Scrub Stitchin’ - Part 1

Most of us arrived at Scrub Stitchin’ on the Wednesday and when entering the room it was the neatest and quietest that it ever was for the next few days.  The fresh flowers on the table looked lovely and the goody bags this year were so pretty. 

There were some lovely quilts hanging on the walls.

Chooky,

Brenda.  The petals are 3D on this one.

Betty and Stephanie.  This quilt was made from scraps collected at last year’s Scrub Stitchin’.  As there weren’t enough low volume scraps, some of the brighter fabrics were turned over so that the reverse side acted as low volume.  The design is so effective.

By the way, we could get out our mug etc from the bag, but there was another bag inside which were instructed, on pain of death, not to open.  OK, not quite on pain of death, but I still wouldn’t have liked to have tested Chooky on this one.  LOL

Once I found my spot, it was time to set up ready to get sewing, once all the greetings had taken place, which took the best part of the day.  This area never looked so neat for the rest of the event either.

Meanwhile, Mick had set up camp on Monday, done some odd jobs for Chooky’s Mum and been to the Bowling Club on Tuesday night to play bingo and have dinner with the ladies.  He had a great time.

Back to us.

I did get some stitching done on Wednesday, but I will share that in a separate post.  Our stitching did get somewhat curtailed, as there was a power outage mid afternoon, which lasted until about 7pm.  

Anyway, Wednesday night is always one where we go out to dinner in town and the boys are allowed to tag along. This meant Mick and Tony (from NZ), as well as Mr Chooky and Mr Jules.  This year the venue was the Bowling Club.  It was rather busy down there, as they have a generator and many locals decided that the Bowlo was a good place for tea.  Add to that, they were having a social bowls night.  Mick took his and his mum’s bowls away with us, so he and Tony were able to join in.    They did have a fun night.  As there were going to be so many visitors (us Scrubbers), the Bowling Club decided to put on some meat raffles.  We all bought tickets, and Annette won two.  Well done.  Of course, I bought the ticket directly after her, and just missed out.  Oh well.  Apparently the club cooked 106 meals that night.  Wow!

On Thursday Chooky’s Mum provided nice fresh scones.  Always a highlight.  There were also some other lovely slices.  Do you like my pretty bilby mug?  I do, and it just happens to coordinate with a couple of others of this series we have at home. 

Then……..there was one big surprise on Thursday afternoon.  Sneaky Jo, who had said she couldn’t come due to Tony’s health, popped her head in the door.  What!  They had made the trip.  How good was that.   

Jo got to spend time with us and Tony got to hang out with Mick and Tony.

Once the last couple of girls arrived, we were instructed to open our brown paper bag, in which there was a fat quarter, a charm pack, a reel of Sashiko thread and a couple of Sashiko needles.  

Then Jo put on her tutor’s hat and taught us how to do Kawandi stitching.  It is a technique that comes from India.

Here are a few examples Jo had prepared before.

In my usual style, I didn’t start on the project while there, but am looking forward to trying the technique and hopefully having a completed project to take along next year.

Kate, in her usual style, chatted, carried on like a clown and had her version finished before she went home.  How she achieves so much amazes me.  She is one heck of a multi tasker.

Friday was a day of generally, stitching, chatting, eating.

And impromptu show and tell, as projects were completed, or progressed as far as they could at the time.

There was, however, one fun little activity.  Lou suggested we should all take along a  photo of us as a toddler and then we could all guess who was who.  Well, that was hard. Twenty nine of us took along a photo and in the end Di and I were equal winners and we were only able to work out ten.

This was my contribution, with my special Golly.

The weather was glorious for the entire time, other than one short sharp storm.  We were treated to some beautiful sunsets and the moon was nearly full.  I just had to take some photos.

More soon.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

Just some very simple decorations this year.

Of course, hot cross buns from the local baker have been consumed.

Other than that, a nice laid back few days, enjoying the nice sunshine.

An Unexpected Finish

 Let me tell you a story…..

