Rockmia

We bought 'Rockmia' the small farm next door in 2007. Since then it has undergone several 

transformations. When we bought it the gardens were very well kept, cottage style.

 The two photos above are what it looked like then. After that the garden suffered some neglect as there was no one living in it full time who cared to garden. 

 In January of 2012 my Mum and Step Dad moved in. Mum is a manic gardener and Carlos an excellent maker-of-things. Together they have started to bring the garden back to a different kind of beautiful. It is a lot more hands off than the cottage garden of before, but in 12 months they have got it looking lickety split!

 Carlos made this balustrading just recently with the old tines from the hay rake. And the old 

sheep yard fence, below, was one of the first things we added to the garden.

Agapanthus Bird Houses

 I've been hard at work painting and installing my bird houses amongst the agapanthus. I had grand plans of making all the houses, but never got further than the red and brown one. The whole project was about to dive bomb because I was waiting for the ooomph to make the houses so I decided to buy them cheaply from here and there and paint them instead.

 I went with a whole colour palette of pastels and nestled them randomly through the 

garden bed. They are a little hard to spot, but there must be about 8 of them. I have 

2 more coming in the mail and I think that will be enough.

As a bit of a flashback, I found the following picture that I took in April, 2008 

when I first created the Aggie bed!

So often we look at the agapanthus simply as a flowering ball, but each 

individual flower is really gorgeous on it's own.

Bits n Bobs

We're in the thick of school holidays at the moment and having a ball. I really enjoy the holidays. Letting the routine slack off and not worrying about bedtimes and sleep-in's and TV before breakfast.




We've been up in Perth for a few days. Took the kids and the cousins to Adventure World. They have been asking to go for ages so we finally took them on Saturday. Came home yesterday afternoon and one of our cats, Schmoo, was very pleased to have us back.




We also came home to find some new chooks roaming the yard! Our retired worker stops by several times a year but never let's us know when. We always seem tone away and he leaves me goodies that he gas collected up. This time it was these little rippers.




This morning we have 3 extras. We recently sponsored a Zimbabwean family who have emigrated. They have been here two weeks and this morning had to go off and sit there 'L' plates for their drivers licenses. Their 3 kids have come up for a play.




I really want to know what this plant is. Anyone know?
In craft news, a little titbit to show you what I have started working on.








Peace out!
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Blast from the past Tornado Cake

I feel the need to do a posthumous post about a cake I made back in 2011. My son was turning 9 and requested a tornado cake. I decided to go all out. None of this wussy 2 dimensional stuff for my boy!

My son, Angus, has just reminded me that the funnel was made of a rice bubble slice mix to make it both lighter and harder than cake. I made a funnel out of paper and greaseproof. I filled it with the rice bubble mixture and stuck two wooden skewers in it. Once this was set and the cake was iced I drove the skewers into the cake and prayed like crazy that it would hold.

I little more carnage in the form of fallen trees and flying animals and voila - one happy kid.

Not another quilt, quilt!

I made this quilt based on a tutorial I saw over at Moda Bake Shop.

It's very similar to the original except I used scraps of fabric from my stash for the blocks. 

As stated in the tutorial, it was quick and easy to make. I will take the topper with me to Albany tomorrow to find backing and binding fabric. 

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Guest Blog from Tin Whistle!

Hi there. I'm Milly from Tin Whistle!!!!! 

Because this is my guest blog I get to choose the font and I know my sister hates my favourite one! Courier.

Anyway, she wanted me to blog about the twin (fraternal) quilts we made over the last few days. 

We used a neato quilt pattern from Missouri Quilt company called the Double slice layer cake quilt.

Catherine bought a gorgeous layer cake from the fabric range Coquette by Moda. I decided to select scrappy rainbow fabrics from my stash in really bright colours. This is why the quilts are fraternal twins not identical ones.  

We used this easy tutorial to create the middle section of the quilt. Catherine started out with 10" layer cakes and the finished double sliced blocks end up being 9" square.

 After that we decided to add some borders, starting with a 3.5" blue border. 

 Catherine only had the one layer cake of Coquette fabric so we raided her stash for complimentary pastels and she constructed a scrappy border from 2.5" squares. 

Then she finished off the quilt with another 3.5" blue border. 

  

Here is Catherine's finished quilt top. Its a really generous lap quilt size which Catherine will finish off and keep all for herself.

Here is the sister quilt that I made. It's amazing how different the quilt looks using different fabric. 

An apple a day...

These little beauties were Millys project that we all fell in love with. She bought this fairly daggy kit that sewed up into a fabric globe.

It was a very simple template that I decided to copy with scraps of Dr Suess fabric. My niece Elizabeth loved it so I gave it to her. Millys template was only 6 pieces of fabric, but I wanted to use lots of colours so I halved each piece and did 12 instead. This turned out to work better as it gave the ball a nicer shape.

I also decided to add the buttons top and bottom and pull the ends in a bit to give a more donut shape.

After I made this, Milly had the brilliant idea of making apples. I had heaps of reds left over from the red strip quilt so I sewed up the balls and Milly made the leaves.

We ran out of stuffing long before we ran out of enthusiasm, so first of all I cut up some cheap pillows for their innards then I used Richards miracle 'cloud pillow'. This was a TV gimmick I bought Richard for Chrissy as he saw it on TV and thought it would be awesome. I'm surprised it didn't come with a set of 6 free steak knives it was such a con. Anyway, the little tiny beans it was filled with made a lovely stuffing for my apple ;)

Milly also made a blue/green one with scraps of fabric she had left over from another project. Instead of filling this one with poly filling, she left a hole in the top and popped a balloon in it. It makes an awesome ball and the balloon can just be replaced if it pops.

 NOTHING stands in the way of sewing!

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Yee Ha Raggy Quilt

I picked up this super cute cowboy fabric from Spotlight a week ago and was itching to make a Raggy quilt with it.









I hadn't bought any backing for it but by pure luck I found an excellent match in the argyle and stripe fabric I had left over from the triangle quilt. Typically I was about two squares short, but even then my meagre stash of fabric yielded enough complimentary brown and blue to finish it off.



My neighbour and fiercest boy quilt critic has complimented this quilt so I will tuck it away until her baby comes in March to see if its a boy or a girl.