Christmas and end of year wrap up.

 This year I have been dedicating my time to finishing off some UFO’s. I am quite proud of my achievements and now only have four quilts to finish. So I will be also going into 2018 completing these quilts s as well.
Even though I have finished quite a few of my UFO’s, I have also made and completed a couple of quilts as well as doing some small projects in between.

As I have mentioned before, I make a journal cover for my diary every year, below is my diary cover for 2018.

Where has the time gone, it is now April and we are about to fly out for our big trip O/S, we will be away for 7 weeks, the countries we will vist are Seoul, South Korea, Prague,Czech Republic, Poland, Lithuania, Lativas, Estonia, Finland and Russia.

A few finishes for this year.

My Tessalation quilt is all done, now in the process of hand quilting it.

I picked up an old grandmothers powder chair, that was pretty shoddy for $10 and covered it, I am pretty pleased with the result.

This year there are a few O birthdays dedicated to family and friends, so I have been quite busy making a few new quilts as well, the first being one made for my little sister who turned 50 in February. I purchased some orphan blocks from the Springwood quilt show, done by Oatchwork fun a few years ago and made them into a quilt, called "Web of Dreams"

My friend VIv also turned 70 in March so in collaboration with our sewing group, I made this quilt for her, I used Kaffe Fassat fabrics in the front and an Alexander Henry fabric for the back, design was from Modern quilt Studio. VIv has recently just completed chem and her cancer is in remission, so I called this quilt "Longevity"

The front.

The back.

Recently my DIL finished her PHD and was awarded the status of Dr and was successful in gaining  a position as senior lecturer at The Canterbury University in Christchurch NZ, this move has meant that my youngest son will also be relocating to NZ as well. THey have recently purchased a house, so with a new house, come a new quilt, as my DIL asked for greys, I called this quilt "Shades of Grey"

January, this year we travelled to NZ with our son to spend a week with them both, look at houses to be bought and familiarise ourselves with Christchurch again, as we will now be regular visitors across the ditch. We also caught up with friends made on our travels, spent some time in Rakai and Blenheim.

Whilst in Christchurch our DIL purchased tickets for the beer festival and the Comedy festival.

Fun was had by all and we got to meet these two amazing comedians from Biriminham, a great 2 hours of entertainment.

We also visited Akaroa and I was fortunate to spend a few enjoyable hours at The Giants house, never before have I seen so many mosaics in one place. All done by one lady who was a sculptor, after buying the house, found many broken china pieces when transforming the garden, so decided to use them, 20years later, a masterpiece and like no other that I have seen before.

The front page f the house

Even a grand piano has been covered.

These statues are all through the garden, too many photos to post, I recommend a visit.

I attended a quilt guild meeting in March,hosted by the Blue mountain quilters and had the opportunity to attend a talk by Jenny Kee, who I showed my La Pascaglia quilt too, very inspirational lady.

The next day, I ticked off one from my bucket list by doing a workshop with Marg Sampson George, dare I say that I have commenced another hand sewing EPP quilt, Mrs Peach.

Needless to say it is only April and I have already completed three quilts and in my spare time, I have been going to dressmaking classes and have completed a lightweight jacket, I am pleased with the result.

The front

The back, next is a dress!

My other exciting Nes is that we are going to be grandparents to identical twin girls, my DIL, is now 26weeks, although there has been a few challenges with the pregnancy we are costing along nicely and we are hoping for a good delivery and no more complications. Two little sisters for our little grandson, Logan, such a bundle of energy.

 

Our twin granddaughters, via U/S.

That's a wrap, will be posting from our trip away, take care.