Once upon a time, many years ago, as in well over 10 years ago, I decided to knit myself a cardigan/jacket.  That in itself was rare, as I hadn’t knitted any garments for quite some time at that stage.  It was in a fairly chunky wool and constructed in a rather unusual style, being knitted sideways.  

All went well and I had it knitted in a reasonable length of time, which was also rare.  I sewed it up and then tried it on……..well……. I swam in it.  Blast!  Had I made a tension swatch before I started.  No, of course not, my tension would be good.  Ha ha! 

At that point it got put in a tub in disgust, to be pulled out one day to be frogged and knitted again……which obviously never happened.

Well, recently, I have been thinking.  Yes, I was sitting down.  LOL. You see, since that time, let’s say my girth had somewhat increased.  A couple of days ago, I dug it out to see if it would fit me now.  My memory was that I had just pinned it before trying it on, but, as I said earlier, I had sewed it up.  Guess what?  It fits perfectly, and the best bit is all that was required to finish it was to weave in two ends and remove some thread markers.  Obviously, I was forward planning.  LOL

If you look at the photo from the pattern, you will notice that the fastener is a scarf pin.  Well, I don’t have one.  So, what will I use?  I tried using a kilt pin, but it just looked like I had safety pinned it.  After having a dig around, I settled on the pretty Ness tartan brooch that I bought in Edinburgh and haven’t worn.  

As I tried to pin it on, the tiddly catch broke.  Blast!  Not to worry, There was the little label loop.  I was able to stitch it down to make a look for an old brass kilt pin and it works like a treat.

Ta da!  It is rather toasty to wear, so didn’t stay on for long, but I reckon it will get plenty of use during the colder months.  How good to have a finish with such minimal effort.

Scrub Stitchin’ - The Adventure Begins

This year’s version of Scrub Stitchin’ had an extra element of fun as we have been joined by Lou and Tony from New Zealand once more.

We picked them up from the train in Lithgow on Saturday, enjoyed a nice lunch and a walk around the Blast Furnace ruins.  Of course, with all the catch up chatter, we forgot to take a photo.

Sunday was a nice lazy day, but started out with a glitch.  Halfway through making coffee for breakfast our power went out.  That shouldn’t happen when you have a solar battery system.  It was eventually worked out that the coffee machine had had enough.

The went shopping and came home with this.  Very similar to what we had, but in a pretty pearlescent cream colour.  Disaster averted.  Definitely a first world problem.

We did venture out to Reckless Brewery, Bathurst’s local brewery, to enjoy another delicious lunch, and most importantly, for the boys to enjoy a tasting paddle.  They enjoyed them all.

Monday had us hit the road to travel north west.  Us in Frank the little truck towing our caravan and Lou and Tony in their hire car.  We always know we are getting close when we can see the Warrumbungles. You couldn’t have had better weather, a pleasant temperature and beautiful clear sky.

Our first stop was The Crafters Cottage shop at Coonabarabran, in Deb’s new shopfront in the main street.  It’s looking good.  I had my shopping list, found everything on it and didn’t buy anything else.  Win, win.  I really have failed with my photos this trip, as no photo of her bright shop either.

From there, Mick continued on his way to Baradine to set up the van, while I joined Lou and Tony and headed west to Chooky’s.  The sunset was gorgeous last night. This is a bit hazy, as it wast taken through the fly screen.

We went for short walk early this morning.  The light was beautiful.

It is such a pleasure to see everything looking so lush and green.

Today will be a pottering day, before heading over to Baradine tomorrow for the big event.  I can’t wait to see everyone.

A New Leader and Ender Project

When there are lots of things that you should be doing, what do you do instead?

Why, start yet another quilt, of course.  However, this is a bit different to the last few.  

I have really missed having a leader and ender project on the go for the last couple of years, so decided to do something about it.  I’ve had a couple of ideas swimming around in my head, but this was going to take the least effort to bring to fruition.

The pattern is “Bonnie Lass” from Jen Kingwell’s book Quilt Lovely.  

As you can see, there are lots of the same sized pieces that will be perfect as leaders and enders.

I got out a couple of tubs labeled “Small Scraps”, as well as the left overs from when I made my Trail Mix quilt and made a beautiful mess.

