A funny thing happened on the way to the...........

I bet you have no idea what this is. Christmas lights, stars, candles, molten earth, picture of Australia taken at night from space? How about the pecans that I was attempting to TOAST under the griller. Hmmmm, knew you'd be impressed - my boys were. That's why they took a photo. The choc chip pecan cookies that I was making called for 'lightly toasted' pecans. As my Nan always said 'when it's brown it's done, when it's black it's buggered'. I think it was the flames leaping out from the griller that really appealed to my sons and possibly the fact that the pecans twinkled so brightly after I threw them on the sand.

Last week I went up to the Perth Craft and Quilt Fair. It was soooo good. Here are two photos

taken on two different cameras to show off our attributes. Mereth England in the centre looks divine, and Kathy, on the right looks asleep on the job , and I look relatively normal on the left. Whereas in the other photo, Mereth and Kathy look wonderful and I look like a hunchback in grey. Take your pick - I couldn't choose. The photo was taken outside the APQS stand which my friend Sue Morris was running. It was great to see Sue again and for her to bring the quilting machines to Perth.

This was the quilt that won. Truly lovely - over

the past few years the quilts that tend to win are

pictorial. Shoot me down if you think otherwise, however there is a trend away from traditional quilts that have won.

Just a few photos so as to get the general ambiance of the show. There was a group of us that went up on a bus organised through the local Arts Council here. So my friend Diane and I sat together and talked all the way there and back and it was great to catch up with Diane. We live about 2ks away from one another and hardly see one another, crazy.

Went and listened to a ralk on colouring stitcheries with lead pencils. They reckon that Prismacolour pencils are the go, however as I have 72 Derwent pencils I'll try them first.

My youngest son and his coach proudly showing his player of the Match Certificate.

Here is the full photo of Santa and his sleigh. I always am in a bit of a quandary regarding embroidery in quilt, like what to do? Well my very good friend Kathy said crosshatch and match the thread to the fabric. Well I did and I like the result, although I got carried away (someone carry me away PPPLLLEAASSEE) with the spacing and it became quite intensive crosshatching, as I really do like crosshatching. I use it as a method of quilting around applique and find it great for not overshadowing the customer's work. I also like crosshatching in the final border, especially if it is a really busy fabric.

This very unusual plant is a West Australian native, known as a Zamia Palm (Macrozamia reidlei) and is one of the plant dinosaurs. Very slow growing and slow to germinate. Toxic to stock, humans and dogs, prickly and a plant with attitude. The red coating on the seed is very thick and apparently emus love them. Some people reckon that the seeds need to pass through an emu to germinate, I'll let you know if they grow without passing through an emu. I showed them to the chooks and their eyes watered. Two seeds in an 11 y.o hand shows you how big the seeds are. I'm going to remove the flesh off them all of them and plant half in the ground, where it is undisturbed and heavily leaf littered. The other half I will put in pots and wait a year or two to compare the growing methods. Lovely day here so I off outside to the garden and hang the quilting, I'll be the mucky one smelling of damp earth.

When life gets in the way

Life has been turned upside down here - there
have been mornings when I lurched out of bed already looking forward to going back to bed at night. My two boys are now going to a school ~30kms away where it will be better for them. There are 18 children in the entire school and 10 in their class. Very friendly and quiet. They appear to be having great days, with individual attention when they need it.

Just a picture to show you that I have been working, albeit rather early and rather late, however the quilt top are getting quilted and returned to their delighted owners. Yipppeee!
This is Rudolf the lead reindeer, the other photos are rather blurry as I took them in low light as, how unusual, it was late at night and the flash washes away the effect of the quilting.