My First Post of 2016

Happy New Year!
Yes, I have been absent...for many reasons, health not being the least.

But here I am again and I'm so excited by my newest patchwork project.

I've always wanted to try this!

Fussy Cut Hexagons & Diamonds - English Paper Pieced.

To achieve this pattern I had to play with mirrors...

  

The idea of the mirror is to play around with possibilities and then to choose one.

The one above is what I chose for my centre.

I've had the pleasure of attending a one day work shop at Post Office Patchwork Glenbrook

under the tutelage of Anne Sommerlad and using her beautiful designed pattern.

What can I say? 

 I'm hooked!

Linking to

Batten Down The Hatches

We had such beautiful weather over the weekend.  

Yesterday's Blue Skies

Even so, we managed to receive more than our fair share of rain, which, thankfully fell mostly overnight.  This morning however, most of the south-east coast woke to a dreary wet Monday which is developing into an even drearier wet Monday afternoon with the potential for high winds.

We've lived in the Blue Mountains long enough to know that high winds means exactly that.  The Bureau of Meteorology has become a very reliable weather forecaster and when it issues a severe weather warning for damaging winds, I sit up and take notice.

As a result, all our deck chairs are neatly stacked on the verandah, my potted cuttings are set back out of the winds, and all loose objects (you know, the empty polystyrene box, empty plastic pots, gardening gloves, etc, etc), are packed away so that we don't have to spend the next month collecting stray items from the side of the holt on which we live.

Outdoors, the temperature has dropped from yesterday's comfortable mid 20 'C to around 12 'C so I think this calls for some serious cooking.

The heating has been cranked up but I always love to use the oven to help heat up the living areas of our home; so tonight (well, this afternoon), I'm preparing a slow roast fillet of beef for dinner.

I usually search the Internet for recipes but rarely do I follow a mains recipe completely. After scanning through three or four recipes I adapt them to suit my family's taste and what's available in my pantry.

The garden is overflowing with thyme...seems our dry, sandy, soil and humid conditions are ideal, after all, thyme has Mediterranean origins, so I've flavoured the beef with 25 (or is that 26)springs of thyme . Previously I had rolled the cut of beef in a mixture of freshly ground black pepper and Celtic sea salt.

After inserting the sprigs of herbs under the string I also rubbed some olive oil into the beef.

It is now in the oven roasting away in a pre-heated oven (reduced to 140'C - my oven is a 'hot' fan forced oven.)

  About an hour before serving the beef I'll put on a tray potato, beetroot and pumpkin to roast and just before serving make a nice dark gravy using the tray juices and steam some green beans.

Something Blue

Something Blue

Echium Blue Bedder

Sometimes...

Last month, Mr Honey Pie and I made soap.

I love making soap. We don't make it often enough and usually wait until we have absolutely no soap at all and we have to buy it for personal use and then one lovely customer will send me an email and ask for another kilo or two.

That's when we know we have to make soap.  Which is what happened this time.

So we made soap. We made oatmeal soap with chamomile and lavender essential oil. We made rose petal soap with rose geranium essential oil and pink clay. We made lavender soap with lavender essential oil and lavender flowers. We made baby soap with just a hint of lavender and chamomile essential oil.

And then we let it cure.  We cut it. We let it air so that it could dry out a little more.

The house was filled with luscious aromas of the various essential oils.

One day, about a month after we'd made the soap, Mr Honey Pie sat me down and said he wanted to ask me something.

Mr Honey Pie NEVER says to me: "Honey, there's something I want to ask you."

NEVER.

That is, not until about two weeks ago.

He sat me down and he sat next to me and said,

"I've been thinking, what if I finish painting the kitchen and dining room?"

Well I was flabbergasted, firstly because I thought he had something life shattering to ask, and secondly because, well we only started painting the interior of our house well, like two years ago and everything came to an abrupt stand still...just like that.

I had seriously been considering getting in a professional painter and decorator, even though Mr Honey Pie is a professional painter and decorator.

Anyway, to cut a long story short...we painted. Or should I say Mr Honey Pie painted.  (I did help by rolling one coat of the main colour while he cut in.)

But before we could pull out the stinky cans of paint, the soap had to be packed carefully away, wrapped and boxed, to ensure no contamination with the paint fumes. 

Thirteen years ago when we had our house built, we chose neutral warm colours...mainly creams.  In the kitchen, you can see here, we painted a feature wall a sort of coffee colour.

In our previous house, the colours were sort of apricot-pink.

So far,the guest bedroom, the study, the two bathrooms, the lounge room and the entry have been repainted.  This time we chose blue as our main colour.

It just feels right.

But I'm not sure about the blue feature wall in the kitchen.  I was hoping that it would be darker.  But we've decided to live with it for a while and if we can't live with it...well, we'll repaint it.

And among the painting, we  hosted a birthday dinner for our Darling Daughter.

Our gorgeous Grand Daughter gets so excited about birthdays.  If she could have her way, she would have a full on birthday party for every member of the family with bunting, balloons, scores of guests, music and on and on.

But for today, she had to contend with paint fumes and a very messy dining room.

She had so much fun that her mum messaged me tonight to tell us that Miss Five was laughing in her sleep!

Well, we can't wait for the morning to find out about her dreams!

