Mmmmm .... Ginseng

I popped in to Amitie today ... for no particular reason ... and this fabric caught my eye.

A couple of hours later and I can cross another item off my "To-Do" list.



Thanks to Cathy for all your help!!

Happy quilting.
Andi :-)

Happy Birthday Ella Bella

My how you've grown!!


And now you've turned into a beautiful fairy princess, aged 3!


The party room was filled with lots of food ....


and balloons ....




... family ......








... and friends ...






Even Fairy Mary came along to play games and paint faces .....





Just look at all the beautiful faces she painted ...


Then it was cake time ...




... and after all that excitement, exhaustion set in ...


Thankyou, thankyou to everyone who came and made Ella's party such fun. She was very lucky to have so many visitors (who brought such lovely and thoughtful gifts).

If you would like to look at the whole album of photos, click here.

Happy birthday my sweet girl.

Much love,
Mummy :-)

Eating Books

Tonight for dinner, Jake asked for "green eggs and ham".

We are Jewish, so I made him green eggs and steak.

He loved it .....

I FEEEEEEL good ......

... like I knew that I would.

In the past week or so, I have managed to get lots of 'stuff' done. It feels so satisfying.

Specifically, these guys were born and found new homes with some small friends whose birthdays had long since passed.

Our spring planting has finally happened. We planted flower gardens for the kids. (Can you see their names on each garden?)



We also planted: basil, coriander, dill, chillies, capsicum, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, rhubarb and baby spinach. These are in addition to the garlic, plums, passion-fruit, mint, rosemary and chillies already growing from earlier plantings. We may not have to shop for our 'greens' ever again. (I wish!!)



Now, fingers crossed for some rain.

And to top it all off, at my Amitie class last night, I finished the top for my mum's birthday present.
She plays bridge and this is a table cover for when "the girls" come round to play.
Not sure if you can see but I have appliqued the 4 suits on to each corner.
A nice touch, I thought.

And ..... I have FINALLY finished quilting Jake's birthday quilt.




Now, I just need to bind it and make a label.

Phew. Time to sign off and put my feet up.

Happy quilting.
Andi :-)

Crafty 'To-do' list

Projects "on-the-go" or with specific deadlines:

1. Final preparations for Ella's party
2. Label for Ella's quilt
3. End of year gifts for kinder & creche staff
4. Shirley's birthday presents
5. Finish mum's birthday quilt
6. Finish quilting, binding and label for Jake's quilt
7. Ruby's bat-mitzvah quilt
8. Quilt for Johnny (no rush on this one)
9. Our chuppah

Ideas for other projects I've been thinking about doing:

1. Fabric / canvases for our bedroom
2. New cushion covers for the living room
3. Roman blind for our room
4. Flying geese quilt for our bed
5. Denise Schmidt style quilt in plains

Just one or two things to keep me busy.

Andi :-)

Couldn't help myself

Fun online time wasters.

I have just read this post telling about this service where you can search for images on flickr according to colour.

Well, that was fun!!

But then I used this site to make this gorgeous collage.

Thinking about turning it into a proper quilt using these.

Andi :-)

Trains, travel and some horse racing fun!!

What a crazy busy weekend we had!!!

My son, the train fanatic couldn't believe his luck when his grandparents (all 4 of them!!) suggested a trip (on a train) to Castlemaine, followed by a steam train journey to Maldon and back again, and then a train journey back to Melbourne. All over a 3 day period.

He was in little boy heaven!!

The kids had a lovely time and were rather adorable ....

The local flora just had to be photographed ......

The steam train was fun and very beautiful .....

But my main interest was visiting the local patchwork shops for a bit of fabric indulgence.

At this shop I bought some gorgeous vintage 1930's reproduction fabrics ....

... and some white fabrics from this shop. The photo isn't good but I promise they are all different designs.

So that was our fabulous and exhausting journey. When we got home on Monday, Jake slept for 12 hours straight.

The next day was Melbourne Cup Day. We spent the day with a group of friends we usually only see on Melbourne Cup Day.

Inspired by this, I made some cute felt horses with lollypops for the kids ....

And I won our local version of the Fashions on the Field competition. Here I am with my trophy ....

... and to top off a great day, Jake put $7 on the winning horse and we went away with $165.

Life is good!

Happy quilting!

Andi :-)