Lucky Me

Some times your birthday seems to go on forever and this is one such year.

With my Friday Friends we will be celebrating  this Friday not only mine but also Sheryl's  who has her  birthday next week...... mean while

This is my collection from my Fat Quarter Birthday swap friends

Talk about a beautiful collection I was so lucky...

The fabrics are such a lovely blend of colours that I may save them and actually make something  using them all together .... may be a bag ( that has just come to mind)

Thank you everyone

Included in one parcel was a packet of Dove chocolate caramels made by Mar's ...whee !! they are to die for, soooo soooo smooth and to a chocoholic a perfect gift. ( we can't buy them here in NZ... shame!)

Also included in my birthday parcel from one swap partner was another  packet of fat quarters I must quote to you what she wrote on her note..... this is so neat.....

"The bundle tied with a ribbon is from my stash. I am determined to reduce it one way or the other!"

Now is this not a good way to reduce your stash,  can you not imagine bundles of fat quarters winging their way around the world ....

Thank you ....They were just my sort of colours love them all, by the way my fat quarter stash will not be reduced I just love to tidy and  look at them ( when I have time) and some times I dare to use them.

Talking of time

Talking of time I really must go on a  retirement time management course since I have been back in NZ, I just don't seem to be able to get myself into a proper time table ...yes! I am doing every thing that has to be done ...hopefully on the right day.... but the days with no fixed programme I seem to be able to lose hours and have nothing productive to show for it... guess this is called retirement ... I am finding this difficult to cope with as I have always been an organised person in the former life. I guess the brain is having problems dealing with so much free time, nothing has to be done in a rush anymore.... and it seems the more time I have the less gets done ...anyone else had this problem ?

Thank you to everyone

Thank you for all your lovely birthday wishes...  

 I wish I had the time to answer each and everyone

but alas it is not so...

So please accept this bouquet from me.

Some more Treasures

A few weeks ago I did a blog on some of my treasures..so here is another.

Morton Manor  Cotswold UK

On our 25th Wedding anniversary some very good friends of ours bought us a Lilliput Lane cottage..well not quite a cottage but a manor house. This piece fascinated me and I was hooked on Lilliput Lanes, I have at least 60 which I have collected over the last 20 years, some I have bought some have been presents.. but I have now stopped collecting, I have a few that are now sought after collectors items, and  most have increased in value a little. None of my collection are still made so they are what they call "Retired models"

Lilliput Lanes are made for max of 3 years then the moulds are destroyed, this gives way to the club.

Some of the models go for hundreds of dollars... mine are not for sale.

The idea of the houses and cottages came about as follows:

Lilliput Lane was founded in 1982 by David Tate.His ambition was to create the most realistic and architecturally accurate miniatures the world had seen. Since then, Lilliput Lane has grown into an internationally renowned concern, famous for attention to detail and authenticity. Lilliput Lane cottages are hand-made in The  Lake District England by skilled craftspeople, sold in more than 50 countries and collected by many thousands of enthusiasts.

A Lovely Weekend

A Lovely weekend... I have just spent 3 days at DD's caravan with the grand kids, mainly as it is Easter but also as it was my Birthday on Saturday.

I have had phone calls and cards, fabric from my Birthday Fat Quarter swap girls, a lovely new mug with a mat and tray to match from DD and family to use on the new deck, when I arrived home I had 7 telephone messages awaiting for me... some from people I just did not expect a call from... So thank you everyone for making  it such a lovely day. I also had 4 electronic cards on email from overseas...what a fantastic thing the computer is... what did we do before with out it.

As we get older I do believe birthdays are more enjoyable, we have so many more people to celebrate with especially grand kids, I am sure they get more excited about my birthdays than me bless them.

Here it is the new part of the deck

So all finished and cleaned up ready to sit on..... will look even better when shrubs grow along handrail area. Which of course will only happen when I plant them .. soon I hope, I do have them... but have to actually dig the garden there though and I think it is going to be hard graft doing it.

So I now have shade in summer from house and also screened from winds at other times, especially when we have beautiful days in the winter.  I can see I am going to use this area a lot.

So I can see a morning tea invite going out to celebrate the deck.

It is official ... chocolate is good for you !!!

This was an article on the BBC news in Uk this week.......

