reporting in..........

Peg @ Happy in Quilting and Susan @ Oh to Sew........i'm reporting in as ordered.demanded requested.......

Peg said to just sew something...Susan said I had to make 3 blocks in the week just 3............

I made 4 and a flower for another secret project..........;)

And since I have extra diamonds and waiting for my jewels (apparently special jewels-  got the wrong ones) I started some blocks from my scraps.........technically NOT a NEW project as the spares have been sitting in a basket waiting for extra papers..........

Catch you later

Chookyblue

animal adventures............

This is my passenger I had last week...........mum was down lambing...........got her up and standing then she wanted to run away from her baby...........so we threw mum in the back of the ute and baby in the front and brought them home...........

over night in the yards together and all was well.........here they are a few days later..........

last week Boy Wonder and I had to do some cattle work......Mr Chookyblue was away...........

Here I am trying to get one of the bulls in......he was not cooperating............

Yes he is taller then my little ute I was in........in the end we got  the other bulls in but this one was left in the paddock..........I wasn't taking him on and we were running out of time............i'm sure if Mr Chooky was here he would have just walked in for him............

Checking some cows.......yep this is the back end of Curly Pops

thumbs up yes she is pregnant...........

Here's  Boy Wonders "new" ute.............the Brumby has been parked in the shed for a few years..........

I feel like i'm sitting on the ground driving around in it..............lol...........i haven't driven it for about 8 years...........bit of a fix up of the gear box and a few other minor repairs shes running well again.........

all kinds of jobs are being done...........with the new independence of driving everywhere...........

"just got to go fix that fence", "just going to check this, check that......"

any excuse to go driving............one advantage of being a farm kid............driving all around the farm......

taking the cows back to the paddock last week.............
9mls last night..........just keeping everything damp which is great..........bring on the green...............

Catch you later

Chookyblue

look who wants to sew with me.........

How cute am i.............can I come sew in the Chookshed............

I can climb up the step tooo........please let me in.........

and of course Indy spotted a bottle..........got a sip of milk and Charlotte was over in a flash to join in too..........they never forget mik.............

Mind you Indy hung out at the step to or around at the window at the back looking in...........

looking for a pat............she is a sook............

Catch you later

Chookyblue

Secret sewing sisters + 1403....

Hope your having a wonderful Sunday.............I am...........

Indy playing at the Chookshed yesterday...............

Gorgeous fabrics from the Secret Sewing Sisters thanks girls.............love all the fabrics you chose for me..............

&&&&&

Can you believe I have done 1400 posts..............actually this is 1403 posts.....

Some of the first few people who comments on my blog in the first few months I still interact with now..........7 years later I still keep up with some of those first commenters...........

Tracey @ Oz Country Quilting Mum

May Britt @ Abyquilt

Kerry @ Cottage on the Hill

Wendy @ Snippets of a Quilter

Timotei

De Ponto em no

Norma @ Silver Thimble Quilting

Fiona @ Dragonfly Sewing

 Hanne's Quilt Corner

Taniwa @ By Taniwa

Susan @ Thimble Stitch sent me this gorgeous little chicken pincushion..............it is SOOOOO cute

And another cutie this little magnetic birdie from Deb @ Frog Cottage Designs it's on the fridge in the chookshed already..............love it...........

you later

Chookyblue

tooooooo many choices..............

thanks for the offers of binding for me.............would be good if I didn't have to post them off somewhere................i'll get it done at some stage..............

Peg told me I had to find "Chooky" and spend some time in the "Chookshed".............it took a couple of days and finally today after a couple of days attempts I found her............spent the whole day with her nearly not that I achieved much but it was good...........

not knowing where to start I pulled out the extra diamonds I got for the EPP quilt and started gluing some papers.........

Susan @ Oh 2 Sew told me to make 3 blocks in the next week.......

I got one done the other night...........maybe another one tonight...........

See this is part of the problem..........so many things poking there heads out in the chookshed.......these are a few.............binding on "The Deep Blue Sea", charm pack, Lynettes bag, the left overs from a Anka's Treasures quilt who knows where the blocks are at the moment but the fabrics are calling, a cute zipper bag pattern Jan @The Little Red Hen gave me, left overs from my Nundle quilt, a new foundation piecing thing I want to try, a quilt on the design wall, more bits of blue for the EPP quilt - Lea@Fairy Floss Stitches scraps she sent me, and a couple of baskets of EPP projects............there are many more bits too...........

