A Beaut New Seam Ripper/Quick Unpick

Look what Santa brought ... a beaut new seam ripper (or more typically called a "Quick Unpick" in Australia). These are made by quilter, Amy Friend's, husband and are available now and again in her Etsy shop but they sell out fast. Amy has the blog "During Quiet Time".

It is bigger than the usual ripper and fits nicely in my hand ... should I ever need to use it!

Fruit Gleaning and Other Activities

Yesterday we had a little working bee at our retreat house - Vickery Quilt and Craft Retreat - putting up a full length mirror, a useful coat and hat rack inside the front door, and a new front light which has two spots to shine on the paths to guide home quilters after night excursions to the town's eateries.

While we were installing the front light we noticed the white cockatoos paying  a lot of attention to a large tree in the park across the road.

Closer inspection revealed it was loaded with yellow plums! This is a variety which is commonly "gleaned" in Europe so we followed suit. The internet revealed they are OK to eat (after the death cap mushroom poisonings in Canberra you can't be too careful) and a few ways to cook them - jam, cobbler, stewed. I stewed ours.

 They are sweet to eat as is but get a bit sourer stewed so I added a little sugar. They have  a very high water content so you don't need to add any to the pot.

Happy New Year

Group Christmas Lunch

I can now share with you the teapot cosy I made for my group's (Connected Quilters) Christmas lunch "Kris Kringle". There were a lot of steps but it wasn't hard to make. The pattern is "Afternoon Tea Party" by Nancy Green of Pink Sand Beach Designs.

We had a nice bunch of gifts, crowned by Colleen's masterpiece Christmas tree made from fabric and decorated with sweets, a lovely lunch and lots of laughs.

Lisa, our host and the collector in our group, had recently found a magnificent lounge suite and my newly finished snowball quilt looked great photographed on it.

Christmas Treats

I saw these little mini Christmas puddings on another blog (Wendy's) and made my own version. Aren't they cute? We are having our quilting group's get together today for lunch. The puddings are made from Dark Chocolate Royals biscuits, royal icing, Jaffas and sliced green "musk" sticks. *Another version I have seen uses red M and Ms and snipped mint leaves with white choc melts instead of icing.

I aslo made a fruit cake for each of my friends from a recipe gleaned from the Glen Innes CWA or Anglican Church catering ladies (many of whom are, or were, one and the same!). They are steamed in "soup" tins, not baked.

Snowballs Quilt all finished!

The day has finally come ... I have completed my son's Snowballs Quilt. I re-basted the quilt and changed from invisible to cotton thread and voila the machine quilting worked and stayed flat without puckers. The Kaffe Fassett fabrics and design are just so lovely and he will like it a lot I'm sure.

Gippsland Visit

My husband and I just had a few days away in our van in Gippsland, Victoria. We stayed at the Buchan Caves Park with as many as three other campers at any one time ... beautiful trees, peace and quiet and grazing kangaroos. It rained heavily two nights but the days were fine although steamy!

We enjoyed the walks around the park especially the track to the Spring Creek Falls.

Buchan is not far from the Alpine and Snowy Mtns National Parks and we took a day trip to see the Little River Falls (swollen by the heavy rain) and Gorge and the Snowy river at Mackillops Bridge.

The Gorge (up to 500m deep in parts) is the deepest in Victoria and an amazing and unexpected sight. The road into the Snowy River is not wide enough for cars to pass for about 11km and it's quite scary to look at the drop out the window ...

Little River Falls:

 Little River Gorge Panorama:

Snowy Mtns National Park:

 Snowy River: