Mad COWS day out!

There’s nothing like a fun day out with the girls and that’s exactly what we did last Saturday even though it was a bit on the hot side (about 38C which is probably well up in the 90’s in Fahrenheit). There were 10 of us in two cars and we were making our way up to Ballarat which is about 2 hours north from our part of Melbourne. Our first stop was in Ballan which is a great spot and really worth a visit if you get the chance. Mill Rose Quilting and Gallery was just beautifully laid out and we really enjoyed looking at all their gorgeous fabric and patterns.

I hear rumour that they are starting a bed and breakfast so will definitely be keeping that one in mind for a weekend retreat!

We also dropped into the farmers market in Ballan and enjoyed looking at all the lovely produce and couldn’t resist buying some of their crusty bread, of which we were given many tastings. We were a bit tempted by the cheese too but I think we quickly realised it would be a big and smelly mistake on such a hot day!

After Ballan, we took off up to Ballarat and visited Eureka Patchwork and Ballarat Patchwork and stopped at a wonderful place for lunch (we were ready to chew an arm off by this stage)! Its called Wen and Ware and is a fabulous gift shop and delicious lunch stop. Even managed to do a bit of Christmas shopping – for me!! All in all a very successful day and quite ready to collapse in a heap when I got home. Luckily himself had got the new pizza oven fired up and we had our very first wood-fired pizzas – YUM!

Baby flannel quilt

Still waiting for news of baby’s arrival (from friends in Bonnie Scotland) but in the meantime I set to putting some flannel squares together to make a nice snuggly quilt for bub. I appliqued some stars on to the squares and then gave to Natalie at the Quilting Bug who echoed the star design in her quilting. Hopefully mum, dad and baby will enjoy!

Baby flannel quilt with stars

Thought you might like to see a couple of other that came back at the same time. The first one is my friend Carol’s who made a large version of this (not shown) and a small baby one which she is about to send off as a present overseas. I think you will agree it is very pretty (and bonus knowing that it is made up from the left-overs of a bigger quilt – including the batting)!

Carrie’s been at it again too! Again this one is going overseas with get well wishes for her mother in law. I think this quilt would cheer up anyone’s Christmas.

Here are some proteas I often pass in a friend’s front garden – I just couldn’t resist their beautiful colours and I hope it brings a touch of sunshine to those going into the depths of winter!!

Up the garden path (with a dog)!

Well actually I don’t know whether this is a garden path quilt but I do know that I started it on a retreat about 3 years ago and I’m mighty relieved that I finished stitching on the binding last night at our monthly get together. Wow what a good feeling (must remember to do the lable though).

I started it after finishing a quilt for my mum’s 80th which was a mixture of pink, cream and green florals and thought I had better use the left-overs up, so having seen a friend make a similar pattern I made the triangle blocks up and in between placed a nine-patch and this was what I got.

I machine quilted it myself using the diagonal lines as a guide.

Finished at last – garden path quilt

I can’t say that these are my usual colours I would choose and I had some serious reservations about the dark green but still it has a bit of old fashioned charm and will still be nice to wrap around on a cool night!

Photographer’s assistant just helping out!

By the way if anyone does know the name of this pattern, feel free to let me know but I won’t be changing the title as it took me long enough to think of this one!

Back from the quilter’s

Last week our little friendship group (The Mad COWS) sent off 7 quilts with our wonderful quilter Natalie from: thequiltingbug. A very speedy 7 days later she drove accross Melbourne to deliver them to my door!! (what amazing service). We had our own mini quilt show as we oohd and ahhhd over each other’s quilts and with service like this and our backlog of quilts shrinking, its hard to find a good reason not to do all our quilts this way! Anyway here’s our mini quilt show for your enjoyment.

Flo’s double-sided quilt- side 1 (Christmas)

Flo’s quilt (side 2)

Carrie’s split nine patch quilt (Christmas)

Carol’s country scrap quilt

Carol’s ‘Under the Australian Sun’ quilt

My Drunkards Path quilt

Detail of Drunkards Path showing ‘simple swirls’ quilt pattern

My Moda fabric jelly roll quilt

Detail of my jelly roll quilt

Mainly ‘Moda French General’ fabric – stack and slash quilt

Stack and slash using (mainly) French General fabric