Happy New Year

Well hello!
Do you remember me?
It's been a long time between drinks. I half heartedly tried to write a couple of posts after coming back from holidays, however my impressively slack personality took over and nothing eventuated.

This is the post where I SHOULD be doing an impressive mosaic of all the things I've made during the year.  I'm not even going to bother, it would be embarrassingly small and would just remind me of how little sewing I was able to do during the Year of Change. I'm not going to beat myself up about it but I am well and truly determined to make amends in 2013. I did however, really enjoy participating in the swaps, despite my complete and utter terror before I joined.   I loved stalking my partners and hope I made things that they liked. I made some really great new friends and was incredibly lucky to receive some awesome swap items in return, thanks so much.

The best thing about 2012 was that I finally made the move and after 13 years had a massive change of scenery.  I love the new house. I haven't regretted the move for one second. I have a proper sewing room, a still very messy sewing room but nevertheless a proper sewing room that is all mine and I don't have to share with guests, office stuff or anything else. I promise to take photos asap. I keep on misplacing my camera, and trying to download photos from my phone is proving to be a real PITA.

I have a new swimming pool, even though I liked my old pool I love the new one even more.  I think I've been in this pool more in the last few weeks than I had in the last three years at the old house.

 Old pool

New pool

(Both photos taken from the real estate listings as I still haven't taken any photos of the house since I've moved in, 3 months ago...slack....slack....slack)

I had a fabulous holiday in Hawaii with BP (BitchyPoo). It was so nice to relax and not have to worry about cleaning, cooking or moving furniture.

I'm back, I'm ready and looking forward to sewing. Only one slight teeny tiny problem, I have no freaking idea of what to sew, other than I want to make a hexie quilt. I can not for the life of me make up my mind on anything else.  I don't even have a list of things I'd like to make in 2013. I have a million ideas spinning around in my head and I've pinned a squillion ideas on Pinterest, favourited lots on flickr, printed out free patterns, and bought lots of patterns.  Maybe that's my problem, too many choices.

I want to get those creative juices flowing. I think starting something new will start me off on the right track and then I'll possibly tackle a couple of UFO's during the year. Maybe a Dresden quilt this year, maybe something with Drunkard's path blocks. I need to dust off the Baby Go cutter and utilise that a bit more. I'm  also thinking about joining a couple of sew alongs, but then my track records for those is appalling.

In the meantime I'm cutting squares for hexies. Fingers crossed

I'm not making any NY resolutions this year, a waste of time for me, as I never keep them. I am determined to enjoy 2013, it's going to be my Year of Rest and Relaxation.  That for me, is doing the things I like doing, sewing, holidays, spending time with friends and BP, and dining out occasionally. Thank you so much to all who have hung in there for the ride and lent support when I needed it.

I hope everyone has a fabulously enjoyable year, do what you love doing and spend time with friends and family you love. Happy 2013!!!!!!!

The sign says it all

Now on to the next roller coaster ride!

Yep, it's me, I'm still here

I think I need to keep that title for every post these days as they are few and far between.

The house has been on the market for a couple of weeks. There has been lots and lots of interest and as of tomorrow I will have had almost 20 inspections. That's 20 separate inspections, not 20 people coming through in an open for inspection time slot.  As you can imagine that means that just about every day I've had to have the house spotless and I've had to leave the house for an hour or two and take the dog with me while prospective buyers come and look see.
I really haven't had a lot of time for anything lately. One evening I thought I would take time out to read some blog posts, when I opened google reader I had over 400 posts to read. I hope you will understand I've tried to keep up with as many posts as possible but it's just not possible to read in full that many posts. I've attempted to comment on a few posts too. I am really sorry if I haven't commented on your post, but I haven't hit the delete button yet and have skimmed through all the posts so far.
In between constant cleaning and tidying and having to leave the house, I haven't had much time to sew either. I really really want to work on a couple of projects that I started recently, but the thought of getting all my fabric out, playing with it, cutting it up and then having to put it away each day, has stopped me.  However I've found that it's been nice to pick up some hand sewing in the evening. It's been good to get back to that while watching tv and unwinding.


I've finished another Amitie Circle Game block. Not bad, not great. The centre could be better, but hopefully by the time I'm up to block eleventy hundred I should have perfected all the techniques I need to make a perfect block!

I've been working away at the starflowers too.  I've had a change of plan with them. Basically, because I couldn't face doing a whole quilt of them. The new plan is to square them up and use them as a centre panel for a quilt. I'm aiming to put a plain border and then a wider border in the same background fabric but with hexies or some other shapes appliquéd on to it.  This is Plan B, stay tuned, because there could be a Plan C or D, we'll just have to wait and see what eventuates.