Easter eggs and other chocolate can be good for you, as long as you eat only small amounts, latest research suggests.
The study of over 19,000 people, published in the European Heart Journal, found those who ate half a bar a week had lower blood pressure.
They also had a 39% lower risk of heart attacks and strokes.
Heart campaigners warned that too much chocolate is damaging because is has a lot of calories and saturated fat.
The study looked at the chocolate consumption of middle-aged men and women over eight years.
It compared the health of those who ate the most and least chocolate.
Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food
Dr Brian Buijsse, study author

The difference between these two groups was just 6 grams a day, equivalent to one small square of chocolate a day.
The lead author, Dr Brian Buijsse, from the German Institute of Human Nutrition, Nuthetal said: "Our hypothesis was that because chocolate appears to have a pronounced effect on blood pressure, therefore chocolate consumption would lower the risk of strokes and heart attacks, with a stronger effect being seen for stroke."
This is, in fact, what the study found. Those who ate more chocolate cut their risk of heart attacks by around a quarter, and of stroke by nearly half, compared with those who ate the least.
Chocolate lovers dream
But Dr Buijsse warned that it was important people ensured that eating chocolate did not increase their overall intake of calories or reduce their consumption of healthy foods.
"Small amounts of chocolate may help to prevent heart disease, but only if it replaces other energy-dense food, such as snacks, in order to keep body weight stable," he said.

The researchers believe that flavanols in cocoa may be the reason why chocolate seems to be good for people's blood pressure and heart health. and since there is more cocoa in dark chocolate, dark chocolate may have a greater effect.
Heart campaigners warned that chocolate is still bad for you if you eat too much.

Victoria Taylor, Senior Heart Health Dietician, at the British Heart Foundation said: "This sounds like a dream for chocolate lovers and just in time for Easter too, but it's important to read the small print with this study.
"The amounts consumed on average by even the highest consumers was about one square of chocolate a day or half a small chocolate Easter egg in a week, so the benefits were associated with a fairly small amount of chocolate.
"Some people will be tempted to eat more than one square, however, chocolate has high amounts of calories and saturated fat which are linked to weight gain and raised cholesterol levels. Two of the key risk factors for heart disease."

OH!!   SOME PEOPLE~ARE JUST SPOIL SPORTS

A tour into Quilt history

A group of 14 ladies from Rainbow Quilters have formed "A History of Quilts " group

we are getting together every 3 months  so just 4 times a year.......when we will each have had a topic to research, and we will tell the group of our findings, we had our first  meeting tonight and we had talks on many subjects  to name a few:  The History of Needles, The Log Cabin Block, The Sewing machine, The Dresden Plate Block and The  History of NZ Quilts,  They were all amazingly  interesting and I for one learnt so much.

We are also going to make a quilt each in older type fabric of the blocks we talk about...could be an interesting Quilt  there is no hurry to finish it so in a year or so we will each be able to show and tell.

We hope to document our meetings so we can leave it in our library for future quilters to see what we did in 2010.

What a full on Weekend

This weekend was the Punto Antico Class given by Marjorie Irwin

This was my work station

16 of us took the class and what a full on 2 days we had ..pictures do not show you what we actually did as a lot of the work was from the back and is now covered up with stitching...but my brain knows it has worked besides my fingers for 2 days.
Here are just a few of the ladies all heads down

Linda, Nicola and Mhairi

A lot of intense work went on and it was a quiet weekend as not a lot of talking  ... everyone was engrossed in their work

Beth, Ina and Hetty

Hetty saw the camera so looked up, Beth then said "Bet that will be on your blog tomorrow"...guess what she was dead right.

My practice piece, more work is under the fold that is not visible, but so much work went into this practice piece that I will actually make it into something shame to waste it.

Work so far on the actual piece, it may be a little while before I post the finished item... but I am determined to finish it while my brain is still in gear.

Hopefully one day mine will look like this section of the finished artical.

On top of the 2 full on days, I baby sat  Ellis and Harvey over night Saturday while Mum and Dad went to the Fireman's Honors Dinner, so you can imagine the morning on Sunday with boys needing breakfast and me trying to make sure I had forgotten nothing all by  just after 8am.  So they were dropped of at home on my way to the class.. but hey it all worked out well and they were very good they knew Grandma had to be out half past early so helped by packing their bags ready to go.