Home from Australia

I'm home after seventeen days away in Australia. The first few days were spent with my good friend Susan at her home in Geelong, about an hour out of Melbourne in Victoria. We are both quite content to sit and stitch so the first few jet lagged days went by all to quickly. We drove from Geelong to Adelaide along the Great Ocean Road which is pictured above. Such a beautiful place.


The next 8 days were spent in Adelaide at the Beating Around The Bush needlework convention. The photo above is one of the shop windows at the Country Bumpkin retail store - clearly heaven for smockers and embroiderers. It was a beautiful week filled with students from all over the world so eager to learn. Even language barriers seemed to disappear once everyone had a needle in their hands. Margie Bauer and her staff at Country Bumpkin out did themselves to make everyone feel comfortable and welcome.


The drive back to Geelong was filled with many pleasant surprises which included an up close and personal encounter with a koala (this is NOT in a zoo or enclosure!) and Logan's Beach at Warnambool. If you were to sail directly south from where I am standing the first thing you would encounter is Antarctica. This was my favorite spot. I'm planning a trip back to run the 20 plus miles of completely open beach.

We flew to Sydney for the last few days for a taste of something completely different. It is a fabulous, cosmopolitan city filled with beautiful scenery, shops and great places to eat. We probably spent an hour in a spacious Armani boutique having fits over the elegant fabrics and spot on construction of the garments. An early morning run around the famous Opera House and the adjoining Botanic Gardens was another favorite memory. I can not thank my dear friend Susan enough for taking such good care of me and showing off her wonderful country.

Baby Jane is three months old!

I'm sorry if this is getting boring but I just can't resist the monthly update on Jane. Her hair cracks me up. She is a sweetie pie but not so fond of modeling Grandma's sewing projects yet. I'll have to work on her a bit.

This One Is For You Michael

As many of you know on the 14th of November last year my beautiful, smart, funny, confident 18 year old son was killed in a terrible accident. He was the fourth of my seven children and the oldest boy. He was a natural leader and the life of ANY party. He is missed beyond measure. As luck would have it Michael actually had a bucket list and it is my intent to do as many things as possible on that list in his honor. On the 18th of April I ran the Salt Lake City Marathon wearing the number he was signed up to run with. I'm quite sure a tall strong boy was running along beside me. On Saturday I'm leaving for Australia and returning to teaching after almost a full year off. Michael very much wanted to go to Oz after graduating high school . I sometimes can almost hear him saying "you can do it Mom". When I get home and we mark what would have been his 19th birthday his best friend and I will be jumping out of an airplane on that day. It was something they had planned to do since they were about eight years old. I hope we will make him proud. Not a minute goes by, not a mile is run, not a stitch is taken that he is not in my thoughts.

What's Hailey Wearing - Part 2

Here's four year old Hailey again. Today she is wearing an all cotton batiste middy dress. The dress originally belonged to my daughter Doireann who now at a sophisticated eleven years old is Hailey's favorite auntie. Doireann had the opportunity to be photographed several years ago wearing this dress in Huntsville Alabama for the back cover pattern of Sew Beautiful magazine (issue #81).


The dress has had a bit of wear and tear. I wish I had taken pictures of it about two weeks ago. It had a huge (about 12" long) tear in the skirt where the French insertion butted up to an entredeux edge. Luckily I still had pieces of the insertion left over which I stitched in right over top of the tear and then cut away the damaged insertion. It made the mend completely invisible.



The last two pictures are Hailey modeling an embroidered wrap dress which is a new class project for me. I will be teaching this class at BATB in Australia the first week of October. Lots of things to get packed and ready this week. I leave on Saturday to fly to Melbourne and a week with my good friend Susan before we head to the conference in Adelaide.

Jane is 2 months old!

I could not resist posting this happy little picture. Jane is the intended model for the four piece set in the next post. It's a size two and by the time it's done being a class sample she should be just about ready to wear it.

Finished Project

This four piece set is the project for my classes at Farmhouse Fabrics. I'm very pleased to have plans to be there three times next year. I live in somewhat of a fabric wasteland so having access to Sally's warehouse full of treasures sounds like heaven to me.



I'm pleased with the look of the a-line dress. It has a very do-able amount of smocking. This particular one only took about two hours for the front and the two backs. The smocking shows quite nicely when the dress is paired with the wrap style jacket.


I like the idea of getting lots of mileage out of my jackets so I added a swing style smocked top and reversible pant. It gives a very wearable year round look


The jacket fabric is Australian Doctor's flannel, dress and pants are Liberty Tana lawn trimmed with tiny microcheck. Swing style top is cotton batiste. It will be sized in 1-4. I can think many, many more combinations of fabrics to make this set up in. I'd be pleased to hear your thoughts on possible combinations.

8.5 & First Sign Of Fall

Two of my favorite things to do are sew and run. If I had to pick between the two, and I hope I never do, I think running would win. I am lucky enough to be able to walk out my front door and in a very few minutes be in a beautiful, pristine place. I do an 8.5 mile loop six days a week. The vertical climb is about 1500 feet. The leaves in the above picture were at an altitude of about 7000 feet. The picture was taken today and it's the first sign I've noticed that fall is coming.


The sunflowers seem to be having a great year. They are EVERYWHERE on the mountain.


I've saved the best picture for last. This is my dear friend and running buddy Sandy giving me a little pose on the fence line at one of our stop points. I'm quite sure she is the funniest girl on the planet. Her razor sharp wit and uncompromisingly clear view of things have carried me up this mountain through some very dark times. I would wish such a friend for everyone.