A Change in the weather.

Every morning this week we’ve woken to this foggy outlook, right up until 9am…. …which means the days are stinking hot…..33 – 34 degrees celsius on average.  Today was quite mild….it only got to 32 degrees and it was noticably different, believe it or not!!!  I was talking with Dawn the other day and her top temperature was 17 degrees for the day in Adelaide……so hard to believe we live in the same country!!!! The spiders have taken to getting busy during the night and had we not had the fog and mist, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this web on my windscreen wiper…. ….amazing critters aren’t they!?  We have one busy guy who builds his web right between the garden and the bush outside our front door….I haven’t been able to get a photo as he’s disassembled it by morning but I notice it’s rebuilt each night as I take Ralph for his last ‘pitstop’ for the night! Well, I’m not the kinda girl to break a promise and I invited you all for scones and tea so here they are, light and fluffy, fresh from the oven……amazing what you can do with flour, butter and milk!!!… We had to wait just a bit for them to cool before we could add the homemade strawberry jam and cream but here they are…..hope you enjoy them!!!!……(pity we didn’t have taste-vision….I don’t think licking the screen has the same effect though!! LOL) This week, I was working on preparing a project with our year 7 students….each year the year 7’s complete a creative project to leave to the school in remembrance of them.  We’ve made mosaics, painted school murals, built gardens, but this year, we’re making a quilt to hang in our new library/resource centre.  The design will have a stitched block between a nine-patch, alternating on each line.  The  students are stitching the blocks with their names, so they will never be forgotten, in the school colours of red and blue, and the nine patches will be in varying tones of red.  I’ve prepared the blocks here for stitching before I took them to school to work with the kids….need I say, they were very excited…even the boys, but you probably remember that from when I stitched with them here. I’ve also been working on this set of placemats…..well, you can only see one, because the others have still got to be bound….but they are all quilted and ready to go!!! This is the back of this one….each has a different backing fabric and I decided to quilt them in the ditch and then using parallel lines around the edge.  I’ll have to finish them off and post them onto the ‘Sew It’s Finished” blog as they were in my list of UFO’s for the year….and it’s only taken me till October!!!! LOL  Time to spare, time to spare!!!!! hehehe                Tomorrow, I’m off on a bus trip with some ladies from our quilt group to Cardwell, about 4 hours north of here.  The quilting ladies from Cardwell are having a ‘Show and Tell’ so it should be loads of fun….remember they had a terrible time earlier this year with Cyclone Yasi which nearly wiped them off the planet!  Well these ladies have been working like trojans, getting themselves back together to put on a ‘show’ for us so we’re off to show our support.  I must remember my camera so I can share when I get home! Hope you’ve got a wonderfully crafty weekend planned too. Sugary hugs XOX  Wendy :O)    

A Change in the weather.

Every morning this week we’ve woken to this foggy outlook, right up until 9am….

…which means the days are stinking hot…..33 – 34 degrees celsius on average.  Today was quite mild….it only got to 32 degrees and it was noticably different, believe it or not!!!  I was talking with Dawn the other day and her top temperature was 17 degrees for the day in Adelaide……so hard to believe we live in the same country!!!!

The spiders have taken to getting busy during the night and had we not had the fog and mist, I probably wouldn’t have noticed this web on my windscreen wiper….

….amazing critters aren’t they!?  We have one busy guy who builds his web right between the garden and the bush outside our front door….I haven’t been able to get a photo as he’s disassembled it by morning but I notice it’s rebuilt each night as I take Ralph for his last ‘pitstop’ for the night!

