Talula Gilbert Bottoms and Pasha Bulker

Thanks for reminding me Mereth. Yes, the quilt from my previous post is by Talula Gilbert Bottoms. I had meant to include that in the post but got carried away with adding the photos. (Actually I had enough problems with them that as soon as they were included I shut the whole thing down).

The photo is copied from the book LEGACY: The story of Talula Gilbert Bottoms and Her Quilts by Nancilu B Burdick. This is an inspirational book about Talula's life. To me it seems very hard and depressing but her quiltmaking was her light! I would have to agree. Although luckily my life is not that hard.

This is my first block. I don't think that I will put any borders on it. At the moment I am really liking the look of blocks only on quite a few quilts. Isn't it funny how you get a bit of a bee in your bonnet about a particular style for a while and then you go onto something new.

On Saturday we thought we would go for a bit of a drive to Mark's parents at Maitland since the wet weather put an end to the girls netball day. I wasn't too distressed. Of course we had to go via Busy Needles at Singleton and the Bike Shop at Cessnock. Both his passion and mine.

We gathered up the in laws and drove to check out the Pasha Bulker which was beached on Nobbys Beach after the storm on the long weekend. The photo does not do it justice. It is massive! It is a huge tourist attraction but is causing huge problems on how they are going to get it off the beach.

Flood Time!

Well! The weather has been extremely dramatic in our area. The rainfall has been huge! Ranging from 8" where I live to a massive 18" in a town about an hour from us. That is probably more than their annual rainfall - all in 3 days.

Newcastle has been absolutely ripped apart by a windstorm and most of the staff at work have been sent there to help restore power to the estimated 250,000 people going without. Now, 4 days later, the floodwaters are reaching them from the Hunter River.

It is just unbelievable after being in a devastating drought for the last 5-10 years. Unfortunately our supply dam level only increased about 1%.

In some ways having a wet weekend was great though because I could spend most of it at home. Tried to get a lot of quilting done.

The current project is my version of the quilt above. But I am using those delicious Freshcut fabrics by Heather Bailey. I promise I'll post a picture when it's done.

Still going strong.

Heres the latest block. TAylor really enjoyed helping me with this one. She put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. Lots more to go better get back to it.

Oops & Heirloom Stitches

I know I know I've been slack. Nearly 5 months since I last posted. I promise to try much better.

Wednesday all the girls returned to school and since I had taken the day off I decided to sew for the rest of the day.

The above 2 blocks are the start of a new quilt. I bought this pattern at the International Quilt Festival when I was there in November. It is by Lori Smith who is just a brilliant designer. (I think I bought about 6 of her patterns.) Won't that keep me busy!

Anyway I have started the applique block with the eagle on it and took advantage of the day off to do some piecing. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

The girls were all keen to start back. S is in Yr 10. C started highschool and T is on her own in primary Yr4. Now that it is Friday they are already pretty tired. Thank goodness it wasn't a full week.

S has gone to the Beautitians for a facial that mum gave her for her birthday. Pretty spoiled. She went a couple of weeks ago for makeup tuition. Couldn't believe how grown up she looked. Definitely not 15.

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