My Birthday Bear

It was my birthday yesterday and I received this gorgeous bear from my Daughter, son in law and 2 grand children.  

They went to a "Build a Bear" shop and made my bear.  The grandchildren held a heart shaped object, rubbed it over their heart, eyes, ears and mouth, then put the heart into the bear so the bear would always love me, see me, hear me and speak to me.

The bear has a birth certificate and the grandchildren named it "Nanna Bear".

Then they recorded their voices in the bear, so when I squeeze the paw, it says "Happy Birthday Julie", (from my son in law), "Happy Birthday Mum" and 2 lots of "Happy Birthday Nanna".

It made me cry..

Until next post...

Cheers...Jewells

The Yuletide Quilt - Part Six (Final)

By the time the quilt came back from the quilter, Dulie was back at work, full time, so she sewed the binding on for about a week, during her lunch hour.  That was NOT an easy job, as the quilt was huge and Dulie hand sewed the binding down.  Also it was January, and that month is the middle of summer in Australia, so it was HOT, HOT, HOT!

But finally The Yuletide Quilt was finished!
 It measured 78" x 98".

Told you it was HUGE!

It is now packaged up and ready to post it to Legina in the States.

So that now brings this little story to an end ....
(at long last, says you!)
a quilt made with love from an Aussie (Dulie), to her recently widowed friend (Legina), with hindrance (Ron) and help along the way (Bane & Feather).

THE END!

The Yuletide Quilt - Part Five

Recap of people in this story: 

Dulie – the Aussie

Legina & Bane– American friend’s of Dulie

Ron – Legina’s late husband.

Dulie managed to finish the quilt top while she was in the States, but a quilt is not made of a quilt top alone, so stupidly Dulie decided that she wanted to make a backing out of the pile of 6” Christmas squares that were from another swap amongst the same ladies. As Dulie’s time in the States had run out, she carried the quilt top and 6” squares home to Aussie Land in her luggage.

She was not game to post the quilt top home (along with the 50 8 boxes she had posted home to herself with the 1000’s 100’s of yards of fabric), as last time she visited Legina & Bane, she worked on a quilt while there, and posted it home to herself, only to have the quilt top and all the additional fabric for that quilt to be “misplaced” while being inspected by Australian Quarantine…. Never to be seen again 

Unfortunately when Dulie got home, she was unable to get started on the backing, so when her Mum ,“Feather”, came for a few day’s visit, Dulie thought it would be a wonderful opportunity for Feather to add her expertise to the quilt.  So with Dulie measuring & cutting and Feather chained  sitting at the sewing machine the backing was made over 2 days.

 
Feather at the machine

 They decided on making alternating rows of 6” squares and 6” strips, raiding Dulie's own stash to add to Legina's squares.  The quilt back, front & wadding was bundled up and taken to the local quilter to be joined together.





The backing

Stay tuned for Part Six of THE YULETIDE QUILT… same time, same station.

Until next post….

Cheers...Jewells

The Yuletide Quilt - Part Four

Dulie sat there stunned – how could the SAME block go missing AGAIN?  Straight away, she looked in the scrap bin, but it wasn't there.  So again she retraced her steps…. around the sewing machine, the ironing board, and the breakfast bar, nothing.  

 Dulie spoke out loud "ah come on Ron, don't do this to me, where is it?"… again retracing her steps.  Then there, on one of the breakfast bar stools, tucked right up under the bar was the missing block.

Dulie finished off the row without any more incidents, and managed to add another row before Legina came home from work.

Legina was not in the door more than a minute, when Dulie asked her if she felt the presence of Ron in the house…and without hesitation she replied "oh YES! many times, why?"  Dulie explained the missing block and spread the unfinished quilt out and asked Legina if she could pick which block she was talking about.  Straight away, Legina pointed to "I Believe in Family" and burst into tears.

This called for a strong drink lots of hugging.  Bane came over that evening and she was told about the strange happenings of the day… more drinking hugging.

Stay tuned for Part Five of THE YULETIDE QUILT… same time, same station.

Until next post….

Cheers…Jewells

The Yuletide Quilt - Part Three

One day while working on the quilt, Dulie found that one of the panel blocks was missing.

She had been working on the second set of 3 blocks from the panel at the breakfast bar, measuring and cutting borders to add to the blocks, then went back to the sewing machine to sew on the borders, but realized that she only had 2 of the 3 blocks with her. Dulie retraced her steps to the breakfast bar, - no block- she then went back to the sewing machine, - no block – she went to the ironing board, - no block – back to the breakfast bar, then the machine, then the ironing board – still no block.

 

 One of the 3 Blocks

Dulie was now questioning herself, then started getting quite frustrated, upset and bordering on thinking she was going mad – she would have spent a good 20 minutes retracing and retracing her steps, even looking in places that was impossible to find a missing block.

She sat at the machine, in total defeat, when for no reason at all, she happened to look down into her scrap bin and there it was – the missing block.  There was no rhyme nor reason on how it got there, but it was there.  She picked it up and a cold shiver went down her spine, because the missing block was “I Believe in Family”….. Do ghosts exist?.. Is Ron here?

