Nice People, Nice Things

I bought a kit of Helen Stubbings' "Nice People Nice Things" quilt, nearly 2 years ago in Adelaide at Patchwork By Sea. I love all the little stitcheries and I especially love that it is a quilt as you go project. I enjoy being able to quilt an item myself and not have to pay someone to do it or have to try to manoeuvre a huge quilt underneath my domestic machine.

As I was reading Kelly's blog recently she said that she and some other ladies, Vickie, Gabriella, Carol and Claudia would all be joining in a "stich a long" of this quilt. I decided to join too. Isn't it amazing that people in America, Italy and Australia can be working on a project together. I love the internet.

So, once a week, usually a Wednesday we will each post about one block that we have stitched that week. This is supposed to be a Block of the Week quilt but as there are 63 blocks on the front and 63 blocks on the back (mostly stitcheries) I will try to do more than one a week.

Here is what I have been working on this week. The stitched saying to go on the back is "Always face the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind."

And I cheated a bit by doing this one because there wasn't much work. It is hard to believe the difference in the colours of these photos because the backgrounds are exactly the same fabric.

I would have liked to have gotten more done but I was busy with the storm damage on the weekend and I had a little surprise: my newest nephew was born nearly 3 weeks early on Tuesday. His name is Jonathan and he was 6 lbs, 2 oz. He is the first child for my brother Christopher and his wife Danka. Isn't he gawjus. Makes me clucky....lol.

Talk again soon,

Jeanette

Storm damage

Yesterday a massive thunderstorm came through topped off with a nice spot of hail. The gutters on the house didn't cope very well and I got a lot of water in my craft room. Luckily I was home and I was able to ferry  everything that was in danger out of the way. Most of my supplies are stored in two large metal chests and a metal cabinet. Everything in these is dry. Unluckily, the water has gotten into my power outlet so I won't be doing any sewing in there for a while.

Most luckily of all, my most prized possession, a latch hook rug, only got a little damp because I grabbed it in time. It is irreplaceable because I bought the kit in 1983 and that company isn't in Australia anymore. It is from Readicut in the UK. The design is called "Richmond" and I just love the colours - Country, Autumn.

There is actually a funny story surrounding the making of this rug. As I said before I bought it in 1983 when I was with my first boyfriend. I took it home and started to work on it but lost interest. It was rolled up and moved with me when I moved in to my first flat in 1985. It then moved with me again to Melbourne when I went to live with my second boyfriend. It moved back to Bendigo with me when things didn't work out, 1986. It moved again when I got married, to the third man in my life, 1992. I then dug it out and actually did a bit more work but only finished about two thirds. My marriage ended in 2000 and it moved with me again to a flat, a house and another house where it was finally dug out again and finished. That was in 2009. I know, I know.........that means it took me 26 years, three relationships and I don't know how many moves to complete. I think I hold the record for the longest time to complete an article of work. But let me give you a bit of perspective - the rug measures three feet by six feet ( the size of a single bed), each row took half an hour to complete (and I mean latching constantly without a break) and there are 240 rows. That is 120 hours of work and a lot of memories tied up in it. (The wool is pure wool and so nice to walk on in bare feet.) As I said, irreplaceable, and now has pride of place at the foot of my bed in front of the camphor wood chest that I mentioned in an earlier post.

And for those of you paying attention, yes my bedroom and sewing room are the same room but at four and a bit metres by seven metres there is plenty of room for every thing. It is actually the sun room which means I get plenty of light for crafting and wake up at sunrise every day, hop out of bed and can do some work before the kids get up. Speaking of sun, it  is now streaming in the room and I better get back to airing out my carpet.

Talk again soon.