Hello possums...
a Lesson I have learned...
When Bailey the Wonderdoggie does her 'I've-caught-something-and-I-am-playing-with-it-to-the-death' bark DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CALL HER!!!!
why you ask dear reader??
Um she could have a SNAKE... yes, a #_)($*#)(#&%# snake!!! OK, it was only a Red Belly Black Snake, poisonous, yes... deadly, well not so much to humans but fatal to puppy dogs and devil cats...
Cosmo (devil cat) had to have a squiz, he come charging back to the house... Bailey the wonderdoggie, I called her and she trotted around from the back of the shed with it still alive (in the death throes) in her mouth!!! She is so darn lucky it didn't bite her, the anti-venom is VERY expensive... Dags (aka the Super DH) was at work and the first question he asked me was 'how big?' I said 'I dont )_(#*)(*&&^% care how big, if it is bigger than a worm and its hisses, its a _)(*#&$#)@*(& snake!' I was hanging washing on the line at the time with no SHOES on...
that dear reader, is the peril of living in Australia, most of the worlds most poisonous snakes live here, and I am darn lucky it was only a redbelly black snake and not the BROWN snake (second most venomous in the world) that was Road pizza out the front of our HOUSE... last weekend..
In Australia, we have VERY imaginative names for our snakes, black snakes- they are black, brown snakes - um they are brown, red belly black snakes - you guessed it, red bellies on a black snake.... SUCH imagination!
Its spring in Australia and this means the snakes are waking up..
Anyhoo, enough about snakes..
Where have I been? well I haven't been a complete slacker.. I've been busy... busy working, reading, studying, and I have managed to fit in some sewing... The darlings have killed their computer so they are hogging mine, actually I've lost mine to the boogers, so I have to find me a new laptop... My laptop I have now isn't compatible with my printer so I dont have a printer either, something about Windows 7 and no bloomin' patch (grrrrr) keep getting errors, talk about frustrating!!!!
I am off to retreat next year and we are going to Kiama, its about 4-5 hrs south from here
So what have I finished... well I've finished a dance costume (yeah one down two to go), and whacked the binding on not one, or two but FIVE quilts since May...
OK apologies as well I am the worlds worst photographer... I took these early this morning out the back on the clothesline, i was fighting the wind and the devil cat (I think he may have snuck into a pic)
First up... 
This is the Perth 2008 Signature Quilt.. the theme was ' Batik'.. I tried to put the oranges in the middle and radiating like a sun.. going to green for the bottom and blue/purples for the top.. I love the border fabric took, its a purple/blue pink colour.. of course I didn't have enough, so its heavily pieced and I had to put something in the corner, but it is OK..
Second up...
Adelaide 2009 Signature Quilt.. the Theme was 'Wine and Roses'.. we could use any fabric as long as it was 'wine' coloured or Rose coloured.. I did this pattern like a spinning pinwheel, the centre is the four of us that shared a room.. I really LOVE this border fabric, when I bought it it was on sale.. and I thought it would be fine for a backing, but it seems to work really well with the fabrics of the quilt... I got the binding on these two quilts over the weekend.. put a the back of the needle through the tips of two fingers.. painful, but glad to have these suckers done!
Third quilt... 
This year our Quilting Retreat was in Bathurst... The Theme was 'Recycled Flannelette shirts' (Flannelette - flannel for NON aussies)... it had to be a certain size or bigger, I went bigger of course.. Did I enjoy making this quilt? um no, I have learnt that Flannelette MOVES a LOT.. I ended up having to put interfacing on the back of the fabric to stabilise it, it moves a LOT.. and of course I left it to the last minute and the local longarmer would NOT quilt it even after I had booked it in, and told them what I was doing.. I left pockets on and stitched them down by hand (tacking).. I found a lady at the last minute and she did it for me THAT DAY.. and had no problems at all.. I restitched buttons on and I think its great!.. the kids / cat loves this quilt as it is so snuggly warm! I just wish I had more variety of colours.. I bought the shirts at opshops and only wanted cotton so I was very limited by what I could find and the opshops wanted $7-8 for each shirt.. I think I used about 10 shirts plus one for the float border..
Fourth quilt
This quilt was supposed to have a pie border.. I bought the 'pies' to do it, but man they were fiddly! So I just made it a bit bigger.. ok, a LOT bigger.. I might learn how to make small quilts one day.. This quilt started as a 'leader / ender' project, I mean you can't waste thread now can you when you are finished sewing a block.. Doesn't matter that I have a 'SABLE' (Stash Above Beyond Life Expectancy), but cannot waste 10cm of thread! this is living on our lounge at the moment to keep the cat fur off it! (The shed on the left of the pic is Baileys Kennel - soon to be relocated refurbished for my quilt room - we wont talk about that though its a VERY sore point)
This is a nine patch quilt.. it was from a swap organised through a blog last year.. I love it, its CW repro's.. the only thing I would change is to dye all the shirtings, they just look too white in this pic, I am not brave enough to over dye it.. yep, a cat in a pic.. his fur looks a tad funny at the moment he doesn't have spots but is losing his winter coat and getting his summer coat, which makes the house look like it has a layer of mohair! grr@ hairy Cats! Lastly.. I thought I'd better drag out the Farmers Wife Sampler Quilt.. I am doing it as a BOM from Homestead Hearth in the US.. I had only done 7 blocks, and got bored / annoyed with it.. I printed off the templates, and my darn printer had 'scaled' them so the first few I made were too small, so I remade them.. there were over 100 pages of templates, with one template per page... ARRRGHHH!.. the book had no measurements in it just a reference to the template.. the pic aren't to size, so you have to draft some.. but lucky some wonderful person has got Paper Piecing Templates for each block and one page per block, still 111 pages, but all the templates for each block there and I have not done any PP'ing before and it certain makes it a tad easier when some of the pieces are 1 15/16" measurements.. so the total is now 18 (one is missing from this pic, I think the cat stole it)... I am not 100% happy with my blocks, some of the fabrics need a little more contrast but I'll keep going and may redo some when I am done, I'll wait and see how it looks first..
Well thats enough from me, I am sure if you have got this far you are bored poopless!'til next time petals!
Lissa
