Monday, April 26, 2010

Challenges and another Give away

This is what is keeping me busy at the moment. I entered a challenge last November but of course I leave it till the last thing to get moving. The ideas tick over and over and then I just have to do 'something'!!


Well I can't show you my quilt but here is the fabric.



I've done mine using paper piecing NEVER EVER AGAIN! and had to reverse stitch several times.. it's not perfectly matched up but hey, it's an entry..


I'm thinking of calling my quilt

"Rooster Biggs walked into the bank and said THIS IS ANOTHER COCK UP"!!!

Somehow I don't think the ladies would approve haha.

I have to tell you about Jill's giveaway.  It's a gorgeous Heather Ross fabric complete with selvege.  Jill was listed on Selvege Blog last week with a wacky misprinted selvege.  Those of you who know me know I love selveges.  I collect them like a Womble!!  And I look through them often for wacky words and colours. 

http://cre8fmomquilts.blogspot.com/



Thursday, April 22, 2010

A busy week

I am making progress.  Took a hugh sigh when I realised I'd made a mistake with the dates for the challenge quilt so now it's so much easier to relax and enjoy it. Still got to make a bag out of a bra as well but I have all the bits and pieces and shouldn't take long.  will be a good project to do the handsewing while at tote and gloat next Saturday. 

today I found out i survived another restructure.. I probably have to do other jobs as well but new skills are good.. another thing to add to my CV in the future.  I love the work I do and I know I'm lucky, very lucky to have a job. But I am so exhausted today... I guess relieved the waiting is finally over... this time!

Nette arrives home tomorrow from Oz.  Going by her facebook page she's really enjoyed the conference and my grandson had a wonderful surprise at Seaworld.  He was chosen out of the audience to swim with the dolphins... Oh I am so jealous.  I always wanted to do that.  There used to be a dolphin called Karen at Marineland.  Until someone killed her by throwing nails into the pool.  I was heartbroken and only about 10!  Was just so special to have a dolphin named after me... hehehe

Tomorrow night I have the Fat Quarter Floozies coming to my place.  I hope we all fit haha.  I really love meeting people . there won't be any home baking.. it would be a flop!  I think I baked a cake in 1995 but probably ate it all myself!  haha..

Anyway my lovely friends.  I'm off to bed EARLY.  It's 9.35 . 2 hours before my bedtime but I don't think I can keep my eyes open for Project Runway... have to tape it.  Take care and happy stitching

Monday, April 19, 2010

Paper Piecing - Advice please

I've made some squares using paper piecing but now I have to slip stitch a quarter circle on each one.. Do I take the paper out first or slip stitch through the paper too .... then pull the paper off????  I photocopied the patterns and used that as the base.


Luckily for me I don't have to hand the quilt in till 9 May so two more weeks and a bit to get it finished.. Huge sigh of relief... but I'm stuck..


Do I or don't I???  Quilters please tell me what you would do.

LATER - I figured it out.  After putting this post on my blog I had a go.. and slip stitched through the fabric only .. gonna take me awhile but I will take them to work and I have two groups to sew with this week.. they are club members but I'll hide ..... Back to it.. Thank you for your advice.. Mrs C .. the shirt.. I'd love to see what you did!!

Saturday, April 17, 2010

HELP!!!! Why did I start this?

WHAT HAVE I STARTED???

I decided to move my rooms last week.  The sewing room is small and carpeted but doesn't get good tv reception and I love the 'company' and the noise, The lounge is bigger, has lots of light and has excellent tv reception...

SO  I decided to swap them over.  Put my sewing room into the lounge and the lounge furniture into the sewing room... But I still haven't finished.  A friend is coming tomorrow to help move the couch and big sewing desk so the rooms are in a muddle till then.   And the computer is going to go into the lounge because I waste so much time when I should be sewing!!!! 

So I'm going now... When you need a smack on the hand your Mum is just not around ah!!!  Hehehe 

BAD GIRL, BAD GIRL WHAT YA GONNA DO.. WHAT YA GONNA DO WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU.....

Bedtime -  I can't show you the whole project but here's a peek at what I'm doing at the moment. 



As you see it's nowhere near finished and I only have a week...eeek.. So I'm off to bed and up early.. a couple of friends are coming to help shift the big stuff tomorrow and then I MUST SEW!!!  you won't see me here.. I promise!!

