Hubblebird's Quilt Blog

One of the hazards of living in a semi-rural location is the lack of good Internet access.   My Internet and land line connections went down on 17 October and after a phone call to Telstra I was promised that it would be fixed by 22 October.    Well, the landline was fixed by 22 October, but not the Internet connection.   That took longer, and I still don't know why.  I did get a new modem delivered, because the other was apparently out-of-date but not responsible for the hitch, and I haven't managed to face connecting that yet in case everything crashes again.  Maybe tomorrow?  Our land also borders a place of worship where the congregation are unable to use their mobile phones, or have Internet access for services/seminars.   To use their mobile phones, members of the congregation have to walk outside their hall, and a few hundred yards down the road, in order to get a weak signal. This means that services and seminars have to be rec...

I came home from Pilates this morning to find that Foghorn Leghorn has been installed as the crowning glory onto the almost completed garage! He looks a bit wonky to me, but I won't say anything yet. Foghorn (or maybe we should call him Foggy) came all the way from USA - at considerable cost - as my husband thought the postage was in Australian dollars. Nobody else but he would choose to suddenly decide to remove the native shrub that is blocking where the driveway will be poured in his banana bedecked pyjamas, with Foggy looking on, of course.  At 7pm too - but when the mood takes him.... So far our three 'Barnyard Dawgs' haven't noticed the rooster on the roof.  I just hope it doesn't squeak in the wind, which can be pretty fierce at times, especially when it blows in an easterly direction off the ocean. Hubblebird

I belong to Night Owl Quilters on the NSW Coast.  The group originally got its name because it used to meet at night, but now with so many retirees (like me) the group meets in the morning on the 2nd and 4th Tuesday of each month. Most members are older and more experienced quilters than I am, and they are a lovely group of ladies. I go to the fourth Tuesday meeting because I play tennis on the other three Tuesdays.  The ladies at tennis have been very generous in helping me get back into play after I broke my foot last year, so I can't let them down.  Anyway, I really enjoy the game and the social side of it.  So much so that I've just enrolled in a Ladies Tennis Clinic to improve my skills and that starts Monday week!  A blog about that later. At the last quilt meeting I went to one of our members brought a friend who had taken part in an online Master Class in art quilting.  She gave a very interesting talk about her experience and showed the body o...

And its taking forever! The previous owners of our house converted the double garage (under the house) into a two room unit, which we love, and which we rent out to holidaymakers when the rest of the family aren't staying in it. I covet the main room for my sewing room ... time will tell! We knew we would need to build a garage at some stage, and we originally intended to put up some kind of drive-thru carport at the side of the house. But my husband decided to buy two jet skis and that meant that we needed to put both the cars and jet skis under cover from sun and salt air. Our problem was where to build the garage on the property. We knew we wanted it to be big, and we didn't want to go to the expense of building new driveways to get to it.  Also, our Biolytix waste septic system has several irrigation beds spread around the property, and we had to avoid digging those up. So we decided to locate the garage on the old tennis court, which we weren't using, and whic...

I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel ambivalent about ‘modern’ quilts. I include utility quilts as well as art quilts here. I feel the same way about them as I do about some art – i.e. I can take it or leave it depending on whether I have an emotional response towards what I am seeing. Unfortunately, a lot of the time that feeling is ‘meh’! Until the hexie pillow I hadn't tackled anything modern, but I recently came across a modern quilt pattern that jumped out at me.  I like pinwheels and the blocks looked fairly simple.  The pattern includes a way to foundation paper piece half square triangles (HSTs) and the blocks are set on point to add more interest. I haven't tried either of these techniques before. All in all, the quilt looks great in the magazine, but I'm not fond of the white cotton background, and my experience with the hexie pillow didn't make me any fonder of an all-white background.  If my quilting skills were better, that might make a diff...

The friend who gave me the composting bin has fallen in love with a supermarket recycling bag - or more accurately, she has fallen in love with the fish that is on it.  In June this year Australia's two major supermarket chains (Coles and Woolworths) phased out plastic bags in favour of recyclable bags.  This was almost unthinkable for many Australians and, in an effort to make the transition easier and marketable, Coles released a line of community designed recycled bags that had been created by schoolchildren. I was surprised to learn that the bag was designed by a local 15-year old high school student named Ella - in Moruya no less - who goes to school about 20 minutes down the road from me.  It's a small world. Judging by the reference to the Murray River, I think the fish is the artist's impression of the Murray River Cod.   Apparently the Murray Cod, "is the apex aquatic predator in the rivers of the Murray-Darling basin, and will eat...

Hhhmm. One of my favourite bloggers is Janet, author of ‘Suck it up Buttercup’ . She writes regularly about her sewing activities, as well as her life on the land in Montana, USA, and juggling home-based online work with family and church.  She's a real multi-tasker, and I find her quite inspirational. I came across her blog when she posted a finished bag on another blog ‘Crazy Mom’ some time last year and have followed her ever since.   I like the way she writes, and the way that she combines writing about quilting with whatever else takes her fancy – and she can be pretty feisty sometimes.   I like that too, by the way!  I find myself reading her blog with what I imagine is an American twang. Since my blog is not just about quilting, I am planning on posting whatever takes my fancy too, but will only link to quilting blogs when I have a finish to show. Janet and her husband try to be as self-sufficient as possible, and she has just finished a su...

I went to my local patchwork shop in Mogo to buy a Hera marker and came back with these instead –  I’m calling the chair my sewing throne because it is surprisingly comfy to sit upright in and leaves plenty of elbow room when I'm hand stitching. It reminds me a little of something that might be a prop in Alice in Wonderland and it will fit in the small lounge room . I plan on covering the window seat cushion in this room in one of the colours picked from the sewing throne fabric - turquoise maybe? So how did I jump from bringing home a Hera marker to bringing home a chair and footstool you may ask? I wasn’t in the market for more furniture that’s for sure, and I have two other furniture make-overs in the pipeline (one currently out on the verandah waiting for its final sanding before I stain, paint and replace knobs).   I don’t need any more projects! I picked this up for $20 in a garage sale.  It's handmade by some enterprising DIYer and...