Wednesday 21 September 2011

Its a quilting calendar with a difference

If you like your quilts to come with shirtless men and spicy burritos then this is the calendar for you!

Its the Quilters Shirtless Man and Spicy Burrito Calendar!!


Yep you read that right and its full of real men, real quilts and mostly real burritos.

All I can say is that Mr February is particularly close to my heart.....

For more information have a look here,  all quilters hubbys too.


Tuesday 6 September 2011

Puffing Billy

Sunday was Fathers Day and this of course meant bacon and eggs on toast for breakfast.  I actually managed to wake up early to do this and give Dave a sleep in!
We decided to have a big day out and spend the day at Puffing Billy in Belgrave.   We took the train from Belgrave to Lakeside, then had a picnic lunch and had a turn on the paddle boats.  Hard work that.
Its a bit of a tradition to sit with your legs hanging out of the train, our boys loved it.  Then I turned around and saw this!!

Nate was very concerned about Dave doing this, he was worried that it might tip the train over!! ROFL!!!

Saturday 3 September 2011

Farmers Wife Pony Club


I have loved doing the Farmers Wife Sampler over the past year.   A friend got me onto it as a block of the month and its been a challenge but well worth it.  While doing this I have joined two online groups, one on yahoo and the other on flickr, both groups have inspired me along the way.

The author of the Farmers Wife Sampler was Laurie Arron Hird and she has just released her new book.

Its called the Farmers Wife Pony Club Sampler and its gorgeous.
Here's a little bit about the book:

"The Farmer's Wife Pony Club Sampler Quilt--Letters From the Lucky Pony Winners of 1915 and 90 Blocks That Tell Their Stories, by Laurie Aaron Hird; release date: July 2011

In 1907 the Webb Publishing Company of St. Paul, Minnesota, created The Farmer's Wife Pony Club. Children were invited to join and compete for prizes by selling subscriptions to The Farmer's Wife magazine. The grand prize was a Shetland pony with a saddle, bridle, and often a carriage. To satisfy skeptics who doubted a child would, indeed, receive a pony, they asked the winners to send photographs of themselves with their ponies. Thankfully, many children also sent thank you letters along with their photographs. These endearing, poignant, and sometimes hilarious letters provide a unique window into the lives of children in rural America in the early 1900s.

As a tribute to these Lucky Pony Winners, Laurie Aaron Hird has taken 90 traditional 8" blocks and designed a queen-size quilt in their memory. "

Her quilt has lots of novelty fabrics.   My FWS is being done in 1930's and I still have to decide just what sort of fabrics I am going to use for the Pony quilt.

The plan is to make one for each of my young blokes, one with a blue base and the other with a red base.  I already have quite a few novelty fabrics but I am not sure I am going to go that way.  Possible I might end up doing just blue/white and red/white..not sure.

Once again there are groups on both flickr and yahoo. Both are offering quilt alongs which is a great way to inspire me to keep getting blocks done!

There are shops that are doing BOM's of this quilt.  Here are a couple that I know of,  starting in October so be quick.

Hidden Quilts.com  BOM using novelty fabrics inspired by the original quilt

Homestead Hearth.com  BOM in two colour ways, either 1900's repros or Batiks which would be stunning I think!

The book is available through the farmers wife quilt site as well as through most major bookstores.   I have ordered mine from Laurie, she also signs them for you which is a bit of a thrill...LOL

Laurie also has a blog about both quilts.

Disclaimer: no brown paper bags of money or fabric have changed hands for me to do this write up.  I merely want to let you know about the new book!

Farmers Wife QAL Week 14

Well its week 14 of the Farmers Wife quilt along and I have slowed down a bit this week.   We have been over at our block a lot as the slab for our basement was laid out this week.  This is the start of our house build and gets us closer to having my special sewing room upstairs.

I have managed to finish two blocks, block 79 Silver Lane and 80 Single Wedding Star.  I get my fabrics through a block of the month at Homestead Hearth.   I am usually pretty happy with their selections but occasionally I make a change.   My single wedding star had a scotty dog fabric that had a white background with blue dogs instead of the floral but I just didn't like the way it looked.  I think the floral looks way better, what do you think?

Silver Lane


Single Wedding star

Thursday 1 September 2011

Death by Cookie

Went to a friends house today and her teenage daughter offered my young blokes a cookie.  This was not any ordinary cookie...it was a cookie in a cookie that she cooked!!  Naturally my sons loved it.  It was a choc chip cookie topped with an oreo cookie and the covered with another choc chip cookie then baked so it all sort of melted together!!!!!  I didn't try one because I was afraid I would keel over from the sugar overload...and I love chocolate....LOL