Gum Valley Patchwork

Bon Voyage Emma

Well it has been very hectic over the last few days, which hasn’t given me anytime to get on and post anything. The sale on Saturday went very well, with quite a few ladies calling in and stocking up on fabric for those projects over winter and beyond. The way the weather has been lately it would be lovely to just be able to sit by the fire and stitch. But alas it is calving time for us on the farm and my sewing will now be restricted to the days when I’m at the shop. It’s cows and calves first and everything else has to fit in around them. Although I do have to squeeze in a stocktake in there somewhere!

I did have the milking off last night, which is a rare occurrence at this time of the year. I drove our eldest, Emma, to the airport to catch her flight to Birmingham, England where she will spend 12 weeks working at the Heart of England Hospital. Emma was excited but also very nervous as it is the first time she has flown anywhere on her own. As I type this she will almost be at Dubai, so it won’t be long until she’s in England. I was even surprised when I got a hug from her – something I haven’t had since she was about 4. I hear a lot of you gasp – but that’s just Emma, no kisses or hugs.

It will be a fantastic opportunity and I’m sure she’ll have a great time.

I also took Hannah to Melbourne to stay for a few days as she has an interview on Tuesday for a cadetship with a large firm in the city. Like Emma, she was also excited and very nervous, but I'm sure she'll do her best.

Thank you to everyone who has joined my BOM. The first month will be ready for collection (or will be posted) from this Thursday 3rd July. Please remember if you are having any trouble with it just pop back into the shop and I can show you what to do. It's not too late to join up - if you are interested please let me know.

Finally I'd like to say a special hello to my mum who is learning how to use email and the internet thanks to my niece. Lillian has been instructing Mum and has even created a shortcut to my blog for her. Have a great time blogging and surfing Mum.  

Linda    :)

Down and gone....

Mothers – where would teenagers be without them. Our eldest daughter, Emma, texted me yesterday with an SOS. She lost one of her lenses out of her glasses – down the toilet and it was flushed away for eternity! "What will I do Mum?" Normally it wouldn’t be such a big problem except she flies out to England on Sunday for 12 weeks and doesn’t have a spare pair. A few phone calls later (and the visa card number), it was all sorted. Emma will have new glasses and won’t have to wear her sunnies to watch the TV.

For anyone who likes a bargain – I am having a Stocktake Sale on Saturday 28^th June from 10am til 4pm. There will be 20% off all stock – even the specials rack.

I will be closed on Sunday 29^th so I can take Emma to the airport and see her off. I know we are going to miss her but with email etc it will make it easy to keep in touch.

Linda    :)

Still printing...

Well I shouldn’t have said it. I was on the last page, printing was going along fine and then……Replace Toner…..Aahhh. So I ended up in Warrnambool today buying new toner for the printer. So as I sit here and type this post, the last of the pages for the newsletter are printing out. They will be in the post tomorrow – promise. In the meantime if you can’t wait for the postie, I have listed the classes I will be running in an album. So just click on it to see what’s available. Lenora                                                ( www.lenorajenkinsdesigns.typepad.com ) will be taking a one day class in October for her beautiful (and practical) ‘Send a Christmas Wish’ Quilt. It’s on a Sunday too!

While I was in Warrnambool, I just had to go to the nursery. Russell was with me and we had the ute! It was perfect timing to get those extra fruit trees that I needed to fill up the orchard at the shop. They are currently sitting in the vegie garden – I will plant them tomorrow.

I bought another peach, a walnut, a pomegranate, another black mulberry and a snow apple. When I saw the apple I just had to have it. It brought back lovely memories of my Grandfather who had a big orchard with lots of old fruit trees - one of which was a snow apple. They were a beautiful little apple with nice red streaks and the whitest and crispiest flesh. I also had to have another black mulberry too. Grandad had a lovely big old tree that we used to play under and in February each year the fruit would ripen and stain our hands as we picked them. The taste of the first mulberry of the season was unforgettable – sour but delicious. I also had silkworms as a kid (under my bed of course) and they lived in an old shoebox and lived on mulberry leaves. Do kids do that anymore?

I also bought an outdoor table

 

to match my seat that I got last year.

 

I don’t think that I’ll get a chance to use it anytime soon but it will be nice when Spring arrives in 3 months time!

I’d better get back to stapling and folding newsletters.

Linda    :)

One down 50 to go.....

I have finally finished my newsletter and am in the process of printing it off as I type this post. I have had a few hiccups with the printer and have found out that it is because of the ‘size’ of the photos. Not quite sure how to change this so will try and work around it at the moment.

I had some of the ladies from the Colac Quilters visit the shop yesterday as part of their bus trip. They spent about an hour browsing & buying, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t nice enough for a walk around the garden. I hope that they enjoyed their day with their afternoon activities including visits to Heytesbury Ridge Winery, Apostle Whey Cheese and G.O.R.G.E Chocolates.

Russell (dh) is involved in go-karting and has spent his weekend stewarding at a race meeting at the Warrnambool Kart Club. This afternoon, while he was away we had our first cow calve for the year. It always seems to be that these things happen when he goes away. So Hannah & I hooked up the trailer on the motorbike and headed off to bring them home from the paddock. It was a lovely heifer calf for me to rear so I guess my ‘holiday’ (ie sleep ins til 7am) is now over. One down and hopefully another 50 heifer calves to come.

Ahhhhhh, I just realised that I've made a mistake on the newsletter. >:-(  Oh well -  it's too late now that 170 have been printed out. I just hope that there's enough toner to print off the last 2 pages. Touch wood - or it will be a trip to Warrnambool tomorrow. I'd better make a start on stapling and folding them ready for posting.

