Sad news

I have popped in very quickly to ask those of you who pray to send some away for my 33 year old niece. She has 3 children under 4 the youngest not one yet and she has two malignant tumours in her bowel, and it has spread to her liver,lungs and lymph nodes.

I believe we all have a certain time frame that is preordained by fate, the universe, God, something but that doesn't mean you can't fight to push the edges of that frame every step of the way.

Have a wonderful weekend hug your family close and tell them you love them.

daisymum

"Ruffian" update

I had a little time yesterday afternoon and I found some more scraps in my sewing room so I sewed them together and added them to the "Ruffian".

I found a pile of bigger ugly fabric scraps - so I sewed them together for the backing so I am ready to quilt this baby on our quilting retreat in a few weeks.

Tired and hungry just got home from work it has been a long day.....

daisymum

ASPARAGUS and potatoes

So anyone planted asparagus??? Do you leave it in the garden for years or do you pull the crowns each year like daffodils????????

Think I might be in way over my head with this one......but we eat so much of it I figured it would be good to grow it instead of buy it.

So any advice would be greatly appreciated.....

This is the bucket of potatoes I harvested without the garden fork the other day it was kind of therapeutic to dig in the dirt with my hands and come up with these.

I found loads more when I found the garden fork and dug over the beds on Sunday.

daisymum

Apologies ....

I ahve tried all weekend to get that post up about the baskets but I can't so I am sorry you will ahve to trawl back through my posts until you find one for April 10th.

This is the Easter Basket tutorial as I promised.

This Friday - we will be making lunch sacks and mug bags. You will need a couple of fat quarters of fabric (or 2 x 45cm ). A sewing mahcine, something thick for the middle (polar fleece ?) and a button.

daisymum

Ready set ...Christmas!

Someone mentioned on a blog the other day how close Christmas was - it got me to thinking that it would be good to be more organised this year because I am working.

So Friday next week I will begin a series of tutorials for quick gifts to make for Christmas.

I am no expert but I have made loads of things over the years and they sold quite well at the markets I attended. Where possible I will use recycled materials and I will keep the instructions simple. I will not be reinventing the wheel so if there are website out there with great tutorials on a particualr aspect of the job then that is where I will send you to look.

Some will be for machine sewing, some hand sewing, some cooking and just some clever things I have found along the way. You will even be treated to a few original designs.

I say Friday next week because this week to save myself some time I am rehashing an old tutorial I did. No hints but for now DO NOT THROW OUT ANY OLD TOWELS, FLANNELETTE SHEETS, OLD SHIRTS and keep an eye out for end of winter sales in polar fleece, cheerful cotton (or poly cotton - this isn't a quilting class) fabric, and embroidery threads.
Oh and if you see any of that by the metre plastic with the fabric backing that they use for outside tablecloths grab a little bit of that - look for remnants or end of rolls.

Okay that is enough for now........kids are well and back to school today so I am off to work.

daisymum

I've been tagged................

Here I am thinking to myself - the boys are still not well they are staying home from school daisydad will come home at 11 so I can go to a meeting and work this afternoon - what will I blog about today? ( it was going to be something about harvesting 15 kilos of potatoes without the bloody garden fork..)...and along comes Margaret from Margarets Ramblings and tags me. I have to divulge seven things about me that I think are amazing ....


I am tempted to put down that I am still sane but you all know that already so here goes


1: My children are by far my greatest and most enduring achievement daisyson22 is an electrician, daisyson21 has just started a carpentry apprenticeship, daisyson18 works in local hardware store four days a week and studies a uni course via distance education, daisygirl14 is a thoughtful, resourceful and attuned young lady, daisyboy12 is a typical 12 year old with a soft and caring side to his nature that his loudness masks a lot of the time, daisyboy8 is simply gorgeous and perfect he is smart, funny and a demon at gin rummy and canasta!!!, and daisyboy5 is a delight funny, loving and very interested in animals and nature.