Well, I’m not the kinda girl to break a promise and I invited you all for scones and tea so here they are, light and fluffy, fresh from the oven……amazing what you can do with flour, butter and milk!!!…

We had to wait just a bit for them to cool before we could add the homemade strawberry jam and cream but here they are…..hope you enjoy them!!!!……(pity we didn’t have taste-vision….I don’t think licking the screen has the same effect though!! LOL)

This week, I was working on preparing a project with our year 7 students….each year the year 7’s complete a creative project to leave to the school in remembrance of them.  We’ve made mosaics, painted school murals, built gardens, but this year, we’re making a quilt to hang in our new library/resource centre.  The design will have a stitched block between a nine-patch, alternating on each line.  The  students are stitching the blocks with their names, so they will never be forgotten, in the school colours of red and blue, and the nine patches will be in varying tones of red.  I’ve prepared the blocks here for stitching before I took them to school to work with the kids….need I say, they were very excited…even the boys, but you probably remember that from when I stitched with them here.

I’ve also been working on this set of placemats…..well, you can only see one, because the others have still got to be bound….but they are all quilted and ready to go!!!

This is the back of this one….each has a different backing fabric and I decided to quilt them in the ditch and then using parallel lines around the edge.  I’ll have to finish them off and post them onto the ‘Sew It’s Finished” blog as they were in my list of UFO’s for the year….and it’s only taken me till October!!!! LOL  Time to spare, time to spare!!!!! hehehe

              

Tomorrow, I’m off on a bus trip with some ladies from our quilt group to Cardwell, about 4 hours north of here.  The quilting ladies from Cardwell are having a ‘Show and Tell’ so it should be loads of fun….remember they had a terrible time earlier this year with Cyclone Yasi which nearly wiped them off the planet!  Well these ladies have been working like trojans, getting themselves back together to put on a ‘show’ for us so we’re off to show our support.  I must remember my camera so I can share when I get home!

Hope you’ve got a wonderfully crafty weekend planned too.

Sugary hugs

XOX  Wendy :O)

 

 

Jam with me?

  Each month, our Guild has a Block Lotto, where each of us make a 12 1/2” block (or two or three or…..more) under a theme and we put the names of the people who’ve contributed into a hat and draw one name out to win all the blocks.  If we have lots, we might share them out between 2 or 3 winners ….some months it’s a block with a colour theme, some months it’s a style, this month, the theme was ‘Spring’ in bright colours with a neutral background. I thought I’d do something different to the usual when I saw this free pattern and tutorial last week on Madame Samm’s site featuring our very own Aussie, Helen Stubbings.  So I did the usual tracing and ironing weaveline ( a lightweight, iron-on interfacing) onto the back and then took out these…(nothing flash….no specialty pencils here!)…. and got colouring using the Colourque technique Helen is famous for! And here is what I ended up with…… And believe me….I am NO artist…..stick figures are pretty much it for me, but I was soooo happy with how it turned out….I felt like a little kid again, and now, I don’t think I want to give it away….but….I guess I can always make another, can’t I ??!?!

         

Last week we went for a drive to the Strawberry Farm about an hour’s drive away and got the most delectable strawberries….the smell was just…. mm mmmmmmm…not to mention the taste!   We got 5 kilos of these beauties and after eating our fill, I hulled them and sliced them and put them in the pot…. cooked them for a while with some lemon juice and sugar and it magically turned into this…..   …the most delicious strawberry jam…..now tomorrow I must make some pikelets and scones and whip some cream to have with my jam!!! Want to join me for the perfect Sunday Devonshire Tea??? Sugary Hugs XOX  Wendy :O)

Jam with me?

 

Each month, our Guild has a Block Lotto, where each of us make a 12 1/2” block (or two or three or…..more) under a theme and we put the names of the people who’ve contributed into a hat and draw one name out to win all the blocks.  If we have lots, we might share them out between 2 or 3 winners ….some months it’s a block with a colour theme, some months it’s a style, this month, the theme was ‘Spring’ in bright colours with a neutral background.

I thought I’d do something different to the usual when I saw this free pattern and tutorial last week on Madame Samm’s site featuring our very own Aussie, Helen Stubbings. 

So I did the usual tracing and ironing weaveline ( a lightweight, iron-on interfacing) onto the back and then took out these…(nothing flash….no specialty pencils here!)….

and got colouring using the Colourque technique Helen is famous for!

