REDWORK REDWORK REDWORK!!!!

Its been pretty hectic around here in the land of OZ. Luke is growing so fast, he is a little boy running around the house and outside in the garden in the spring sun. It seems like it was just last month he was crawling around the house. Its crazy how time passes so fast once you have kids! So not only Luke keeps me on my toes throughout the day, renovations have begun here too. Which means, money is tight, trades man coming and going and chaos rains in my little kingdom. Our bathroom renovations have come to a halt because of lack of fund and of tiles due to no more funds to buy more tiles but most of Luke's bathroom is done. Renovation in Luke's bathroom will commence again in November but our roof and ceiling will be fixed next month because May's freak storm damaged both.

Spring has finally arrived here in OZ and all the flowers are blooming, magpies are starting to swoop and the days are becoming warmer. Most of you know that we have a big back yard which has been neglected for years from the previous owners, so with spring here, there is a lot of work to be done in the garden. Rob took this week off, so we could do a so needed spring cleaning in and outside our house. So since Saturday we have been busy outside picking weeds with Luke and trimming back some of the bushes. Also I have been busy with my herb and veggie patch, adding some compost to the ground and planting some seedlings. Hopefully my zucchini seedlings with flourish and all my flower seedlings too.  

So you must be wondering why my post reads Redwork instead of gardening galore? Because I finally started on Kim's wall quilt, she just had her third baby girl a couple of weeks ago!!! So I am making for all three little ones a Redwork wall hanging. Its coming along great, considering I have never done any embroidery before, but pretty much its all straight stitch in red embroidery cotton thread, a no brainer really. If you would like to know more about the history of Redwork go here.So as you all can see, its been pretty busy around here. I will post some photos once the quilt is finished because I don't want to spoil the surprise for Kim, this also goes for the photos of the renovations seeing its not ready yet. Here are some more photo of Redwork but not made from me.Well take care everyone.

                                                       Life at Rosemary Hill

                                                                     Bunny Tales

                                                                      Agulhas da Meri

                                                                     Stitching Cow

                                                                    Feeling Stitchy

                                                              A cup and a catch up...

                                                    

Perth 2010 Quilting Show!

My poor blog is so neglected that its not funny anymore. But its been a very busy beginning of the year and I am really trying to update it as much as I can; its just that during the day Luke wont let me near the computer. If I am at the computer just to check my email very quickly I get a little demanding boy crying by my side wanting to play with my keyboard. Not only that, Rob got me the new Samsung mobile with the touch screen, which I was happy but when we installed the software in my laptop it just crashed my windows explorer! Thank god I have a smart husband because he managed to save all my documents, photos and songs but we will need to re-install windows again! I was so peeved that every time I look at the phone I get upset, not only that; the bloody thing doesn't work properly so I cant send any email just receive, apparently I am not the only one with all these problems!!! We are at the moment seeing if we can return the bloody thing and get an iphone for me instead.

Any way this weekend was really great! We had our annual WA quilt show. I spend the whole Sunday from 9-5 buzzzy like a bee around wonderful creative quilts and also beautiful fabrics, gadgets and quilt notions. Bought some really neat tools, like the adjustable quilting rulers. It is an Ozzy invention check out the video...its pretty neat. It was pricey but will make my live easier when quilting. Got two nice books with Jelly Roles patterns which of course I got one Jelly Role fabric pack also so I can make a quilt for my bed. I found some cheap $1 wooden buttons which was a bargain. Got some cute Christmas embroidery to make cute tree hangings. Got a wonderful Bias making tool from clover.  I could go on and on but the rest was just small things nothing too flashy. Rob took care of Luke and called me around 13:00 pm to see how everything was going and asking how much longer I would stay...hahaha I told till it closed. Luke is teething at the moment, his molars are all coming out at once so he is very cranky. Poor Rob was completely exhausted when I got home at 17:00pm. So I made a nice dinner for my two special guys and cuddle up with them in front of the telly.

Well I hope you all enjoy the pictures of the quilt show and have fun with Lukes walking video...its pretty funny. Big hugs to all.

Hello hello from OZ... anyone out there!!!!

Hello my fellow bloggers.....I have missed my little blog very much!!! Sorry again for the strong case of disappearance that has been keeping me away form my beloved little blog. Can't stress enough how being a mom has truly changed my life. Gone are the spare hours that I had to add nice pictures of holidays to the blog or great recipes that I tried one afternoon or even better yet, the little craft projects that I used to do. But don't worry I might be less frequent on my posts but they still will be added with great pleasure, just not as frequent!!! So much has happened, cant believe that it has only been 2 months since my last post (it feels like 6 months!!).

