Procrastinating

Procrastinate (verb) meaning- to put off something until another time.

That is what i am doing right now, a quilt i have been in the process of making has come to a halt only because i am procrastinating about sewing on the binding. It is almost finished and yet i am still stalling. Today after work i have come home and vacuumed the house, done the washing and dishes and made dinner and now i am on the net.
The quilt is pleading to be done and must be done by next week, as it is a commissioned piece for the eldest ferals' class  at school. But alas the mojo to do it is not around.
Perhaps i shall clean the bathroom and then i may feel like doing it, although i am not holding my breath.

 

These are the blocks that all the kids made, they cut out and hand stitched the lettering on by themselves. I have made them into a quilt for the local parish church and school hall, a good friend of mine has quilted vine leaves on to it for me. They did this for their Confirmation and Art class. I am very proud of them they all tried very hard.

Well ciao for now i have a bathroom to clean. :)

The world is round!

Hi All,

It has been a while. The world is still round and turning on it's axis, and that is why i have not been around. I have been working a couple of part time jobs, doing some courses and looking after the ferals which is a job in itself. i have been creating though and hope to have some photos up soon. My dinning room table is in complete chaos and is testament to the truth that i am not lying. I have also had the time to catch up on a few of my fave blogs and therefore not much time for blogging myself. I know very lazy, but hey that's me. so anyway that's all for now, just thought I'd let you know that i am still here, but i am letting the world turn the way it wants and letting it take me with it. so until the next time ciao xx

your friend Nat.

Our town is a Buzz

Today our town welcomes Buzz Aldrin, (yes i said Buzz Aldrin), the astronaut.

It is a little bit exciting to have the second man on the moon visit. He is here for the anniversary of the space mission in which Carnarvon helped  NASA put man on the moon. Carnarvon was pivotal in the communications side of things with our little satellite dish.

Buzz is here to talk to the kids of our town about his experiences and to open our Space and Technology museum. It is a great thrill.

And who said small things don't make a big deal, It is wonderful that my children will see and hear a pioneering legend talk about something that happened before they were born, but they have taken for granted just because it happened a long time ago. who knows were the Earth would be today had this monumental occasion never happened, would we still be trying to get to the moon? Would we now be looking at other galaxies? would we be sending unmanned rovers to other planets far far away?
And who knows today there may be another astronaut in the making, just waiting for their time among the stars.
Aim for the Universe and even if you fail, you'll land among the stars, and when has that been a bad thing. Ciao.

1st Holy Communion

A couple of weeks ago, we had a very special day in the castle. Feral #2 made her 1st Holy Communion.
She put in a lot of hard work for this day and i can attest to it as i had to help her in her home program.
All the children looked gorgeous and were so beautifully behaved in church i think all the parents can say we were very proud of them. My girl was so nervous she almost fainted before the mass ended and had to leave a little bit early, the colour of her face almost matched her dress.

and this was the beautiful cake made by a wonderful lady in our little town, she does a most wonderful job and the fact that it tasted magnificent was a bonus too, i was lucky to bring some home with me.
Now onto Feral #3 as she has her Confirmation in September, oh the things we do. Ciao.

D D D D D Dora, Ole'

Well I finally managed to take a picture of my Dora the Explorer quilt. So without any fanfare here she is.

She was made from a pre bought fabric panel and quilted, all she needs now is a good home.
Today i have been frantically cleaning my house for a course i am holding here over the weekend i am extremely excited and extremely buggered from the cleaning, so the weekend should be a good one. The king is taking the ferals camping out bush for the weekend so i will be able to spend some time alone and pamper myself too.
And as part of the cleaning process i have discovered some projects that have been put on the back burner that i am quite eager to take up again, so now that life is slowly turning into a normal pace i hope to have some crafting mojo back and start getting stuck into my sewing.
Thanks for bearing with me in the slow lane, but hopefully now i will be on cruise control and cruising along. Ciao for now.

Absentee Blogger

I have been extremely remiss of that in that i have not had any blog posts. I apologise. There is no excuse i have just been neglectful.

Our family holiday was a wonderful 2 weeks of wine, food and excursions. Staying in the bush and seeing all manner of wildlife and beautiful scenery was extremely hard to endure but we managed. I was going to take you all with me but i didn't realise that in many of the areas we stayed it was nigh on impossible to get Internet coverage.

Since we have been home our feet have not stopped running, what with speedway weekends consuming most of our time, the girls and Girl Guide fundraisers, working at the ferals school as a helper and working my part time job it hasn't really left much time for anything else. But at least i have not had time to get into trouble.(much).

I managed to finish the Dora the Explorer quilt panel and i must say it didn't take too long just 5 years. It was supposed to be made for my youngest feral and now that she is 7 she is not so into Dora anymore. So this could be a for sale quilt. I will attempt to take a photo of it before it goes in the sale box for the markets.
I have managed to cut out some pieces for another quilt so when i have finished another PIP that i found in a box the other day i will start making some new stuff.