&&&&

Anyway hope your enjoying the weekend..........real hint of spring here.....today was glorious.......t-shirt all day...........the days are getting longer which is nice...........after the rain there are a few blooms happening too which is great.........so much to share need to organise it all into some posts...........

Catch you later

Chookyblue

wanted........

someone to 

 - get me back on track with my EPP quilt......

- bind 3 quilts......

- find my motivation.........

- slow down time as it's going to fast...........

Applicant must be available for immediate start and will need to work very hard!!!!!

.........take care til next time.....Chookyblue.........

OMG what a day....:)

What I thought was going to be a failure of a day turned out to be SOOOOO much fun..........the weather effects everything you do.......even socialising out here...........so I thought when it was raining today it was not going to happen............but as we are in the "drier" area a few friends still came.............

it was long.............lunch turned into tea.....there certainly was not a drought in the drinks..........

we have discussed so much........

• laughed heaps
• farm accidents
• international wars
• how much us girls love HATE desilting with our husbands
• laughed lots
• the fact that we have been able to desilt dams for about 10 months or more as it's got to be bad when you can desilt dams
• what we would do with the $70million Powerball draw if we won - we'd probably still be farming
• how we could make money - farm stay/bush experiences of course our personalities would win everyone over....one of the friends has a house we could use for this.....would anyone ever come
• adopt a wild kangaroo program
• better still dump all the kangaroos in your back yard to see what it is like when they eat your food and income..........then maybe you would adopt our roos to keep them away from you
• the city country divide - how far do city people like to drive - basically we have friends and family who don't like to travel this far west so what could we do to get others to drive out here
• we have laughed and laughed and laughed
• dreamed how we would treat ourselves if when we won the $70million in Powerball
• how some schemes waste so much money buying perfectly good houses and renovating them as they have an endless bucket of money
• laughing some more
• cured all the problems of the world
• wished for peace and are so thankfully we live where we live
• how we needed a secretary to write all the letters we wanted to write
• how do we put the farming story/life out there to educate the town/city
• how our dirt roads are bad
• so many funny stories............so much fun

oh and 15mls 22mls (late night downpour) of rain so far.............definitely not drought breaking but it will help.......too late for many crops..........

but as friends we keep each other going...........

.........take care til next time.....Chookyblue......... PS decided it was best not to post this late Sat night so posted early Sunday morning

retreat weekend...............

It's such a great weekend at Nundle............everyone busy busy sewing on there quilts...........

This quilt will be Calico Wedges

Hard at work.............

Kerry cutting for us...........she is in this spot most of the time..............

Saturday morning the delivery truck arrived..............

Look at these gorgeous Buggy Barn flannels............Kerry started a quilt on Saturday night...........

you can see what she played with on her blog...........it's going to be gorgeous.............

Jenny @ Bird on the Border worked on this quilt............

Sandy @ Shiralee Stitches was making this one with mainly French General fabrics I think...........up to the border stage now...........

More dresdans..........

This is Janice @Jannimary's pile of drunkards path blocks............

This is Googy Girls quilt she made last year.............it looks great...........inspired by the quilt she slept under at my place last year............she knew that is what she wanted to make at retreat last year..............

Just the best fun with these girls...............

Laying out Janice's quilt on Saturday night...............different to Lea's below

While waiting for Lea to google drunkard path layouts on the computer Janice and I did this one.....which is what she liked.........
Everyone giving there opinions.............both Lea and Janice's quilts are much prettier in real life..........the big drunkard path blocks look great...........very easy when you have the templates to cut them out.............

busy busy trying to get quilt tops together...............

Finally a  nice surprise...........Googy Girl ran a nine patch swap last year..........This is Kerry's quilt.........I can't remember what she called it but it had Baltimore in the name..........I love what she has done with the blocks.......I still have not had a chance to do anything with my blocks............but I had been thinking of something in the centre..............
So thats the end of the wonderful weekend.........so much fun, inspiration, relaxing......
Catch you later

Chookyblue

Chookypink??????