2: My husband we met at 15 - he proposed when I was 17 - I refused - he moved away for work - we always remained friends - I married someone else had five kids - my marriage fell apart - daisydad came back - he proposed I figured I wasn't going to get a thrid shot at it so I said yes - I live in a Mills and Boon Novel!!!! He is the most wonderful caring, loving, handsome, dependable perfect man on the planet.


3: I worked out that I have raised over $150,000 for schools and charities working on various commitees and starting up things over the last 10 years. I started the markets here in town and I am very proud of that. Next year we will join the Show society and I will head up the team for our patchwork groups Quilt Show.


4: I surprise myself all the time I am one of those "where Angels fear to tread types" I find myself agreeing or volunteering to do things I know nothing about - and then I think I should be worried but I never seem to be I just do what needs to be done, find an expert when i don't know how and get on with it. Whether it is quilting, cooking gardening, organising anything I look back at some of the things I have taken on and I am truly surprised.


5: I miss my mum she passed away four years ago last week - I thought it might get easier or less painful or something but there is this empty hole inside me.


6: Here I am at 46 and I still want to do another four or five jobs before I shuffle off this mortal coil, I think I would like to be a nurse - not a sick people nurse no patience for that - but a theartre nurse, and I would like to sell and lease commercial real estate, and I would like to own a b&b or maybe the quilting retreat my daisyfriend1 and I keep talking about, oh and I would like to write a book or at least finish one of the three that I have started.


7: I am not looking forward to being a grandmother - my friends are all gaga over babies but to be honest I am over it - I guess it is different when you only have one or two kids or have four really close together they are all over and done with and gone, then they come back with their kids in tow. But I am still the mother of a 5 year old for heavens sake why on earth would I want more babies around. Fortunately there appears to be only a slim chance of that happening so fingers crossed I get a few more "baby free" years.


Now who do I want to tag?????

Life at Castle Cleugh
The old Dairy
Simply Jooz
A vision Splendid
Can you all hear me at the back
The Remote Treechanger
100mile diet in Calgary

No rhyme or reason just time to think.....

At the last quilting retreat Daisyfriend1 gave me these off cuts from a quilt she was putting together. As you can see they are small but for some reason I couldn't let her throw them ...
I don't think its merely that I hate waste - I suspect that I have a bigger aversion to cutting out and the thought of cutting a zillion little triangles - well anything really - never appeals to me.

But being able to sit at the machine and just sew things together - that is pure bliss!!! As those of you who know quilting can see no quarter inch foot just me and some scraps and a sunny afternoon........................perhaps this will be one of the 18th brithday quilts I need to make who knows.

So I've sewn them together and then sewn two of those squares together and so on and so on.....
I've also unearthed some orphan blocks left over from old quilts and some other bits and pieces I just couldn't throw out becasue they are already cut and ready for an afternoon of sewing.

Some made these they are quite big about 8inches square.

There is something very liberating about just sewing scraps. I have already mentioned I hate cutting out - there is such a responsibility in getting out a new piece of fabric and measuring and cutting and checking - but with scraps it doesn't really matter does it?? After all, they are already just one step away from being binned so if something gorgeous (or I-can-live-with-that) doesn't emerge you can relax but cutting into hundreds of dollars worth of new fabric? You need to think and plan and all that stuff before you get to the fun bit.

So while I sewed - I have composed this blog in my head ready to publish tomorrow (today), worked out what we are having for dinner all this week and what I need to buy, planned my work day and sketched out the week, and decided that this will not be a gift quilt it will be a quillow for daisyson12. I have also worked out what pattern I will make the 18th birthday quilts and what fabrics I will use.

And I have come to the conclusion that sewing scraps is very therapeutic for me, I might even trim them into real sizes (but then again maybe i won't!)

Not sure what they will all look like once they are together but they will all be together soon. All those little bits are now bigger bits, so now it is just nutting out a layout of sorts to accomodate all of them - after all I don't want any leftovers!!!!!!!

Imagine having enough fabric to make a whole quilt top in four or five little ziplock bags!!! It never ceases to amaze me. I even have a name for this quilt "the ruffian" which works on so many levels (lol).

daisymum

PS: the vege garden didn't get a look in, but I did make two loaves of bread, a casserole and a cake.