Pyjama Party Sunday

I hope everyone has had/is having a great weekend. Of course mine has been pretty fabulous as my birthday celebrations continued.  I was given THE most beautiful necklace by girlfriends yesterday.

I didn't have much of a chance to stay in pyjamas this weekend. Yesterday I had to go to the supermarket in the morning, and today we were up nice and early to go to the local farmers markets to pick up some supplies. Of course I couldn't go in my pyjamas, hmmm, I suppose I could have but I'm not much of a rebel.

A little bit of sewing has been happening at Chez Sunshine, working on the Flurry quilt yesterday and today.

I've changed the corner blocks, as this quilt design is for use with the Kate Spain fabric Flurry, which has a panel as part of it's line. The panel is supposed to be fussy cut for the corner blocks and some of the cornerstones in the main part of the quilt.  

I used my very limited mathematical skills to work out that I could make a 4 patch block in place of the corner block, and guess what

it worked.

I still need to add the sashing strips to either side of the pieced side borders and then add the outer borders, but it's almost finished.  I had to  cut ✂ 23589875944759284297455  2 1/2 inch squares for the borders. An easier way would be to cut 2 1/2 inch wide strips WOF, sew them together then cross cut them, BUT I always do things the difficult way and as I am using a layer cake and have used part of most of the layers already I had to cut very short lengths 2 1/2 inches wide and then sub cut them, so basically cut all those squares and then chain pieced them together again. That was fun................☹

French Roses

I think the 1/4 inch seam will work.

As it's quilt as you go, and you sew the blocks together so that the seam is at the front.

1/4 inch seam

Pressed to the front

Then add bias binding

Bias binding added to cover the seam

Voila, it should be ok.............

I think

The bias binding pic is from when I made the first few blocks, I haven't go that far with these yet.

My birthday present - front

Back

This is the absolutely beautiful necklace my girlfriends gave me. I just love it. I'm so lucky. 

We had a great evening, laughed - a lot. So much so that I think we may have scared off some of the other patrons, lol. 

The waiters were..............young, 

too young, but cute!


PJ PS will be taking a break next week as I'm visiting Melbourne (again) and will be going to the Craft and Quilt Fair while I'm there. (I'll be the one limping/hobbling around  like the hunchback of Notre Dame). I really hope my knee has improved a lot by then or I might need one of those motorised scooters, lol, I'll be able to run everyone over push everyone out of the way to get to the good stuff first, lol.

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Remember pyjamas are optional!

Tuesday tidbits

I survived THE birthday.

I made a cake for THE birthday, which was absolutely scrumptious,  but I didn't exactly go all out on the presentation and I forgot to buy candles or decorations for it, so had to make do with what was on hand. I don't think I scored many points for chef of the year yesterday. She asked for "the" coconut cake, which is an Australian Women's Weekly recipe, at least it tasted really really good. I love how this photo turned out, even though the icing looks really awful. I think a couple of younger people may have sampled some of it as I'm sure it didn't look quite that bad earlier.

Here's a photo of me trying to look fabulous in the kitchen and trying to make the cake without clearing a nice big space on the bench/countertop beforehand, like most sensible sane people would do. 

Bitchypoo thought it would be good to have some overhead shots, a la TV cooking shows, lol.  They also show my new hair colour.  Much lighter!!!!!!

In other culinary news, Kirsten from  Kirsten's Cooking recently posted a recipe, Grilled Veggie Sandwiches.  I had lots of lovely veggies in the fridge so roasted them and made this for lunch the other day.  It was wonderful, and it's so versatile, I used purple carrots, zucchini, carrots, capsicum, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes basil pesto and mozzarella. Next time I'm going to try it with feta. If you click on the link above it will take you to the recipe.

That's purple carrot hanging out of the left side, on top of the normal colour carrot.

Unfortunately it's full of vegies, and they have to be cut up, so I know someone who won't be making it, he he he.

I have been occasionally attempting quilting the Strawberries and Champagne quilt.  I haven't made much head way with this, the pebble quilting takes me forever, but I'm very happy with how it's coming along.  Don't hold your breath for a quick finish on this one. I'm not 100% sure how I'm going to quilt the rest of it, between the circles. Sorry about the crappy photo, but it's really not that exciting yet and not particularly worthy of a lovely photo at this stage.

