Au revoir

Crying a few tears now as my best mate, buddy, pal, Shay, is finally on her way back home, despite that I may have tried to kidnap keep her here. Firstly, forgetting to look at the ingredient list on a curry paste that was added to a stir fry. We had both taken a mouthful before we looked at each other and let out a swear word or two and then ran to the refrigerator to check the ingredients.  A long stay in hospital so that I could visit her was averted, and so was any possibility of trying to kill her.  Secondly, the weather gods attempt at trying to keep her here almost worked.  We had THE MOST ATROCIOUS weather,  the last couple of days, horrendous winds and lots of rain. Fortunately we were spared the worst of it unlike a lot of people who have had to experience flooding again, only two years after the worst floods in many years. My sister and a friend are still without power after more than 24 hours, with the possibility of not having power back on until Wednesday morning.   Shay had to change her flight that flew out of Brisbane, as Brisbane airport was closed, and anyway, we hadn't been able to drive down to Brisbane from the Sunshine Coast as the weather was bad, roads were flooded and we were experiencing cyclonic winds. It meant that she had to stay an extra morning, woo hoo, but it still went too fast.

During the first part of the Tour de Shay, we took lots of photos, the second part, not so much.  Believe me, it's better if you don't have too much photographic evidence.

AND the best news,

I didn't get arrested.

WHile Shay was here we spent quite a bit of time sewing and chilling out. It's so nice to be able to sew with a buddy. I finished the binding on the Triangles quilt, and it;s now my second finish for 2013. It's still called the Triangles quilt because I can't come up with a better name right now. The plan was to hang this in the entrance but when I hung it there it looked horrible, the proportions were all wrong.  After a bit of a discussion with my go to quilt hanger upperer buddy, we decided to hang it in the dining room.

 It looks much better and happier hanging above the sideboard. I really love this quilt. It was quick to make and a great way to practice sewing triangles. I'ms definitely going to make another bigger quilt using triangles.

I used a charm pack of Lucy's Crab Shack for the triangles, the background is a grass green stripe by American Jane and the binding is a plaid from Lucy's Crab Shack line.

For the backing I used a Denise Schmidt dot print that I bought at Spotlight and some left over strips of the American Jane background. I quilted it in straight line quilting, 1 inch apart using a quilting guide that came with my Janome. The first line I quilted was marked out using a Hera marker, then I just used the quilting guide to follow 1 inch away from the previous line. I checked periodically to make sure I didn't stray too much. If I did, I adjusted the next line by either quilting closer or  further than an inch at the start of the line but tried to make sure the centre of the line was roughly an inch. It worked out really well, even I can't tell where I had to adjust the width of the quilting lines.

Starflowers has been growing too. I'v nearly finished phase one, all the whole flowers that I need and have 5 half flowers left to do. There has been a big change of plans and heart on this one, mainly because I value my questionable sanity too much.  All will be revealed, soon.......... eventually................when I know what I'm doing.

This photo was taken way back in November 2011, it's been a slow but quite satisfying project to work on.

In other news at Chez Sunshine, I had to have some palms removed as they were too close to the fence line, pushing against a wall and paving and were not planted correctly so that a lot of the root system was above ground. The photos aren't great because they were taken at 7.30am facing east into the rising sun.

The guys who removed the palms were amazing, so quick, and did a great job of cleaning up after themselves.  The palms were removed just in time, as they would most likely have blown over in the wild weather this weekend.

Favourite Things Friday

I missed last week's FTF post and I nearly missed this week too. It's still Friday somewhere in the world so better late than never!

One of my favourite things is getting up early, not too early, I hate waking up while it's still pitch black outside but when it's light and being able to see early morning sunlight and dappled shadows.

These beautiful very early morning cloud formations that form on top of the mountain. It's a tiny mountain but it's name is Mt Cooroy.

 The sunlight through the eucalyptus and pine trees.

 Look at that beautiful blue sky.

 Finally some flowers in the garden after an extremely wet summer, Tibouchina/Lassiandra.

Sunlight just reaching the tops of the Tiger Grass.

Water drops on this beautifully scented flower, this has only just started flowering now too.

Pop on over to join in the linky love of Favourite Things Friday and share your favourite thing with Shay at Quilting In My Pyjamas.

Tuesday Tidbits (and tails)

A few photos of my garden this week, the weather has been superb, we finally have proper summer weather and now it's autumn :), warm not too hot, lots of sunshine, and it's not too humid either, it's just perfect!

The studio in the background and the pavilion.

Same view different angle. Love the palms against the blue sky.

Looking up the driveway from the verandah

 Finally some flowers in the garden

Pink hibiscus

Frangipani

Spathiphyllum

An orchid that has self seeded in moss on the side of a palm.

The next door neighbours in their wisdom have decided it's great to have a rooster.  I don't think many people in the street are too happy about being woken up at 4am.

It's a very nice looking rooster, but I would prefer he and his harem stayed next door.

