Last week...

Because of all the craft fair excitement, I forgot to share last Tuesday and Wednesday's photos. The Tuesday and the Wednesday ladies had been very busy. Sandra has appliqued this lovely quilt. Doesn't the quilting make the appliques stand out?

Josie has made this bright quilt and it has turned out so well with the black sashing.

In the afternoon, Karen brought in her finished block 1 of the My Town BOM.

Karen has also finished this lovely cushion for her granddaughter. She did a great job of the stitching, especially the grub roses.

Bronwyn had finished her stitched folder cover. Looks lovely, Bronwyn.

In the evening, it was lovely to have Audrey back at class. She was working on this gorgeous tree for a gift. It looks so good and is a pattern from Don't Look Now which Audrey has reduced.

Audrey had also finished her felt needlecase from the stitching day.

I just love the way she has stitched with close running stitches around her needle pages. What a good idea.

It is always inspiring to see what the ladies have been making.

Quilts at the Craft Show

We had a quick look at the quilts in between shopping. There were so many beautiful ones.

This quilt was an Australiana one and the applique and quilting was amazing.

There were a few Dear Janes which looked fantastic. I have stalled at 5 blocks!

Just look at the quilting on this one.

I loved the appliqued flowers on this quilt.

This was a large quilt which was all English paper pieced. Amazing.

Wonderful time at the Craft Show

Paddy and I headed up to Sydney on Thursday and had a great day visiting Berrima, Bowral and Mittagong on the way. I was very sad to see that the lovely shop called My Place in Bowral had closed. What a shame. We then headed to the city on Friday to go to the Craft Fair at Darling Harbour. We both said that we didn't need ANYTHING, but we managed to spend plenty of money on lovely things. One of the exciting things that happened was that I was able to meet come fellow bloggers. A lovely lady came over to say hi to me and I wasn't sure who she was but it was Chooky Blue! Here is Chooky next to Anni Downs with some of her other blogging pals. We had of course headed straight to Hatched and Patched as it is one of the loveliest stalls.

Here I am with the ladies.

Anni had her new book called Some Kind of Wonderful there with all the beautiful samples too. The kits were so tempting and several came home with me!

Here is Pete ready to greet the crowds!

Hatched and Patched had these amazing puppets on their stall so I did need a pattern for a couple of these as well. I think my little grandie will like some of these one day.

Paddy and I really enjoyed chatting to Sue Daley and watching her demonstrating both her way of needleturning and her paper piecing techniques.

At lunch time we went to a meeting with some other bloggers. It was so nice to meet the blogging girls "in real life"!

Wonderful quilt

Caroline has made the most beautiful quilt as a gift for her sister and brother in law for their anniversary and a special birthday. They used to live on a farm and so this was a lovely quilt for them. There is so much work in these McKenna Ryan patterns. I love the way the batik fabrics work in these blocks.

Here are the gorgeous chooks.

Check out the swinging cat!

Caroline changed the house to look like their house and added special embroidered flowers too.

This block was cleverly made to include their names on the cups and Caroline appliqued extra things that she designed herself that suited their life on the farm.

What a very special gift.

Lovely weekend in Berry

We had the loveliest weekend in Berry with Fiona and David. It was a birthday treat for Fiona and we were invited to join them. We ate the most amazing meals (too much of course) and had a great time checking out the shops in Berry and even fitting in a bit of stitching. Bruce had his lovely camera and took some great photos which I have borrowed. Fiona and I especially enjoyed a long visit to Sew and Tell, which is an embroidery and now wool and fabric shop in the main street.

We ate lunch and morning tea at the Sourdough Bakery which was very good. Dinner on Friday was a treat as we sat outside in a sheltered part of the restaurant with blankets and shared the most delicious Asian meal.

Here is some Berry colour.

Here we are on the verandah at the back of the house.

We didn't actually sit here and stitch for long but it made a nice photo. We are both working on our Vignette stitching.

This was another lovely spot to sit with such colourful cushions.

On the way home we had lunch in Kangaroo Valley and wandered around the town and into the shops there too. The husbands were very patient!

Aren't these little hats cute?

Thanks, David, for organising such a special weekend.

Show and Tell and some stitching

It was so exciting to see Paddy's Village Square quilt on Wednesday. Robyn has just finished quilting it and it looks wonderful. Paddy has needleturned all her houses and the trees are embroidered and appliqued. Paddy is going to add some buttons too.

Karen has finished her lovely painted button scene too.

I have been stitching too and managed to finish the embroidery on block 3 of Scandinavian Christmas. It now needs 4 little pieced blocks to finish it off.

As the third Vignette magazine arrived recently, I thought I had better start tracing as there are many flowers to stitch this time with 3 blocks to make.

I also had fun last week using my punchneedle to make this little Santa decoration. He will be part of our classes next term.

Handmade Market and some exciting news

Carol and I had a lovely time on Saturday at the Handmade Market at the Exhibition Centre. It was really lovely to see so many beautiful handmade items for sale and so many young people making things! It was a bit hard to take photos but here are a few. Some flash light fittings.

Gorgeous pink things.

Here are some lovely towels with names appliqued.

These girls run a great business called Goosey Gander with beautiful things for kids.

I must admit I really enjoyed seeing all the great kids' things as we are going to be grandparents in December!!! Our daughter Amy (and hubby too) are having a baby! Here are some pictures of him or her at about 12 weeks. I didn't blog about this news earlier as I thought I had better not but recently these pictures were on Facebook so I wanted to share my excitement here too! How amazing are these pictures.

I did buy a few bits of kiddy fabric but came home with lots of things I would like to make for this little one. I plan to go to the Handmade Markets that are on later in the year and buy a few bits then for the baby. Carol and I were a bit peckish after all the looking at stalls and decided on a healthy lunch! Waffles with strawberries, icecream and caramel sauce were delicious!