Absent with a note!

I'm sorry I have been very quiet. I took off!

I've been here.

source

I had to be a secret squirrel, as no one was left looking after the home front, and you know what they say about putting info out onto the internet!  I didn't want to come home to either nothing left at my place, or a family of 10 who had moved in and made themselves comfortable!

We raced around catching up with long lost friends and going to an engagement party. I took the baby quilt I made last week to give to the parents-to-be and they loved it. I think I may have gained a few orders too.

I was hoping for lovely cooler dry weather in Melbourne after spending most of summer dripping in the heat and humidity. Unfortunately this weekend was stinking hot, in the high 30's (almost 100F) but at least it was dry. I'm back to heat and humidity at home now. I can't wait for autumn.

Back to normal programming tomorrow.

So few photos, but a great break away

MELBOURNE

Photos

Fabulous sunset

Not in focus, but you get the idea!

Blue sky, just like home, not quite the same temp though.

St Kilda

Playing the didgeridoo at the St Kilda markets

Vikki. moi and BP.

Stash Enhancement

The only fabric I bought at the fair.

I bought these at the fair too, a Sew Slip to put under the quilt like a Super Slider (I hope) and I thought I'd try the Quilt Halo. It works as a way to hold the quilt while FMQing and means that you don't need to wear gloves. If it works it will be great as here the humidity is high most of the year which means wearing gloves is not pleasant and very sweaty. Lets see if that makes me more productive in the quilting department.  I also bought some U shaped pins which are supposed to be great for matching and pinning seams together and they are very fine so you can sew over them.

 Denyse Schmidt yardage from Spotlight, it was on special so couldn't resist.

That's all folks! 

 Not much to show but lots of great memories.

Lucy

Jenni from Baa-me Kniits has a very cute friend Lucy, who is visiting lots of people in Blogland. First stop was Brisbane to see Kate at dash robin, where she had a lovely time.
Lucy has been staying with me for a couple of weeks now, a little longer than I was intending, as I made a quick trip away and Lucy came with me.

While she was here on the Sunshine Coast she did lots of interesting things.

 Look at the lovely scarf Kate made for Lucy.

We went for a drive to look at the local scenery.

Lucy had a horse and carriage ride at my sister's house.

She phoned home to Jenni.

Lounged by the pool, before going to Melbourne. It wasn't warm enough to go in for a dip.

 We travelled on a tram to the Good Food and Wine Show.

Said hello and had a photo taken.

Sampled some champagne, it was there, we had to!

Went to the Lindt shop and had hot chocolate and macarons.

Now Lucy is going to visit another blogging friend. I've given her something to make sure she has a snack for the journey.

Melbourne (part one of the quilting/alcohol/food escapade)

I'm not sure whether the universe was in alignment to try and stop me from going to Melbourne and Adelaide last week, and to try to put me off ever going again, but at some points it did feel like that. I'm sure there might have been a distinct possibility that the world would tilt on its axis when Shay and I got together.
It started with my flight to Melbourne. I arrived at Sunshine Coast airport to find the weather had suddenly turned bad and they were not sure whether the incoming flight would be able to land, which meant I couldn't fly out, hmmm.  It was a nail biting wait for an hour.  The airport was full of people waiting to fly and to pick up people flying in. Fortunately I was flying with Virgin, not so lucky the people flying with Jetstar, the Jetstar pilot wouldn't land and diverted the plane to Brisbane. Both Virgin flights that were due, eventually landed without any trouble. When I say the weather turned bad, I'm talking Sunshine Coast, Queensland bad, not the rest of the world bad. There's only one runway and it's short, so if  there are strong winds and very low visibility planes can't land. On Tues there were heavy showers, no wind and the cloud was low but not what I or anyone in the universe would call fog, and at times there were patches of blue sky and sun, and you could see for miles. Like I said -  lucky I didn't book with Jetstar!
So with the good luck of booking with Virgin I was off to my girls only week of mayhem.
On the day I arrived in Melbourne, there was a security breach at Melbourne airport which apparently caused chaos, fortunately after we had left the airport.  (I had absolutely nothing what so ever to do with it!!!!!!!)
Score - Universe 0 Me 2.

