Fun with Cross stitch

Monday July 16th

Must be school holidays. Here I am back again. Very tired today. I have spent a week or so staying up to watch the Tour de France. I really enjoy the cycling on the telly - and it is quiet late at night and I can sit there and stitch away at various projects without interruption.

I have been working on these little fun cross stitch patterns on and off for a while now. One day I will put them into a quilt. I am a member of a wonderful group of quilters, affectionately known as "The Cows". I won't go into details of how and why, but we have known each other for about 7 years now and really enjoy being a group. These little cross stitch pieces seemed appropriate somehow.






There are 12 altogether, but I won't bore you with them. Now I just have to think about how I am going to incorporate them into a quilt.

I must say thanks to fellow Cow - Dy Taylor who actually did read my blog yesterday and welcomed me back. I have at least one reader. Thanks Dy. She, by the way, is an incredible craftswoman and her blog is fascinating, full of all manner of crafty ideas and things she has accomplished.

It is freezing here. We have had a lovely fine, but very cold day, and were able to get out into the garden. We are building an extension onto the house and had to move about 8 very large tree ferns. Tiring but satisfying work. Now we just have to hope that they will survive the move. Even son, Mark got himself moving on his precious day off and dug the holes for us.

Just as well we got moving today. The weather forecast says more rain and cold weather tomorrow. We are having a very cold wet winter after a horiffic dry summer. Our dams are full and the ground is saturated. Every step I take the water comes up over my shoes. Unfortunately I tend to forget this and go outside in my uggies - now very muddy uggies!!

Cheers

Liz

Getting my act together

Back again - 2 in the same day!!



We have just been out to lunch at maximilians - one of my old favourite restaurants. Had a great time, lots of laughs, wine and food. Now feeling quite bloated, but happy.



Before we went I prevailed upon my brother to take a photo of Jo and I. Jo hates photos and noone ever seems to take my photo unless I am part tipsy - and then the photographer is usually that way too. The result is some pretty weird photos.



So here I am - showing all my wrinkles, but looking reasonably respectable. My family have been very rude about the photo on my blog showing me about 35 years ago - dishonest they call it. LOL.







Cheers
Liz

Back again

July 15th

Back again!! After 5 months. Time just seemed to have disappeared once school started, but now hopefully I will be able to keep this up. Who knows? I doubt I have any readers left anyhow, so it will probably be just for me.

Had my birthday on Friday - the thirteenth. Always lucky for me. One of my girls also has a birthday on the thirteenth and we get Friday 13th in the same year as each other.

Yesterday I cooked dinner for my brother, a cousin and her husband, Don and I . Had a lot of good talk and great company and far too much great SA wine! Today the family is off to a favourite restaurant for Sunday lunch. In fact I should be getting ready now. For some reason I decided to see if I could remember how to get to my blogger page and so I am still here.

Must away, but will come back to it later - I promise.

Liz Needle

Exciting Day

Yesterday my quilting group, The Retreating Angels, got together for a very exciting event (more later). The Retreating angels formed in 1997 to plan and then run a quilting retreat for the Southern Cross Quilters (Scquilters), the largest online quilting group in Australia and New Zealand. The Retreat was held in Adelaide in 1999, with about 120 scquilters attending from all over Australia and New Zealand. These retreats are held annually, the next one in Bendigo in April with about 270 scqilters.

The organising group had such fun and got on so well together, that we remained as a group of quilting friends, later calling ourselves The Retreating Angels. We meet regularly and together have run quilt exhibitions, had weekend retreats of our own and worked together on a number of projects, one of which was the "Dunny Quilt", which has been exhibited in shows here and overseas, winning a number of awards.

The quilt represents our ideas on the old 'outback dunny'.

When Pam Holland (international quilter and teacher - and our inspiration and motivator) asked for our help in making quilts using patterns from her wonderful '1776' quilt, for a book she wanted to write, we jumped at the chance (with some initial doubt as to whether we had the skills.). After many hours of work, some tears and frustration, but a great deal of fun and fulfilment, we finished our quilts, wrote our instructions and sent them off to be photographed.

This is most of the group with their projects. Pam, far right is holding the 1776 quilt.

Pam's journey with her book has taken a lot longer than she first anticipated and she has had to put in a huge number of hours to get it to the publishing stage, but finally she has made it!! Our get together yesterday was to celebrate and to launch the book with much laughter and a few misty eyes, I suspect. It is a wonderful achievement on Pam's part and we are all thrilled to see our quilts in print.


Pam's next project is to reproduce "The Bayeux Tapestry". Yikes!! The woman is unbelievable!!!

Liz Needle

New Blogger and quilting

< I have just swapped over to New Blogger and am not sure how it is going to go. I seem to have a new URL and when I go there, I cannot see my old posts. Hope that is not going to be the case, but we'll see. It is such a time since I posted that I am feeling very guilty. School has been very hectic as I explained in my last posting, but it does seem to have settled down a bit now. And, best of all, I am about to start quilting again - at last. I have been collecting fabrics for a while and have found a gorgeous quilt pattern to use. It's called "Stars in My Garden" by Lori Smith and it is just superb. Applique and piecing. I cut out and vliesofixed 8 blocks last night, but realised that I really don't have enough variety of fabric, so had to go shopping today. What a shame!! LOL. Got home ready to start another set of blocks, unrolled a new piece of vliesofix and the whole lot fell apart!!! Tragedy!! It is definitely Murphy's Law. And the shop was closed, so I couldn't get any more. Very frustrating and not good for my new found enthusiasm. So, I decided to do the 'blog' thing instead. Here is a photo of some of the blocks - they won't be set this way. Unfortunately the colour is not quite right thanks to the flash. The backgrounds will be a more buttery cream.




Liz Needle

Too long

How long is it since I wrote anything on my blog - 17 days? And to think when I started, it was almost daily. Good intentions..........................
A lot has happened in the last 17 days - well a lot for me. Don and I drove to Sydney and had a wonderful few days with our two little grand daughters. I'd love to put up some photos, but we have agreed not to take the risk. We also spent a short time in Canberra catching up with my brother and some very old(not in age) and dear friends. It always amazes me how with some friends it doesn't seem to matter how long it is since you have met, the closeness and comfortable feeling is still there.

On Saturday we are going to the wedding of a cousin and my son Mark is doing the catering. He has been cooking up a storm in my kitchen for a week - and doing his own cleaning up. He's lucky he has a mother who loves buying kitchen equipment so he has a fairly well set up area to work in.
Then, on Monday, its back to school. To be honest I wasn't looking forward to this year with an expected class of 32 Year 6/7 kids - and a mixed lot at that. I was very pleased to go back on Wednesday and be greeted with the news that we had enough new enrolments to make an extra class, so I will start the year with 20 kids - pure bliss! Even more exciting is the news that the new enrolments are also new arrival children from Vietnam. Lobethal is very conservative, very much a white Australian background and it is going to be wonderful for our children to have children from another culture at school. My class is having two Vietnamese girls in Year 7 and I am so excited about it.

I took my non-digital camera away with me as it had a film in it to finish. The photos came back today, so I am sharing a very special one with you.

Don's Christmas present last year was a visit with the cheetahs at Monarto Zoo, so of course I had to share it with him. It was the most amazing and awesome experience.

Liz Needle

Ooops!!

Puddling around the house last Saturday, still in my PJs at about 11.00, when Mark asked me if Don and I were going out that evening. Rather puzzled as to why he would ask that, I replied that no, we weren't and why would he think we might because we rarely go out Saturday night - or any night for that matter.
He replied, "Well, it is your wedding anniversary!" Don and I looked at each other, then simultaneously burst out laughing. We had both completely forgotten. Usually he forgets and I remember, but this year it had completely slipped our minds. 45 years of wedded 'bliss' and we had forgotten this 'significant' day. Needless to say, we still did nothing. Too hard. We just spent a very companionable and relaxing evening at home watching a movie - Sandra Bullock (Don's favourite) in some film or other.

And here we are on that fateful day 45 years ago. Don, all 10 stone of him and me with a 19 inch waist - how things have changed!! So young and inexperienced. Both 21 and parents 9 months later.

Finding that photo got me going so here are a couple more Me with my mother and little brother, Fran; Don with his mother and big brother, Fred.