WIP - Quilt As You Go Update

Remember this quilt? I forgive you if you don't.  It's been twelve months (more) since I started making this quilt.  It was for my baby sister's fiftieth birthday, last September.  And I'm still not finished it. The biggest obstacle I encountered was returning to work for six months last year. 

I just thought I'd show you how it's looking. Hopefully, the next time I post pictures they will be of the finished quilt.

I do love it and I'm hoping that my sister will think it's been worth the wait.

Above is the back of the quilt, with the binding to join the sections together pinned for hand stitching.

 The wonderful thing about quilt as you go is that it makes machine quilting manageable because the quilt is constructed and quilted in smaller sections.

It also means no hefty charges for quilting - something I'm finding more and more difficult to fund.

Once I've finished hand stitching the sections together, all that will need to be done is add the binding.

I'm not sure how well you can see it in the photographs, but the quilting has already been done.

Day 192/366

Sneak Peak #2.

Here is the beginning of another braid.

I'm just loving these colours.

The quilt is a 'quilt-as-you-go' and I'm amazed at the speed I'm getting through this.

It's a birthday quilt for my 'Baby' Sister's fiftieth birthday in September.

Edited: 11.7.2012

I have linked to Freshly Pieced

Work In Progress; this week hosted by Kati.

Why don't you drop on over and see what others have been creating in way of quilting.

Day 127/366

Ta da!

Mr Honey Pie is a genius!

Pic colour not totally spot on but this is the closest from a bunch of pics.

Now...what to paint the wall behind?

Hmmm.

Day 116/366

Oooo...not sure about the blue.

What do you think?

The white is just primer and will end up blue too.

Day 105/366

Posh Bushtucker.

Day 75/366

Lavender Blue

Day 18/366

Dianella caerulea buds. (Blue Flax Lily.)

Flowering a bit late in the season?

This is an untidy little native plant which I photographed as the sun is beginning to lower itself in the sky.

Day11/366

Green

Blue

Yellow. 

Three views taken from the family lounge-room.

Untouched photographs except for cropping.

Playing around with settings on the camera.

Link to last night's sunset: My photograph on facebook

Guest Bedroom Progress

It's been a busy week.

Managed to get most of the guest bedroom complete.  

Still need to get a bedside table lamp, a new floor rug and I would like to make some bunting for the blue wall.

The pleated blind is waiting to go to the cleaners so had to make do with the roller shutter for this photograph.

A new patchwork quilt would be nice too!

In this corner I plan to put a small desk which is waiting for a renovation.
The cushion cover is a crocheted cover that I picked up from Frou Frou during a sale...just because I liked the look of it.
The framed embroidery is one I completed in 1997 and has been in hiding a good part of the time since then.

The Bears belong to Youngest Son (who is now 24 year old).

I couldn't resist making new clothes for this one - I knitted a little top and made a pair of bloomers for it.  Grand Daughter loved it and spent hours dressing and undressing both the bears.

In the background are more beautiful lace pillow slips from Frou Frou.

Art works are by Lindy Longhurst. I love Lindy's work and the larger one was one of her first pieces.

They were in the master bedroom but I'm feeling that it's time for them to move on.  I didn't really want to part with them and I think they suit the guest room perfectly.

Still a lot of work to do but I'm feeling very satisfied with how things are turning out.

The room now makes the rest of the house look so dreary that it has urged me on to start on the next room - The Study!

My Other Blue & White.

Influenza has seen me laying low this past week.  Never-the-less, this morning I thought I'd share my other blue and white dinner setting with you.  It is also a Johnson Brothers setting and my aim is to mix and match with my newer Mother's Day gift when we have extended family for lunch.  With both services I now have enough to serve thirty two adults!  It has, as yet, never come to this but more than once it's been at the high end of twenty.  Still, with the increasing chance of more grandchildren and sons/daughters - in - law, it could be on the books!!!

I like to be prepared...

One morning, many years ago, as a playgroup mum and host, I served my playgroup mums morning tea in teacups and saucers.  This was NOT the done thing, usually mugs sufficed.

I got lots of compliments that morning.  One mum in particular commented how she felt very pampered drinking her tea from a proper teacup - with a saucer to boot!

I particularly like this dinner service because each piece, like my newer setting, is differently decorated.

I am linking this post to Tea Cup Tuesday with Terri at Artful Affirmations. 

Irish Chain Quilt Top.

I am well on my way with a quilt (I mentioned in an earlier post ) for one of my Twin Sisters' fiftieth birthdays. I shall call her The Younger Twin.  The colours are not quite what I had in mind but I wanted blue to be the star colour in her quilt.  
As always, I never stick to the original pattern layout.  I didn't particularly like this layout either so I changed it to suit myself. Of course this means a nightmare job of rearranging blocks and then of course, I tend to change my mind halfway through the quilt anyway!!!  
So...I have three options to chose from 

This was my original option but I dislike quilt tops that draw your eye to the centre (unless it's an art quilt).  My preference is to take a little journey around the quilt, surveying the entire piece.

Option Two is a bit subtler in the centre, maybe too subtle?  It does strengthen the blue colours though.

I think Option Three is more balanced, the focus is still the centre yet the stronger reds and rusts draw the eye around the quilt.

Which would you choose?

And yes, I know, there are blocks missing...my next task.  This will also probably mean that once they're complete, I'll change my mind again...about the layout.  Hehe!