Lots more to come.

I was able to finish a quilt before the mayhem of inspections started.

This pile of fabric, minus the cat paws,

turned into this, it's the backing.

Unfortunately I've misplaced my camera. I've been using my phone but I keep on taking really crap photos so hopefully I can take some decent ones to show you the rest of it.

I started on a VIQ Very Important Quilt as soon as the above quilt was finished. This one was to be a present for someone for a very special birthday which is only a couple of weeks away. I had every intention of having this finished in the next couple of weeks. I'm a slacker, and I'm annoyed with myself because if I ever get to finish it I think it will look awesome. The idea for this quilt started in September last year, and sat in a bag until the end of May when I suddenly realised I had very little time left to make it. I've thrown in the towel on this one. When will I learn that procrastination is stupid! It will be finished, but probably not until people stop wanting to look at my house or I move.

A tiny peek.

Despite everything I still found some time to quickly surf the net and let my finger slip and purchase these beautiful books from Quiltmania.

Worth every cent, lots more wonderful inspiration for hand piecing and quilting.

It was well and truly worth it

After all the hair pulling, crying, panic attacks, and swearing (lots and lots of swearing), I think it was well and truly worth the hours and hours and hours and hours of working on the house.  At the risk of boring you all witless and/or making you hate me because I'm lucky enough to live in paradise, I'm posting some photos that will be used for marketing.

I wasn't going to put the house on the market until next month but due to being pushed by the real estate agent to get it ready for sale, I pulled my finger out over the last couple of weeks, now it's done, and a couple of people have looked at the house already.  It's still not up on the internet but these are some of the photos that were taken by the photographer that will be used for advertising.

I'm so pleased with how it looks, and now I'm having second, third and fourth thoughts about selling, as it looks so beautiful, even if I do say so myself. It's so annoying that I didn't make the most of the house while I've been living here and now that I'm selling it someone else is going to benefit from all the work.  Typical, and I swore I'd never do that. HA!!!

Look at the beautiful blue sky, it's the middle of winter here and we have had the most fabulous weather, not today though, it's been cold and wet and horrible.

A similar view to the one on my blog header

You've seen these doors before but not the cushions on the chair.

From the studio looking across the pool to the house.

The pavilion

Living and dining areas.

The kitchen is not as huge as it looks in this photo.

Look at those floors!

The hammock and sofa on the verandah and there's Wonky Owls in the foreground, just!

Look at that fabulous view, I'm really going to miss it.

There are 30 photos all together that were taken, most are great, a couple I'm not loving, you can see a few more, but not all of them on flickr.

Oh and I would love it if you could tell me which photo from here or on flickr would be THE photo that should be the first one that will be seen on the internet. There are so many great photos and we are having a very difficult time trying to choose which one would be the best.

I'm still alive

I've spent the best part of the last few months trying to de-clutter, organise, fix and otherwise have my house ready to sell, but I'm still not quite there yet.  I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm hoping it's not THE light as I'm not quite ready to pop off just yet, although I think I was close to it a couple of times.  I'd never had a panic attack before but I now know exactly what they feel like.

Part of the fixing up meant painting the bedrooms, re-oiling the decking (that was a massive job, there's lots and lots of decking), and sanding and polishing the floorboards.   Each step involved moving and relocating furniture.  All the outdoor furniture had to be moved to clean and oil the outside decks and verandahs.  All the bedroom furniture had to be moved and covered so that the ceilings and walls could be painted.  All the furniture had to be removed from the living area so that the floors could be sanded. Can you guess that I've had enough of moving furniture and living in what feels like a used furniture store.
I didn't take many photos of work in progress as it was bad enough living through it without capturing for all time, each hideous step of the journey. I do however have some pics of the floorboards. The kitchen photos are all taken at night so the colour of the boards is not quite right.

This is the kitchen, can you see that dark curved area? A couple of years ago I swapped the kitchen and the living zones, so this used to be the living room and the dark part is where the hearth used to be. (It's a high-set house so it was relatively easy to move all the plumbing etc.)

This is an "after" shot. No more dark hearth, but look how the two boards in the centre of the kitchen now stand out. The new finish has emphasised the colours in the timber.

Now to the rest of the living area. These are the "before" shots, once all the furniture was removed. They were taken early morning so it's a little hard to see properly with all those shadows.

Dining area in the background

Living area, this used to be the kitchen.

