The Making of a Quilt...Forty Years of Light and OPAM (One Project A Month)

5 years on and off in the planning and how to execute this quilt

for my Son's birthday
I even thought perhaps I'll make a Log Cabin one 

Who else to ask for advice but my dear Friend Geo (no blog)

This required a few hours drive and a couple of overnight stays
We arrived and not too long afterwards Geo got into the drawing of The Triangle

I was assigned the ironing in preparation for The Rainbow

Sewing away with a smile lol

Step 1 Rainbow done!!!!!!

Precision work here

Meanwhile Mr Armchair entertains JoJo

As does Geo's DH Lloyd

And loookeeee it's coming together

And wow a Quilt Top in 2 days

We were all sooooooo happy and excited

Geo assigned JoJo the task of decorating the Christmas Tree

She was so happy to do this

I reckon she would do this for a living if she could lol

I'm pretty new to quilting and this was a precise job being very straight angles and lines

Everything had to be exact

Quilting away

Whoever thought I would love this

I need to learn more about it especially free motion and hand quilting

Another day and still quilting

All done and time for a photo shoot

For this one I thought I would choose a bush setting as DS loves the bush and practically 

grew up in it

So we headed off the the Gold Rush Colony home of our Melodramas

All rolled up

The back is black with gold musical notes

The day before we  handed it over

I thought we had to do a photo shoot here in our yard and on the beach our extended front yard

Mr Armchair quite liked the seaside daisies here

We came across this sweet little Love Heart

Then I thought I had to have a bag to put Forty Years of Light into

And it's all done!!!!!

So happy with it all

Thank you so much to Mr Armchair for helping out with the Mathematics of it all

Geo for The Triangle and lots of patchworky advice

Lloyd for entertaining JoJo and keeping the meals up to us all

JoJo for keeping us on our toes

And to both of you Geo and Lloyd for being such wonderful hosts

We had a fabulous weekend

Mmmmmm what will we make next???

*****************

The quilt and the bag are my OPAM for this month

Thank you so much Sweet Peg and Kris for hosting again this year

~2014~The Ones That Got Away

 Boy 2014 certainly whizzed by in a flash

Welcome 2015 and let's hope it's a peaceful year all round the world especially in light of what has been going on

I thought I would do my annual post on pics that were going to be made into blog posts but  just didn't make it

First pic is of lucerne bales for a small vegetable garden that I thought we would start up

Mr Armchair built the garden 4 storeys high out of railway sleepers

One reason is I'm tall and don't bend so well and the other is our Labrador Mimi who loves to 'garden'

Not long into it and this is what it looked like

And to keep Mr Armchair busy in February I needed a new bookcase and thought this corner was perfect

And it is........only trouble is the books keep 'growing'

In March JoJo was out with her group and she bought Mimi a collar

Only thing is it's for a puppy and Mimi is a big, boofy Labrador 

Such a sweet thought on JoJo's part

At Easter time in April I coloured some eggs in vine leaves and onion skins..........a Latvian tradition

this being the result

The egg can then be polished up with some bacon rind

In May we went to see a Miss Fisher exhibition

Miss Fisher......played by Essie Davis........ is a glamorous Lady Detective and the series is set in the 1920's in Melbourne

Read more about the series here

One of my favourite TV shows

In June I entered a giveaway by Jennifer Chiaverini and won this book The Master Quilter

One of her best I think

It was even autographed for me

To win I had to enter a question asking which character I would most like to meet out of the Elm Creek Series

My answer was Anna (the cook) so that I could cook with her for the patchworkers and then sit down and do some sewing with everybody later

I think there were about 800 entries so not bad

 In July at around 5pm there was a massive storm and I took some quick pics coming home

The colours were just stunning

In August we went out for JoJo's birthday breakfast and this is the view 

In September I bought an apron off my Friend Miss Vicki and decided to wear it whilst sewing as I get a heap of threads all over my clothes.......especially the black ones

In October I got to meet Monica McInerney who recognised my name from comments I had made to her Face book page

Such a lovely lady

 In November one evening I spilled frozen peas all over the floor (not very exciting I know)

but the next night the garlic I had fell down and landed looking like a triangle so I just had to photo it

And of course Mimi came in and cleaned up the peas

She didn't even know they were frozen as she doesn't eat she vacuums lol

Before we knew it it was Christmas again

 JoJo's programme had a Christmas get together and she was so proud that she cut the sausage and spiked it together with a tomato and a toothpick

And oh my goodness was this ever good

A Paleo Chocolate Blueberry Cake

I even made my own Nut Butter (cashews) and Paleo Chocolate

Recipe found at The Merry Maker Sisters

And to cap off New Year's Eve a pic taken off the television of the Fireworks on Sydney Harbour 

Happy 2015 everyone.........let's make it a good one

Love Dzintra

~SSCS (Secret Santa Christmas Swap) Received~

My SSCS from Diane has finally been opened

Inside was this bag

together with a tea cosy which was used this morning,

 This Ho Ho Ho box

 full of goodies

a mug

little stick on note bits

and this colourful panel!!!

Thank you so much Diane and a BIG Thank You to Chookyblue for organising this wonderful world wide Swap.....always fun to be a part of!!!