A bit more progress!

Yay, I have finally made some progress on my Auntie Green's Garden. It took my forever to applique all those double leaves.

I made a couple more sewing boxes. If you are interested in making your own box, my friend Heather has written a tutorial which is now available at Craftsy. She also sells kits with everything you need to make a box similar to this one. Check it out here. 

This one I gave to my friend Rose-Anne when she visited me last week. As you can see she started using it immediately when we sat sewing together on our balcony like in the good old times! She also had a sewing kit with her. It was a little farewell gift I made for her when she left Shanghai six years ago and it was fun to see it again and I'm happy that she is using it.

Last weekend my husband and I were invited to a wedding in Jakarta, Indonesia. As we lived there for almost five years in the nineties, and I have only been back a couple of times since, we took the opportunity to go down memory lane. Lots has changed, but the traffic is still as bad as ever (or maybe worst) but the people are still as friendly and warm-hearted as I remembered them. We even found the house we used to live in 20 years ago. It was rather strange as it was familiar but not, if you know what I mean!

Somehow I remember it all much bigger, especially our road. But the kids still refer to this house as the one they could ride their bikes in the living room as it was really huge. Good times!

And last but not least, this child of mine is turning 30 today! How is that even possible? 

Happy Birthday my darling!

Cheers

Vreni x

Melbourne Craft and Quilt Fair

I've just returned from a few days in Melbourne where I visited the Craft and Quilt Fair. I've been to the Sydney show a few times, but this was my first time at the Melbourne show.

My photos are really not great, so I'll only show you a few. This is the winning quilt, made with over 22'000 1/4 inch hexagons. Can you imagine?

I enjoyed seeing Steve's Garden; a quilt which is also on my to do list

If you want to see more and much better pictures of the show, hop over to my friend Heather's blog.

And guess who I run into at the show doing an applique demonstration? Only Irene Blank, who made the pattern for the Auntie Green's Garden based on an antique quilt. We had a lovely chat .

Of course no visit to a quilt show would be complete without buying a few things or lots!

This little bundle will be added to my Auntie Green's Garden stash; I'm in love with these greens. 

And more fabric for my stash, including some linen.

I was smitten with Marg Low's stand,  especially all her Christmas stuff. What do you do when you can't choose as everything is so lovely? Get it all of course (or almost)!

A collection of wool felt and a sewing bag I intend to cover with felt and embellish it. Stay tuned!

Various bibs and bobs

This little gadget is intended for long arm quilters, but I've seen people use it on their domestic machines, so I'm keen to try it out.

This big light pad will come handy with tracing my Auntie Green's Garden pattern.

And two more pattern; heaven only knows when I ever get to use them, but that's beside the point, isn't it?

And that's it. I tend to go overboard sometimes, but I guess that stems from the times we lived in third world countries where not everything was readily available. So one took advantage when one could and I still do! That's my excuse anyway and I'm sticking to it. 

And here's one last picture of my Peak Hour, this time including the baby ;)!

Now it's definitely time to get back to my stitching.
Cheers
Vreni x