Doesn't have quiet the same ring to it as Chookyblue.......lol....

I love going to Cottage on the Hill at Nundle................this is my 11th retreat weekend........It's always a wonderful relaxing weekend.............Kerry cuts all your fabric.......you can just switch off and she keeps you on track with what ever quilt your making...............

This year was a little different...............wandering around the shop I couldn't decide what fabrics or quilt to make..............I had spoken to Kerry about the desire to make a diamond quilt.......

I was at a loss of what to do until I spotted a pile of fabrics to the side.........I asked what she was doing with those (to see if I had missed where they were on the shelf).........well there not on the shelf as they are new range coming out later this month or early September.........a new range called Raspberry Parlour by Sue Daley an Australian designer........distributed by Riley Blake (added: found this link too the pics a better) 

the pics on the website don't do it justice I had to look close to see it was the same thing...........anyway back to the fabrics.....(I was in love).........Kerry still had not decided what she wanted to make up as a shop sample with the range..........she had 20 fabrics to play with.......was I allowed to play with them????......with my diamond idea????......a bit of working out more on Kerry's behalf then mine........I knew what I wanted but remember my brain is worn and not working at this stage.......but some working out and yes we could get so many out of the fabric.............yes it would work............YES she was letting me play with these new fabrics..............I was SOOOOOOOO excited...............

This is my pile of fabrics to start placing and sewing with on Saturday morning.........only a rough idea how far down and across we needed to go.........

so a pink quilt it is..........just the nicest pinks this fabric is going to go well for the shops who stock it.......

and I was working on a pink table too..........

Look who's in the road just when I wanted to take a pic............LOL

I was struggling by the end laying it out.....space wise........I was taking up Sandy's quilt space...........lol........I should have taken it back to the cabins on Saturday night and put it on the floor.............BUT we are making the most of the great prints in the new fabrics........

At the end of the day when I finished up most of the rows ready & some were joined and I folded it all up...

Kerry is keeping it and she will join the remainder of the rows and Betty will quilt it.............it will be available as a kit in the shop as soon as the range arrives.....which is late August/early September.....

My quilt will be hanging in the shop for sometime now..........i'll probably pick it up at GDITC next year......

it's going to end up being about 80 X 80 inches so a great size.......and not an expensive kit either.........

If you would like a kit or like to inquire about a kit email Kerry as she is off to America at the end of the week.........and I am sure she will contact you as soon as she gets back.......

Better think of a name for my quilt..........I usually have this worked out by the time I am finished...........

how do you pick a name............sometimes it's come out of a combination of things like the fabric ranges  name (if I use a range), the colours or the pattern, maybe it reminds me of something....where I made it........who I was with etc sometimes even a twist on the original name but since this is an original quilt I better think about this quick.............see if Kerry has any ideas..............
maybe  "Pink Diamonds"........or  "Champagne and Diamonds"

"Pink Champagne"
Catch you later

Chookyblue

Geeze Louise.........

It must be cold this morning.............we have frozen pipes.............in the many many years I have been here this has happened about twice that I can remember...........I need to have a shower to go to work..............this could be a challenge..........

.........take care til next time.....Chookyblue.........

Friday retreat................

On Thursday night I was pretty flat...........I was tired so instead of packing I went to bed............my mind was useless...........I had grabbed some sewing supplies and machine but really it was so fast and un-thought of I am lucky I had the machine, cord and foot to sew with...........

So up early to grab some clothes and pack Friday morning............heading off with my sewing partner in crime in the car.........a little chatter here and there and OMG we are in Nundle.............

Yep my annual retreat weekend...........

First stop was lunch in at Mt Misery Goldmine Cafe...........

...and with the new lady also a few new products............one of those includes a big cabinet of fancy chocolates..........delicious........

nibble time.............so much space in the new cabins...........just perfect for a retreat group........

There was supposed to be 2 more friends who had to cancel at the last minute........

so much fun and laughter......just what I needed...........

then off to dinner at the Peel Inn.........it was curry night so most of us had curries...........a couple of the girls had the local trout...........

Catch you later

Chookyblue