Wednesday 16 November 2022

Le Bouquet - Finished October 2022 and gifted to Mindy

QUILT NUMBER....

Hello My Dear Readers,

I've previously warned you that there would be lots of quilt posts before the end of 2022.

One month from tomorrow we will be sailing out of Sydney Heads on a cruise.

So , I have four quilts to finish and gift before then.

Here's the first

Le Bouquet. For my friend Mindy.

Shes had a terrible few years with illness, disasters and family deaths. Good things as well, such as two beautiful weddings for her son and daughter and she's soon to be the Grandmother of twins.

Beautiful quilting by Sandra at Art n Quilting studio.

It had some tricky curved piecing but it was fun to make.

The design reminds me of a big postage stamp

and I nearly called it petit point because of the tiny pieces.

petit point, form of canvas embroidery similar to cross-stitch embroidery , but even finer because of its small scale. The squareness and regularity of the outlines of the forms represented is less apparent at ordinary viewing distance. Source, Encyclopedia Britannica

This was the first time for my new style of booklet.

And here is the quilt after I presented it to Mindy during morning tea at her beautiful house.

She loved it - (thank the Goddess).

I gifted two quilts today. YAY!

The second one is Cool Britannia for Chloe,

which I'll tell you all about in my next blog post.

Saturday 12 November 2022

...And what we did after the wedding

We spent two days traveling home.

But first we took the short drive to Jervis Bay and Hyams Beach with its beautiful white sand.

https://www.visitnsw.com/destinations/south-coast/jervis-bay-and-shoalhaven/hyams-beach

Then we had a stop at Fitzroy Falls.

https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/things-to-do/lookouts/fitzroy-falls-lookout

Then we spent the night in Bowral and spent the afternoon at my favourite Antique, old wares and craft centre. Dirty Janes.

https://www.dirtyjanes.com/dirty-janes-bowral/

I actually bought a pair of earrings.

You know when you see something and have an ahhhhhh moment.

One cent coins made into earrings!

https://www.ramint.gov.au/one-cent

I paid approximately 9000 times what they were originally worth.

But I can say I don't care 2 cents worth!

Although we did see a couple of Harrods bears, one was $145.00. And it was play worn, not pristine with its ear swing tag attached like my 20 bears. I may have to find out what my bear collection is actually worth before I die and somebody chucks them into a garbage skip.

Hers;s my collection of Harrods Bears in my Craft Room.

Oh for goodness sake they have a wiki page, don't let them know it will go to their heads.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrods_Christmas_Bears

Then back to our trip home.

The second night we spent in the Hunter Valley.

We did think about going to Hinter Valley Gardens but the weather was terrible so we visited the Smelly Cheese shop instead.

https://www.smellycheese.net.au/

So, next I will bombard you with posts about finished quilts and eventually will get back on track with my anniversary posts.

Wednesday 2 November 2022

A Happy New Beginning - Ben & Karley's Wedding

We have just returned from the South Coast of NSW

after my nephew Ben's wedding to his long time partner Karley.

This wedding was postponed twice.

The first time due to COVID, the second time as Karley was pregnant.

The wedding and party took place at Cathy and Andrew's property near Jervis Bay.

We stayed for two nights to lend a hand with the preparations.

Above- This is the brides bouquet with its lovely protea flowers.

Rebecca, my niece, decorating the wedding cake with flowers.

She'll be the next bride in 2024.

She was my little bridesmaid in 2005!(See the 'Kim's Weddings' label).

http://inmylifekim.blogspot.com/search/label/Kim%27s%20Weddings

And I had the task of cutting up food for the grazing table. Which looked beautiful when the caterers put it all together, but I didn't get a photo of it finished because it was partly demolished by hungry guests before we got into the marquee.

Here is Cathy, my little sister, getting her makeup done.

I don't have a photo of Cathy in her lovely dress, I might have to wait for the photographers photos.

We were asked not to take photos during the ceremony, but Karley asked if we were able to video/record the ceremony on her camera. A job I mostly handed over to Graham and the recordings turned out better than expected. !!!

Which doesn't mean I'd thought Graham would do a bad job, it was the light and the angle etc..

I downloaded the recordings to my computer to make sure they worked, so what I've done is snipped a few stills of the ceremony from the video. They'll be the photos that look a bit grainier.

The ceremony wasn't held in the original outdoor chapel as it was a bog after all the rain we've had, but they moved the benches up to higher ground and closer to the house.

(see post about Cathy & Andrews Property 29th January 2022)

http://inmylifekim.blogspot.com/2022/01/christmas-leftovers-cathys-farm.html

Karleys had the beautiful dress for years and did well to fit into it after two babies.

Graham doing the video.

Then down to the marquee for drinks, grazing table and games.

Karley made all the signs using Cricut.

Their theme was two less fish in the sea, a reference to Ben's love of fishing.

(I've been investigating Cricut on you tube and I am very tempted, but I'll have to clean out my craft cupboard first to make room for more toys).

Andrew, my brother-in-law on grandfather duty.

Then for the happy couples first dance the guests formed a circle and waved giant sparklers.

(Yes, this is a snip from the video).

However, this delightful moment

ended with the shout of FIRE.

It was a really windy day and the tablecloth on

OUR table had blown over the candles and caught on fire!

Fortunately, Andrew's parents hadn't joined us outside for the sparkler extravaganza and his father threw his beer on the fire to extinguish the flames.