Frugal times...

I am with Di about our affluent society. For the last couple of years, we have been pretty comfortable financially and have just spent money when we wanted (to a degree). However we have made the decision to go to Finland this year. We are going with my parents and I have lots of personal reasons this trip is important to me - one of which is to spend some quality time with my Mum and Dad. However we have recently purchased more shares in the company and had a trip to NZ, so we are going backwards right now as we try to pay off the $6,000 in airfares we purchased before Christmas.
I have always felt strongly about the sentiments Di has expressed (spending on consumables, etc) but purchasing these tickets has pushed us financially (I know I am probably contradicting myself by saying I I am strapped for buying air tickets and don't believe in the consumables guff, but like I said there are lots of personal reasons this trip is important - a finding the roots kinda thing). So I have started re-visiting the simply spending website. If anyone is interested they have a calender for 2008 to help you save money.

Anyway the upshot of all this talk is that I cooked a quiche from scratch tonight. The idea was to make a ham and egg quiche (Super Food Ideas page 20 - Xmas issue)- using what I had at home. I did not have frozen pastry so I was very proud of myself for making the pastry from scratch using Ally's recipe from Toowoomba Quilters. It worked too - I am not good with pastry usually. Then I was going to use the left-over ham from Christmas, but it didn't smell so good, so the dog got that and I used a tin of salmon in place of the ham. I also did not have the mozzarella cheese so used Colby cheese. Also did not have chives so used parsley and spring onions from the garden (Hubby is really enjoying his gardening now that it has rained a bit). So anyway I am hoping it will taste good but I am so proud of it I am putting a photo of it up - I like the way Caity puts in photos of things she has made - cooking should not be relegated to second place - take pride in making thing from scratch and using the ingredients to hand! Anyway this is one of the small things I intend to do to save money and live a simpler life!

Foundation piecing.... Arrgh!!!

I have continued working on the Jinny Beyer quilt today - joining the foundation pieced blocks - now there are 8 of them ... and then... the words to strike fear in any quilters heart.... remove the paper... how long is that going to take me? ...little bits of paper everywhere! I am very tempted to put this back in to the UFO category! Meanwhile the dog has been having a very hard day! Have a Happy New Year everyone! It is going to be very quiet for me and that suits me fine.

My sewing space

Here are photos of my sewing space. I did manage to shoo the boys out but they landed in the lounge like a swarm of flies and took the Xbox with them. Coco (my ancient cat) usually sleeps in her basket in the lounge but came out about 5 minutes after they started yahooing, to tell me she was not happy! So she helped me sew in between sleeping on the futon. I have also put in a photo of the foundation pieced blocks - 32 all up. These are the last of the foundation piecing - phew! I have spent two hours today and probably a bit longer than that yesterday to make these. It gets faster as you go along and get the knack again.

My Xmas Pressie

I must have been a good girl this year as I received a camera for Christmas. Now I can stop borrowing my son's camera. Also I can now put some effort in and learn how to use it properly. I have included some photos taken at my place on my new toy, including one of some of the family dishing up Christmas Dinner. There is also another book cover I made, in a space theme. This one was a gift for my hubby.

Since Christmas, I have spent a bit more time on my Challenge Quilt and got it to a stage I need to let it sit for a while ( and mature like a fine wine). My next project was a UFO. A few years ago I started the BOM called Around the World with Jinny Beyer. I had completed nearly all of the blocks except the mariners star type blocks. The quilt is all made with foundation piecing and has been quite repetitive to work on, so that is why it got pushed to the bottom of the pile. However now that I have tidied up my sewing space I thought I would finish a UFO this Xmas break and I feel good that I have at last started on that goal. I have been thwarted today as my youngest son has some mates over and they are sitting playing Xbox or Nintendo in my sewing space. Sadly it is a shared space and when it is full of teenage boys all yelling at the screen it is time for me to find something else to do. I may have to move them on soon though as I really feel the need to visit my Bernina.

Bags of Love

I have made two quilts as my 'charity' quilts this year. One is from the method Di Showed us for a simple 1000 pyramid quilt. I have backed it in polar fleece to make it cuddly. There are some really ugly fabrics in the mix, but it doesn't seem to matter when they are put together.

The other quilt is made from panels featuring houses, geese, sheep, cats and I have added some 4 patch to make enough blocks for a quilt top. I backed it in a lovely red flannel so it too will be cuddly. The interesting thing about this quilt is that I designed it in EQ5 and found my first colour way didn't really work. It's great when you can 'trial' colorways before you cut the fabric. I am donating them to bags of love which give bags of necessary items to kids who have been removed from homes of parents with drug problems. They give a quilt in each bag as well so that the kids have something to 'own' as they often leave their homes without many of their possessions. Any way I will drop them off today - I hope they like them - it would be nice to think they may not need them, but I was told that they give out about 50 bags just over the Xmas period in Toowoomba.

Dropped the quilts off - they were really appreciative - made my day!

Christmas strikes!

Why do men seem to think that woman like wrapping presents? How come work outside suddenly became so important when I sat down to wrap presents. I needed to get them organised as I had to mail some away - mainly to his family (well I have been married into them for a long time now, but he still knew them before me!) AAARRGHHH!

Anyway the good thing to come out of it is that I found I am pretty well set up except for some last minute baked items, which I will do this week. I saw a good hint for wrapping presents in the free Woolworths magazine. I didn't have enough Chrissy paper, so I used brown paper and then wrapped the Chrissy paper around the middle only, with ribbon etc. I also used some of the offcuts from my silk paper book cover to make tags for the presents. I thought they looked quite pretty! I had to add Coco's picture as well as she wanted one taken!

I have also taken a photo of a stitchery I made earlier this year. It is for my youngest niece. I framed it in a shadow box frame and it came up quite well. It was from a Country Threads magazine. I don't subscribe anymore but occasionally they have issues with really nice stitcheries.

Competitive juices fired up...

Sean (my first born) has finished high school (- see formal photo in earlier post) and I have been helping him today in writing a job application.

My competitive juices started to flow. I have applied for (and won) many jobs over the last 5 to 10 years and I find writing a job application is like a challenge - must get that interview! It is interesting to me that I feel the same way helping Sean write his application! Maybe not though, as this would be a great job for him and I feel very deeply that I want to see him land it... keep your fingers crossed for him!