Looking from the dining area towards the hall and stairs.

Looking from the dining area towards the kitchen on the right and stairs on the left 

From the dining area to living area.

Looking from living area to stairs and bedrooms.

I really love the early morning winter sun shining in and warming up the house.

This is where the furniture was stored. 

The fridge out on the verandah and covered with a tarp.

The dining table also on the verandah and covered in an old sheet, tarp and the upside down coffee table on top.

BP's bedroom, taken from the hallway, that's as far as I could get into her room.

My sewing room, again taken from the hall as there was no way I could get into that room either.

Now for some after photos. I totally forgot to take any before the furniture was moved back.

Honestly, I prefer the way the floorboards looked before. Unfortunately the previous flooring tradesmen did a really really bad job, and because I had moved the kitchen and taken out a wall a couple of years ago, they absolutely had to be sanded and polished.

The best thing after doing all this, is now there's no cluttered spots, which means not having to crop photos or take them at a particular angle to hide stuff, yay..........and a great big sigh of relief.

So hopefully I'll be back blogging a little more often now, It may still be sporadic but I think I'm over (gee, I really hope I'm over) the worst of it and it should be a lot easier from now on. Every piece of my body is crossed...........not just fingers.



PS    Oh, and I have been able to do a little bit of sewing, not much, so I'll even have some crafty stuff to show soon too.

Waving madly - I'm still here

My blogging/sewing/quilting mojo has left me. I still have the will to live but that's about it.
I've contemplated a number of times about writing a blog post but just couldn't think of anything exciting enough. I've been lurking and reading blog posts but haven't had time to comment.  Thank you to my wonderful blog friends who sent emails wondering whether I was still alive. I am. Sorry Shay you'll have to wait  a bit longer for my fabric stash.

I had every intention of sewing madly over the last two weeks but it didn't eventuate.


I've been hanging out and socialising in Brisbane. I planned out my sewing before I left home. I brought down my baby sewing machine just in case, and put together a couple of bags of hand sewing projects to work on while away. It would have helped if I'd remembered to pack one very important bag in the car. The one that had the mat, rulers, rotary cutter, templates, the pattern that I was working on etc. Finding out that I had left all the important stuff at home, put me in a sewing funk. To pull me out of the funk I planned a trip to Spotlight to enhance my quilting paraphernalia and grab the tools I needed to work on my projects, that was fun and they had a sale at the time too! I only doubled up on one thing, which was another small rotary cutter. Everything else I bought including a mat and rulers, were different sizes to the ones I had at home. I even found this fabulous tool.

A doo wacky that you attach to the rotary cutter and allows you to add a seam allowance to your traced template pattern. It was really easy to use once you fiddle about to set the right distance from the blade. It made cutting out the pieces for the Circle Game BOM blocks so much easier and quicker as I didn't have to draw a seam allowance and then cut. I just had to follow the drawn line on the fabric from the template  and voila a 1/4" seam allowance was cut. I'm sorry I don't know what it's called and I've searched on the Olfa site and can't find it to add a link to it.

My spending spree should have motivated me, but life kind of took over and despite having all the stuff I still didn't sew much, at least the pieces I need have been cut out.

Last week I took a trip back home to see if the house was still there, secretly wishing it wasn't so that I didn't have to keep on getting rid of stuff so that it will be clutter free for the sale. Also to see whether the work had finished on the outdoor decking. It was and doesn't it look spectacular, sorry not the best photo as I just took a quick one with my iPhone.

While I was there I picked up my bag that I had left behind.

I'm slowly working away on anther Amitie BOM block, almost finished.


I'm enjoying the process of these blocks although it's slow going and I don't have much to show for the hours of work I put into them. I've almost finished the outer ring on this one, which I'll show in a later post.

The weather has been fabulous here. Blue skies and sunshine.




Lovely sunrises.

Yippeeeeeee

I had a lovely surprise when I went to the post office today. A parcel addressed to me, all the way from the Czech Republic. I don't see that everyday, I was even excited looking at the stamps.

Inside was my win from the giveaway that Dianne at Quiltova hosted a few weeks ago. Lucky lucky me. Look at that cute card and the pretty blue tape.

How cool is this, Dianne even sent me some chocolate named after me...... almost, ha ha.


Some lovely scraps too.


The best thing of all............



a fabulous pot holder, it's far too nice to use, but it goes beautifully with the decor in my kitchen, so will be on permanent display.




Dianne's quilting is awesome too.

Thank you so much Dianne for a lovely gift/prize.