Out and About

I know we don't usually meet up on a Thursday but Helen was making a trip up to The Quilter's Store and wanted to know who would like to join her.   Only three of The Tuesday Girls went today, Teresa, Helen and myself but as usually there were plenty of laughs to be had.
On arrival to The Quilter's Store, we each experienced our "15 minutes of fame".  The lovely assistant, Megan, (non blogger) from behind the counter, immediately announced that she knew each of us (before we spoke or laughed or anything) from our blogs...Megan then commented on Teresa's foodie photos and about how cute my little Maci is....so we were convinced she was the real deal....apparently Megan's mother is a regular stalker to our blog too....  I wonder if she wanted our autographs....lol    So a big hello to our fans...Megan and her mum....
Left to right - Helen, Me and Megan...

 Shopping always makes us hungry, so the hunt for food began as soon as we left The Quilter's Store.
We chose to eat at The Beach House, this place is new to the area and none of us had been there before...
Today we all chose the same lunch time  meal...Chicken schnitzel..

My photo doesn't do it justice because it was huge and it was an effort to eat it all.
Dessert came and Teresa and Myself had the White Chocolate Brownie, with macadamia nuts and a salted caramel centre, served with cream and ice-cream...Just the sight of this delicious looking dessert set us off...the sillies came fast and strong...
Teresa couldn't stop laughing....

 And laughing....

 Still laughing....even with all this laughter, she wouldn't stick her tongue out to lick the plate even when it
got really close to her mouth...lol

 Here is a close up of our dessert....OMG It was so rich that I didn't eat the ice-cream or cream...but I did eat it all....

Now Teresa was not the only one who 'lost the plot' today,  Helen and myself were laughing so much that I don't even know what we were doing when this photo was taken...what ever it was it must of been funny...

 The Girls looking very satisfied after our lunch..  I am not sure about these booths though, I sat on the outer edge and didn't find it a problem at all but these two made some very funny manoeuvre's getting in and out of there seats...lol

 With lunch out of the way we decided to - gate crash - one of the Tuesday Girls at her work - Sewer's Delight...Tess has not been able to join us much lately so it was great to catch up with her again to have a laugh or two...
I showed some incredible control today, ok maybe not with my lunch choices, but with my purchases...only some threads, buttons and bit and pieces....

Another lovely day shared with some very special friends....I heard something on TV the other day, and because it was on TV it MUST be true......'A woman will lose 3kg for each friend she dumps', well I don't know about you but I think this trade off wouldn't be worth it.....I would much rather keep my friends than to have a little waist....
I have one more thing to mention before I sigh off tonight...
I just wanted to mention that I think our influences are rubbing off on Helen's husband, Gaven.  This is what he told Helen to buy for our last Tuesday Girls get together....wasn't that lovely of him to think of us, I am sure he was hoping for some left overs....lol

Anyhow that's all for me...catchya all later....xxx

Travelling with Maci and the Howard Quilting Shop

Yesterday, we drove from Hervey Bay to Howard, probably about 20 minutes in total, to visit the quilting shop there.  I had heard from others that it was a must in the area for anyone searching for material.
We found the shop quite easily enough - Howard, I think, has two main streets....the one the pub is on and the one the quilt shop is on...
Here we are parked outside...you may notice there is no signage here, I guess when you have a good reputation you don't need to advertise...
I forgot to take a photo inside the shop, but it was one of those places that had everything...and I am sure if I wanted a kitchen sink there may have even been one of those hiding somewhere...

 While chatting to the owner,  she was telling me of the room across the road, where she has some fabric stored and would I like to see it.   I, of course, said I would love to, so she made a quick phone call and asked somebody to unlock the door for us...
The owner didn't come with us, she was very busy with her customers...so Hubby, myself and daughter take a stroll, across the road, through the vacant allotment (might have been the yard) and towards the red door in which we were told to head to...

 This is what we found inside...hubby took the photo as I (in the back right of the photo) was too busy picking out fabrics...
This was only one side of the shop.  I am not sure where the lady came from to open it for us, she did mention something about being next door..

 This building use to be the original bakery, in its bygone days and they still had the original wood fired ovens on show.   They leave the torches in front so you can see inside - they are massive..

 There were two oven with this one being the eldest...

