Sunshine and stuff

Today is absolutely glorious - we have another day of this beautiful Spring weather and then it's back to rain and cold - a couple of days ago it was freezing, all along the eastern seaboard of Oz - there was even snow in Queensland!  However, here in Melbourne today, it's glorious.

I've been out weeding the veggie patch and looking at what's popped up - there was a lone snowpea plant that self sowed from last year and there was 5 snowpeas on it - I say "was", because they're no longer there - I ate them - nothing quite like sun warmed veggies fresh from the garden.....

Picking from the garden already is lettuces (all self sown from last year's crop), pak choy, asparagus and leeks (in fact except for the lettuce, the rest is going into a veggie stir fry for dinner tonight).  Toms are going slowly, beans have been attacked by snails, a few carrots are up, zucchini and pumpkin are also slowly growing, so it's early days yet but we're getting there.

Yesterday I took the opportunity to quilt and attach binding to the two quilts that will be raffled off for our local CFA (Country Fire Authority) - all proceeds to the Burns Unit at the Royal Children's Hospital - I hope they raise millions.  One of the lovely ladies from my classes has offered to hand sew the binding down - thanks Margaret - so here they are almost complete...

The ladder quilt is about 54" x 72" and is quilted in a flame shape - well, ziggy zaggy really.  The big country style one on the right is large at 80" square - there's another couple of the appliqued blocks hanging behind on the line - otherwise it was going to land in the dirt!  This one was quilted with a large meander - didn't want anything too dense due to the applique.

ziggy zaggy flames

The ladies did a fantastic job of the piecing and Margaret, who has volunteered to sew down the binding, also put the big country one together - thanks again Margaret - great job.  Jan and Lynne created the wonderful applique blocks - Somerville has strong connections with chooks, apples and pears - and they also sewed some of the 9 patch blocks together.  Other 9 patch contributors: Jeanette, Dawn, Judy, Margaret (another one!) and  Joan.

The ladders blocks were put together by Lynne, Olivia and myself and then I stitched the blocks together.  Trimming was ably assisted by Kim.  I'm sure the CFA will be well impressed.

My eldest son celebrated his birthday last month (so did my youngest son actually!) and after a bit of tooing and froing, and a couple of wrecked windcheaters and T shirts due to 'schmutz' transfer whilst baking or cooking at home, he decided an apron would be in order - not a poncey pinny, but a MAN's apron that could save his clothes - great idea - so I found some weighty calico and drew and cut and sewed - and my big lad loves The Transformers - so for a surprise, I raw edge appliqued the Transformers logo on the front - he loved it :) I don't have a photo of him in it, but before I handed it over, my husband modelled for me...

great look with the socks and the daft smirk - "more than meets the eye"

I hope I haven't left any names out of the contributors of the CFA quilts.......