I've also been making a few pinwheels using two charm packs, one of Martinique and one of Oasis.  They are quite pretty but most of the prints are of similar value so it may or may not look great once I've put it all together. Individually the pinwheel blocks are cute, so we will just have to wait and see.

Tuesday tidbits (and tails)

Another quilt finished. After a very shaky start on this one when I thought it looked, umm, well,....... crap,  you can read all about it here if you really really want to.  Apparently I was the only one who thought it looked crap, so I persevered and I am so glad I did, as it has turned out beautifully even if I do say so myself.  Which proves two things.
1. The beautiful picture in my head of my finished quilt may not necessarily be the best and only option.
2. My fabric/pattern choices are not crap most of the time, and I need to embrace this.

My mum popped by one day and saw the fabric, not the quilt top, and said she really liked it, so that was the incentive to finish it and give it to her for her birthday. Unfortunately all that procrastinating earlier meant that it was a rush to get it finished. I was very lucky to find someone who could quilt this for me at short notice, so that it was ready for my mum's birthday last week.

I chose a simple all over quilting pattern to compliment the floral shapes in the fabric.

My mum loved it and has put in an order for a matching quilt for my dad.  I have picked out all the more masculine patterns from the range and have chosen a different pattern design.  I'll start it sometime between now and next year, when I get my quilting mojo back again.

Much to my surprise, my sister loved it too and has asked me if I could make her a quilt for her **th birthday.  I have two years to finish that.

In other news, I couldn't resist a couple of bargains. The first one is so cute, however it's knit your own dog, not crochet your own dog. I'm either going to have to knit again or try and use the patterns to crochet dogs, yeah I can really see that happening!  But they are soooooo cute!!!!!!

The second one is 125 Japanese Quilt  Blocks, absolutely fabulous blocks in this book but it will probably take me years to be proficient enough to make any of them. In the mean time I can dream about them.

Update on the puppy.

It chewed through Bitchypoo's phone charger cord so she has had to buy a new one. Hmmmmmmmm.

The next one comes under the heading eeeeeeeeeewwwwwww.
I have stood in dog poop ( bare feet) three times so far, not happy. Mrs P has suggested that it could possibly be an as yet undiscovered miracle ingredient in keeping looking skin youthful. In that case my feet should look like a 20 yr olds. Until I know this for sure I will be looking at the floor at all times when walking.

ETA - Today we only had a few mms of rain, but from Friday afternoon to yesterday afternoon we had 328mm of rain (just under 13 inches),..........we are still here!!!

What a fabulous day.......

My day started with this, what an excellent way to start the day.

A fabulous present for an extraordinary friend, inside I found this

yummmmmmmm, I love chocolate, especially Haigh's chocolate.

and this beautiful wool,

and this. How lucky am I. Now I can use up some of my jelly roll stash.

I am very lucky to have Mrs P for a friend. Isn't she just fabulous! Thank you so much Shay, it was such a great start to the day.

Then my mum and dad gave me these, another beautiful orchid.

 A scarf

 A very nice and very handy clutch/handbag

 And best of all a voucher for a spa treatment, woo hoo, lucky me.

This was from my sis.

Now I can get into some serious Thai cooking. She also gave me some kitchen gadgets.

Then off to lunch at the Noosa Yacht Club, a lovely relaxing lunch, looking over the river, watching the yachts, with two of my friends, and a glass of wine. The weather was beautiful, sunny and a pleasant temperature, although it clouded over in the afternoon.

Sallie and moi.

Unfortunately the photo of Renata looks like she has been having too many martinis again working too hard, so I haven't posted it.  Poor Renata, she is going to get a reputation, of course I have nothing to do with that, he he.

Some more lovely presents. An absolutely stunning vase from Renata. It's actually a rich red, it looks a bit more orange in this photo.

A gorgeous bunch of flowers from Sallie.

I also had lots of phone calls, and birthday wishes on Facebook from all my gorgeous friends.

The day continues into the evening, dinner with my parents and my angel at a very nice restaurant in Hastings St, Noosa.  I am not sure how I am going to eat much tonight, but I am certainly going to enjoy the evening.

I am soooo lucky, what a fabulous day.