Tuesday 13 May 2014

West Aussie Bloggers Get-together

Anthea from Hibiscus Stitches is organising a meet up for W-Aussie Bloggers at the Perth Craft and Quilt Fair next week. For all the details see her post at the link below. Hope to see you there!

Hibiscus Stitches: W-Aussie Bloggers Get Together... Coming Soon!: Yes ladies of Perth & the wider WA, it's time to get out your comfy walking shoes & a carry bag, plus of course your beautiful ...

Cheers,
Tracy

Wednesday 7 May 2014

The 1857 Dempster Quilt - A little piece of WA history

I'm re-posting this from the WAQA blog. If you have a chance to visit York and see this quilt I highly recommend it.

Dempster Quilt Poster-page-0

I visited it a couple of weekends ago. It is a stunning medallion style quilt that was made for a lady named  Mary Emily Marsden by her grandmother, Mrs Stack, of England. Mary brought it with her when she emigrated to WA several years later.

The central square 'medallion' has appliqued images of peacocks, a lyre bird, other birds and flowers. This is surrounded by 8 pieced borders in browns, reds, blues and pinks. The colours are still very strong and, given that it was made in 1857, it is an amazing piece of history to see. Unfortunately I can't show you a photo as, in the interests of preservation, photos were not allowed to be taken. It is well worth a visit to the country though.

The Residency Museum also had some wonderful examples of early embroidery items, mostly clothing, and sewing tools which were just as interesting. York is a lovely country town just an hour & a half's drive from Perth and has lots of other historical elements to peruse as well.

Have a fantastic week!

Cheers, Tracy.

Saturday 3 May 2014

Where did 2 weeks go?...and FNwF

It's been a busy 2 weeks since FNSI what with the Easter weekend, ANZAC day weekend, boating trips, a visit to York, catch-ups with friends and getting back into regular term activities such as toddler gym & playgroup. All of my spare time during the day (which is not much), and some nights, has been focussed on the quilt for my friend. Hence the lack of blog posts. This is where I was at before bed last night...


Today, being Friday Night with Friends, I set myself up in the front lounge room, set Miss M up with a new dvd & managed to get a little bit more done than usual. I now have 2 extra rows sewn together for the quilt top.


Hopefully I'll get it finished this weekend so I can progress to the quilting stage next week.

This evening I was able to do a bit more of the 3rd block from Val Laird's free 'Shining Like the Dawn' block of the month program. You can link in with this on her blog using the button on the right hand side of my blog. I was able to finish the flower stems and stem tendrils, and the blue flowers tonight. Should be able to finish the border stitching tomorrow night.


I've finished the 2nd block as well but will have to post a photo later as I haven't taken one yet.

Well, my bed is calling me - hopefully I'll get a couple of hours sleep before Miss M wakes up. Thanks very much to Cheryll for hosting us again this month. You can see what everyone else got up to on her blog here.

Have a great weekend everyone.

Cheers, Tracy.