Three Years

For the past three years, nursing studies and adventures have been the focus of my time and energy and at their culmination I feel my old creative yearnings being breathed back to life from a hibernation of necessity. I have still been working slowly on the grandmothers garden quilt and have reduced my ambition for it as a single bed size quilt and am thinking of making two cot size quilts from it. Becoming engaged and married within nine months this year also awakened my crafty.

I embroidered table numbers using designs from Made in France: Cross Stitch and Embroidery in Red, White and Blue and started embroidering a monogram to place in the centre of a signature quilt like this one at Martha Stewart weddings. Our family and friends signed some heartwarming and creative messages and this was one of my favorite things from the wedding.  However, a huge mistake I made was not somehow letting guests know to allow for seam allowance - something which is so obvious to me, as the maker, but of course not obvious to everyone else.

Reading over posts of three years past, in some ways I seem so different and in others very much the same. I still want to make the same quilts. I have been collecting plaid fabrics to make a lap quilt for the couch (how I am enjoying finally having my own little home). I had forgotten about plain spoken and was going to make it from 4 inch squares, so re-reading my old self was a timely reminder. My blue and white wedding quilt replaces the blue and white Irish chain and its so funny, the fan quilt I talked of is the featured quilt for December in a calendar I bought at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during my visit last year. Freaky!

Other ways I have changed in the last three years, rededicating my life to Christ. I grew in a Christian home and always called myself that but wasn't living it. I can't describe how positively my relationship with God has changed my life. I escaped an emotionally abusive relationship and married the sweetest, most patient (I could go on and on) man. I completed a Bachelor of Nursing which has been so important to my self esteem. I am still a little affected in my writing, still introverted (although a little less so). Less obsessed with L.M. Montgomery and novel reading in general (three years of text books and journals seems to have cured that for now), although I still love Canada and want to visit P.E.I.

I have visited America and Canada, forfeited a honeymoon trip to Fiji due to a perforated eardrum and explored a lot more of Queensland.

So an era ends and a lifetime begins.

Six more days!

I am progressing nicely on my ski trip jumper, this is some quick knitting. I think (and hope) this is the first thing I have knitted that I will actually be able to wear in public.

I may not have as much time to work on it when I start uni, but I'm sure I will need a break sometimes.

Speaking of uni, I have spent the last two weekends doing a short introduction to photography course at the University of Queensland, which was fantastic! I really learnt a lot about the basics of photography in such a short period of time.

Here is a photo I took on our field trip to the Roma Street Parklands. It is over exposed, but at least I realise that now and understand why it happened. I did take some better pictures but being the Scrooge that I am decided to scan them myself rather than having the processors put them on disk and most of my scans became contaminated with dust - I will have to try again - and pay the processors do it next time.

Michelle Conley - Student Nurse

I've been accepted into Nursing School at Griffith University! I'm beginning a new life in a big hospital. It was kind of a last minute decision, I only put my application in a couple of weeks ago.

I am looking forward to helping people (especially children) and having more daylight hours to myself. I will also be no longer working for The Man - yay.

In even more exciting news, I am planning a ski trip to New Zealand in July. In preparation I have started knitting this in bright cornflower blue Jet (pattern by Patons);

I might make mine a little shorter; my poor, stumpy, little legs don't need any more cutting off. I'm thinking about changing the collar as well - the current garter stitch collar doesn't seem (to me) to go with the detail of the rest of the jacket.

I like this collar (in fact I like the whole thing - but that is a whole other project).

More patches

Here are the second and third patches for my Grandmother's flower garden quilt. They are getting to be rather tedious to blog about, but they take so long to do (about a week - I'm all about instant gratification) I feel like I should post them. Also I do love them so, I can't wait until it is finished.

Feeling a little bit frustrated with the direction my life is travelling in at the moment - I think it is just a New Year thing. I also seem more dissatisfied in the beginning of the year. Also I think I am feeling a bit unfulfilled after going from Tafe two nights a week to nothing. I have been trying to completely ban television from my life but unfortunately it goes so well with hand quilting. I need to do things that require me to be away from the television. Although I have been consciously trying to reduce television for a couple of years, reading Keri's ad-free blog really brought home for me how much garbage I have been filling my head with my whole life and how much of my memory I am wasting on stupid television shows and advertisements! Then I started to think, it is just a coincidence that as a whole the people of the world seem smarter than they were before television? It's hard to tell. Anyway, I think no television is the way to go for me.

Note to self: Growth demands a temporary surrender of security - Gail Sheehy

Quilt update

Like a lot of people in blogland, I am enjoying doing not much at all this week. I have finished my second grandmother's flower garden flower and started crocheting a hat from this pattern. I have been staying up late and sleeping in, enjoying summer, practicing pin curling my hair, reading and reflecting on 2006.

There is so much to love about this time of year, lychees, mangoes, time with family, the Christmas spirit that seems to infect even the most cynical and all this time off from life.

Also my favorite Christmas present;

This lovely lady.

My mother found her for me in Roma. Part of me would like to know who she was and how she ended up in an op shop but another part of me is happy for her to remain a romantic mystery. Can you see me reflected in the glass - spooky.

Happy new year whoever you are, I hope you have a lovely night and 2007 brings you closer to your dreams.

Quilting Love

After reading this post by the enchanting Alicia I absolutely had to make a grandmother's flower garden quilt for the guest room in my future house o' dreams.

Here is my first flower!

And the angle shot;

I purchased the fabric at the beginning of the year to make a patchwork quilt (also inspired by a rosy little quilt) but then I started studying part time and haven't had time to make anything all year. Which is really rather fortunate as I love these colours for this quilt much more.

I have these two resourses absolutely invaluble and Australian too! I have also made my life easier by printing hexagons from MS Word onto wasted A4 paper (I work in an sinfully wasteful office). This makes for much more accurate hexagons (which is so vital to this quilt) and also saves so much time - beauty! To make these hexagons in Word just draw a hexagon of any size and then edit to the dimensions 3.9cm high and 4.5cm wide or any size you like.

I enlisted the help of my mum because it is going to be such a big job but I didn't realise how much we would bond in the process. We send each other little packages with fabrics and threads and tiny gold plated quilting needles and are just having a jolly time.

Here is a pin cushion my mum made for me to hang on the arm of my chair;

And just for fun, here is my favorite illustration from Jane Austen: In Style;

It is hard to see how truly gorgeous this little regency house cross-section is from my dodgy scan, but you can get a small inkling. Apart from the precious colors, I love checked wallpaper of the upper levels and the spacious be-arched basement (I like to make up my own words). I highly recommend this book for the pictures alone but there also seems to be a wealth of written information as well.