Five Things Friday #5

It’s been a really good week this week!

First up, I went to the rose nursery and bought some more roses. So, I had 109 and with these new ones the count is now up to 114. Here’s one of them, the absolutely divine Julia’s Rose.

There’s nothing better than coming home from work and finding some happy mail on the doorstep. This is the giveaway I won from This Mom Quilts a few weeks back. It’s a lovely haul of low volume fabric (including some blueberry park that I’ve been drooling over); some ribbon to bring my gift styling up another notch; a pencil case; some hexie templates and a needle keeper. Thanks Amanda, too generous!

I signed up for the Modern Quilt Guild mini swap and received an email with my partner info on Wednesday. 

One of the suggestions was to make a collage for inspiration for our swap mate. This is mine, clockwise from top left the makers are Libs Elliott, Cynthia from Ahhh Quilting, Wendy from Quiltamour and Svetlana from sotak handmade.

Don’t you just love the way plants will grow in any crack available. This is the lovely delicate looking Australian Native Violet.

Linking up with Amanda at Gypsy Moon Quilt Co for Five Things Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Five Things Friday #4

It’s been a while since I posted a 5 Happy Things list. This is what has been making me smile of late.

It’s spring here and plants are coming back to life. There’s an amazing rampant “green” smell in my backyard at this time of year. Breathe deep - it must be healthy!

Picking up a book at the library can be tricky and I’m sure we’ve all had our share of disappointments so it’s always a bonus when you pick up a good one. This is light-hearted and fun, for the most part. It’s kind of Mary Poppins goes modern and adult (ahem) which probably explains the upside down umbrella on the cover.

I ordered some labels from Australian business Labels and Ribbon so all my lousy label days are behind me. The cheap option doesn’t allow you to add your own logo but there are lots of different fonts to choose from and various designs for the little picture in the corner.

More quilt books from the library. I went through the catalogue of what was available, picked out quite a few and saved them into a list. I was tempted to reserve them all at once but, no, I thought it through for a minute and picked out a couple at a time.

And lastly this fabric which can only be described as high visibility green. I found it at a local fabric and manchester franchise, Textile Traders. They were having a sale, one day only, printed ‘craft’ fabric, $7 per metre! This is such a bargain! Unless you’ve ever fabric shopped in Australia you have no idea, but just for comparison my Local Quilt Stores are selling Kona solids for $20 per metre. I hot footed over there at very least out of curiosity and checked it out. They don’t have a big range but what they do have is current and good quality (in store anyway) and I was extremely tempted but I don’t need any more prints… I hate leaving empty handed don’t you? So I bought some Quilters Cotton solids that I need for upcoming projects and this piece found its way in due to a wave of FOMO which struck as I was leaving. What if I wanted it for something and I couldn’t find it again? Tragic! The bonus was that being the type of store it is they are very generous with their cuts. They measure a little more before they start and add a little more to the end. Happy days!

Linking up with Amanda at Gypsy Moon Quilt Co for Five Things Friday.

Have a great weekend!

Five Things Friday #3

Hello and welcome to my pre-holiday 5 Things Friday. Yes, as of tonight I am on *sings* HOL-I-DAAAYS!! Only for a week and it’s just to get a few things done around the house...

So here’s the plan

Spend a bit of time in the garden. I have started pruning roses, fruit trees, vines and still have a heap to do. I have a really big weeping standard rose in my front yard and it has had a late flush. I jammed some flowers into a vase last weekend and there’s heaps more to go. Gorgeous!

My Cloud 9 bundle of Cirrus solids arrived ready for the 2016 Cloud9 New Block Blog Hop so I’m ready to spend some time on that along with working on my quilt for the Facets Plus Quilt Along.

I’ve picked up a couple of quilting books from my local library so inspiration is at my fingertips.

And most importantly just some relaxing. I love to just hang out and watch the birds in the birdbath.

Hope you have a good week too! Head across to Amanda's blog to see what everyone else has been up to.

Five Things Friday #2

This week I’m linking up with Amanda at Gypsy Moon Quilts for Five Things Friday again.

When I sit down to lunch and take  a break from housework on Sundays there’s been an art show on TV over the last few weeks. They’ve been featuring Australian artists and some of them are photographers. This is where my ears prick up and I start paying attention to see if there are any ideas I can steal experiment with. One idea that featured heavily was the use of mirrors and shiny backdrops. I thought I’d give it a go and so – ta-da! here are my first tries.

The thread spools turned out well

And I liked the way the pins were reflected, along with the underside of these scissors. Finding the right reflection as the “background” is a bit tricky. You have to shift angles to see what works best – corner of room, airconditioning vent… The window and blinds were the winners

Not everything turned out that well. This is my attempt at using two mirrors to create a never-ending expanse of apples. I think that maybe you’re supposed to use three mirrors for this to work properly… It was tricky for me not to appear in the shot with my housework clothes and Sunday hair-do and it took a fair bit of ducking behind things and leaning at odd angles to keep myself out of it.

I’ve been reading blogs where people have been saying they’re retiring to their sewing spaces to escape the heat in the northern hemisphere. For all you guys sweltering away here’s some wintry photos to help you feel a little cooler. These ibis flock to the local wetland area in wet weather and we had a few foggy mornings recently. I love fog. I also absolutely love the cooler months of the year and I think I could find five things to be happy about right there.

And I spotted this shadow of a bare tree against a wall. It’s great when it’s cool enough to sit in the sun and enjoy it.

Sending you all cool thoughts (in a good way).   

Five Things Friday #1

Amanda at Gypsy Moon Quilts opened up her Friday theme of Five Things to be happy about last week. This week I’m joining up as well.

The shire government in my area is running an Instagram contest with cash prizes at the moment (photos with the most likes win – not a hint or anything but instagram love is always gratefully received), so I’ve been out and about snapping photos. Here’s a select few.

Afternoon sun through the vine leaves. It’s just ticked over into winter here; I love the backlit autumn leaves.

There’s a railway history in this area, in fact the suburb I work in was named for the Midland Railway company not vice versa as you may imagine. Back in the ‘90s the railway workshops closed down and since then there’s been a project on to redevelop the area. As a nod to this history there are a number of these metal figures dotted around that represent the workers.

And there’s also a very vibrant organised youth centre that obviously contain some talented graffiti artists because there’s a big number of these graffiti walls in town. This one sits on the back of the parcel sorting depot.

I needed a laugh by the end of last week and this provided it. The automatic door at work malfunctioned and so a post it note was left on it…

And someone obliged J