Take a 2 Minute Break to Enjoy This

The colours are beautiful!

12 Days of Christmas - Quilting Style

When we had the Rose City Quilters committee play day (see my post here), we were actually working on pieces to present to the Club last night.
On the ... day of Christmas my true love gave to me:

a brand new sewing machine

2 pairs of scissors

3 library books

4 rolls of ribbon

5 paper pieced leaves

6 Velcro hanging sleeves

7 measuring tapes

8 rotary cutters

9 fabric flowers

10 cotton reels

11 beautiful buttons, and

12 new thimbles

My number was 5 - I wanted to do something that I could keep, so made my leaves into a 'necklace'.

But I think I'll cut out a few more leaves to make it into a circular tabletop setting - candles and pine cones might look good in the centre!
Here's a close-up of a leaf - the only stitching I've done in 3 weeks, and 'gems' glued on top for sparkle. You can just see that pattern tissue underneath the organza:

If you go to my friend Lynette's blog, she has photos from the evening and the lunch bag swap plus the 'present' from the committee to all members - it's a challenge for next Tote and Gloat.
PS.
I still have a bit of laryngitis from last week - so the 'singer' in the group was the frog on the night (how sad was that!).

The Shearing is Done

Last weekend, we had a shearer come in to do all the ewes, plus 3 of my neighbours' sheep. Everyone had a funny story to tell at the end of the day - Derrick tackling Coco in the yards and then the 2 of them going down in the corner, Kerry slipping in the mud - glasses flying off - in an effort to nab another ewe, and Glenda trying to 'steer' her ram home by riding him!
The important thing was that no-one (or animal) got hurt, all the sheep were shorn, lambs drenched and we got pretty good prices for the wool.
Here is Beauty at one year with a new shear - and she still demands preferential treatment!:

The lambs are just coming up to 3 months of age - I pleased with how good they look and how well they are growing. Here's and lovely family snap:

Mum's wool is almost grey, and her twins have beautiful faces :-)

Voting Is Now On For Remembering Veterans Quilt

Hello, all you lovely visitors to my blog.
Please go here to vote
Mine is the New Zealand's Gallipoli Campaign 1915 quilt (see previous post), but please only vote for it if you LIKE it - I'm not into twisting any arms here! :-)

Remembering Veterans - Contest

I have entered this quilt into the Quilting Gallery weekly themed contest.

New Zealand's Gallipoli Campaign 1915

Please go here to vote from this Friday (11th) evening until Sunday (13th) evening (NZ time).
Tomorrow, Friday 11 November 2011 at 11:00am (notice how all the 11's line up) is Armistice Day. I thought that this was the most appropriate of my military quilts to enter.

Armistice Day

Wreath-laying ceremonies mark Armistice Day at the National War Memorial in Wellington and at many local War Memorials throughout New Zealand. As part of these ceremonies, two minutes silence is observed at 11 a.m. on 11 November in memory of those New Zealanders' who died while serving their country.
The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the moment when hostilities ceased on the Western Front in 1918.

(from: http://www.rsa.org.nz/remem/armist_intro.html)

Lunch Bag Swap

I needed to make a lunch bag for the Rose City Quilters swap for the last meeting of the year. As I have made a couple of these already, I wasn't sure why I was procrastinating about it!
While I was rummaging through the fabric stash I found this fabric, which is so lovely (if you like French/Parisian things), and I thought would make a beautiful little bag for the swap.

So here we are - it even has an ohh! la! la! type of button (well why not!):

Pattern is here.

Committee Play Day

Rose City Quilters committee members had a play-day today. We could make something for a special surprise or just play, so here are some photos of playing happening:

Barb is sorting colours for her jacket

Wendy has a basket full of treasures, what is she up to?

The weather wasn't very good for working outside - so I decided to do something other than painting.
I have 'made' fabric from sandwiching (with Misty Fuse) pattern tissue and organza, plus previously painted florists' 'paper' onto kunin felt.

Cut out the shapes, used the  soldering iron around the edges to make it more organic, then couched threads and stitched.

You can see the pattern tissue underneath. This is stitched with rayon

Main veins are couched silk threads, other stitching is with variegated cotton thread

 My piece is coming together OK.