Happy Easter!

You will have to forgive the brevity of this post but in 3 hours we are going camping and I have so much to pack it is ridiculous! We are heading to Hattah with Jen, Can and Ros and their families and while we always have a wonderful time, gee camping is a lot of work! It seems to take a day to get ready and a week to unpack when we get home... I am still not 100% from this flu so at this point a holiday in a nice bed with room service seems slightly more appealing...
However, my lack of motivation may also have something to do with tiredness... We had an alternative night at the Room last night because we will be away on Friday... Cancel? Not likely! And while I had good intentions it would be an early one, somehow time slipped away and it was midnight...

Besides we had to announce the winner of the "Guess how many eggs" Competition that we had running at the local Op Shop...

And the winner is....

Congratulations Chris Sellick with the closest guess of 86... (The correct number was 87)

The Room was a bevy of industry last night as projects moved along... Dot finished putting the binding on her Zig Zag Quilt. It only needs to be hand sewn on now and it is done....

Ros finished stitching in the ditch in Edie's quilt ...

Isn't it gorgeous! She is now going to shadow quilt the darks and stipple the lights....

Ros made some beautiful coasters during the week.  These are the ones she made for Tennille...

and the ones she gave Jen are equally beautiful.  What a great idea!

Tennille began a Very Special Quilt last night. A friend of hers has been diagnosed with terminal leukemia. He is 16.

Robyn knitted (not sure what - this woman is a bevy of industry)...

And Andrew's monster is getting scarier by the week!

Our newest member, Karen is making a library bag for her son and it is beautiful! I love seeing people discover how much fun quilting is and Karen is creative and precise... I suspect she is a born quilter!...

When Can wasn't counting eggs, she was continuing to hand sew the binding onto Piper's quilt. Can's mum, Sandy was a special visitor last night....

You know, as I have been quickly typing this while constructing a "To Do" list in my head, I have been pondering camping, and why the hell do we do it... go on a 'holiday' where you have to work three times as hard just to do basics like cooking and washing....
And then my four year old woke up and came out... The first thing he asked? "No more sleeps, Mum? We go camping today?"  When I said yes, he jumped up and down, "Yaaaayyyyy!" and promptly went to wake his father with the announcement of "No more sleeps" (also translated into "No more sleep for you Dad") "WE GO CAMPING TODAY"...
And seeing that sheer joy and excitement on my son's face, suddenly camping feels like campfires, stars, torch tiggy and marshmallows... and I guess that is why we do it....
Happy Easter everyone!

If Six Women Can't Find It; It's Lost!

From 38 degrees last week to rain and jumpers this week .... Summer seems to have made a dramatic exit in Donald! But regardless of what Mother Nature is doing, The Room soldiers on...
Firstly, this photo is several weeks late but Dadaaaaa!!! Tennille's first quilt for her beloved nephew Zachariah...

Tennille now has to get going on some more because the boys are now fighting over who gets this quilt!

Pam came along and showed us some of the stunning creations she has been working on. Check out this amazing wall hanging...

The detail in this is extraordinary. Here's a close-up of some of the free motion detail that adds such texture...

Pam has also 'whipped up' a gorgeous bag...

Pam is also a bit dangerous to our bank balance as she came bearing news of a fabulous new quilt shop in Ballarat and a brochure of a quilter's retreat... Hmmmm....
Our group project quilt has been quilted by Yours Truly and the binding attached....

and I finally finished off Ollie's library bag. Fortunately it has his name on it in case there is another one at Kinder the same...

But the main focus of last night was to finish off the Giant Jelly-Roll Cushion, ready for raffle on Friday...
The process started smoothly enough. We made piping and backing...

We stuffed and sewed....

Now all that was left was to add the buttons that give the cushion its shape. The big beautiful blue buttons that cost a bomb and were bought especially for this project... There are two... there WERE two...and now there is only one....
Six women searched The Room... and we had a Mother's Look... We moved things and searched through bins and buckets and tubs and handbags... we searched everywhere....

The button is NOT to be found... We all know it will turn up. Can and I are meeting on Tuesday to finish off the Giant Cushion with (most likely unmatching) buttons so no doubt, the missing button will surface on Wednesday!
So here is the cushion in its current state...

The night finished with us helping Dot unpin her gorgeous ZigZag quilt ready for phase two quilting...

and we returned to other projects (for some of us, that was bed). Ros did some more blocks for Edie's quilt...

Ros still has yet to decide on her final design but she has some ideas... When I can work out how to get photos off my phone we shall post them.
Have a great week.

Thrift and Things

We like to consider ourselves a thrifty lot at The Room (by necessity rather than choice most of the time) but the title for the Queen of Thrift this week has gone to our gorgeous Tennille!

During the week Tennille picked up a working Janome MemoryCraft8000 at the St Arnaud Recycling Centre for $20. (For those of you who don't know, this machine is an older top-of-the-range machine that not only sews but also does embroidery. It has all the cool features like 'needle up', 'needle threader' 'tie off'.... I reckon it may even be able to do the dishes and cook dinner too if we found the right button...)

 Can had great fun exploring all the decorative stitches (Tennille, if your machine is missing check Can's place first...)

The Memory Craft in action as Tennille works on a library bag for one of her children.

Tennille is making the library bag out of the gorgeous butterfly material ...

The rest of us were also productive last night (once we stopped dribbling with envy) and Dot has finished her second quilt-top in record speed and set about basting it for quilting....

She is making it for her daughter, Jodie and the beautiful greys and blues look fantastic in the funky zig-zag pattern...

Dot is quilting it to further accentuate the zig-zags and no doubt our Queen of Speed will have this completed in no time at all...

Jen has begun the less speedy process of making a rag rug for her lounge room floor. She is plaiting coloured knits together and then sewing them in a spiral. It will be beautiful once it has finished...

We had a new face at The Room last night. Dorothy was involved in the Donald CWA which is currently in recess.  Dorothy brought along her knitting and a whole lifetime of knowledge and skills.

Dorothy saved Candece hours by showing her a neat trick to unpicking seams...
The recess of the local CWA is a sad thing for this community. The women of the CWA have such tremendous skills and knowledge, to say nothing of the huge amount of community work they do. You wonder how that gap will be filled... Still The Room was more than happy to fill the 'creative' space and we hope Dorothy enjoyed herself and will come along again.
When Can wasn't playing with Tennille's new machine, or revamping skirts, she was sorting fabric for her new project, a lunch tote....

This is her collection so far... (I think she only needs eight...)

Andrew was busy working on his felt monster. He is going to add a mouth, teeth, eyebrows and hair...

Yours Truly has finished quilting Ollie's Library Bag (and then found out they don't even need it until Term 2!) so it sits awaiting a couple of seams and a drawstring and I turned my attention to quilting the Playmat...

Having outlined the roads I am now stipple quilting the grass...

and will then work out how to quilt the paddocks.
Have a great week everyone and The Room once again extends a warm welcome to anyone in Donald who is at loose end on Friday nights and may want to enjoy some tea, laughter and the occasional project!