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

It's late but I must share

I rang my daughter Annette (Nette) tonight.  She's off to Australia tomorrow to a conference with her hubbie and my grandson Cam.  Nette is so abuzz!!!  Since the article "Passion" was published she has had requests from other newspapers for a story followed by regular columns, a book writer wants to make a book of her columns (she's been writing them for nearly a year) and she's had more invitations to speak.  She's done some public speaking already and wants to make a career of speaking to businesses and groups so I am really happy to hear her so excited.   I can't wait to see them on their return home.  This disease (Chronic active hepatitis) will not win.... .Nothing beats Nette and never has. 

When she was diagnosed with this disease at 10 years old she was told to rest, half days at school, no sports etc etc.. Drs said she'd need a transplant before 16 years.  She made it to 19 and why, because she did everything the Specialist advised her not to do.  She didn't sit around feeling sorry for herself except when kids bullied her of course for her blown up appearance on steroids!! 
She got a job after school when she started high school - pushing a milk trolley around the streets - until she found one in a shop.  (a few years later she told me she had to sit in the gutter because she was so tired, but she wouldn't quit because then I'd tell her she couldn't work at all)Nette was in several roles in stage productions at school and local theatre including Sandy in Grease (never heard her sing since haha), in fact 14 shows before she had her transplant,
she passed 7 subjects in her fifth form qualifications. 
She has always lived to the fullest and never complains. 
Sure if she crashed she was in bed  for a week but she was back living life to the full again once she'd caught up on rest. 

Since the translant she's married, born a son, worked fulltime since 9 months after the transplant, helped on the farm, supported DH and DS at motorcross, worked as a Practice Manager and seen a firm through a merger and successfully reorganised their work loads and created a place where people wanted to work. She supported me through breast cancer surgery but sadly she picked up the novo virus from the hospital and ended up in one herself for 3 weeks.  Eeekk. Nette has no immunity on the antirejection drugs so even a cold will knock her back for a week longer than the rest of us.

But Nette lives a full and happy life with heaps of get up and go and if she's not feeling well, you'll never know.. she doesn't complain. It's just another ordinary day. In fact she hates people asking how she is.. because it reminds her she has an illness and she'd rather forget.

You know I've often said I wish it was me, not my daughter but maybe I wouldn't have coped as well.  Who knows why life gives us challenges and strife, it's not how much crap life throws us, it's what we do wth it that counts. 

Okay rave is over.  We all have wonderful kids but I wanted to share the wonderful news Nette has had about her career  My Aunt told me she takes after me.. I have been known to write articles for people but not ;for publications... So was my Dad a good writer.  And my other children Haylee and Ken write excellent articles too.  Even my grandson wrote a story last year at age 9 about Jan Molenaar who killed a policeman and shot two others whilst holing himself up in his home, then turned the gun on himself.  It They had to write a story about something in the news but Cam really got into the guys head.. it really gives everyone a shock.  But he does have an uncanny sense of knowing when somethings wrong and asking how you feel.  


Nette wrote "This is a story my son wrote last year - aged 9. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that he wrote this in school. I asked him why he wrote it and he said "coz we had to". I asked him how he felt about it and he shrugged. I was somewhat concerned about what was going on in his wee head to be writing this. But sometimes as parents I think we freak out about our kids when we don't need to. They're more together than us really I guess - less experience = less issues, less fears. Childhood innocence - at it's best?"
.. Jan Mollenaar - by Cameron Kendall


I am Jan Mollenaar, the gunman from Chaucer Road, Napier. I like guns.


On May 7th I came home and there were policeman in my house. I saw a gun and I shot Len Snee because they were going through my stuff. At night I thought the police were coming to get me so I set booby traps. This way when they came in they got injured by the booby trap.


I didn't want to shoot them but I did. Bang! Bang! Bang! I didn't want to go out of my house because I didn't want to get arrested by the police. My mum will be so sad.


Days later I started to feel so thirsty, hungry and cold. Throughout the night it was so silent like a mouse. I was so scared that I sat in the middle of the house all night without going to sleep.


I am going to shoot myself. Goodbye.

You can read all of Annette's column's on Facebook - Annette Kendall Professional Speaker.

