I have been so bad.....

I was very bad on the weekend. I went to Daylesford to the makers market. There were so many nice things to buy I couldn't decide what to buy. Plus I must admit I do suffer a bit with the "I could make that myself" syndrome. So I went for a walk to the little patchwork shop and I found some fabric. Some chocolate and aqua to go with my Saville Row quilt started quite a while ago (note to self do some work on it!) Also some nice brights I thought would go on Isabella's Rainbows and Lollipops quilt I also need to work on.

Then I spotted the Material Obsession 2 book with some of my favourite quilts, I had been meaning to buy no 1 but after looking at no 2 I could not resist it so again 1 will have to wait! Then I wandered over to the newsagent and could not resist the latest DUQ.

As if that wasn't enough I was reading some blogs when I got home and discovered Emma at Ballarat Patchwork had a 20% off sale. So I got this book I have had my eye on before it was released, a great time to buy with the sale. Now I had better be really really good for a while and work on some UFO's!!!

Double Delight, Bonnie Hunter (quiltville.com) mystery quilt from New Years early this year! I pulled it out and started working on it when I saw there was a new Christmas mystery quilt. I don't have a christmas quilt so I am very tempted by Carolina Christmas, a christmas quilt in repro fabrics, sounds like me.

Jane Austen quilt which has been the bane of my existence for the past three years! I am sick of trying to get all those white borders matched!!! Then I realised I didn't have all the white borders around the centre panel...gggrrrrrrrr!!!!! So it has gone into hybernation once again until I have the patience to start unpicking AGAIN.

On the Machine...

This is my quilt on the machine! I finished it earlier this year and I decided to run it through quickly before I put a couple of overdue quilts on. One of Emma's patterns from Ballarat Patchwork.

I think it is about time I finished this quilt and sent it on to its new owners.

Back into sewing!

Remember this quilt? Lissa and I made the tumbler blocks out of our 1800's reproduction fabrics and swapped. They both turned out HUGE but I had heaps left over....



So I found some appropriate backing fabric and joined them with a strip of tumblers, it certainly used up all the spares and gave me more backing for such a large quilt!

Here I am...at last!

Well I have survived my first semester at uni.....almost! Just a little 2 hour psychology exam tomorrow. I figure if I don't know it by now I am not going to know it so I am rewarding myself with a night off. So much has happened in the past few months. I opened bloglines this week and started trying to catch up on everyone's blogs, however with over 10,000 posts I don't think it is going to happen especially with this rotten dial up. It has started me thinking about doing some crafty things though after months of nothing but study and research. I had to drop off a quilt which was long overdue at the patchwork shop yesterday and couldn't resist buying a little something for the first time in months....

Last Sunday was spent making Miss Isabella's dancing costume, I thought those days were gone!! Her concert is next Saturday so I am looking forward to watching her on stage. (it did fit a bit better when it was finished)

In the meantime she turned 4!

On the 29th of October Romi Emerald came into the world, a little sister for Coco Daisy!

Isn't she beautiful, not that I am biased at all! Here she is with Mum (my daughter Holly) like a little koala.

Nine days old....

Bellas little brother Kalani Thomas is 8 months old and still has the bluest eyes! Here he is with my daughter Bec.

Coco's hair is curlier than ever!

What a monster!!

And spring is here.

My Grevillea has finally flowered after 3 or 4 years!

Hopefully over the summer break I will get back to catching up with all my favourite blogs and have some crafty show and tell!!

I am off to Uni!

Yes that's right, I am heading off to Ballarat University. I received my offer in the mail on Friday of a place in the Bachelor of Arts Rural Social Welfare and I intend doing the psychology major. I am feeling a bit nervous but also excited. I will have to have a rethink on some things and probably my custom quilting will be one of the things that will go as I just won't have the time. I am working 22 hours a week at the moment in my non quilting job although it's more like full time but that will cut back to 12 hours after the 10th August for two weeks then after that I will be back to my normal 6 hours per week so hopefully I can still fit in some edge to edge quilting in between uni and work.

Now back to some crafty things. Here is my selvedge passport cover I made before we went to New Zealand. I got the tutorial from this blog.

Here is the inside with my Aussie passport and his British one.

I have done a few blocks on the Lucy Boston quilt, I did a lot of the hexagons when we were in NZ as well as quite a lot of the 1" hexagons for another hexagon "one day" quilt.

I did get the Noro wool and I did finish the fan scarf!

Here are the swaps I received from Chaletgirl's vintage sheet swap.