Arriving in Melbourne the weather was hot and sunny, the exact opposite to what I was expecting and had anticipated when packing my suitcase. I stayed in Melbourne with Julie who had stayed with me over the Christmas break when it was THE most dreadful wet, and cold weather we had ever had in a summer since I have been living here. SO of course just to rub it in, the weather in Melbourne was absolutely perfect, sunshine, blue skies and nice and warm, well it would have been perfect if I had packed summer clothes, not winter!!!!!
Universe 1 Me 2



This is the only photo I took of my two days in Melbourne, and I took that in the first hour.  I think I was having too good a time after that to remember to take any more.
We spent the time shopping, eating, drinking and catching up, it was lovely.
Julie took me to a few quilting shops and also to some very nice clothes and shoe shops where I may or may not have picked up a couple of things.
I certainly bought some fabric, I'm still keeping the global fabric economy ticking along nicely.
My purchases.

 A lovely bundle of lusciousness.

 Some basics.

 Liberty fat eighths.

 Munki munki!!!!!

Kaffe shot cottons and a couple of Japanese fabrics. The "button" one I had been searching for, for awhile so I was very happy with these from Patchwork on Central Park.

 I can't remember where I bought these. A shop in Hawthorn from memory. It's amazing what a couple of days of wine with meals does to one's memory, cough cough, ahem!

A few stash builders and some Panache from GJ's Discount Fabrics in Brunswick St, Melbourne. Wow they have lots of fabric there.
All this fabric was shipped home because my suitcase was packed full already with all my winter clothes, (so useful when the temp is in the high 20s and low 30s), and a couple of summery purchases so that I wouldn't die of heat exhaustion over the next few days.  This meant that I had lots of lovely parcels of fabric to open when I finally arrived home, it had double the impact, nice!!!!!!
Universe 1 Me 3

I had a great couple of days in Melbourne, beautiful weather, fabulous shopping, lots to eat and drink.  Julie lives walking distance to some lovely cafes, and great shops (no quilting shops unfortunately), we had brunch, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner out and I loved every minute of it. We even went to an old Melbourne haunt of mine from the 80s and had a cocktail or too.
It was a fabulous start to a brilliant week. It also prepared me for the mayhem of Adelaide!!!!!!!! All of which you are going to have to wait to hear about in the next post.  (I need to get my story straight, and make sure I don't jeopardise any future travel plans to Adelaide!!!! Lucky I don't need a passport to go back to South Australia!)

Tuesday Tidbits (and no tails) - Melbourne weekend

I have just come back from freezing my a*!# off on a long weekend in Melbourne. I am from Melbourne originally, but I haven't lived there for quite a few years.  For an adopted Queenslander, it was pretty darn cold bloody freezing. I was looking forward to wearing all my winter clothes that I never get to wear here. However, the worst thing about Melbourne is having to wear layers of bulky clothing to keep warm and then every time I went inside I would have to strip off really quickly or I would die of heat exhaustion. It was very frustrating, why do all the shops have heating on so high? If I wasn't quick enough I could feel the sweat dripping down my back....eeeeeeeeeeeww
I had both my camera and phone with me at all times and managed to forget to take photos and most of the photos I did take were pretty much crap,  I still don't know how I did that........
So without further ado here are the best of a bad bunch of photos,

Some photos of the Melbourne Craft Show, these were the only pics I took!!!!!

Martinique and chenille quilt

 This quilt won lots but I don't remember who or what or why. I promise I hadn't been drinking.

Karen from Quilts on Bastings, Crop Circles quilt, absolutely beautiful close up.

 A stall full of Kaffe Fassett and yummy chenille, again, have no idea of the name of the stall.

A really bad photo taken with my phone, of a fabulous chinese restaurant in Little Bourke St, Shanghai Village, and the queue outside after we left.

Two of the dishes we ordered, only remembered to take them after we were nearly finished. The one on the left Szechuan fish, (fabulous) and beef in black bean (delicious). Much much better than they look. I highly recommend this restaurant if you want an authentic and very cheap meal. Just remember to go early or you will be like all those people in the above photo, standing in the queue for ages.

 Another superb meal of Lamb and Sumac Pie with Tzatziki at Brown Sugar a lovely little cafe/bistro in Melbourne CBD

A couple of photos showing the grey weather, and people rugged up on Saturday.

Chokolait, where we had a really nice hot chocolate.  I overdosed on hot chocolate on the weekend. We started at Max Brenner, (I've decided I don't like Max Brenner any more it's too sickly even for me, a chocaholic). We tried numerous times to go to the Lindt store, but as half of Melbourne were there too we gave it a miss, maybe I'll try next time.

I love this building it just reminded me of Paris, and was amazing to see in the middle of the CBD, so cute, even the woman who came out of the building with her dog, looked Parisienne. Look blue sky on Sunday morning!!!!!

 

Beautiful views from the hotel room on Sunday, finally some sunshine.

I can't wait to go back again, when it's a bit warmer.  I don't care if I don't get to wear my winter clothes again.