I promise tonight I'll post pictures of quilts again and get back to normal haha.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Passion

I've only been away for 10 days but I can't settle haha.  I want to keep going and going... haha.  My holiday was spent travelling from place to place and bed to bed (sounds great but it wasn't quite that much fun ha).  But I had two wonderful successful days sewing with my dear friend Myra in Hamilton and then nearly two days with Carol in Palmerston North.  My challenge quilt is 1/3 done but I don't go back to work till Wednesday so I have plenty of time.  It's due to be handed in on 24 April so I think I'm going to be okay.  Can't show you any photos till then!!!  grrr.


It was a lovely holiday.  I saw my daughters, my grandkids, my Mum, Uncle and my cousin AND nearly all my bestest friends so I feel wonderful except that there was some not so great news.  My daughter who had a liver transplant 17 years ago at 19 years, has had bad news.  She has come out of remission and the disease is again attacking her liver.  There is more permanent damage.  However she has the best of care being under two hospitals who contact her every second day to see how she is and check weekly bloodtests.  Of course the increase in medication can cause permanent damage to her other organs so that's why they are concerned but Nette doesn't let her health rule her life so to everyone and me, she appears totally 100% healthy.  She has an amazing attitude.

Check out her column published in the local newspaper on Friday...

PASSION by Annette Kendall

What did you want to be when you grew up? I tell people I wanted to be a fire engine. I didn’t really. Red is so not my colour. I actually didn’t have a career in mind as such when I was a kid. I had this dream that I would spend my life trekking along the railway tracks, stopping in each town solving mysteries and helping people. I think I got my inspiration from a program at the time, “The Littlest Hobo”. Except the littlest hobo was a dog. I would have one child, a girl, who I adopted (because kissing boys was yuck) and I was adamant that I would never have a desk job.

In the real world, I’ve spent the last 15 years in one desk job or another and I have one child, a boy, who wasn’t adopted. I obviously got over my aversion to kissing boys.
2010 marks 17 years since I had a liver transplant. I’m told that’s some kind of record for someone with my disease. I’ve gone way past the predicted ten years. I have a rare condition where my body thinks my liver doesn’t belong there and tries to kill it off. It never goes away, it just goes into remission and eventually it builds up resistance to any treatment that may be available. Recent tests have shown my disease is back. There are no other drugs I can go on, I’ve gone through them all. No cause for concern, she’ll be right.
How am I still kicking round after 17 years? It’s certainly not because I’ve taken care of myself. It’s also not about attitude. It’s about having a purpose, a meaning in life. It’s about having a reason to drag your sorry butt out of bed, even when you feel like death warmed up. I’m still here because I was brave enough to search out stuff that I’m passionate about.
What do I mean by passion? Your passion is that thing you do where you lose your sense of self and time seems to stop. You think you’ve only been doing it a few minutes, yet hours have passed. It’s challenging and requires skill and concentration yet you are deeply and effortlessly involved. It could be playing sport, writing, fixing cars or figuring out how something works. If you know what your passion is, you’re fortunate. Most people will go their whole lives without ever experiencing the feeling that you’re doing exactly what you want to be doing and you never want it to end. Important note though, your passion isn’t something that makes you happy. It’s more a feeling of fulfillment and satisfaction.

A big salary won’t keep you alive. Following your passion will. I’m no model patient. I don’t follow the rules, I don’t eat what I’m supposed to and yes I have a wine or five sometimes. Granted I have a pretty cool attitude but the thing that has kept me going, even when I’m supposedly very ill, is my passion.
If you have no idea what your purpose or meaning is, go back to what you wanted to be as a kid. Our kid selves can be quite wise. I don’t work behind a desk anymore, I travel the country speaking to groups of people about a whole variety of things. My favourite thing in the world is speaking to someone and seeing their eyes light up when they talk about what they’re passionate about. I’m not walking the train tracks but I am travelling from town to town helping people.
Finding what you were born to do isn’t an easy road. It takes courage and involves risk. You’ll get things wrong, maybe on a monumental scale, but you’ll be living. So many people spend their life merely existing. Is that what you wanted for yourself when you were a kid? I doubt it. My life’s hardly a smooth road and I stuff up loads. Bet you one thing though, I’ll be here for a whole lot longer yet.



 I'm ignoring the 'What If' thoughts and being positive!..  Nette is a strong woman and she will get through this before most people realise she's been unwell.  The family is off to Australia on Thursday to another conference , regardless.  Nothing will get in Nette's way... she has no time to be 'sick'. 

But I'll keep on praying anyway .. it doesn't cost anything to pray!

I know what my passion is..