The Postie Called

again, and look what he bought me this time!!

These are from Pamela, my September partner in the Down Under Quilt Block Swap:

I love the colours in this one!

I think this one is remarkable, Pamela obviously  has a lot more patience than me!

Here they are together, don't they look pretty?

Pamela said that she made two, and then couldn't make up her mind which one to send me, so she sent both!
I'm so glad she did!

I never tire of saying what a lucky girl I am....

Saturdays Scraps

Today is the first day of my "Saturdays Scraps".

Each Saturday, I will add what I have done in the way of scrappy quilting, and the processes, so that you can see what's happening.

If you would like to join in with me, then leave a message on this post and I will start up a linky party  for us, and we can show our scrappy bits 'n' bobs each week.

You may have noticed this quilt earlier on:

This is the first scrap quilt top for this series, I call it my "squares and strips" quilt top.

Quilting all these scrappy tops will hopefully happen once I have completed all the tops I want to get done this year - or at least we'll see!

No 2 for today is:

(drum roll here!!!)

Scrappy Tumblers:

I started with a shoebox with around 350 tumblers in it

I used my wonderful Go Baby to cut around 650 more tumblers - these are 3 1/2", finish at 3".

I ended with a shoe box filled with around 1000 tumblers!

I joined the tumblers into pairs

Here we have 107 pairs of tumblers joined today

Plus 5 joined incorrectly - managed to unpick them today.

So that is Saturdays Scraps for today, don't forget to let me know if you want a linky party here each Saturday, so we can all encourage one another.

The Quilt Photography Workshop

August and the first of the Quilt Photography Workshop groups.

Today the lesson is all about photos of fabrics.  So armed with my trusty Canon EOS 550D  camera, I trotted off and took some photos of fabric.

I didn't do very well I'm afraid - wasn't confident enough to use the personal settings - used the preset ones, mostly Close up. I seem to have lost confidence in using the personal settings - I'm hoping that this course will help me get over it.

Here are the photographs that I took:

I know that the picture above is messy, but I do like the way the fabric looks

I love the fabric in this one, though the chair sneaked into it! Here's another first - I am going to try and crop this photograph, something I have never done. We will see how I went at the end of this post!

Don't know what possessed me to put this frangipani with the fabrics, but I did, I think the fabrics look lovely and silky.

Hung the fabrics up on the clothes line over a bright blanket - I thought it might show them up prettier -= the black ones it did, but not the others. The sun also was in the wrong spot

again the sun is glarey, but I love this fabric against the orange - no I don't, it shows the holes in the blanket - I'll have to crop this one also!! (It is an old blanket)

So I have made some adjustments to the photographs - had a great time doing it, and taught myself lots - so here are the cropped photographs:

Wow, doesn't this look so much better after cropping!

I got rid of the holes in the old blanket - much better!

Here is one that I didn't show before - again, I don't know why I thought the Buddha's head would help!

If you would like to join in with us all, go to Plum and June HERE and join the fun!

See you there....

QBSA for August

The postie bought this beautiful star block for me today.

It is from Nikki in Victoria. Thanks Nikki, I love it!

Of course I didn't take a picture of the block I sent to her, which I just posted today also!!

Playing With The Camera

Couldn't resist walking around the garden this morning, and playing with the macro on  the camera dial - it certainly sees things in a different light!

 There is a bug on the orchid!

The Crown of Thorns never stops flowering

Bougainvillea flowers are so tiny

The coleus leaves look wonderful so close!

Pretty little begonia flower

I should have aimed at the flower, not at the stem! But even the stem is amazing, isn't it!?

New Garden

Alan is in the process of starting up a new garden bed in the back garden. I am planting it with Hibiscus, and simply ground covers and ferns at their feet:

Here is the Rose of Sharon ( when I was young, I truly thought that this plant was named after me - they had made a mistake with the spelling!)

The orange plant is a ground orchid that I found on an abandoned house site in town - must go back for more, I love the colour.

The garden is at the back of the house, so Alan has laid a row of bricks, the garden and will surround it with upended bricks to keep everything tidy. I'll show the rest when it is complete!

August Moon Day 3: Blessings

As the prompt states:

"Count the blessings you have had to be grateful for this year."

There are so many.

I have woken up each morning , grateful for the day. So many others lost the opportunity a lot of years ago. My hair is grey, and my joints hurt, I can't breath too well but I am so lucky. There are many others who aren't.

Each year that passes, Alan & I grow closer. I am so blessed to have this man by my side.

*I am grateful for the opportunity to plant a garden and have it grow. It is a joy for us both.

I am grateful for my grandchildren, that they are in my life now. They make life special to me.

I am grateful for our friends, who stand with us.

I am grateful for my crochet, my knitting, my quilting and my gardening. They all work together to keep me going.

There is so much more to be grateful for in my life, but I am sure that you all get the message here!!

Thanks for reading, I hope that you can say that you also have so much to be grateful for.