Short 'n Sweet

Time to get ready for a new week.  More upbeat, if you know what I mean! I have been collecting little goodies for my birthday give-away. The draw takes place on March 16, so still time to follow and leave a comment.  To enter, click on the birthday cupcake in the side bar and that will take you to the post. I have had some delicious comments so far. Makes me want to BAKE cupcakes!

xoxoxox

I Miss You

Here I go again.....I have been a very emotional blogger for the last couple of weeks and perhaps it is all down to tomorrows date. The 9th March, exactly a week before my own birthday, was my Dad's birthday.

8 years ago my never-been-sick-before darling dad found out he had the dreaded 'C' in his bladder. Surely it would be benign or just need simple surgery to remove it and he would be OK. Sadly, this was not the case and it was diagnosed as a very aggresive Cancer. Six years ago he lost the battle.

This year he would have been celebrating his 80th birthday and I still miss him dearly.

 

Me and my Dad (circa 1966)

xoxoxox

20 Things about Me

I saw this on If only I had Chocolate and thought what the heck...

1. Make a list of 5 things that you can see without getting up......
Computer (of course), my camera, WIP that I am currently working on, tv, recliner chair

2. How do you style your hair?
Usually just blow dry and it does its own thing.  If I have time, I use my daughters straightener

3. What are you wearing now?
'Jama's. Yes I know it's late but I am having a lazy morning!

4. What are your top five favorite TV shows?
My Kitchen Rules, Parenthood, Six Feet under (I adore Peter Krause), How I met your Mother, Big Bang

5. What do you hear right now?
Bird song and my tummy grumbling

6. Who was the last person you hugged?
My boys when they left after dinner the other night.  Can't exactly remember who was last.

7. What did you have for lunch?
Not lunch time yet but I am planning on having a big salad with balsamic dressing.

8. What did you do today?
Well so far I have gotten out of bed (a big effort) fed the dogs, had breakfast (don't know why my tummy is grumbling) and caught up on fb, my blog and emails.

9. Dog person or cat person?
Definately both.  I would have a menagerie if I had my own way!

10. If you had to change your name, what would you change it to?
I like my name

11. What was the last thing that you bought?
Yesterday, I bought a book called Gifts by Rosalie Quinlin, some cupcake goodies for my giveaway and some gorgeous fabric.....spent a fortune as usual!

12. If you could afford to go anywhere in the world, where would you go?
CANADA.....been on my wish list for quite some time.

13. Where do you see yourself in five years?
Hubby should be retired by then and I would like to be as well.  Living on a lovely large country block somewhere in Tasmania with a quilting studio all to myself and lots of room for the dogs to run around.

14. Where's your birthmark?
don't have one

15. What are you doing this weekend?
I am thinking of going to a quilt show out west on Saturday.  Going to see if my Bestie wants to go for a drive with me and on Sunday I am having breakfast with the girls that I work with as one of them is leaving.

16. If you could play any musical instrument, which one would you play?
Guitar.  I gave it a go once but got stuck when it came to cords.  I suggested to my eldest that he give it a go and he is now an awesome guitarist!

17. How tired are you?
Chronically.  Hubby says I snore so not suprising that I wake up feeling unrested.

18. What are your plans for the rest of the day?
Got towels to wash....thank goodness it is sunny today! Heading to the shopping centre with miss M and this evening I am meeting up with a group of ladies from work for our monthly dinner get together.

19. What's your drink?
are we talking beverage or alcoholic? Well beverage, I drink decaf coffee. Most people say why bother? well I like the taste of coffee but caffeine plays havoc with my psyche.  Alcoholic....I don't mind a strongbow occasionally.

20. If you could buy anything, for no reason, with no budget, what would you buy?
oh golly! that would need a lot more time for thought than what I have right now! I am rather happy with what I have right now....People keep asking me what I want for my birthday and I can't even give them an answer to that!

Okay, you're turn, either copy & paste questions & your answers into the comment section or add it to your own blog & leave a link here in the comments section! 