OK... update on the baby front. Luke is growing so fast, he is not a newborn anymore, each day he discovers something new in this big wide world of ours. He is such a good baby, cant complain at all. He sleeps through the night and always wakes up with such a big beautiful smile in his little face. I wish I could wake up with such a smile in my face every morning, it truly makes you appreciate your life more, he is only 4 months old and already he is giving me life lessons. He is a very content little boy who always smiles and giggles, I'm in love...really! Motherhood has been one of the best decision of my life, really cant complain at all ....I am loving it!

On the craft front... I have been busy making baby pants which I got a tutorial made by a great fellow blogger Jessica who created it just for me (isn't she awesome!!!). Here is the link to her tutorial (http://balancingeverything.com/2009/04/21/how-to-make-easy-baby-and-kid-pants/), check out her blog is just great! Will post pictures of the baby pants that I made for Luke and some for Kim's new baby boy that I made but it will have to be another time cause didn't have the time to take the pictures of it yet...sorry guys. Also I made a baby blanket/quilt for Kim's little baby boy which also I have no pictures....naughty Alex!!!

A couple of weeks ago I took the day of from Luke, it was a Sunday and the Quilt show was in town here in Perth. So my mother in law and I spend the day with wonderful quilts and wonderful fabrics to buy. It was great but cant say I didn't miss my little guy...it was the first time we were apart and it was a little weired. I kept calling Rob to check if everything was under control. But apart from that, I just had a great time. All the beautiful quilts gave me so much inspiration to make new quilts and new little projects. Oh and I bought such fantastic Japanese fabrics, they are so cute but also have not had the chance to take some pictures of the fabrics so all of you could have a look. But I did already upload the pictures from the quilts in the show so I hope you all enjoy it. Really Australian quilters are so incredibly creative and artistic, I'm so lucky to be able to see there work.

In another note my brother is getting married tomorrow but sadly we had to cancel our trip to go back to Holland because we could only get really crappy flights which would mean that we would have a 32 hour trip in total to get there and also a 32 hours trip on the way back and I just could not do such a long trip alone back with Luke. So sadly we wont be able to share on his happy day with Vivianne but we will be there in spirit! My father has come to us for 10 days and I can really say I was proud of him, he is 75 and managed a long trip to see his grandson. It was very nice to have him here with me. Now my mom has to come and visit also hopefully in September she will be able to come for a visit. We are also planning to go to Holland next year in Spring.

Well that is all the news that I can think of at the moment so till the next post hopefully it wont be too long. Enjoy the slide show of Perth's Quilt Show.

Luca's Quilt in Progress

I was waiting till I moved to my new home to start Luca's quilt which I promised him he would receive for Christmas but my mother in law just gave me the extra push I needed to start. I reached for the stars for inspiration on this one and I already had all the fabric tones that I wanted to use, just got some extra material from my mother in law. I started by washing all the fabric that I was going to use seeing it was kept in boxes for half a year. When I hanged all the fat quarters outside to dry I realised that this quilt will be very very special. I am sure Luca's will love it and use well in his new home in France. After some color matching and some cutting I kept all pieces separate for each star. It does make the whole process easier and I am thankful for Tiiu's tip on this one. So I hope you all enjoy the small slide show of the progress so far and hopefully soon I will be able to post the end result! Enjoy.

Leo's Quilt is Ninshed

Wow, I have not been posting for a while now, sorry everyone! Just MY HUSBAND (hahahah I still cant get used to that word) and I are again on the move so things have been busy, busy, busy!!! We are leaving Fredrick Maryland USA on the 8th of April -sniff sniff. We are going back to Holland for two months just to finalize everything and then we are heading to BRAZIL for our honeymoon!!!! Oh I cant wait! For the ones who don't know I was born in Brazil and lived there till I was 20 years old than I moved to Holland were I stayed for 10 years and also where I met my HUSBAND Rob.

We met great people and made very good friends while living here in the USA this year, we will miss everyone very much. Not only that, but we will leave one family member behind: LUNA our pet ferret. I am very sad but she wont be able to go to Australia (they are forbidden to enter the country) with us, which is our final destination. So this goodbye will be very painful to me indeed. But for all it 's worth we found Luna a very good foster mom (Rita) who will take care of her very very well. Luna already met her and loves her place so it makes me a little less sad knowing my little girl is in good hands.

