small pleasures

Today we have had our last Friday Ann Daggs class for the year. Glue is a wonderful thing and the last three months , I have not sewn a stitch on my quilt and everything is glued on. I have been very impressed with the "Best Press" as my bias has not unravelled one little bit in the humid weather, so hopefully it will hold down until after summer school. I am quite amazed as to how much of this quilt I have achieved over the first twelve months.
Next year we fill in with all the sprays of flowers and birds.
I am very excited today as a range of fabrics I just love has come in to the shop, "Hope Valley". It takes a lot to get me excited over fabric, one of the problems with having a shop and having a huge fabric collection. But I could not wait for this to arrive, it is sort of funky vintage. They are modern and fun but quite subtle in colour. I would love to start a quilt tonight, but I havent got time , so they will just have to keep me company until after summer school. But I will go and read my favorite cooking magazine "Dish" which arrived in the mail.
Michael will be happy as a pile of Geelong Football club mail has arrived for him. All in all a great day at the mailbox, no bills and Christmas catalogues.

Anna's Sampler

I am running behind with my work this week. I have the Ann Dagg's class tomorrow and I have not cut out a piece or done the notes. Actually not quite true, I cut out half the pieces and they are too large for the quilt, so I have to start again. And it is our last class for the year, so I need to cook lunch for tomorrow and Saturday's class. At least the sewing, notes and lunch will be fresh!
The picture is of the original embroidered sampler of Anna Browne. This embroidery is what I am basing our new quilt upon. I hope you enjoy making it.

getting ready for summer school

My lack of writing on this blog has not been due to lack of news, quite the contrary. I have been really busy, organising the last of things for summer school as a priority. This year we have been entirely booked out with 20 extra girls attending on last years booking. On top of that we do not have Joy for the first week to do our lunches and morning teas, so I have been organising everything for that, and we have just had three weeks of weather over 35, way too hot for November. Somewhere amongst all that, I have been to Sydney with my husband for four days and Christine has arrived home from New York, and I have been to Melbourne to Quilt market, and had some minor surgery and had complications. But all is under way now and I can start my final quilt for summer school.

I am not too worried about this as I have done everything in my head and just need to put it to fabric. The hexagons have all been made, and the borders drafted. I am telling myself I will be fine. I am actually ahead of schedule and I have done the Christmas shopping!

This weekend Christine has her daughter Charlotte and family arriving from Dubai. We are hoping for cool weather for them.

I have miserably failed in getting my twelve quilts finished for the year. I was hoping to bind, quilt or whatever 12 quilts not started this year. I think I got three done. Oh well.

On the weekend I finished the newsletter so it will be in your letterbox in the next few days. We have done something different this time, so I hope you enjoy it. You will be receiving the first part of the quilt "The Browne Sisters' sampler". I did the first block to take to Fragrant Cottage but came back and decided to work my quilt on a little cream check background. I like it so much more as it has more of a touch of whimsy about it. I will post a few pictures tomorrow, but tonight I have a class to teach.

I was trying to get a quilt done yesterday but Douglas, the no 1 dog in our house was busy rearranging the blocks, Here he is at work.