Need to know how to leave a link in the comments section then click here

Looking forward to getting to know a little about you too!

 

xoxoxox

Tuesday Treasures - Quilting with Averil

This weeks Tuesday Treasures is a thing, a person or a place. 

I thought I would dedicate this weeks Tuesday Treasures to the woman who taught me how to quilt.  I met Averil in 1999 when another friend mentioned she was taking quilting lessons and asked if I wanted to join her.  As patchwork and quilting was something I had always fancied doing, I jumped at the opportunity.

Averil had already been quilting for 30 years when I met her and was the most patient and generous person I have ever met. She ran at least 7 groups a week in a shed at the back of her house and certainly instilled in me the love of quilting. Averil had a blood disease and often had to find time to visit the doctor although she never cancelled any of her classes until her husband, Vince, had a heart attack and ended up in hospital.  He recovered and and promised Averil, he would stop smoking and eat healthier but the stress was too much for her and a few weeks after he came home, she had a stroke.

She never recovered from the stroke and passed away a couple of days later. I will always remember Averil.  She taught me so much in the few years that I knew her and imparted so much knowledge. The group of girls that I was in continued to meet after she died and called ourselves "The Kelly Girls" (Named after Averil's Street) We found a venue (infact several over the years) to meet every week and are still meeting every Monday. I am no longer a member due to my work committments but I do have my quilts to remind me of Averil. The little quilt below was one that Averil made and I bought it when her family sold the contents of her shed.

 

And that is my Tuesday Treasure.



xoxoxox

It's Finished!!

My quilt, Tea or Coffee, is finally complete. I started this quilt, my second Millamac quilt, last year around April with a group of ladies and Sally, the designer. Then I missed a couple of months while I was away on holiday and when I came back, I just never caught up with everyone else and the quilt just became a UFO.

Until now!

 Sorry, the photo's are not the best quality.

And don't forget my Birthday Give Away!


xoxoxox

Guess who is having a Birthday?

ME! Thats right, it is my Birthday this month and I was thinking that it is about time I had a give-away. I think I will work on that this weekend.

So here is the deal. To celebrate my birthday I will be making something along the theme of cupcakes! No baking will be taking place!

 To enter all you have to do is add your name to my "followers" list  AND leave a comment below about how you decorate your cupcakes.
I will draw the winning number on my birthday which is on Friday 16th March so there is still a bit of time to enter

And for all my current followers....all you have to do is leave a comment below!

Hope you all have your needles threaded for the weekend!


xoxoxox

Friday Freebie # 3 - Back to School!!!?

[All photos are HAVE BEEN DELETED FROM THIS POST] There have been so many houses in Blogland right now and they are all terrific.  I, however,  have always wanted to do an old fashioned school house quilt and somewhere in my stash of patterns there is one floating around.

You all know what a schoolhouse block is right?

Now, I am no expert on School house quilts but they mainly seem to be done in red and I am thinking that this is perhaps due to the colour of the typical school houses in America back in the day. I would love for someone to comment with a bit of history round about now!

There are certainly traditionalists who will go for the classic look

However in our modern era, the rules are no longer a restriction and you could go from something semi-traditional in red (I would vote this as my favourite) to a multi-coloured sensation

Blue is my colour and that is what I had in mind. In the meantime why not have a practise run and tackle this miniature schoolhouse quilt using Kaffe Fassett fabrics.

To download "The House that Kaffe Built" designed by Kathryn Patterson click here.

Happy Weekend Quilting Everyone!

