And the winning bids.....Back from Tasmania and lots to do

The Queensland Flood Relief Auction for my items closed at 9pm tonight.  A big thanks to Diana for her winning bid for Popsicle the Penguin and also to Regina for her winning bid for my Queensland Blue Quilt.  I look forward to hearing from you girls to finalise the transaction but in the interim thank you and everyone else for being so generous!  If anyone didn't win an auction and still wants to get in on the action there are plenty of raffles still on the go so get over the the master list and check them out - there will be a master list of the all the raffles on Toni's blog tomorrow morning.


Phew!  Well I am back from down south in picturesque Tasmania.  I didn't exactly do much sight seeing - did manage to take in four quilt shops - more on that tomorrow.  What I did do was spend time catching up with my good friend Mary, an old Gumnut Quilter who retired to Tassie with her husband a little over a year ago.  This was the first time I have been down there to see her and enjoy her gorgeous new home. We had a ball!  I will tell more about the Quilt shops tomorrow night - tonight I want to focus on the sewing.  Yes, we did lots of sewing.

On Saturday, after visiting some shops and having a nice lunch out we came home and got started.  Mary's youngest daughter spent Saturday moving house in Sydney so Mary and I spent Saturday making her a house warming present - what else?  A quilt!

 I really am going to have to invest in a better camera as this one just doesn't give the lovely clear pictures that I am seeing on lots of other blogs ....still back to the subject at hand.  This was made up of a centre medallion of lovely butterfly fabric and then surrounded with disappearing nine patch blocks (a block I have only discovered since following lots of other blogs and i love it so thanks to everyone who had featured one!)  I received all these blocks over a period of years as 5" squares from various quilt shops.  Now they have all been put to good use.

 As we sewed we were closely supervised at all times by Hamish - the gorgeous!

After we finished the Asian inspired quilt we sat in Mary's sewing room looking thru all her UFO's deciding what we would sew the next day and to Mary's surprise we stumbled across a baby quilt that Amy had started before her son Liam, now almost two, was born.  She has since gone on to complete an absolutely gorgeous quilt for him but it just so happens that she is about two weeks away from delivering baby son number two.  Of course Mary and I decided that this was the perfect time to complete the baby quilt.

Amy had completed the centre panel with the exception of an eye for the duck and a couple of other details so Mary and I did the pinwheels and borders.  The letters and numbers had already been made and just needed to be ironed on and Mary will do the button hole stitch around them.  Mary is coming up to Sydney on Friday so she will be able to give Amy the quilt top then and finish it while she is here.  Amy will get a real shock as we think she has forgotten about it!

Mary also gave me this little pretty - it doesn't show up but the centre blocks are a cute cat print.  Just a couple of borders and some quilting and this will be off to Queensland with the quilts that Corrie over at Retro Mummy is organising - Quilts for those who lost everything in the flood. 

 Mary also gave me these twenty five attic window blocks that she has had for ages and I have laid them on red to decide if I like it.  These will also be going to Queensland once completed.

While still on that subject when I got home from Tassie I knew I would have to get stuck into quilting two other Quilts for Queensland. Last Tuesday Gumnuts Quilters had a sewing bee and we got three quilt tops as good as completed and then another member made a fourth on her own.  Today I quilted two, both of which as so similar that I am only including the photo of one - the hand sewing is still needed on the binding but you get the idea.

I have to say that I really like this quilt and I hope the children who receive it and it's twin like them too - to me there is just so much to look at with all the novelty fabrics - a bit like a Where's Wally (or Waldo for the Americans)

I still have a heap of sewing caddies to make -  Starting over Kits being coordinated over at Gum Tree Designers -  more on that in the next few days.  I have a Gumnuts Sewing Bee tomorrow to complete all the quilts we have started for Queensland and then on Wednesday my husband has invited an old business friend out from lunch so most of the day will be taken up with getting lunch ready.  More on that later too.

Hope all is well with you all - I have missed my blog and blogging buddies over the last few days and it has been great to get back and catch up on what all of you have been doing.

Till next time

Happy stitching!