My Mum turned 100!

The long awaited day finally arrived! Mum always said she would like to live to be 100, but around fifteen years ago, she changed her mind ...too late...our days are not numbered by ourselves , and she has reached that amazing age. It's all a little hard to believe actually.

In the week leading up to her birthday, she received congratulatory letters from Queen Elizabeth, our Prime Minister Julia Gillard, the Governor General, the local MP, the State Premier, and the Mayor of Monash. All but one of these persons are women!
Talk about history in the making, and a sign of the times.








This basket of 100 stunning roses was presented to Mum by the Mayor of Monash.

On the day of the official celebration, friends and rellies came from far and wide. I think the final number was about 95. A great time was had by all, lots of laughs, lots of photos, and of Mums direct line descendants, and all but two grandchildren and four great grandchildren were present.




I think the small sadness on the day for Mum was the fact that two of her beloved children have predeceased her. Nevertheless, my remaining sister and brother and myself were happy to don t-shirts telling all and sundry that our Mum is 100.





We had a limousine to take us to the venue that I found hard to climb into! I am not sure how mum managed, cause I was the second person to clamber in, and she was the last, but I imagine she needed a little hand up.




Brother John gave us a nice speech, thanking us all on behalf of Mum, and with a big breath, she managed blowing out the candles.

And here we all are .........including HM Queen Elizabeth......









And these are the blood rellies, with Ron and Phil sitting in for Lyne and Annie.


Happy Birthday dear Mum, we will have another celebration next year for 101!

Location:Castlemaine,Australia

A new quilt beginning 2

This week I have been working on the new quilt. Stack and slash is a really good method of making quick blocks that are very easy and fit together well, although I did have to unpick several times. It's so easy to veer off that 1/4 inch seam, even when using a 1/4 inch foot on the sewing machine.




This is the centre of the quilt. I used most of the layer cake squares, just leaving out the brightest red ones, to be used in the first border, along with the matching jelly roll pieces. In this method, I simply stacked four pieces of fabric together, slashed them through, and sewed them together again, moving the top piece to the bottom of the stack before sewing. I repeated this three times, so each piece of fabric is cut three times and resewn, making the multi colored blocks you can see in the picture.




Here is the centre block with the red border around it. That was enough for one day.

One of the advantages of sewing is that I can go on with my studies, by listening the the bible online whilst I sew. I don't catch every word, but it does go into my brain.
As I am repeating OT 2 this term, it's work I have done before, so I am relying on my almost non existent memory to help me.





These are the jelly roll strips that I am going to cut up for the next border of the quilt.

Stay tuned for the next blog.







Posted from another day in Paradise

Location:McCoy Manor

A new quilt beginning

My niece has a young friend undergoing chemo treatment, so I have agreed to make a snuggle quilt for her.

A good half hours shopping in Brunswick, and I chose these lovely fabrics by Riley Blake in a layer cake and a jelly roll...











Now to choose the design...originally I had in mind to make a disappearing nine patch, which looks bit like this

http://www.popularpatchwork.com/news/article/disappearing-nine-patch/5294/
(Sorry this is not live, I haven't quite worked out how to do that yet)

But now I think I might do a stack and slash.
This method is quicker, looks great, showcases the fabric nicely, and you lose less fabric in the cutting and sewing.

This quilt is not a long term project, so I will keep you informed of its progress.

Posted from another day in Paradise.