These old photos are such fun. Must get my scanner organised and do some more.

Liz Needle

Where has the time gone

The second week of the year already and all those NY resolutions if not forgotten then at least disbanded. I did walk for 2 days, but I haven't eaten any less and the weight hasn't decreased as yet - and not likely to. Little housecleaning done, no sewing and no gardening done. In fact I just don't seem to be able to stir myself to get moving. I have read a lot of books, answered numerous email, surfed the net and played Patience on the computer.

I did finally get motivated enough to clean and tidy the pantry shelves - and my sewing room is still immaculate - only because I have a quilting block and haven't done any sewing in the darn room these holidays!!

I was actually horrified at the state of the pantry. So many things had passed the 'use by' date. Items had I bought on a whim because they would be useful some day and then were never used. Items doubled up because they were on a 'special'. I think I half filled one of those council bins with packets, bottles, jars and tins of unwanted foodstuff. Such a waste!! I can just hear what my mother would have said,
"Just think of all those starving people in Africa," just like she used to when I was little and wouldn't eat my tea. I can remember then telling her that she could put my tea in a box and send it to the starving people!

One of the packets had a 'use by' date of March 1990!!! Probably could have taken it in to the local 'antique' shop and sold it for a fortune. Still in the original packet - unopened.

Never again! From now on I am going to keep my pantry in order the way my mother would have expected. Oh dear! Another NY resolution.

Liz Needle

Family

Monday Jan 1st

Happy New year everyone. We celebrated with just the two of us - New Year is never a big thing for us and I much prefer to be quietly at home with Don and safely off the roads on New Year's Eve.

This morning I started out as I plan to continue - very funny!! I took the dogs for a 3km walk then came home to a braekfast of fruit and cereal. Then I weighed and measured myself in preparation for the 2007 onslaught on the middle-aged spread - I wonder how long that will last - the onslaught, not the middle-aged spread!

Last Friday we had our annual family Christmas get-together with Don's family. It was a lovely evening and great to see two new additions to the family - great nieces Matilda and Jessica. That makes 12 of the next generation. I do enjoy these get-togethers and every year we say we should do it more often, and every year everyone is always too busy.

Jill and grand daughter Matilda










Olivia and Will with our old dog, Jeb





The old boys!

The 'not so old' girls




Liz Needle

The day after

Tues Dec 26th

Well, Christmas is over for another year. We have a couple of family get togethers later in the week, but at last I can relax. I actually feel like a limp dishcloth, even though we had a pretty quiet Christmas Day. I think the last 2 weeks of school, then organising the staff dinner, then Christmas has been a bit too much.

We were only 4 for lunch - Don, our daughter Jo and my brother Fran, but we had fun. Mark (son) came home after his stint at the restaurant and helped cook a wonderful dinner for us - after he had cooked 100 lunches for other people. We had a hilarious night eating, drinking and playing a game Mark was given - Smart Ass.

A highlight of the day was talking to and seeing our Sydney family on the computer. Don was given a webcam for Christmas and we were able to link up. Not quite like seeing them in person, but better than just a phone call.

Santa was kind to me this year - and my family was just brilliant. We had such fun opening each gift, small or large. We are not much into birthday presents, but we do love Christmas and I got some wonderful, thoughtful gifts.

I am a member of a small quilting group affectionately known as The Cows. We have been friends for ages now, though before we got together quite by chance, we hardly knew each other - only as names on emails. This year we exchanged small gifts and I had a lovely time opening my eleven parcels on Sunday night. Lots of beautiful quilting fabrics and other little gifts tossed in. Here is a photo of my selection.

I must really thank each and every one of The Cows. Their friendship over the years has been an important part of my life. They are a wonderful group of friends.

Liz Needle

Christmas Eve

Sun Dec 24th

It's Christmas Eve, but a very different one for us - just the two of us and my brother who is over from Canberra. My son is working, we will have Jo with us tomorrow, but Mandy will be in Sydney with her delightful family. So, a very quiet Christmas for us, but none the less a happy family one. At times like this I remember how much my mother was involved with Christmas at Lenswood and how very much I miss her - every day.

