We’re Off Again

Don’t you love how you can make things up as you go along once you are retired.

We were supposed to be heading off on our latest adventure today……then Mick came up with an idea.  (He often reminds me that he comes up with some good ideas.)  As we were pretty much organised, why not set off late morning yesterday?  This meant we could make a detour and take the scenic route.  It sounded like a good idea to me.

We are headed to Canberra, but rather than go directly through Boorowa, we have headed a little further west to Young.  

Young is one of those towns that is always on the way to somewhere else, so we don’t usually stop to have a good look around.  We did a few years ago come over for the Cherry Festival, but that’s the only time.

We had a nice wander up and down the street.  There are some beautiful old buildings.  You know I love looking at the tops of buildings in country towns.  We were surprised at the size of the shopping area as well as the industrial side of things.  It is apparently the main hub for the region.

Mick was delighted to find a book he has been searching for in one of the op shops.  I must say, the two op shops we visited were large and very well set out.  There is also a lovely wool shop called “The Wool Room”.  Sadly, they didn’t have what I was after.  I’m looking for a red 4 ply hand dyed sock wool to knit another scarf.  They seem to be rather thin on the ground.  Anyway, it was a lovely, well stocked little shop I would like to visit again some time.

We camped the night at the local Showgrounds.  There are some beautiful old pavilions. Apparently, some of them date back to the early 1900s.

We really liked the old sheep sheds.  It would be nice to come back one year to the local show, which is held in September.

We were warned that there would be harness racing on last night.  Most of the activity was on the other side of the arena, so we could hardly even hear it. 

Although we know nothing about harness racing and aren’t really interested, we wandered over to have a look.  It was only a very small crowd watching.

We supported the local Lions Club by buying a steak sandwich each for tea. That was a bonus.

We had a chuckle at one feature.  Hollywood has their big sign, as does Mount Panorama at Bathurst.  It turns out that so does Young, although it isn’t quite as prominent.

Once we returned to our van it was time to cook some pancakes for dessert, as it was Pancake Tuesday.  We always forget to pack something, and this time it was some sugar and golden syrup.  I had remembered to buy some pancake mix (I’m cheating, I’m on holidays).  Anyway, it was a gorgeous evening to be sitting outside enjoying our pancakes.

And to cap it all off, we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

Out With the Old and In With the New

When we bought this house, ten years ago, we needed a small couch for our little sitting area and found the ideal one.

We loved it……but as you can see by the arms…..so did our cat Joey. Fortunately, the couch was just a cheapy, so we always said that after Joey passed away we would buy a new one.

Well, Joey passed away just over two years ago and we still had the old couch.  You see, apart from the Joey damage, we really like this simple couch.  

I came up with the grand plan that I could reupholster the damaged parts with interesting woollen fabrics and some old tapestries, à la some very creative ones on line.  The only problem is that, although the seat cushions look like they are separate, they are not.  I’ve never done any upholstery and I found this rather daunting.  As you can guess, it hasn’t happened and I have finally come to the conclusion that it won’t.

Time to go shopping.

Ta da! A very different look.  This one will make the area seem much darker and cosier.  Not what we were originally planning, but it will work.  Funnily enough, after we ordered it, we discovered that Mick’s sister has the identical one.  

Anyway, it looks very “brown” as it is, so time to see if we can accessorise it a bit, to brighten it up, or at least cosy it up.

Plan A - Using the quilt that use to be on our vintage lounge. Nah.  Still rather drab.

Plan B - using the reverse of the colourful quilt that was on the previous little couch. - Better, but still nah.

Plan C - Using Mum’s knitted rug and knitted cushion,  Better again, but not quite.

Plan D - Use the woollen quilt just like on the previous couch, with Mum’s cushion.  You know what?  I think I like that bright pop of colour best of all.  It really needs something to reduce the “brown-ness” of the couch.  We may change things up leading into winter, but for now, it will do.

Which look is your favourite?

By the way, Mick finds it rather comfortable to have a snooze on, so it is a success.

I’m Swooning Over My Swoon Quilt

This quilt has been in the pipe line for a very long time.

Camille Roskelly released the Swoon Quilt pattern back in May 2011.  It kind of went viral, along with the various Bonnie and Camille fabric ranges.  I really liked it all and wanted to jump on the bandwagon.

Fast foward to January 2015.  I participated in a fat quarter swap and the fabrics I requested were, not surprisingly, Bonnie and Camille, with the Swoon Quilt in mind.  I received a variety from different ranges, but they all went well together.  I just had to add a couple more to make up numbers.

There were quite a few designs that were striped or directional and I didn’t want those fabrics to look broken up or going in different directions, so I tweaked the block pattern to suit the fabrics.  It turned out well.

Then, it all sat and waited.  I couldn’t decide what fabric to use for the background.  Procrastination at its finest.  Eventually, I found the one I used.  Not a solid white or grey, but with a nice low volume pattern.

I finally made a start in December 2021.  Then, I made blocks on and off during 2022, finally completing the quilt top in January 2023.  I even worked on it at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2022.  You can read about the progress here, here, here and here.  