I got some more reproduction fabrics for Christine's nine patch block swap

and I couldn't resist this gorgeous Aunt Grace Tie one on fabric, I don't know what I will do with it but I just had to have it!

In the meantime Kalani Thomas turned 3 months....

and his cousin Coco Daisy turned 2!

A break from the NZ photos!

Way back in April and May I did some work on a lovely quilt of Yvonne's. The quilt is a Robyn Falloon pattern, Joie de Vivre. Yvonne did a lovely job and I really liked her colour and fabric choices. As I didn't get a full view photo of the quilt when it was finished these first two were before it was totally finished but you will get the idea.

Kaikoura to Franz Josef

Unfortunately for the two nights we spent at Kaikoura the weather was very cold grey and windy so the boats for the whale watching weren't going out as it was too rough. We did however get to have crayfish or lobster. We also had the best fish and chips from a little shop in the main street, lovely freshly battered blue eye cod and crumbed hoki, my favourite was the cod. I also managed to find the patchwork shop where I just had to buy a tiny bit of fabric. Kaikoura is a very pretty place with the mountains right near the ocean.

Very early in the morning (6.45am) we left for Franz Josef as it was going to be a long drive. The weather predictions were for heavy frosts so once again we had some quite interesting driving conditions, especially heading through the Lewis Pass. Very beautiful though of course.

At times it was hard to tell weather the ground was covered in a bit of snow or frost!

At other times it was more obvious.

After a short stop at Hokitika for lunch we finally arrived at Franz Josef and the amazing glaciers of Franz Josef and Fox (which is another 20 odd k's further on) amid the rainforests.

You could see the glacier from our motel.

Our first afternoon we walked to the terminal face of Franz Josef. It had changed quite a lot since we had been there in 2004 and I was a little bit disappointed. It didn't seem to be quite so spectacular as the first time we saw it and didn't have as much blue ice, it seemed to have a lot of black. The light also wasn't the best as it was late afternoon by the time we did the 50 minute walk to the terminal face.

It's hard to see the size of the glaciers from photos but if you look closely you can see people coming back from the guided hikes onto the glaciers on the right of the photo in blue and red jackets.

The next day we took the helicopter up to the top of the glacier and around Mt Cook and Mt Tasman.

I'm Beck.

Please excuse the attempt at a kiwi accent, did it give you a clue to where I have been? Yes beautiful stunning New Zealand. This was our second trip to NZ, we loved it so much the first time (2004)that when I saw a package deal in January for flights and car hire we just had to revist. The worst part of the trip was that we had to fly into Auckland so we spent the first two nights very briefly in firstly Taupo then Wellington the second night so lots of driving to be on the ferry bright and early after the first two nights. We had previously spent two nights in Auckland and parts of the North Island but we both loved the scenery of the South Island so decided to spend most of our 12 nights there.

First stop Lake Taupo where we went for a very brisk chilly walk first thing in the morning. There was quite a lot of mist around the tops of the hills.

Not far from Lake Taupo we did make a stop to visit the Volcano activity centre.

On the way down to Wellington we passed the active volcanoes of Tongariro National Park. Mt. Ngauruhoe which was I think Mt Doom in Lord Of The Rings.

Mt Ruapehu which is the highest of the North Island and I think the most active of the volcanoes.

That night we were in Wellington and caught the ferry the next morning.

When we arrived at the terminal we were told it was storm conditions and it was marginal whether the ferry would be crossing the strait which is a 3 hour journey, it's cancelled when the swells reach 5m and they were at 4.5m. However we did go, Mr QB spent the first two hours in the restrooms and even I felt a tad queasy which is very unusal for me, I am usually fine. We were going up the swells and sometimes thumping down behind them with the ship groaning and the occassional side roll thrown in.

I tried to get some photos but you can't really tell how rough it was from them however this was from the very top deck of the ship where we (I) was sitting initially. Eventually I moved down a deck and towards the back where I felt better. It was certainly interesting having glasses and items smashing in the bar!!!

This is what it looked like when we reached the calm waters of Queen Charlotte Sound in the South Island and Mr QB appeared again looking rather white.

The trip from Blenheim to Kaikoura was very interesting. A low pressure system sweeping up from the south had caused the rough seas and there was snow forecast to low levels. How right they were!

Halfway through the hills between Blenheim and Kaikoura it started snowing which made the driving conditions very interesting to say the least! The scenery along this road would normally be beautiful and still was although a little worrying with the weather conditions and at least one car ran off the road behind us.

Thankfully the snow stopped eventually!

We had made it safely to Kaikoura where we would spend the next two nights!