I like a bargain ...

After an ominous sky on Thursday night, we finally got some rain during an early morning storm, not enough though to do any good, but at least it cooled things down from the 42C we endured that day to a more sufferable 38C ...

It made it bearable enough to venture out of the airconditioning and drive up to Perth.  Mind you, I would've gone to Perth even if it had been 50C ... there was a sale on and I do love a bargain.

Dale and Ian at The Thread Studio opened their warehouse for the weekend with lots of discounted goodies, and I had a wonderful shopping spree, now I just have to find the time to put these to good use.

With a little help ...

This week has been spent cracking on with Module 9 - Patchwork ... not one of my greatest talents.
The first sample was English piecing, so I matched a patterned fabric to a plain one, and came up with this .... I think I've pulled the stitches too tight though, and its puckered abit ... oh well, you get that!

Next, was strip piecing.  I did a smaller piece but the strips ended up all wonky and the measurements completely out of whak, so I started again on a bigger piece and carefully measured every one to make sure I was sticking to the measurements ..... so far, so good,

but by this stage I was in serious need of chocolate .....

.... and a few cuddles and purrs from my little fella ..... who always cheers me up.

Aren't the colour of his eyes just beautiful .....

... looking into them is always relaxing and lifts the spirit.

He's my special little boy Sammy and likes to supervise EVERYTHING, we call him Sammy the Supervisor.  Whatever we do around the house/garden he always does his quality assurance inspection over it afterwards, has a mutter, and stalks away, as if to say "it'll do".

What would life be without pets?

Sunshine Award

I got a lovely surprise yesterday from Lyn at Everyday Life ..... she very kindly sent me this Sunshine Award.

Its so heart warming to know there are such thoughful people out there ... and thanks to "blog land" we can get to know people we would never normally have the chance to meet.

Thanks very much, Lyn!

A big thank you !

My hubby and I don't get to spend a lot of time together as his work takes him away from home a lot, but just recently he's been home and has thrown himself wholeheartedly into doing everything ... shopping, cooking, cleaning, gardening etc .... so that I can concentrate on my C&G and catch up on lost time.

The other night he surprised me even more by cooking a special dinner, which started with a spicy prawn and vegetable crepe for entree ...

followed by marinated fish with nasi goreng for main ....

all washed down with a bottle of champagne ....

and a dip in the spa afterwards to unwind.

His thoughtfulness has enabled me to finish my Module 8 and get it off in the post for assessment, leaving me with a few days to relax and unwind, before throwing myself into Module 9.

Above is one of my transparent designs.  I stencilled flowers onto a piece of poly netting by rubbing shiva sticks over a cardboard stencil, then creating machine lace flowers which are hand stitched on to the netting.

Below are sample pages of my "thread sample folder" which I've created to log all supplies used on my samples.

And so to end this blog ... I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all the husbands, wives, children, siblings and friends who support us in whatever way to help us achieve our goals.

2010 - I'm back!

I've been trying to blog for a month now ... where does the time go.  Christmas and New Year came and went in a blurr, as did January.  Packed up boxes of craft supplies and hubby drove across Australia to set up a new home in Victoria whilst he worked on a contract over there.  No sooner had we set up home than the job crashed ... and homeward bound were we.  I always said I'd never drive the Nullabor again, but some things you can't get out of.  So off to Victoria I flew, packed up the house and craft supplies and spent 3 days, 15 hrs a day, driving back across the country.  I now vow that I'm staying put and concentrating on getting C&G finished.  That's this years resolution.

I've been working with transparent fabrics, and this is a shadow applique .... shapes cut from a preprinted fabric and adhered to a base, then sandwiched between wadding and a layer of nylon net, and machine stitched around the shapes.

Another sample for this module was a lace fabric created from free machining on water soluble fabric. This design was based on fossils, all placed randomly next to each other.

More machine quilting .... this was trapunto, with some stippling.  I'm quite pleased with this one.

The last sample of applique and quilting ... as it was Christmas time, I HAD to create this!!