But enough of sad stories this post is actually to share with all of you Leos quilt which I finally finished and its on its way to France with Uta, Lance, Leo, Lucas and Colin (Miss them all so much too!) I really was happy with the end result. My mother in law helped me finish it which I really appreciate it because if it wasn't for her the quilt would have not been ready before Uta left the US. Leo really loved it and immediately wrapped himself around it! And as he would say "Leo's quilt is NINSHED!!!!" Have a look and let me know what u think. Please keep in mind, that it is a very simple pattern and this is only my second quilt ever made! Well everyone take care and will post again when I am in Holland! As the dutch would say Doeiiiii (bye bye)

Quilt Show Houston 2007

Wow....it was truly a humbling experience. All those great quilts made me see how much I still need to learn. I got to Houston Texas on Friday with a terrible cold. My ears popped when the plane was descending. It was really painful I felt like my eyes were going to pop out of their sockets and that my brain was turning to puree hahaha. I got to the Hilton to meet up with Tiiu (Robs mom)and than go and see some of the quilt show before they closed at 19:00. These quilts are truly works of art. There was some amazing stuff that you would think it needed a special place in a museum. The convention center was huge, really, we needed to high light which sections we already walked to be sure we didn't do the same section twice. It was good that the quilt show was for three days but even so Tiiu and I did not see all the quilts and only managed to go through half of the vendors. They had more than 1000 vendor stands at the convention, seriously! The fun of it all was how many people came from all over the world for this event, I didn't know that there are so many quilters. You could see Japanese, Brazilian, Dutch, Australians, Italians...well you get the picture. Of course most of them are older but you could still spot some blue or green haired youngsters (hahaha). But even though the crowed was a little older it was so fun because quilters can be really funny when your not taking the fat quarter that they want. But you could get some cat fights in there too. This woman who was with one of these motorised wheel chairs was shoving it on peoples' feet, till one woman turned around and told her to stop being such a bitch....well the two women were really bitching at each other and than I passed by them and made like cat fight sounds...all the women around us were laughing like crazy. The woman on the wheel chair left really fast gruffing hahahaha. But the best one was when I was buying some fabric (fat quarters) in one of the stands and I commented that I had lost my mother in law yet again, this woman past behind me and said, " Gezzz, I wish I would lose my mother in law!".I was amazed by the mood in there, if you were eating something or just getting some coffee you always stopped and talked for hours with complete strangers. But its like this sisterhood that you never thought existed anymore, like a secret society. I am not kidding it really felt great to be connected with so many women from different countries and ages. The three days really flied by and before we knew it Tiiu and I were running through the quilts to try to see everything before they closed the show on Sunday. I learned loads, got great tips and bought great notions, my wallet was much lighter by the end of it. But as always good things must end and that was good too cause I dont think my wallet would manage another day! The next day we spent the day going on a tour through the underground connection between all the big building in town. My feet were killing me after so much walking all those days. But the tour was great, the guide was a retired man who new so much history of Houston and the architecture of all the buildings, it really was impressive. Than on the end of the day we went to the butterfly center in the Natural Science Museum. It was beautiful to see them all flying around you. On Tuesday we left to come back to Frederick. It was really warm in Texas so we had a shock by the cold over here in Maryland. Well that was my trip to Houston. Hope you guys like the pictures. I added also the link to the butterfly museum. Enjoy!

http://www.hmns.org/see_do/butterfly_center.asp

Leo's Quilt in Progress (Oh new online album)

I have started another quilt for a little guy I know who is very very sweet. I decided to make two quilts, one for Leo which you can see the progress bellow, and the other for Lucas his brother. I chose very simple patterns so I wont get lost. This time I am making it all by myself(that's why the simple pattern). So I hope it will work out! Leo passed by the other day to monitor my progress and be sure I am using the fabrics that he liked. Talking about pressure! We had sushi which he enjoyed but Lucas didn't like it at all...too sea weedy...hahhaha Well have a look at the slide show bellow. Oh by the way if you would like to check out my new photo album just click the link or the title of this post. I am changing album websites because the other one is giving me grief! Ok hope you guys like it.

My First Baby Quilt is Done!

If I look at it I still can't believe that I have actually made this quilt. I had help, of course, from Sue from the quilting studio...she showed me all the steps. It looks so cute and its very fluffy because its flannel material. I think Kim and Keith are going to love it. I am really happy with the colour scheme and also with the pattern. Now I am scared to start my next quilt alone and be disappointed by the results...silly! What do you all think?