Birthdays, gourmet Wednesday and completed quilting.

The 21st August saw my darling husbands birthday, he also shares this day with a very dear friend of mine. Happy birthday Lesley, I hope that you also had a great day with family and friends. Hubby was lucky this year as his birthday fell on a Wednesday which is our family night and fondly named by my friend Christine "gourmet Wednesday". Hubby was spoilt and was given by our eldest son and partner a steeden limited edition south's leather football in a case and he was very pleased, our youngest son gave him a tap king, "Hahn super dry" I am sure he really bought t for himself as he was desperate  to crack it and share it with his father. My gift to him is allowing him to accompany me on a trip to Japan in November, we are going for the Yokohama Quilt festival, so whilst over there will also visit Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan has been on our bucket list for awhile so out of the blue I decided to book and go. I really love to cook for the family and we always have a great time together,  especially when we have something to celebrate. I feel very blessed with our boys and their partners. Menu for gourmet Wednesday was oyster Kilpatrick, beer battered prawns with mango aioli, crumbed mushrooms stuffed with Brie, main meal was crumbed cutlets and I did a white chocolate passion fruit mousse for dessert. Very enjoyable.

Crumbed cutlets.

 

 

Oysters Kilpatrick.

Beer battered prawns with stuffed mushrooms and mango ailoi.

I have also completed my circular table top, but feel I may need to do more quilting on it. I am pleased with the result, but after a suggestion from my teacher Chris, confirmed that I need  to do more quilting so will take up her suggestion and do more quilting. I just love the French general fabric range and felt that This pattern worked well with her design. I just love the large brown RicRac and feels that it also works very well as an outside border. Designed by Patchwork Fundamentals.

More Lucy Boston blocks

With night duty over, it is now time to move onto more Lucy Boston blocks. In total I have made 45, I was going to stop at 42, but must have got carried away and had more prepared than I thought. So I will continue onto 52 which is how many Lucy made. Then I will have to decide whether to leave it as a coverlet, like the original or do I make it into a quilt. Then onto the decision of hand quilting, all over quilting or custom quilting. The  quilt will be quite large, possibly a king-size after the borders have been added, so quite large to hand quilt and the amount of time it would take as well. I have seen it quilted by hand, all over and custom quilting and have liked all three. Custom quilting is quite expensive and you would not get any change out of $1,000,so with the amount of time and materials already expended would it be worth it and also makes for a very expensive quilt.

This block is one of my favourite, although plain I do love the use of the civil war soldiers, this is fabric that I had left over from my Dear Jane, which I need to put together. 

Night duty and not existing.

Been quite for awhile and not blogging, very busy on nights, helping to save lives. Funny how a day in the life of a NETS nurse can be steady, but when the dark of night  appears the emergency calls seem to come in thick and fast. At least I do derive some comfort in the knowledge that the babies and children of NSW have got the most dedicated medical and nursing teams sent to retrieve them. Our medical teams provides intensive care with specially built medical equipment that can be transported by road and air. The NETS teams are sent to smaller regional and rural hospitals that do not have  specialist care within their hospital. Winter is the time for viral and flu like  illness which makes our small cargo very vulnerable and on a lot of occasions, need respiratory support.  The downside of retrievals in winter is the extreme weather conditions such as fog, icing and turbulent winds. The combination of these adverse weather conditions can make the distances that we travel very difficult and often teams have to travel long distances by road, which incurs quite a lot of overtime, it may also take many hours to stabilise our patients and that in combination with  hours of travelling  are exposed to fatigue. What is admirable Is that no matter  how tired the teams are they just soldier and obtain the goal of stabilising and transporting sick children to a large tertiary hospital that can provide intensive care,  nurse them back to health and return them home.

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Photo shot of  NETS and Child flight, this photo was taken in 2007.
Many changes have occurred since, Child flight is no longer operational since December 2012 and now our dedicated helicopter is. Care flight. Of course many of the nursing and medical staff have left and new staff have joined. I no longer do retrievals, but now work in the clinical coordination centre of NETS.

Camden Quilt Show

On the first weekend of August every year, Camden has its annual quilt show. I have attended this quilt show for the last 6 years, usually on the opening night, which is always on a Friday. Attending the Camden quilt show is quite enjoyable, as they always have a wonderful display of quilts as well as a great trading table, loaded with lots of goodies. A great time to take advantage of purchasing some great bargains at a fantastic price. Sandy and I went to a German restaurant, called Bohemian Euro and had a great meal before attending the show. We both ordered the pork knuckle with sauerkraut and potato's, a very large serving, but a great meal.

Our serve of pork knuckle.

To share some of the quilts displayed.

First prize. "tree of life" made by Janice Morrison, inspired by Marg Sampson

First prize in the wall hanging, "The Hooter Family"

Quilts by Katrina Hadjmichael, Bundury and Hunsford.

The wall hanging that I liked was "Eagle Dancer" by Val Malcolm.

Toowoomba Visit

When  I visit Toowoomba, my agenda is to visit a quilt shop or four. In Highfields Village there Is a collection  of shops very close to where my sister lives. In this collection of shops there is the Chocolate Cottage Cafe,  Shoe shop, home living store and of course The patchwork shop called The Quilting Angel. The particular day that I chose to visit was a Tuesday and little did I know that for the last 18 years, this collection of shops in the village has been closed on a Tuesday. I missed having a look at this patchwork shop as it was closed. My sister and I left to drive to Brisbane for the quilt exhibition in South Brisbane early wednesday morning. I still got my  quilt shop fix and visited a few shops, first one was a new fabric store just opened, which had a range of different fabrics as well as patchwork fabric, I managed to buy 3 metres of a light coloured fabric with a dot design, I will use this for my Texas Wheel quilt. The next shop was called Quilt Craft, I bought 1/2 metre of reproduction fabric, also visited the shop in a blue cottage, no money spent in this shop, but a nice shop to visit. On the opposite Side of the road from Highfields village shops is a nice collection of shops and one of the shops called " Precious Time" had a nice collection of fabric, so bought some birdy fabric, great for a border on a bag or a pencil case, will have to see what I will use it for.

Not sure of the name of this shop in Toowoomba.

Shops near Highfields Village in Abbey Lane

The Quilters Angel... Closed.

The Village green shops in Highfields.

Shop where I bought the birdy fabric. Precious Time in  Abbey Lane.

Abbey Lane

The Chocolate  Cottage Cafe

A very nice setup with collectables etc in the gardens of  Abbey Lane, Highfields.

The fabric that I purchased. The Bird fabric also comes in red.