More Honour blocks and a butterfly or two!

After making a 1/2" hexie butterfly I wanted to go smaller.. so the yellow one is a 3/8" double sided one. Still have to try one with 1/4" hexies. Think I might get very sore fingers!

These are the May Honour quilt blocks.top left William Bernard Biene (18 yrs old) top rightEdward John Rule, bottom left Charles Wyndham Thomas (27yrs old) and  bottom right Thomas de Courcy Meade. 3 out of the four died on 25th July which is a memorable day for us as DD1 was born on that date.

Here are the ones we were given last Wednesday. I spent all weekend sewing these, although easy the bottom right was very time consuming. Like it though. Top left John Clifford Bowers , top right William Brown. His brother Ernest has a block that has already been made. There was another brother, Frank that also enlisted but I don't know if he survived or not. Bottom left Albert Edward Knight and bottom right James Noble Robinson. A circular filled in by his brother in the early 1920's it was noted that James was 33 yrs 364 days old so he died the day before his 34th birthday.

This makes 20 blocks so far out of 49 so it is almost half way done.

Happy Monday everyone.(It is Monday in Australia)

A bit of this and that..

Last Wednesday the twin girls that we expected(DH's niece) arrived so I was able to add their names to the labels. The red bunny is for Charlotte and the orange bunny is for Emma. All finished and ready to be delivered. The red sheep label is on......

...this quilt. I saw the pattern on the internet, it's called "Peek a boo bunny" by Natalie Bird, and I so wanted to get it but thought that I had no real need for it. Boo hoo. I spoke to my MIL and she told me that one of DH's nephews is going to be a dad again in Sept. The pattern was ordered so darn fast. Isn't it cute?? I love it and think that it will be used again.

Once again my camera has been nasty to me. This is a side on view of a Blanket of Love that I am working on. The 8 6" blocks are from the QBSA (as you can see there are 4 hearts) and I added the borders to make it big enough. The small hexie butterfly is one that Jo from ButterZ blog spot told me about. I used 1/2" hexies but I really want to try some in 1/4 " ones. As Jo said they will make great additions to labels.

Hope all of us in Australia have a great long weekend, enjoy cos we don't get another one till that horse race!

QBSA from Kerry

Kerry was my partner in QBSA and on return from retreat these arrived in the post. This block is actually 18" square and the one below is 8"square. Kerry had looked up Blankets of Love to see what I was doing so made one. She apologised for not finishing it off but I can do that and when I send it off she will be given credit for this one. 

This is a small memory block for the quilt.

Retreat a bit late...

Last Friday saw me heading to Toolangi  for the Kilmore Quilters retreat. I took hand sewing and no machine... silly mistake. As you can see Sue was very productive and got her Angry Ladybug quilt finished and it looks fantastic.

This is the view from the sewing room, I didn't attempt the high ropes course that is in the middle.

What a beautiful place to eat lunch. The surrounds were just wonderful and the weather all weekend was stunning. Sometimes the sewing room was a bit too hot as there was a wood heater in the corner and I was sitting very close to it.

I was lucky to be lent a machine and I bought two fat quarters and made this mug bag as a gift for a friend... just need to put a press stud and button on it, then buy a mug and maybe make a coaster with the left over fabric.

I sewed 3 AHHH's, 4 to go in the same design and then see what it looks like.

I also finished off the bottom right stitchery and sewed the one on the bottom left. I love Michelle's designs and I am slowly working my way through this one.

Racey Ladies bus trip

The spoils of a wonderful day out.At 7.20 yesterday morning I was picking up my shopper in arms and setting off for Kilmore. We arrived to a goodie bag with munchies, a raffle ticket, a beautiful scissor keep (which I forgot to photograph) some post it notes and a bottle of water. All set we boarded the bus and set off for Bendigo. Two shops in Bendigo and then on to Maldon where there were thousands of motorbikes and their riders in the main street!!!!! We had a lovely lunch at the pub and then on to the patchwork shop. Leaving Maldon behind we got to Castlemaine and hit the last shop on the list. As I am not a lover of reproduction fabric I refrained from opening my purse. Do love the patterns that she has in that shop though. 

So first buy, a floss holder and one skein of DMC 816 ( wonder what that could be for?)

Second stop, the butterfly fat quarters. DMC 3051 and a huge bag of scraps that were not little scraps but big scraps!!

Maldon saw me get the last 3 fabrics ( under the butterflies) for the Peek-a-boo bunny quilt.Very happy little bunny came home tired but pleased with the purchases. Can't wait for the next bus trip. M & V did a great job on the organisation and I think that everyone had a ball.

I got inventive..

..and found some almost Christmassy green fabric (knew that was in the drawer) and then.. yes I found some red stripey fabric so now my Christmas Tail just needs to be quilted and that is something else finished. I am really happy with the way Michelle's naughty little mouse has turned out.

Wednesday night saw me at Kilmore and the next lot of the Honour quilt blocks. This is Michael Joseph Meagher who died in Egypt aged about 26. I really like this block.

William Laughin Looney He went missing and was found after 3 days on the side of the road with a fractured skull. He died in hospital a few days later. He was only 20 yrs old.

Dominick John Burgess died at age 44 after contracting measles and was buried at sea. A disease we now see as no threat certainly was in 1917. 

Richard Thomas Cooke, had a few punishments in his short career, wounded in action and then sent back to his unit. He died at Flers in France aged 20.While I am enjoying making the blocks it saddens me thinking of the young lives that were so tragically lost.

Having made two bunny quilts exactly the same(twin girls due late May) I saw this pattern for Peek a boo bunnies( Natalie Bird pattern) and was so tempted to buy it but hummed and hawed for a while. A couple of days later I was told that a nephew of DH is going to be a dad again in September. What a  good excuse and as you can see I have the bunnies and the 9 patches sewn. The stripey fabric is where the pink stripes go so now I just have to decide on the fabrics that in the pattern are floral. As I don't know the gender of said baby I don't want to put in pink. Thinking along the lines of gold green and cream. Will see what jumps out at me when I am on a bus trip next Saturday. 

Have a safe Easter.

Some stitching to while away the hours

...sitting in hospital. I have been stitching Michelle's Christmas Tail for a while but managed to finish the last one on Sunday as DD2 slept after surgery. Of course I am out of sync with the seasons so there will be no Christmas fabric around for me to be able to finish this off. Ah well I will just have to get inventive.

Some more of the beginner AHHH's with the last advanced one that I still have to tackle. I had these ones ready to sew for when DD went to hospital but I got to a stage where I just wanted them finished so I did them and then it was off to hospital.

Yesterday I got a lovely parcel from Annette for the QBSA 12" . She also added some lovely buttons, teddy bears, butterfly heart and flower. Lucky me. My silly camera and Picassa managed to not download a picture of the butterfly that I also sewed in hospital. Ah well maybe next time.