After a couple of hours of playing in my happy place, I had 80 sets of blocks ready to go.  Now, that isn’t even a quarter of what is required, but should keep me out of trouble at Scrub Stitchin’ and for a bit longer. When these get low, I will have another cutting session. There is no rush for this, so I will just have them sitting beside my machine and one day I will have a bonus quilt top.

Meanwhile, they are tucked away in their pretty little tin.  From memory, I used this tin when I started the hexies and they outgrew it rather quickly.

Preparing for Scrub Stitchin’

It is getting to be the time to prepare all my bits and bobs to take to Scrub Stitchin’.  I have a big long list that I follow each year, which includes “Clean Sewing Machine, Change Sewing Machine Needle and Put Fresh Blades in Rotary Cutters”.  Well my rotary cutters are running quite nicely at the moment, so I’ll leave them be and just take some spare blades in case.

As for my sewing machine, the bottom tension has been a bit strange on my last couple of projects.  I do clean my machine regularly, like each month, so why not have a go at giving it a full service and see if that helps.  What could go wrong?  Hopefully nothing, as I want to use my machine lots while away.

First, find a YouTube tutorial.  Surely there will be one.  There seems to be one on just about everything.  Tick.  Show it to Mick, so he can save me when everything goes pear shaped.  Tick.  Go and buy some high quality grease.  Tick.  Let’s get set up on the dining table.

My machine is a bit over twenty years old and has only had a few services, the most recent about three or four years ago.  

As we started to take the covers off, we propped her up on some books to protect the back.

Once the workings were exposed, I was surprised at how clean she was inside.  There was some old grease that had to be wiped off and lots of tiny bits of fluff that were hiding in various nooks and crannies.  Cotton buds worked well to get into those hard to access spots.

Mick did come and give me a hand, particularly in doing the greasing, as he is much more familiar with what is required, seeing as that was part of his trade.  He also did most of the oiling.  Secretly, I think he was happy to be playing along.

That looks  a lot better.

All went back together nicely and it was time to see how she sewed, using an old rag.  Eeek!  Why is the bottom liked this?  OK, the first thing is always to rethread.  Oh, the bobbin was upside down!  That would do it.  Doh!

OK, let’s have another go at this with the machine threaded correctly.  Ahh, that is so much better and the tension is beautiful.  She always runs quietly, but she is lovely and super quiet now.  

I’m glad we had a go at giving her a thorough once over and now feel confident to do this rather than have to send her to a technician…..unless there is a problem.

Now she is raring and ready to go to Baradine.

Oh, and have we had a look at Monique’s issues yet?  Nope.  That will happen one day, but not today.

Stitching Wishes for April

It is always fun to look ahead to a new month and think about what I would like to achieve.  Let’s have a look at April.

CHOOKSHED CHALLEGE

Deana has posted the project number for April and it is NUMBER 4.  

I’m not sure if this is really funny or sad, but to date I have swapped around every project number that has been selected.  Let’s see what Number 4 is:

Yep, you guessed it.  I’m swapping this one around as well.  At the start of the year I couldn’t find the fabric I had bought at Baradine last year to make this project and couldn’t find my pattern either.  

The fabric has been found, but the pattern is still playing hide and seek.  That is particularly annoying, as I have made this project twice before and have some hand written notes with the pattern to help me along the way.  I know it is here somewhere, as I did have a look at it after I bought the fabric.  Grrrr!

Anyway, in the mean time I am swapping it with my Number 5 which is the Granny Square Table Runner.  I do have the fabrics for this one and the photo I am using for inspiration. It even travelled to Scrub Stitchin’ with me last year, but wasn’t worked on.  The charm squares are left over from a Girls Day in the Country project from 2013, so I do think it is time to get this table runner made.  My goal said that it will be good to practise ruler work on Monique, so it may not be completed in April, but will at least be well on the way and should be finished by the end of the year.  As you can guess, this is now yet another project to pack to take to Baradine.