The tree is up and all the gifts are under it. As much as I love it, I do sometimes think of how much we spend on Christmas and how many people are living is circumstances where they never get the chance to enjoy even the small pleasures that we take for granted. How lucky we are living in Australia where it is safe and for most of us, very comfortable. I guess Christmas is the time to count our blessings and try to do something to help others.

I walked around the garden this evening watching the many little birds enjoying the bird baths and the flowers. a garden is great for the soul - my sanity in times of stress and a reminder of how beautiful the world can and should be.

The rain has freshened up the plants and none more so than the hydrangeas. They are coping surprisingly well this year, given the lack of water and the fact that last year they were sheltered by an enormous old mulberry tree which sadly came down last summer. Instead of giving up the ghost when the hot spell came, they have thrived with the extra sunshine and this year have produced an abundance of flowers in a variety of beautiful shades.

Lace caps - one of my favourites .

Tomorrow is Christmas Day. A day of Peace on earth - how wonderful that would be. Have a wonderful day with your loved ones and spend a moment thinking about those people who will not be able to share the love and fun you are having.

Liz Needle

Staff Dinner

Sat Dec 23rd

On Thursday we had our school staff dinner at our place. This is the third year we have done it this way and everyone loves it. My son Mark is a chef and he loves the challenge of producing a dinner for up to 20 at home. Luckily I have a well equipped kitchen!!

We have had a very dry year, but would you believe the weather forecast for Thursday was a deluge - between 20 and 40mm. American readers, 25mm is an inch in your measurement. We always have the dinner outside because it is beautiful in December on our front lawn. We do not have the room inside to seat 20 people. So we were in a quandary and had several contingency plans in mind. 1. Clear the house of furniture or 2. Have it on the veranda.

We opted for the veranda and set up three tables - I have three sets of everything we needed. Don and I had a heated discussion about how we would set up the tables - his plan required 4 tables - and I have only 3 of everything. I won. As long as the weather was coming from the back of the house(south-west), we would be OK. Everyone arrived, admired the tables and stood around with nibbles and drinks. Just as we were about to sit down, the wind blew up - from the north and down came the rain. The outside row of chairs was drenched.

We hurriedly swung the tables around against the wall - the way Don originally suggested - dragged in an old wooden outdoor table, found a white table cloth, picked a bunch of hydrangeas which went into a jar and reset the 4th table.

After that things went swimmingly and no-one actually got wet. Food was brilliant, company fantastic anf the wine delicious. Anmd my garden adored the rain which was slow and steady all night and the next day - 27mm in all.

]The only thing that went wrong that night were the cheap cabndles I had bought from Ikea. Check out the photo. Now I have to figure a way to get all that wax out of my red tablecloths!!

Tables set up before the rain fell down.

Disastrous candles. Next time I'll buy decent ones. Not so sure about the tablecloths, though. You can't actually see all the wax in this photo, but it was everywhere by the end of the night.

Have a wonderful Christmas everyone.

Liz Needle

More Christmas things

Strange things are happening. Hopefully one of my readers can tell me how to fix them. My profile is not appearing where it should - at least when I looked just now.

More Christmas pictures (I hope)

Well, that worked. If I don't have time to write again before Christmas, have a wonderful day everyone with lots of family cheer and a load of love.

Liz

Christmas Things

Wed Dec 20th

Wow! Nearly three weeks since I posted. But at last holidays are here and hopefully I will have time to do my own thing - like my blog. Funny, I always have so much planned for the holidays and I rarely get past the first couple of things on my list. I seem to get so much more done when I am under pressure. Still, I have these plans.

We had a lovely family day yesterday. Mandy sent Don's present over early so we could use it for Christmas. It was a cute little web cam. Finally got it set up - my poor old computer is not used to all this modern technology I keep loading it up with. We skyped away for a couple of fun sessions with the little ones - such excitement. Erinn (nearly 3) wasn't quite sure what was going on. These weird adults peering at her from the computer and talking to her as well.

After that we set up the tree and put out the Christmas stuff. I love this time of the year and my adult children always make it such fun. We always have to have a tree that touches the ceiling (and we have 12 foot ceilings). This one doesn't quite because I cut the dead tip off - and was soundly scolded. Decorations go up in a certain way and each of us has particular things we put on the tree. Woe betide anyone who takes the wrong decoration! Some of them date back 30 plus years, though quite a few of the older ones have succumbed to age and moths.