Ready for another round

What did I spend yesterday doing? Well apart from blogging about my dear furbabies....(and thank you for all the comments btw)

Tuesday is actually a sewing group day for me but when I woke up and went out to say good morning to my girls, I couldn't find Lila (Short for Delilah). Callie was sat at the door looking very unconcerned but no Lila.  I called and whistled....no Lila.  I walked around to the other side of the house but not there either.  By now my heart was sitting in my mouth and I dashed in to get dressed thinking I would have to do a neighbourhood hunt. Feeling quite sick by now and thinking the worst I flung the front door open ready to pound the streets looking for my sweet, sweet girl. The first thing I saw when I walked outside was an orange power cable across my front lawn....Odd? Relief actually! My Aussiepooch man had arrived earlier than usual to wash the girls and he had already started on Lila!

Not lost or dognapped but nice and clean

Anyway after all that excitement I ended up being slightly late for the group so I decided to stay home and prepare the next step/blocks for my WIP's so here is my updated to-do list for the next week or so.

Teddy Bear Tea Party

There's this and.....

My Garden

this......

Edwardian house

and this.

Tea or Coffee

I am also going to finish off two of these flowers. Wait till you see the finished ones.

oh, and I also added this little bit of sparkle to one of the "Tea or Coffee" blocks:

And that was my day!

Oh wait....no...something else was part of my day.  I received this in the mail this afternoon. Now I can stop drooling over everyone elses "Some kind of Wonderful" BOM's and get started on my own (well at some point!)

till next time, keep your needles threaded!




xoxox

Tuesday Treasure - Pets

Following in the steps of Melody and Sue B, I want to share my pet dogs with you.

I have had dogs in my life ever since I can remember. My first dog was Juno, a boxer.  We got her when my family moved to Zambia and I was about 3 years old. My dad knew a farmer who was selling up and moving on and he had a dog and a cat that he wanted to find good homes for.  My dad took both. The cat, Blackie, died after about a year from a poisonous lizard and 4 years later when dad's work contract was over, we found a home for Juno with some good friends and got lots more photos of her through the years as we travelled for dad's work.

Growing up there was Monty, Bucksy, Tammy, Sally, and Bruce.  And then I got married, had a baby and moved to Australia. Hubby was not a dog man but I thought the kids would like a dog and talked him into it.  A friend gave us Bella, an abused Golden Retriever that needed a home. That didn't turn out well and I reluctantly had to return her 6 wks later (no fault of Bella's) and then along came Jazzy, an American Cocker spaniel.  After a year I came across another Golden Retriever that need a home (we had to have 2 dogs!!!). And that is when Amber came to live with us.  She was 18months at the time and turned into the most gorgeous dog ever.  These two dogs grew up with my kids but Amber was always the one that they played with the most (Jazzy was really a sloth). Jazzy died when she was 10 which was a relief as by then she was totally deaf and pretty blind. Amber stayed with me till the ripe old age of 15 (really good for GR's) It was a great loss when I had to have her put down and I sobbed unashamedly at the vet until I saw all the people staring at me in the waiting room.  That dog left the biggest paw print on my heart!

My beautiful girl Amber

Amber with puppy Callie

How I came to own Callie is a cute story....It was just before Christmas, 5 years ago, and I needed stamps for my Christmas cards so I left miss M shopping for jeans (or whatever) and trotted off to the post office.  Of course the post office is next to the pet shop and I always have a peek. Well on this particular day, there were two labrador pups in the window.  Common sense got the better of me and half an hour later, I rang miss M to say she better meet me at the pet shop because I had bought a puppy! What about the stamps? well they had to wait till another day! Hey, at least I only brought one home. For more on Callie and our new addition, Lila, go to my page titled "Callie and Lila"

5 yr old Callie & 18mth old Lila

Hope you have the joy of pets in your life!


xoxox

Another UFO done and dusted!

"Sew its Finished" is one way that I am getting through the UFO's that have been languishing for years.  I have set myself the challenge to finish off at least 12 projects in 2012.  That is a complete UFO for every month this year.

January - Snowman Swag
February - Origami Hexagon Table Topper

Thought I would also share this little suprise my hubby brought in from the garden this morning.  Mr Romantic found this lone bloom on the rose bush and couldn't resist bringing it in for me to enjoy.

Till next time,
xoxo