And here is what I ended up with……

And believe me….I am NO artist…..stick figures are pretty much it for me, but I was soooo happy with how it turned out….I felt like a little kid again, and now, I don’t think I want to give it away….but….I guess I can always make another, can’t I ??!?!

         

Last week we went for a drive to the Strawberry Farm about an hour’s drive away and got the most delectable strawberries….the smell was just…. mm mmmmmmm…not to mention the taste!

 

We got 5 kilos of these beauties and after eating our fill, I hulled them and sliced them and put them in the pot….

cooked them for a while with some lemon juice and sugar and it magically turned into this…..

 

…the most delicious strawberry jam…..now tomorrow I must make some pikelets and scones and whip some cream to have with my jam!!!

Want to join me for the perfect Sunday Devonshire Tea???

Sugary Hugs

XOX  Wendy :O)

Sugar…what?????

I’ve just been visiting Dawn’s blog and she’s having a little competition about how we name our blogs. Thinking back, I know this was a big deal for me, because I wanted my blog to reflect who I was, where I was, what I was like, and ‘Wendy’s Blog'” just didn’t cut it! Soooooo,   with my thinking cap on, I  thought about where I lived……I live in the Burdekin in North Queensland… a prolific sugarcane growing region in Australia, so that’s where I got the SUGAR part ….. Next, I thought, well, I live in a sort of cul-de-sac (sounds better than a dead end street, doesn’t it???!!!) and the cane grows on one side of our narrow street and there’s beautiful tall trees growing down the end  so it’s a little like a lane….so obviously (now!)……there’s  the LANE part… so SUGAR + LANE plus my love of QUILTS and QUILTING gives you the name of my blog…. SUGARLANE QUILTS! Can’t wait to hop on over and see how others came up with their blog names too…Hop on over to Dawnie’s blog and join in the fun! sugary hugs XO Wendy :O)

Sugar…what?????

I’ve just been visiting Dawn’s blog and she’s having a little competition about how we name our blogs.

Thinking back, I know this was a big deal for me, because I wanted my blog to reflect who I was, where I was, what I was like, and ‘Wendy’s Blog'” just didn’t cut it!

Soooooo,   with my thinking cap on, I  thought about where I lived……I live in the Burdekin in North Queensland… a prolific sugarcane growing region in Australia, so that’s where I got the SUGAR part …..

Next, I thought, well, I live in a sort of cul-de-sac (sounds better than a dead end street, doesn’t it???!!!) and the cane grows on one side of our narrow street and there’s beautiful tall trees growing down the end  so it’s a little like a lane….so obviously (now!)……there’s  the LANE part…

so SUGAR + LANE plus my love of QUILTS and QUILTING gives you the name of my blog….

SUGARLANE QUILTS!

Can’t wait to hop on over and see how others came up with their blog names too…Hop on over to Dawnie’s blog and join in the fun!

sugary hugs

XO Wendy :O)

A son’s love blooms….

I never thought I’d see the day but my boy, in all of his 16, nearly 17 years of wisdom, decided to turn up from his casual job with these gorgeous pink and white beauties for me….just because!!!!  You’ve got to love ‘em don’t you??? He’s such a softie! I’m truly spoilt and thought I’d just show you how much, as I played with my prize I won in Vikki’s competition.  It’s the new My Memories Suite software for scrapbooking, something I haven’t done for a couple of years!  I used to be sooooo into scrapping, but quilting took over….you know what I mean??!!!  But honestly, this software is so easy to use and comes up with some fab results and very quickly….and I can see some great possibilities for blog headers… mmmmmmmm…. now that’s got ya thinking!!!! Anyway, the wonderful Vikki’s got a great deal for you on her blog to get your own copy of the software…..just pop on over and you’ll be able to get a $10 discount off the full price of the My Memories suite, together with a further $10 coupon to choose digital paper pack/s of your choice. Thanks to Vikki for my lovely prize…and thanks my darling boy for being you!!! Sugary hugs XO  Wendy   :O)