While piecing the blocks, I had stitched extra half square triangles.  After the top was completed I even started to use those offcuts to start a Leader and Ender project.  Sadly, it hasn’t really progressed from this state.  I will get back to it one day.

Originally, I had considered using the Quilt as You Go method to construct the quilt.  However, after purchasing Monique I changed my plans and intended to quilt it “once I was good enough”.  Another that remained in the “To Be Quilted Queue”.

Now that I am comfortable using Elly May, it was time to finally finish this quilt.  The question was what design to use?  Having looked at lots of Swoon Quilts on line there ares some stunning custom quilted versions using rulers and free motion.  Very, very nice, but not going to happen on this one.  I just want to finally get this quilt finished and be able to put it on our bed. There were versions with swirls, florals and feathers, but none of them really grabbed me.  If not being custom quilted, I felt it needed movement, but the blocks need to be the stars of the show, not the quilting.  

Therefore, once again, I chose to use the Baptist Fan design, which creates a nice texture, with curves to counteract the straight lines, without dominating the quilt.  I’m really happy with how it turned out.  

I used yet another wideback that was sitting in my stash.  I’m really getting through them at the moment. This one worked well with it.

It is a rather large quilt and too big for my resident quilt holder upperer to manage, so I recruited a couple of ladies at my stitching group.

This is a nice fresh quilt to have on our bed in the warmer months.  It will get used straight away.

QUILT INFORMATION

Measurements - 80" high x 80" wide

Pattern - Swoon by Camille Roskelly.  

Fabrics - Bonnie and Camille from Fat Quarter Swap 2015

Quilting Design - Baptist Fan

Batting - Bamboo/Cotton

Backing - Wideback from Spotlight in stash

Thread - Glide - 10000 White

The Continuing Saga of Loading Photos to My Blog

You will recall that last month I posted about my inability to add photos to my blog posts on my iPad since the latest Apple update.  Here is the post, if you are interested.

Well, during our Zoom sewing day on Australia Day, a few of us had a bit of a brainstorming session and came up with a work around.  It is not ideal, as it is slow and cumbersome, but better than nothing.

Of course, if you use any device that is Windows based there is no problem, so using our desktop or laptop computers work fine.  My main issue is for when we travel and I only take my iPad.

The solution is to email your photos to your blog.  Yes, that is something that you can do.  I have never needed to previously, so had to have a crash course.

SET UP ON YOUR BLOG

Firstly, you need to go into the settings on your blog.

• Scroll way, way down until you get to the EMAIL section.
• Click on the POST USING EMAIL heading.
• Click on the SAVE EMAILS AS DRAFT radio button
• You need to create an email address.  The framework is shown in grey text.  It will be your email used in Blogger, with a blank in the middle and then blogger.com.  You select what you would like in the middle section.
• eg. for me: mick.jan.xxxxx@blogger.com (just an example, not my real address).
• This is the email address you send your photos to.
• Click on SAVE.
• That is the set up in Blogger complete.

SENDING A PHOTO TO YOUR BLOG

• I found that I can only send one photo at a time in an email.
• DO NOT select a photo in the photos on your iPhone or iPad and try to email it.  It won’t work.
• You have to CREATE AN EMAIL in your email program and ADD THE PHOTO AS AN ATTACHMENT.
• The SUBJECT LINE of the email creates the TITLE OF YOUR BLOG POST.
• You will be asked if you want to “reduce image photo” or “keep original size”.  I have been keeping original size, but that is a personal preference.
• Give it a couple of minutes for the post to be created.  If you are already in Blogger, I find that sometimes it helps to get out of the program and then back in.
• The photos arrive left aligned and not very large.
• The first thing I do is edit the photo.  I like my photos to be extra large, so I select that first. Then I go in and centre it.
• Even if I don’t want to change the size, it doesn’t seem to allow me to centre the photo until I change the size, so for some logos, I change the size and then change it back again.  Like I said, cumbersome.
• There will also be some text at the end about the email.  I go in and delete that as it is in a different font, as is the blank line before it.
• You can now go and create your text around the photo.

ADDING MULTIPLE PHOTOS

• As I said earlier, I can only send one photo at a time.  To add multiple photos to a post I send each photo as a separate email.  I just put anything for the subject line, usually a random letter or number.
• Once the email has arrived as a draft post in your blog, open the email and COPY the photo.
• Paste into your actual post and edit as above.  As you can imagine, with the number of photos I sometimes include this is a right royal pain.
• Once you have completed your post and you are happy with everything, go into the draft posts with just the extra photos and delete them.

I hope this helps some of you.

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions.

It really is not ideal, but all we have been able to figure out so far.  If anyone has any easier solution I would love to hear it.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge Done For February

I’m happy to have ticked the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks off my list for this month.

Firstly, my five black and white potato chip blocks.  They look a bit drab here, but when they are mixed in with the other colours they will look much better.  There will also be a lime green month later in the year, which will add a bit of pizzazz.

Next, I have my three crumb blocks.

And, finally, the solid crosses blocks.  I’m really liking these and think that this quilt will turn out really well.  I can see another version in the future using prints.

I’ll be linking up with So Scrappy at the end of the week.