The eldest feral is making her Confirmation this year and i dobbed myself in to the class teacher to help her make a Confirmation Quilt, so now i will be adding fabric art teacher to my repertoire and teaching students how to applique and embroider. Sometimes i just don't know how to say NO. But it will be another feather in my bow no doubt and either way good or bad i will be spending time with my daughter and learning a new skill myself, and that would be PATIENCE.

It may be another couple of weeks until my next post as feral #2 is making her First Holy Communion next weekend and i will be busy helping out at the church and in class, so until then.

Blessings to you all and live like there is no tomorrow.xx Ciao

The Ferals at the Alpaca Farm in Denmark W.A.

Hoppy Easter

Hoppy Easter everyone!

I wish you all a great Easter and i hope the Bunny visits you with lots of goodies.

Last night was a special night at our church, a friend of mine Jo was received into the church after receiving her First Eucharist and Confirmation. I was especially proud of her because she asked me to be her sponsor and it was a privilege and an honour to help her through her spiritual journey, I feel very blessed to have a friend like her.
It is not easy as an adult to change faith and i am probably very blase' about it because i have been born into my faith, even though since i have had my children my faith has strengthened, but Jo had an even harder journey to go through, so please say a prayer for her and hip hooray her, as she has done so well.

Well it is only another 2 sleeps and we start our holiday, today the van has had an airing and i started packing in the food as we will try not to buy so much while we are on the road, except fruits and veggies and fresh bread. I have tried to get most of the housework done too as a friend of mine is house sitting for us while we are away, our 2 little fuzz buckets don't like to be alone and i think they would fret without anyone at home, so we are well on our way to being ready. I have to work tomorrow so i will need to be on the ball in the morning and get all the other jobs out the way so we can leave early on Tuesday.

I will be taking the camera with us so i will endeavouring to do a travel journal while we are away, just so i can bore you even more, don't you just cringe when people say "do you want to see our holiday snaps" lol.

Anywho until then, Ciao.

Off the Beaten Track

Well hello,
Here in the Feral Castle we have been gallivanting around the country side. The eldest Feral #1 and I have been on a retreat with her year 6 class to Geraldton for Confirmation ( a part of the catholic faith and one of the sacraments), team building exercises and a mass with the Bishop of our Diocese. We love our Bishop Justin, he is one of the most gorgeous men i have ever met, and just loves the kids to bits and always makes everyone feel welcome in his presence. But after 5 days with 32 kids i am feeling a little war weary, but it was a wonderful experience to get to know the eldests friends and class mates a bit better too.
AAAAANNNNDDDD we are about to embark on our next journey with the Ferals by going on our annual holiday in our little caravan, Last year we went on the Golden Outback trail through Mt Magnet to Kalgoorlie and through the Wheatbelt and back to Carnarvon. The Ferals had a blast as did the King and I too. We learnt so much about our states history and bonded as a family in a way that has made our little family unit much more appreciative of each other. Even though we love our little van i now have my eye on another one, a Paramount Duet.

This baby is my dream van.  LLLLOOOOVVVVEEEE  it.
This year we are going to go down south to the Wine country and coastal areas of southern W.A., and we are all very excited and therefore are counting down the days.
No crafting has been done, but maybe this week a little bit of sewing will be done, and if i get my backside into gear i will post a photo of the laundry bag i made to take away with us last week, it was a great little bag and i may have to make some more for gifts for all my girlfriends.
So until next time, Live as though today is your last, forgive, forget, cherish and above all love. Ciao.

A new quilt

Here at the Feral Fairy castle we have been busy once more and not much else has been accomplished in the crafty dept. I may have not sewn anything but i have been cutting madly. I have cut all the pieces out for a new quilt by Elizabeth Hartman from Oh Fransson. It is from her book The Practical guide to Patchwork. I am hoping to make the small plates quilt from heaps of my scrap fabric that i have been accumulating.

This is a wonderful book that i love reading over and over and i am determined to make more than just one quilt from this book. I still have not finished the PIP pile, but i am sure that cutting scraps was in that pile and i am going to use them up if it kills me.
I do believe that with all the scraps i could more than likely make another 3 quilts so that will keep me busy for a while longer. Until then Ciao.

Decluttering

Well hello! again time has flown by but i can tell you i have been super busy.
For the past 2 weeks, since the ferals have been back at school, i have been decluttering the house. It started as a general tidy up, emptying cupboards and getting rid of things that haven't seen the light of day for the past 12 months. but who knew that in that process i would make a wee bit of moolah. Yes my trash has become someone else's treasure, and i feel less cluttered in spirit too, so a win win situation all round really.

