My main wish was to have the Batik Fish Quilt finished.  I’m very happy to report that it was done.  A full post coming soon.

Then I finished off the Strippy Rainbow Quilt.

Elly May was used on both of these quilts, as well as Jo’s.

In amongst all that, I helped a friend with a baby quilt.  She purchased the kit about 20 years ago and was finally wanting to make it as a gift.  I helped her cut it out, she then pieced it.  An afternoon at our house saw it quilted with a cute butterfly pantograph.  Then I showed her how to add the binding.  

Once that was done, she used all the scraps to make two cushion fronts, which I also quilted for her.  I didn’t get a chance to see the two completed before gifting but they would have been lovely.  She is an experienced seamstress, so did precise stitching and the cute Peter Rabbit fabrics hadn’t dated at all.  A lovely gift to give.

The next thing to work on was the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

Of course, Betty’s blocks had to be made as well.

My Corner to Corner crochet squares progressed nicely, with ten squares being completed.

My knitting didn’t fare so well, with no progress being made.

An August Escape was a driver during the month, with four quilts being prepped.

The Jelly Roll Quilt, which was pieced at Baradine.

The Aeroplane Quilt, which was appliqued and pieced at Baradine.

A Farmyard Quilt, that still has to be pieced.  I did work out the layout on the design curtain, but have since cut a golden yellow for the sashings instead of the blue.  It won’t take long to make, once I get to it.  There is no rush.  It may even be next year at Scrub Stitchin’.

Finally an easy strippy quilt, which will also get stitched at some stage.  No rush.

So, all in all, not a bad month.

The other thing that I did during the month was donate a pile of quilts to the domestic violence support organisation here in town.

15 MINUES A DAY

I stitched on 30 of the 31 days.  The best for the year.

YTD = 201/243 - 82.72%

While piecing the Batik Fish Quilt I managed to empty lots of bobbins and a couple of spools of thread.  It was great to be able to use up some odds and ends that were darker colours, as most quilts require something lighter.

Now, even though it is half way through the next month, I will get down my wishes for September.

Merriwa to Home

Finally, we were to be on our way home.

This was a nice easy drive with us arriving just on midday.

However, we did make one tiny detour on our way.  The Golden Highway passes quite near Cassilis, but it is just in off the road, so of course we went in to have a quick look.  I had been here to a sewing day many years ago and one of my work colleagues many years ago grew up here, but Mick hadn’t been to see it.

When I was last here the old sandstone pub was not trading, so it was good to see that it is once again up and running.  The little cafe/bakery over the road was doing a roaring trade.  That is where I had gone sewing.

There are a few rather nice historic buildings.

Then it was back on the road, traveling past the large coal mine at Ulan.

What we noticed when we arrived at Mudgee was the blossom trees.  There had been very few further north.  Market Street in Mudgee was looking a picture.

We were starting to see more wattles again too.

More blossom trees.  They were so pretty.

In the two short weeks we had been away the willow trees had turned green once more.

As we neared home we noticed that the wind was really picking up and were glad we weren’t going to be on the road for much longer.  The trees were really swaying.

When we arrived home it was good to see that our wattle was still at the peak of its flowering, if also a bit windswept.

We got the van unpacked that afternoon and parked back in the shed just before some incredible winds came through.  It was really violent.  Definitely not the afternoon to be on the road.

And then life was back to the usual.  

It had been a lovely couple of weeks, for what could have been just four days. 

The plan was to put the van to bed for the rest of this year, so she had a good wash…….but plans can always be changed, can’t they…………

Merriwa - Singleton Day Trip

While we were at Merriwa we thought we may as well go for another day trip, this time to Singleton.  Singleton is a town that is not generally on our way to somewhere else, so this sounded like a good opportunity to have a bit of a look.

We decided to do a loop, travelling through Jerry’s Plains on the way down and then up the New England Highway to Muswellbook on the way home.

This is the Upper Hunter area and we crossed the Hunter River several times over the few days we were in the area.  However, it isn’t the grand river that is closer to the coast, rather a small river.  It was hard to get a photo, so this will have to do. You get the idea.

When we reached the Denman area we started to see lots of irrigated lucerne paddocks.  The previous day had been extremely windy, whereas the weather on this day was nice and calm, although rather warm, so lots of irrigators in action.

We arrived in Singleton and then wondered what we could see.  In our usual style, we had done no homework.  

A little search on line informed us that they have the world’s largest sundial……and as far as touristy things, that is about it.   The town has a large military base and is the service centre for a lot of coal mining, so not really a tourist destination.

It turned out that the famous sundial was quite near where we were parked.  Bonus.

After checking it out we thought it was time for a cuppa.  We hadn’t really seen any coffee shops on our way into town or driving along the main street.  There is a large shopping centre, so we went in there and found a cafe.  Other than the shopping centre, there isn’t much retail on the main drag.  

We still went for a walk and checked out the old buildings.

We decided to have a look at a couple of op shops and one was located in the Anglican Church Hall.  

It was a nice little shop, but I was rather taken with the church building and grounds, so went for a little walk around. Unfortunately, the building was locked, so I couldn’t have a bo peep inside.

The rectory was a lovely old building too.

This monument commemorates so many members of the same family.  The earliest date of death was 1861, with the monument being erected in 1862 and the latest date was 1998.  

When you read the inscription about Henry Dangar you appreciate that he was a very prominent citizen of colonial Australia.  

Once we had finished having a look around we headed back to Denman for a very late lunch.

I loved the carved Kookaburra.

Also the bird figures on the top of the street signs.

Then it was just retracing where we had been earlier in the day.  It had been an enjoyable day out exploring.

Another nice evening view from the caravan.

The next day would see us making our way home.

More soon.