Time for the weekly post.  It's terribly slack of me to only post once a week, but it's better than nothing.  Life is busy right now.

Our Show last week had terrible weather, rainy and windy, but we rugged up and went along anyway. 

 If you have to rug up against the weather you can at least be fashionable while you're about it.

First stop was the shearing competition, which is my favourite.

You can see why shearers end up with bad backs.

They were shearing a sheep every 3 minutes on average; I can't imagine doing this for a living.

There's a real knack to throwing out the fleece so that it lands on the skirting table with the tips up and the cut side down, all in one layer, so that the daggy, inferior edges can be pulled off and discarded.

I wanted one of those fleeces so bad, but I have 5 whole fleeces already, so space is an issue; I'd better spin some up real quick.

Then we watched the show-jumping; this is Mereth's favourite show activity.

The horses were so beautifully turned out, they were a pleasure to watch.

When the rain started we ducked into the pavillions to see the exhibits.

There were the usual things, like honey and eggs;

but also some entries in classes that were a little out of the ordinary. 

In earlier times the ability to render fat and dripping from home-killed meat was a necessary skill; I'm glad I don't have to master it these days.

And this is butter sculpture; the lady who made these little works of art is nearly 80, milks her cow every day and made all the butter for these creations.  She's truly remarkable.

We bought a little bit of fabric from a booth, and indulged in a pair of Ugg boots each.  Then it was off to see the birds;  I think pigeon fanciers are a strange breed themselves. 

The proud owner assured me there was a head in amongst all those feathers.

I much prefer this sweet little hen, lovely colours.

Last stop was the mettwurst stall, to buy a metre long pepperoni stick, like this one.

It was very hard to manouevre, so once it was bought we had to leave.  We had a lovely day, even if it was wet and muddy.

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Another busy work week is nearly over, and I'm looking forward to the weekend.  It's our local agricultural Show tomorrow, and we're going to attend for a couple of hours, after a customer consult that is.  It will be fun to see the quilts and the cooking and the flower arranging and the tractors and the show-jumping....  Might take more than a couple of hours.

I want to get a lot of sewing done, and some garden chores, so I've resorted to a list.  I know some people like Judy make lists for everything, but I don't normally work that way.  I don't normally get a lot done either.  So it's a detailed list this weekend, and I'll let you know how I go.  I have to tidy up the garden before Spring bursts upon us in only two weeks time, and I want to spin up a lot of wool that a friend gave me; I need to deep clean the workroom and the laundry and the kitchen.  That's just for starters!

The sewing project of choice is the blocks on my design wall.  When I started off it was to use up scraps and make a block that I'd wanted to make for a long time.  Only when I checked, it wasn't the same block at all.  My memory is not up to scratch.

This is the quilt I've had earmarked to make.  It's from Nancilu Burdicks's pattern book that accompanies the book Legacy, and is based on a quilt her grandmother made.

The blocks I started making are very simple versions of the quilt I actually wanted to make.  No problem, I just start making more complicated ones, and I'll merge them all together.

 Don't look at the photo below if you're squeamish!


Last weekend I was shifting furniture, and an antique table bit me.

All I did was put my hand beneath it to pick it up, and a waiting splinter went right under my thumbnail.  Mereth, in true blogger fashion, looked at it and said 'We have to take a photo of that!' Amazingly it didn't hurt much, and at the emergency room our lovely doctor numbed my whole thumb and then dug it out.  And it still didn't hurt a lot.  I'm very lucky I think, it could have been worse.  All week the two spots where he injected the anaesthetic have hurt much worse than the original injury.  Here's hoping this weekend doesn't have an eventful end like the last one.

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My Stash report for this week shows some large figures in, and some bigger ones out.  I still have another parcel from Hancocks coming (damn their free shipping offers!) so the overall total  will plummit once that arrives.  Still, I've taken more than 170m out of my stash this year, and I'm pleased about that.

Bought this week;   13.75m
Used this week;     22m
Bought this year;   64.7
Used this year;   176.4
Overall total;    111.7

I've cut up mountains of small pieces this week, and sewed lots of Square in Square units and Flying Geese.

I haven't assembled any of the units into blocks though, haven't had time for that yet.  I'll see if I can find time for that tomorrow.

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When I buy fabric on the net I often choose cheap fabric, close-outs and discounted older lines; I tell myself I'm being a wise shopper, and that it's a canny thing to do and saves money.  Then when the fabric arrives I'm a bit disappointed, or not happy with the quality, or just underwhelmed with the whole experience.  The new stuff gets packed away and forgotten, and the next time I feel like going shopping I remember the last time and think, Maybe Not.

The first of my parcels arrived from Reproduction Fabrics.  Unpacking it was a sheer joy.  This time I only chose really beautiful patterns, from my favourite designers, and I'm thrilled to bits with all of it.  There was a special on their shipping, a maximum of $15 for an international order, so I went a bit wild and bought 14 yards.  The actual cost of the shipping was $43, so I certainly saved myself some money there.

I sort of concentrated on the shirtings and madder prints, with some brown and double pink thrown in.  I was very nice and shared with Mereth, but she's a bit over the whole madder thing, having created two enormous quilts from her madder stash already.

I have a quilt pattern earmarked for this lot, and when I get a few more of those scraps dealt with I'll start cutting for it.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with these gorgeous prints.  They are mostly from the Twelve Oakes range by Judie Rothermel, with a few others thrown into the mix.  I may have to go back and get the prints from that range that I didn't include this time.

The downside to all this is that next time I'm tempted to go shopping online I'll be full of enthusiasm, rmembering how wonderful this was.  Not good news on the stashbusting front : (

  But for now I'm just going to revel in these new fabrics and I may even cut some strips to make tiny 4-patches, just for fun, and to get acquainted with the lovely prints.  While I wait for my next parcel to arrive.

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