 Here is a photo from the back of the building...such an amazing place, firstly to find an unadvertised 'shop', if that is the right word for it, and then to find out it has these beautiful ovens still inside.  It would have been so easy for the town or someone to have given up on this building and it's ovens but instead show it to unsuspecting visitors...and as an added bonus, have it full of fabrics.   I will be coming back here, the people were lovely, we chatted with the ladies in the fabric shops, an elderly man in the street (you know the kind - full of stories of places and things he has seen and stories about the town - he did also comment that he thought they would cremate him one day in the ovens...lol).

Now did I buy anything at these places, well funny you should ask, because those who know me already know the answer....yes....
Here are a mixture of florals, and creams to be used as backings for stitcheries...

 And these ones are just because I liked them...

Now I have some kitty photo's to add to todays blog, so for those of you who are not cat people, you have my permission to ignore the rest of this spiel...
We took Maci away with us and were so impressed with how she behaved while travelling in the car.  She was such a good little girl with our journey lasting 4 hours there and 4 back...
Here are a couple of snaps of her...by the way, do you know how hard it is to take a photo in a moving car, alot of them were blurry...lol
She loved looking out the windows, at one stage I was waiting to hear - "woof" as we went passed other cars...

 Nap time for both Amelia and Maci...

 Still sleeping....they slept for about an hour....

 We stopped of for a break and some morning tea and Maci decided that the dash was a great place to sun herself..

 MMM, I am sure she is wondering if could stay here....

 Needing some attention....hey Amelia, I'm gonna pull your hair out....

 Hey did you hear me girl, I said play with me...

So now I only have one more non-cat related photo to show you.   Talk about a sign of the times...Here is a kodak moment - you can see, from left to right, hubby, Amelia, my mother and step-father, and you will notice that everyone of them is on either a phone or a lap top....lol   I was a good girl and was using one of those analogue thingy majigies....you know - a book....lol

Ok that's it for me....hope you all had a great weekend....I know we did....
Catchya all later...
xx

My Ugly Has Come Home

I have been part of an "ugly" swap with The Friends In Stitching group. We had to send our partner an ugly fat quarter and it would be transformed into something beautiful and then sent back.

I don't have a photo handy of my "ugly" and I am not technologically savvy enough to copy one from the blog with

My phone....but I can show you what 

Jen had done with it...

I was a very lucky girl and got two mini's back and a pin cushion...

Firstly, look at the beautiful fabric it was wrapped in....

Now I will show you inside...

Mini number one....

I love this saying and I will put it up in my 

Kitchen for the kids to see. Jen has done a fab job at matching the fabrics, they look great together.  

Mini number two....

I love this one too... I hope I don't have to chose a favourite because I don't think I could pick.

My parcel also contained a violet crumble  

(Sorry only photo of wrapper) , a pin cushion and a notebook...score!!!!!

Thanks Jen, I love my "ugly" and if I find anything else that I regard as ugly fabric then I will know who to send it to. ...xxx

Road trip to Hervey Bay

A spare of the moment decision yesterday has me waking up this morning in Hervey Bay.   

First one must pack bags...

Mmm...ok you can come too....

We stopped for morning tea near Gympie, a stretch of the legs and a little look around.  Maci thought our road trip was great, if  

She was not looking out the windows then she was sleeping on the seats or on someone's lap.

Here she is - asleep again...

My spidey senses started tingling as soon as we drove into Hervey Bay...The

Dew Drop Inn was close, I could feel the pull - should I go there?

Yes I think I should.. 

I took one photo of inside, sorry about that, too busy fondling fabric.

I did make a purchase or two but all in all I think I was very well behaved.

Last night I missed the opening of a swap for an on-line group, Friends In Stitching, but I did remember to bring it with me so I will open it today..

I have heard of a great shop in Howard so I plan on doing a little exploring today to see if I can find it...

That's all for today, not use to blogging from my phone, it takes me ages to type 

Anything...

Cya 

Xxx

Warm Feet and Strawberries.....

There seems to be a rumor going round about me, one about how I sew. Lately you would be wondering if this was true because I don't seem to be posting about much to do with sewing.  So this post is dedicated to sewing, well maybe not only about sewing stuff, but there will be the odd photo or two of something to do with it...
Warm Feet is the name of the pattern of these little stockings....they are made from wool felt, dmc thread and a couple of snowflake buttons...

 At the last retreat I went to, we all were given a mitten to complete and I was a little slack in getting round to finishing mine.   I don't know why cause it took no time at all to make and it is so cute...