I have even been at the old sewing machine and finishing off another PIP (project in progress), UFO just sounds so ugly these days and having a PIP sounds much cuter.I will post a pic when i have finished the binding hopefully next time, the i can finally finish the last quilt topper i have and start a new quilt. (which i have already started cutting out). I know naughty hey, but then i wouldn't be a patch worker if i didn't have something else on the go.

Anyhoo i have also done a little housekeeping on the blog and if you notice in the side bar that some of the blogs i used to link too have gone, it's because they are no longer relevant to me now, but i have put some new ones on there and i hope you enjoy them as much as i do.

well until next time slow down, smell the roses and relax. Ciao

Finished at last!

We are still on cyclone watch as of this minute but not much has been happening in the last 24 hours, so that is a good thing. But i do have some monumental news for you, I have finally finished my Twinset and Pearls quilt that i started about 4 years ago. I put the last stitch in it yesterday and to say that i am glad it is finished is an understatement as this quilt has been the bane of my existence for the past 12 months. You see i have many UFOs and i just don't like quilting much so i keep making toppers and not finishing any of them.
But then i decided to stop being a coward and jump in at the deep end and get these suckers done. This one is the first one i have tackled and it did me for six as i have never quilted with flannel and chenille before and to say that these two fabrics cooperated is definitely wrong. I had it all pinned and started quilting and then realised it was too thick, so then i had to unpin and unpick and re pin with no batting and quilt it again and then hand sew the binding and with no batting in place this was difficult. but now it is done. Even with the no wadding it is still extremely warm and lucky i live in a very warm place so no extra warmth is really needed.
Well without any further ado here she is introducing Twinset and Pearls.

For Christmas i also got a wonderful present from the King it was a surprise the first one he has given me since we were married 12 years ago, guess what it was! Go on guess!

It was a Kindle and i love my Kindle so much that i made a cover for it the day after boxing day using some special fabric that a friend gave me the first time i looked after her dog while she went on holidays. i have had it sitting in my stash for the past 5 years and i love the look of it. I am very proud of my Kindle and it's cover. So here it is.

It is a pouch and ties up with ribbon, this is the last thing i have sewn with my machine so i think it is high time i dusted of the little baby and got to work again, only a couple more UFOs and then i can start making some new quilt tops. Yay.
Well till next time Ciao.

Cyclone Update

Well we are now on cyclone watch, cyclone Iggy is currently a category 2 storm and hovering off the northwest coast and heading our way. Although with the unpredictability of cyclones we are unsure of what it is going to do. Our region is still battling with the massive bush fires and a cyclone with the winds it generates is the worst thing that could happen, but the next 48 hours will tell us more information.So i thought i would leave you with another picture of the cyclone forecast track map of the weather bureaus hypothesis of what may happen.

source Bureau of Meteorology

As you can see we are just below Cape Cuvier which is only an hours drive away from us, so we will be watching with baited breath as they are predicting the cyclone to become a Cat 4 storm system, (and a Cat 5 is the mother of all storms and the highest category rating). So until then wish us luck. Ciao

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day to you and yours,

Enjoy one of these,

And a slice of this,

And even some of these if you are lucky,

But above all Have a wonderful Australia Day.

The Bad and the Ugly!

Well to say that 2012 has started well is not exactly true. You see here in Carnarvon Western Australia we have had bush fires surrounding us since just after Christmas. It has burnt out many thousands of hectares and is not dying its death any time soon.
We are extremely lucky to have dedicated fire crews in the area to try and stop this disaster. (see photo below of fire)

                                                                      photo source  ABC news.
But to top things off we have a couple of cyclones brewing off of our northwest coast as well that may cause problems (see below)

                                                           picture source Bureau of Meteorology.
We are below Coral Bay only a two hour drive away, rain would be nice but the firies don't want the winds or the fires may get bigger. Cross your fingers for us all please.
We are extremely hot here too, yesterday we had a top temp of 43 Deg Celsius and today we are predicted 41, way toooooooo hot for this little black duck, the air cons have been cranked high since yesterday and i know my power bill is going to be huge. :(

Well just thought i would fill you in on the Bad and Ugly to date, Lets hope that 2012 gets better, because surely it can't get worse.
Ciao for now.

Welcome to 2012

Welcome 2012.

Happy New Year everyone.

I am hoping that this year will slow down a bit and allow me to catch up. Last year went by to quickly and i think i may still be at the month of september. I don't usually make resolutions as i never stick to them so this year i am just going to go with the flow and see what happens.

The only thing i will say is i hope to do more crafting, whether it be patchwork, knitting, crochet (I will have to teach myself this one) or other crafts. I also hope to finish my UFO's and start on some new and exciting projects. And keep up with my blogging on a bit more of a regular basis.

I also aim to do more for myself this year and i am learning some alternative therapies. That i hope will make me a better person and allow me to explore different and new things.

I hope that 2012 brings everyone out there whatever they deserve and everything they hope for and all your dreams come true.

Ciao