Gum Valley Patchwork

For my US followers

I am very happy to let all of my US followers know that my 'Dear Prudence' book is now available for purchase at two Shops in America.....Sweet Home Quilt Co. and Paper Pieces.

I met Melisa from the Sweet Home Quilt Co. in Conyers, Georgia when I attended Spring Quilt Market in Kansas City last year. Gail and I went on a little road trip with Melisa, Roseann, and Kelli Ann around the quilt shops and had a fabulous day......lots of fun and lots of laughs. Melisa has the book listed here.....and they are all autographed too!

The ladies from Paper Pieces in Sycamore, Illinois approached me about stocking my book about a month ago. I have been stocking their hexagon papers for a while now and I am very excited to say that they have received their shipment of my book. Please contact the ladies if you would like to order one from them.

And if you are not in the US but would like to order the book, it is available here.

Linda    :)

 

Midwinter Reds

'Midwinter Reds' is a beautiful new range of fabrics from Minick & Simpson for Moda.

I must admit as soon as I saw this featured on their blog I knew that I just had to order it for the shop!

I have a couple of ideas for some projects to make from it......a new BOM and a hand pieced project.

For lovers of red, cream and beige, Laurie & Polly's new range won't disappoint.

Unfortunately the pre cuts won't be available until September when the full range of 40 prints arrives.....I'm afraid you will all have to be patient!

Linda     :)

Dear Prudence Blog

A few days ago I decided to start a new blog that will enable anyone that is making their own version of my 'Dear Prudence' quilt to share it with others. If you are one of these stitchers and would like to contibute to the blog, please send though your details and a photo. You can send in progressive 'reports' and photos too.

The blog is here, and although there isn't much there at the moment I hope that there will be lots of stories and photos in the future.

Linda   :)

Apple Pies vs Apple Cider

For many years it has been an annual ritual for me to make homemade apple pies from our homegrown apples. I have some apple trees that I planted years ago at the farm and every year my lovely big Jonagold apple tree produces boxes and boxes of beautiful big sweet and juicy apples for me. As the name suggests it is a cross between a Jonathon and a Golden Delicious and it has never had a bad year. But this year I have had to compete against someone else who also wants 'my' apples......Russell! He has been eyeing them off for a batch of apple cider. He used some Gravenstein apples earlier in the year but they fermented too quick and the cider went down the drain. The first press he made out of this trummel (?) didn't work well either.

This time he made up a pack press with racks and a form for the 'cheeses'.

After all of the pulp was used it was time to put the top rack on and the jack in place.

With all prototypes there will be a few adjustments and tweeks needed.....the first being the form needs to be a bit smaller to stop all of the overhang of the 'cheeses'. It has now had the yeast added and we are waiting to see whether this batch will be a success or not.

And if it does work we will have 45 litres of our first batch of cider to enjoy. And if it doesn't at least we will still have the 15 Apple Pies!

Linda    :) 

They are everywhere

For a very long time we have been fans of Star Trek. I must admit that we are not full blown Trekkies, I think a Star Fleet uniform just wouldn't look as good on this body as it does on Jeri Ryan's! Over the years we have watched all of the Star Trek TV shows and the spin off series like Star Trek Next Generation; Deep Space Nine; Voyager; and Enterprise, along with all of the Movies. I have even named some of our Bulls after the characters: Cisco, Odo, Paris, Nelix, Tuvok, Q, Janeway, Archer, Trip, Flox,and of course Kirk, Spock and McCoy. I have been waiting for a couple of months for the newest movie and last night we went to Colac and saw Star Trek Into Darkness. As we sat in the theatre watching as the opening scene started I leaned over to Russell and said...."look hexagon shaped paving stones!"

Linda   :)

PS. The movie was excellent.

How I spent Mothers Day

Last year we built the extension onto the shop. The idea was to move the classroom downstairs to make it easier for ladies who were doing classes and using the room for sewing get-togethers....tick. Then when if we sell the farm we will live upstairs. In the meantime I would use upstairs as my work area.....cross. I found that once I moved the class supplies downstairs my sewing machines quickly followed and then it was just easier for me to sew in the new room. Meanwhile upstairs was used as a storage place and got incredibly messy, especially while I was getting organised for and returning from AQC. As I didn't want to be featured on an episode of 'Hoarders' or found dead underneath a collapsed pile of fabric, kits and other quilting stuff, on Saturday I tackled this.....

Two rooms in two days was my mission. I was ruthless with some of those old unfinished projects......I asked myself a few questions....Do I still like it? Do I want to finish it? Have I got time to finish it? If I answered 'No' to all three questions it got thrown in the rubbish bag......and yes I did throw quite a few out!

By 4pm on Sunday afternoon the rooms now looked like this.....

And no I did not push it all up one end of the room! .......although the big pile of rubbish is in the other room behind the door. It's 'tip day' on Tuesday so I will be loading up the ute tomorrow and off it will go. The next job will be to bring my sewing machines back upstairs and to clean up the Classroom ready for classes. Yes the Class List is being worked on at the moment, more details soon.

Linda   :)

PS. Now I probably won't be able to find anything!

Hexagon Papers

During the week I received a big box of hexagon papers from Paper Pieces.

I have a variety of sizes available, which include 1/4" , 3/8" , 1/2" , 3/4" , 1" , 1  1/4" , and 1  1/2". There are three different sized packs - Bulk , Large , and Small, and they have been uploaded onto my online shop here for those who live further away. Russell is helping me to make up a display rack for the packs but in the meantime the rest of them are still in their box.

Linda    :)

Bigger than it looks!

I have little ones

I have round ones

I have squares ones

I have ones with handles

I have ones with writing on them

And I have a new one that is much bigger on the inside than it looks!

Linda   :)

 

Kenny's party

Last night Russell and I attended a party with a difference......Kenny Kidney's 10th Birthday celebration. We enjoyed a wonderful 3 course banquet style meal at the Nonna Casalinga Restaurant in Warrnambool. We talked, laughed, ate and drank the night away as we celebrated the 10th anniversary of my brother Peter's partner, Andy's kidney transplant. We toasted Kenny for being a wonderfully strong kidney......we toasted Andy for being such an inspiration to us all......we toasted the donor and his family for their generous gift and making it possible for Andy to be still with us today......and we all agreed that everyone should be an organ donor.

We are all looking forward to Kenny's 18th birthday in 2021.......marking it on the calender now!

Linda    :)   

Simply Christmas projects

Over the weekend I decided to make up a couple of the lovely projects from Gail's new book, Simply Christmas 2013. The first is the cute little Gift Bag. A stitchery design with a little wool applique is the feature of the bag.

The other project I made was the Starry Night Table Runner. This time I quilted with some of the red Cosmo Stitch Work thread and was really happy with the different look that it gave.

I ran out of time to get the binding done, but it won't take long to finish it off.

Linda   :)