This ugly looking thing was brought inside by my wild child - Bailey, a couple of nights ago, as soon as we saw it we I threw it back outside, it's hideous and huge, it was about 13cm (5inches) from head to tail.  Photo by torchlight, I wasn't going to let it stay inside long enough to get a photo. I have no idea what it is, I don't think it's poisonous just really really ugly and HUGE.



On Sunday we drove down to Brisbane for the day.  We always buy these when we are there.

It's called Pearl Milk Tea, it originates from Korea.  It's basically very milky strong English Breakfast Tea with lots of sugar, (sometimes too much, but you don't get a say in how much you want), ice, and the black balls are tapioca, it's very refreshing, filling and extremely yummy! You are given big fat straws with this drink so that you can suck up the tapioca pearls. Just don't suck too hard or they hit the back of your throat and then you spray milk tea over anyone in front of you, not that I've done that.


I bought some new shoes too.

I did buy a pair of these not just one, (they only had a photo of one shoe on the online store.) I could have taken photos of my shoes but I'm feeling lazy so a photo of one shoe will just have to do.

My Pfaff is in having brain surgery, apparently the "thingamy jig" is basically stuffed and needs to be replaced. It's the bit that works out how to do all the stitches, what size, shape etc, so now I have to wait for the part to be sent from overseas as apparently the people at Pfaff think it's a waste of money to have spare parts sitting in Australia.  I'm so glad I have my little Janome Jem as I can still sew and quilt, although I can't tackle quilting anything large (not that I was going to anyway, lol).
I checked with the Janome store and they have suggested I should be able to quilt up to a single bed quilt, I really don't think so but I should be able to quilt Strawberries and Champagne on it, so now I had better get started on making the backing.

Karma's fur is a constant source of amusement in our house. We don't do anything to it, he just turns up looking strange.  I'm sure the cats do things to his hair at night while he is sleeping. Yesterday morning he had this lovely top knot. I tried really hard to get a better shot, but he will not stand still.

Not the most flattering shot!

and neither is this one!

Tuesday tidbits (and tails)

Quite a few photos of what's happening around Chez Sunshine.

I found these in my craft magazines/books stash when I was looking for something else. Wow I had forgotten about these, they are old, really old, take a look at that woman's outfit, it looks like something from Picnic at Hanging Rock. I think I might find some inspiration in these for a future quilt. That's to add to 3482 that are already on my list.

I also found this, I hadn't forgotten about it, but.......

I had started this as a BOM about 8 or 9 yrs ago, and although the blocks are very pretty I lost interest and didn't feel like finishing it.  I am still playing with some ideas of what to do with the blocks I have finished. (9 years of thinking about it, what is the chance of it actually happening)

They need a good press. I think I've finished 11 of the blocks, and I have all the fabric to finish it, I just don't want to!!!!

Some photos from today, not very nice weather but still warm and humid. That is a huge pile of mulch. The people across the road were having trees cut down and the guys that were cutting and mulching came over and asked me if I would like it, woo hoo, would I ever, yay. Now I just have to use the wheelbarrow to move 7 squillion cubic metres of it (at least it is all down hill).

Some tropical pinkness in the garden. Medenilla, bromeliad and pink frangipani.

 Coast Banksia develops from this

to this.

I've been quilting away today at the wonky owls quilt. Slow going but nearly there.

Last but not least.

Nice haircut!

Tuesday tidbits (and tails)

Here's the noisy guy from last week,  he is not quite so shy now, although his girlfriend is definitely very shy. It has been impossible to get a photo of her.

He likes the berries of the palm tree so this has become his favourite perch.

Spring is well and truly here and all the flowers are beginning to bloom.

A Cassia at the bottom of the driveway

Lots of scented plants in my garden.

Jasmine

Frangipani, just starting to flower on the higher branches

Gardenias

Unfortunately it rained after the Gardenias had opened so quite a few of them have discoloured. The scent from them is amazing at the moment. See  the black on the walkway, that is one of the trials of living in paradise, it is because of the high humidity here. I clean it every 6 months but it always comes back.

I don't remember buying this at Ikea.

Today I have been basting the wonky owl quilt and then started quilting it. I have decided I detest the quilting part of quilting, especially when it's on a larger quilt. My basting is perfect, I spent ages doing it and am really happy with it. I don't like man handling the quilt on the machine, I just get really annoyed, especially as I am outlining each "square" so there is lots of turning involved.  I think it would be easier if I was just doing straight line quilting or stippling, but I don't think either of those are going to look any good on this quilt. I will soldier on but I won't be finishing it in a hurry and I won't be making anything bigger than a lap quilt from now on if I am going to quilt it.

Now for something else with a tail,

avert your eyes now if you are not too keen on reptiles. A visitor to our garden on the weekend. 

A python, so it's not venomous, I'm just not quite sure where it is right now, so the fur babies are not going outside, (they don't anyway), but I'm making extra sure they don't get out.