Linda     :)

Lenora's new patterns

Not a lot to report on today - still trying to get the newsletter finalised. Lenora has finished her latest 3 patterns and I will have them and kits available at the shop from Saturday. In the meantime check out Lenora's blog for her photos and a competiton to win one of her newly released patterns.

Linda   :)

An inside day

I have spent the best part of today inside perched in front of the computer madly trying to get all of the information collated for my newsletter and class list. I do get easily distracted though, bouncing from the newsletter across to pattern writing, onto the BOM info and then there's the blog. I should really stick to one thing and get it finished. Then I decided to update some of the info on my blog, including my contact details which I did not have listed (thanks Judy for pointing that out to me). I have a new photo album of Gail Pan’s kits and patterns that I have available. Not all of Gail’s patterns are listed in the album, but I do have lots more of her patterns for fabulous projects in the shop. The photo below is my version of Gail's 'All things Christmas'. I chose to make just 12 of the 16 blocks up so that it would fit nicely on the wall at the shop at Christmas time. The kit contains enough fabric for the full sized quilt.

I have also included the Block of the Month Sampler Quilt details in an album. It is very reasonably priced and works out at about $15 per month for 2 blocks a month, so if you are interested check it out.

I did have a break from the computer this afternoon when dh asked me for help with a concreting job at the dairy. After one and a half hours of back breaking work we decided that we won’t give up our day job of milking cows and take on concreting as a career.

Linda     :)

The finished BOM Sampler Quilt

I managed to unpack all of the ‘Peace on Earth’ fabric on Saturday and then had to decide where I was to put them all. So I re-arranged a little bit, stacked a bit, squished a little bit, and I did it. The shop is only small but it now looks quite full.

As promised I have finished the BOM Sampler Quilt. I must admit I agonised over which fabric to use for the final border. I don’t usually find it a difficult process but with so many fabrics in the range to choose from it did take me a while to decide. The brown paisley won – I kept going back to it, which is usually a good sign that you like something (a bit like that block of chocolate in the pantry!) So here it is:

I will post all of the details of the BOM in the next couple of days.

Rhys called in this afternoon to show me all of the new fabrics due out in September / October for Moda etc. He arrived at the Shop just as the 'Material Girls' were about to have their cuppa (with some hedghog) so the girls got to meet the second most important man in my life - the guy who sells me all of the fabric! Well there are sooo many lovely new fabrics (as well as some "I can’t believe anyone would buy that" ones too). I have ordered the 9 flannels from the ‘Charisma’ range by Chez moi, as well as 20 bolts (+ jelly rolls, layer cakes & charm packs) from the ‘Butterfly Fling’ range by Me & My Sister. Also on order, with delivery expected soon, are 3 new extra wide backing fabrics in blue, green & cream from the ‘Peace on Earth’ range. I will let everyone now when it arrives.

Linda      :)

Guess what's arrived......

Isn’t it amazing how much fabric can brighten up even the worst day. Today has been one of those terrible days. It all started at 2am this morning when the phone rang and it was dh at the other end telling me he had had a slight bingle in the car and was at the Colac Police Station. He had been trying to ring me for about an hour but I was sound asleep and didn’t hear the phone ringing (I am also very good at sleeping through the radio alarm). So off to Colac I headed. To cut a long story short – he fell asleep at the wheel, lucky it was in a 60km zone and that the road wasn’t busy, ran off the road, skidded along a fence and hit a power pole. He climbed out with not a scratch on him but the car is a right off. So needless to say we didn’t have very much sleep and today I have felt like I’ve been running at about 50%. I got home, walked in the back door and voila – 3 large boxes of fabric!!! It is the new ‘Peace on Earth’ range by 3 Sisters. I have used the samples they sent me to make up the 20 blocks for my new ‘blocks of the month’ sampler quilt (see previous posts). This is great news for all who have been waiting for me to finish off the quilt and release the patterns. I will work on it over the weekend and will hopefully have the quilt top ready to show everyone early next week. As Hannah would say – "I’m just so excited!" - (but I don’t quite know where I’m going to fit them all in the shop).

The Material Girls will be back on Monday afternoon and I have just finished cutting out all of their kits ready for sewing. It is a table cloth using some of the ‘Shangri La’ range of fabrics. Here’s a sneak peak

 

I rescued the poppies yesterday before all of the wind – they look so nice and crisp.

Well I'm off to unpack the fabric - yeah.

Linda    :)

New page & album

I have just added a new page to my site called ‘The Garden’. It has a few pictures and some information about the garden at the Shop. Often when people visit the shop they ask me if I live there. I don’t – but I suppose they ask because the garden is so large and looks quite nice (if I do say so myself). Unfortunately the same cannot be said about my garden at home – I like to describe it as a natural native garden (feral more like it!). So if you are into gardening have a look. I will try and take some better photos in the spring time when the perennials and bulbs are flowering.

I have also included a new photo album for Margaret & Wendy from Clever Ducks Quilting Co. So check it out and scroll through the photos (in order) for more details of what the girls do.

That’s it for today as I still have a lot of computer work / pattern writing to do. Think I'll have tea first though.

Linda   :)

New fabric tease

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, last week I received the latest catalogue from Moda. Well I have managed to scan a few pictures of the fabrics that I talked about. Here is just a little tease to get those fingers twitching.

‘Charisma’ by Chez Moi

‘Bistro’ by Deb Strain – I have already ordered some from this range but not just in the reds and blacks. There are also latte, expresso, aqua and green colourways of some of the prints/patterns. (arriving in October)

‘Butterfly Fling’ by Me & My Sister – just a selection of the pink/whites.

I'm sorry that the pictures aren't as clear as they should be - damn scanner. But at least they are better than nothing!

Linda     :)