Dulie had a strong cup of coffee to calm her nerves, told herself to stop being silly and get back to the quilt.

  She added the borders to the 3 blocks, ironed them and went back to the breakfast bar to cut the fabric to join the 3 blocks together to make a row.  She went back to the machine with all the pieces, sat down and realized she was missing one of the pieces…. Yes, the same block had gone missing again….

Stay tuned for Part Four of THE YULETIDE QUILT… same time, same station.

Until next post….

Cheers…Jewells
 

The Yuletide Quilt - Part Two

Bane saw the panel and boo hooed disagreed with Dulie’s idea of just using the one block, she said that “all the blocks” should be used in this quilt… “it will look great”…. Legina agreed….knowing she had been out voted…Dulie also agreed.

Left alone, while Legina & Bane were at work, Dulie gathered all the Christmas fabrics from Legina’s stash and hap-hazidly methodically started to make the quilt in a row by row fashion.  She had no idea how the quilt was going to turn out, or how huge big the quilt was going to be… she just sewed away.  Dulie smiled to herself as she came across her own block she had made in the swap a few years ago.

  Dulie's Block in Legina's Quilt

While Dulie was sewing her love into this quilt, she had time to think of her friend she was making this for…. Legina had very recently been widowed before Dulie’s visit. “Ron” was a real family man, EVERYTHING evolved around family, and his passing brought great sorrow not only to Legina, but also his family and many, many friends.  Dulie had read the Eulogy that was read at his funeral and the word “family” was mentioned many times… “how apt”, Dulie thought as she realized that in the “I Believe” panel, there was a block that said “I Believe in Family”.

Dulie didn’t realize how “apt” that block would be as she continued making the quilt.

Stay tuned for Part Three of THE YULETIDE QUILT… same time, same station.

Until next post….

Cheers…Jewells

The Yueltide Quilt - Part One

The Christmas (Yuletide) Quilt – a true story, however names have been changed to protect the insane innocent.

Once upon a quilt, a long, long way away, there was an Aussie quilter, “Dulie” staying with friends “Legina” & "Bane" in a far off land “The States”. Now, prior to Dulie’s visit, she mentioned to Legina & Bane that she would like to spend some of her holiday blowing money quilting.

Upon Dulie’s arrival, Legina opened her stash and low and behold, amongst the piles of fabric, there were blocks from swaps that all 3 friends had participated in (along with other ladies). As Dulie had already made her own quilt from the same swap blocks, she said she would do similar with Legina’s blocks.

 
Dulie's Quilt
To do this, Legina & Dulie went shopping for a Christmas panel to use as the centre block. After visiting many quilt shops and buying bypassing many fabrics, they decided upon the “I Believe” Christmas panel, with full intentions of using the largest of the blocks in the panel “I Believe in Santa” as the centre.

But, all well layed plans were blown out of the water when Bane saw the panel……

Stay tuned for Part Two of THE YULETIDE QUILT… same time, same station.

Until next post….

Cheers…Jewells

A gift finished

A wonderful blogger friend, Manxgirl, gifted me a cross stitch that was nearly finished, as she knew I fell in love with it while she was doing it.

For some reason, Manxgirl, was not enjoying sewing it and passed it onto me to finish it... you can read about it here on her blog.

It has taken quite a while, months in fact, for me to get it finished, but at long last, here it is!

I am NOT going to frame it, instead I am going to have it as a centre in a patchwork quilt, as I love teddy bear things and will make a queen size quilt or doona cover with it.

But first I must finish the commissioned Cow Girl quilt.

Until next post....
Cheers...Jewells

Nothing new to show?

I seem to be idle busy all the time, but don't have anything to show for it.  So I have decided to take a photo of what I have been doing.

This is a HUGE big quilt I started over in the States and I am nearly finished it. I am doing the last of the hand sewing of the binding.  This quilt is to be posted back to the States when I am finished...but I will tell you ALL about it in a later blog:

Then here is another one of my dish cloths on the needles.  They sell quicker than I can make them!

 

and lastly, here is the "Cowgirl" quilt I am sewing

So I really am doing something, just don't have anything to show for it!

Until next post...

Cheers...Jewells

Texas Cowboy's Items

While I was staying at my friend's place in the States, she asked me to make a pair of pillowcases for her grand daughter who followed the football team "Texas Cowboys".

I had a lot of fabric left over and decided to make a quilt, but I needed to raid my friend's stash and patterns and this is what I decided to make.

I didn't end up using the cream star fabric (in picture above), but opted to a dark brown fabric instead and this is how the single bed quilt ended up:

I wish I took a photo of the back as well, as I really scrimped and scraped with all the scraps to make up a "scrappy" back... I even rescued some of the scraps from the bin too!

Hopefully my friend's grand daughter liked her matching quilt & pillowcases!

Until next post..

Cheers...Jewells