This years tree is a very bushy one. Lots of branches to hang things on. What a pity the littlies will be in Sydney and won't see it. Still, we'll be able to show them with the webcam.

The next photos are of my collection of angels and Santas. I love the Heartwood Creek Christmas stuff as you can see from the santa collection.

Well it looks like the old blogger is playing up again. Won't let me upload any more photos this session. I'll have to do the rest separately.

Liz

Holiday Countdown

Friday Dec 1st

Only two more weeks to go before we break up for the school holidays - well, until the kids break up. I still have to go back for a few days because I have not officially racked up my 37 hours of professional development training. Is there another industry in this world that demands that its employees do 37 hours T&D in their own time and at their own expense? If we don't do the time, then we have to go back to school after the kids have gone to make up the time. Its a bit like naughty children staying back after school to catch up on work not finished in class!

I know we get longer holidays and our working day is shorter etc etc and all those other things that teachers get criticised for, but they don't take into account all the extra hours we do................... Nuff said. I'll get off my hobby horse.

Had an easy day today - my Year 7s went off to their new high schools for a transition day and as there were only 8 Year 6s left, I was able to farm them out and go to town for a couple of urgent appointments and to get some shopping done for the school. Back to the grind stone on Monday. We (my class and I) have the school year book to finish, I have reports to write and the Year 7 graduation and a Disco to organise. No rest for the wicked.

Cleaning out my computer desk last night, I found a CD of quilt photos, so I will add a few more to my blog. Some of these are pretty early ones I made, so don't be too ctitical.

This is my "Newbie Star" Quilt, so called because it was the result of a block swap amongst mwmbwers of the Southern Cross Quilters who had never participated in a block swap before. The photo doesn't do it justice. The border is actually a nice country green.

"Daiseez" is a pretty quilt I made for a school raffle. It is made in 30s fabrics and from a Jan Mullen pattern. The family that won it were so pleased that each of them took it in turn to have it on his/her bed.

Well, it looks like the dear old Blog has decided that two photos are my limit for the night. More next time.

Have a great weekend.

Liz Needle

Aquatics things

November 27th

Each December my Year 6/7 class attends an Aquatics Camp at Murray Bridge. They spend 3 brilliant days learning the skills of canoeing, kayaking, sailing, rowing, small boat handling, kneeboarding, wind surfing and water skiing.

The setting is superb, the instructors top class and the kids have a ball. Here are some photos of this years aquatics.

Some of the girls kitted up ready for canoeing and kayaking.









"We didn't mean to capsize, Mrs N."

Hmm. Pull the other one, it plays Jingle Bells, boys.










Getting ready to go - I mean row!







The wind surfers. Their first lesson. Nervous stuff.

The Year 7 kids posing for the camera. A rare sight. They usually disappear when they see me with a camera, but don't seem to mind a video cam.

Liz Needle

Later that Night...............

November 25th still...........

No, I will not give up. I will show you some more quilt photos - tonight!! I have decided!!


Yeah!! It worked - for at least one quilt. This is not a great photo, but it will show you something of this quilt - another favourite - that I made for my elder daughter, Jo. I made one block at a SA Quilters Guild Encounter, just to learn a new machine applique technique from Sandra Edwards, Jo fell in love with the block, so I promised to make more blocks and turn them into a quilt for her. Of course she has a queen size bed, hasn't she? This was the largest quilt I have ever made. The print is a lovely pink and green Hoffmann one.



Finally for tonight, this is a quilt I made that is to be published in a book by SA quilter Pam Holland. The original quilt from which this was made, is called 1776 Revisited (well, it has a longer name, but we all know it by its shorter name) and it was the top quilt at the Houston Quilt Show (and a few other quilt shows) several years ago. Since then Pam has written a book about her quilt and my quilt will appear in that book. How exciting!

Liz Needle

Two Weeks later

Saturday November 25th

Is it really that long since I wrote. I doubt there will be anyone still clicking onto this blog!

So much seems to have been happening - well, I seem to have been ever busy - but nothing much has been achieved. We, my class and I, had a very successful aquatics camp - and I even had a chance to get out in a kayak for an hour. First time for a few years and my shoulders really felt it the next day. These annual camps are the highlight of the year for my kids - they learn so much in three days and it is a joy to see their excitement in mastering new skills, gaining self confidence and learning to work and play together. And to think our state government, in its infinite wisdom, is planning to cut funding for aquatics activities!
On the one hand they constantly urge teachers to encourage and promote increased physical activity amongst young people, then on the other they refuse to fund programs that really do enthuse kids to be active and to enjoy physical activity. Beats me!!

I thought I had some photos of happy campers, but that will have to wait until next time.

What else have I been doing. Certainly no quilting. Quilters block has set in. I did find some lovely bright fabric on the Free Spirit website and a pattern that I fell in love with, so I spent ages chasing up the fabrics I needed and ordering them online. I did look in Aussie shops, but couldn't find it, I promise. So, all this week parcels have been arriving at the post office. I am sure they think its my birthday or else that I am plotting something. So, I have a project for these holidays. It's something right out of my comfort zone, so it will be a challenge. Now that the fabric has arrived, I'm not even sure that I am going to like it, but nothing ventured, nothing gained, as they say.

I realise that I have never put a photo of any of my quilts on this blog. How strange, considering that it takes up a lot of my spare time, so here goes. A few photos just to prove that I do actually quilt.


This first quilt is one of my favourites - and one I have kept for myself. It was a BOM designed by SA quilter Susan Murphy, who was coincidentally my very first - and best - quilt teacher. This one is called "Celebrate the Harvest" It is machine appliqued and pieced. Over the last couple of years I have made several machine appliqued quilts and really enjoy them.

Well, it would appear that there will be no more photos tonight - at least not in this blog. Quite often I try to upload photos, the first one or two work and then the rest don't. Everything seems to be going along fine, but the photos just don't appear, even though Blogger tells me they are 'done'. Does anyone else have this problem, I wonder? Maybe there is a quota and I go beyond that?

No matter, tomorrow is another day, as they say. Oh these hackneyed cliches. Forgive me. It is late.

Liz Needle

Weather and things

Saturday November 11th

It seems an age since I updated my blog, so my apologies to any readers who have been waiting patiently. I haven't really had much to say.

At the moment it is trying to rain. We are currently going through a very dry spell - so much so that Adelaide and most country areas have been put on water restrictions for the first time in many years. We are lucky , I guess, because other areas of Australia have been on water restrictions for several years and now it is our turn. At the moment we are allowed to hand water and to use sprinklers at night three times a week, but that also may change soon. Meanwhile I get up at all hours of the night in an effort to keep the garden alive.

Heartbreaking to think that this garden in which I have sweated and laboured and which our family has enjoyed for over 30 years may slowly die. A pity that our governments are so short sighted that although they knew that this would eventually come to pass, have done nothing to solve the problem of lack of water in Australia.

We have been promised rain this weekend and indeed it has been threatening to rain here all day. Cloudy and humid, then the sky darkens, a wind blows up and the first drops splat down with the promise of a good downpour - then stop!! And so the build up starts again.

Maybe later tonight, maybe tomorrow, maybe never. We live in hope.

Liz Needle

Back to School

Wednesday Nov 1st

Last Sunday Don and I went to a Back to School day for his old primary school - a small Adelaide Hills School. We'd been to one a few years back and had enjoyed it, so off we went again. Don found lots of old mates and had a great time talking about old escapades, cricket games and football tussles.

I even came across a number of kids I had taught when I was teaching at the local high school and who had also attended this primary school. I get a lot of satisfaction out of meeting old students and hearing about their lives since school. Some of them have made outstanding contributions to their communities and others have achieved great academic heights. And there are those who have made good lives for themselves and their families without fanfare and glory. I feel very honoured that I have in some small way been able to contribute to their lives.

The photos below are from the reunion.

Don, Paul and Mark. Three of the 6 Needle boys

Needles and Pins

And last, but not least, Don with his best friend from nearly 60 years ago. They only catch up on rare occasions as George lives in Queensland, but nothing changes!!

Liz