The funny thing is that when I chose my projects for the year I thought they would all be nice and easy to complete within a month.  This is mostly true, as long as you don’t get busy with other things.  Let’s hope I find more time later in the year, now that I have kept postponing those that need a little more thought.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour this month is?  I haven't been able to ascertain the colour as yet.  Once again, I will keep it simple with my split nine patch blocks.  Hopefully, that is something I can prepare in the next couple of days.

EDITED: The colour for April is RED.  Now to pull some fabrics.

Other than that, I hope to have lots to show for my time at Scrub Stithin’.  I can’t wait.

What I do need to do is get some hand stitching prepped, as other than my Sashiko panel, which is half done, I don’t have anything on the go at the moment.  Oh, the possibilities…. and the decisions to be made.  Watch this space.

A Day Out With Rosie

For the first time in I don’t know how long, on Sunday Mick and I both had nothing planned for the day.  It seems that life has turned rather busy for both of us this year.  So, what would we do?

First up, it was a leisurely breakfast, using some of our home grown raspberries, which have finally started to bear fruit again.

Mick was thinking of taking Rosie, the Suzuki Sierra for a short run.  I suggested we could go for a drive in her for a pub lunch in a little village.  Win, win.

We had received 16mm of much needed rain the previous day and the weather was still rather grey, but that wasn’t going to stop us.  This would be the longest drive that Rosie had been on since Mick has owned her.  Previously, he had just been taking her out to a mate’s place about 20kms away to drive around his steep paddocks and motocross track.

She is rather cosy in the cab compared to our modern vehicles and she is also rather slow, but we don’t mind that, as we are used to travelling around in the vintage side car at a slow pace.  We planned to travel on some quiet country roads rather than highways and of course found some lovely little dirt roads.

Although it was Sunday, this farmer was still busy with his stock.  That shed would have been an army hut at Cowra back in WW2.  You see them dotted around the place.  The shed in our back yard when I was a kid was one as well.

Out this way there are ruins of a few stone buildings.   This was a nice photo opportunity for Rosie.

Our lunch time destination was the Neville Pub.  Neville is a village out the back of Blayney, next to the village of Barry.  I always wonder how they got their names.  Anyway, the pub was always a good one, but shut down for a few years.  A couple of years ago it went on the market and two young builders from Sydney who were working in the area decided on a whim to buy it, with no previous experience of running a pub.  They made some improvements and it has been open for about eighteen months and is doing well.  We had a delicious burger and had a nice chat to a fellow who turned up on his motorcycle and also owns a little Suzuki 4WD, so the boys had lots in common.

Obviously, I forgot to take a photo of the pub or lunch. Doh!

The other half hearted plan for the day was to see if we could pick some wild apples, as there are quite a few apple trees growing along the sides of these minor roads.  Most trees had already been picked, but there were a couple that looked to have quite a few on them.  It became apparent why, as upon closer inspection, the fruit was very diseased.  However, one did have a blackberry growing next to it with lovely plump berries.  We didn’t have a container to collect any, so just enjoyed a few while there.

We took a different route on the way home, travelling along the “Old Lachlan Road”.  

We have travelled this very minor road some years ago and thought it was about time to drive it again and it would be a good one to take Rosie down.  It was rather rough in places, but thanks to the previous day’s rain, wasn’t dusty.

You know you are on a minor road when there is grass growing up the centre.

We didn’t meet one single vehicle along its entire length, but did encounter a traffic jam of a different type.  We are guessing it was an organised trail ride, as they were all kitted out in a similar fashion.

We do enjoy seeing the local countryside.

Overall, we travelled about 130kms.  Rosie seems to be happy sitting on around 70 kph on the road, so a rather leisurely way to travel.  We have learnt that she is running quite rich, as she used quite a bit more fuel than she should, and was a bit smelly, so Mick has now adjusted the carby.  Initially, she was a also a bit how’s your uncle on the road, so we pulled over and he put some more air in the tyres, which made for a better ride on the bitumen, but a bit rougher on the rough roads.  It’s all about reaching that happy balance.  On the whole, she went well and we hope to have more little day trips like this with her in the future.