If you have been keeping an eye on my blog, you would have read about me doing Libbys Mystery BOM...
I have now completed block 4....I hope I never have to chose my favourite block because I like so many of them...
I am finding it really hard to get a good photo of these blocks, I think because they are a little large...anyhow here it is..

 A closer look at the pie...

 And of the middle block...

You may be wondering where the strawberry part comes into things so I wont keep you in suspense any more...
This morning my daughters, hubby, son-in-law and grandson went to the Strawberry farm not far from us..
Here are the girls with their containers full of yummy strawberries...and yes hubby is being silly trying to put one in Amelia's ear...(dont ya just love the spotty gum boots..lol)

 Looking at the girls you wouldn't think that they came from the same gene pool but they certainly did...one has olive skin, dark brown eyes, dark hair and the other is blonde, blue eyed and fair skinned....go figure...

 Here is hubby being silly again...maybe he got into the sugar without me knowing it....

 There were strawberries everywhere....
My grandson kept trying to pick the green ones so we had to keep an eye on him....

 All that hard work must be rewarded with some freshly made strawberry ice-creams....
Not sure if it was wise to give hubby any more sugar but who would say no to these treats...

 I, of course, just HAD to try out the ice-creams as well.....so yummy.....

We have already eaten most of our strawberries, they were so nice that trying just one was impossible...just means we will have to go back and soon....
Thats it for me...
Cya all later...
xxx

Tamborine Mountain

My mojo has run away again and the thought of picking up my needle and thread this weekend was just not going to cut it...so maybe a day out will help me find it..

We are very fortunate to live close to the gorgeous Tamborine Mountains, somewhere one can always find yummy food, fantastic shops, beautiful rainforests and lovely scenery...

We started the day at the Witches Chase Cheese Company, here we had the buffet breakfast, and sorry, I was so hungry I didn't take any photos of my plate...

With our bellies full, we thought a little drive around the mountain was in order...

There are so many beautiful homes on the mountain, I could quite easily see myself living in many of them..

I love this lookout....some very insane "fearless" people jump from this spot to do a little bit of gliding.

They can have that all to themselves...this little black duck wouldn't do it for a million dollars...just push me off the mountain now...

Further down the road, we came across this little place....

 We expected to find the nursery but what a surprise the cafe was....Inside the old shed was a gift shop and cafe...totally unexpected...

 This is where we sat - on the sofa in front of the fire place...this is one of those places where your eyes just wonder from one thing to another...

 More items to the left of me....

 Amelia sitting on the lounge to the right of me...

 Morning tea....orange and fig cheesecake, served with custard...a little odd I know but the custard was lovely with the cheesecake...

 This was such an odd place, the shed was made from the original old style corogated steel, the area
was very rustic but I could have stayed there all day..   I did mention this to the owner and she told us we could sit here all day if we wished and directed me to a pile of magazines I could peruse while I relaxed...

 I love these little bird houses...

 We did reluctantly move from our spot....we did the mistake of feeding a sugary item to Amelia, so she was busting from the seams to do something...   Lets take a wonder around the nursery...

The flowers were beautiful, with some I will admit to never having seen before...

On the way home, we called into the Skywalk...need to let Amelia burn off some sugar, and, well, ok - maybe a little exercise would be good for me too...

 There is this amazing display of butterflies inside the centre...

 This butterfly looked like it had opals for wings...

 Now as much as I hate heights, I did do the skywalk....slowly and trying not to look down too much so I hope you can appreciate the fact that I did have to look down to take some photos for you...

 The forest is beautiful, the height maybe not so beautiful...for me anyway...lol

 Checking out the forest floor..

 Photos just don't do it justice...

 Quick Amelia, take the photo...I want to move away from the edge and get onto some solid ground....

Now that's it for a morning out..while I type this post, hubby and I have been discussing going up again today...maybe without Amelia, so we can sit by the fireplace in the shed a little longer....

I have two more photos to add, but these are for the cat lovers out there..

Last Tuesday, while getting ready to meet up with The Tuesday Girls at Helen's place, I packed my bag and left the room...on my return I found a stow away...

 Even picking my bag up did not deter her...she just held on tighter...I don't think Helen would have been amused if she came with me...so out ya get...

That's it for me and yes I do have some sewing to show you all...hopefully I will take some photos today of it for my next post.....

cheers

xxx