Sewing time at Scrub Stitching

I was really looking forward to having a good four days of interrupted sewing at Scrub Stitching. I tried to be reasonable in my packing but of course took more than I could accomplish in the time frame!

Last year at Scrub Stitching, a wee group of us decided to make the "Corner Star Quilt" (by The Missouri Quilt Company) and show it off this year.

I procrastinated all year about what fabric to use and it wasn't until I was packing to go away that I made a decision on my fabrics!

First block made - 

I had hoped to do all my cutting before I left home but that didn't happen. So it took me half a day to make my first block. And another day or so to make the next four!

Grand plans of finishing this quilt at Scrub Stitching evaporated and I'd only made 5 out of 16 when I put them away for the weekend-

(in need of a good press, sorry)

Sue just needed to sew a few seams at Baradine and then she had one to show off (she chose to use just one fabric for each block)-

I think everyone else had finished top or quilt to show off-

Lea, myself, Sue, Georgina and Kylie.

I put it aside on Saturday morning to start a new project. Chooky had come across a cool quilt for us to sew using a ruler produced by a local quilt shop.

She'd started hers on zoom one time so many of us took a jelly roll and bought a ruler...!

Here was the original, made by the quilt shop-

Cut and sew and sew and sew and sew....

You make one big long length and then cut it into shorter strips. Chooky's long one-

Ahem, some silly person modelling it as a scarf-

Chooky's cut up-

I laid mine out for a photo shoot-

With Sue's-

Group photo-

Top left, you can see Betty made hers double ended, and top right, Stephanie made a smaller one - both as runners rather than quilts-

Betty, Kylie, mine, Sue, Betty and Stephanie

Louise asked about the ruler and I realised I didn't show it - 

A fun quilt to make! I have 16 more strips to sew onto mine, and Sue about the same. We thought we might finish them one evening on our way back from Baradine, but sadly that didn't happen. 

See you next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn

Scrub Stitching 2024

Scrub Stitching this year, as always, was great!  Camp Cypress, in Baradine, NSW, was our home for four nights - five days of sewing and fun, friendship and good times.

28 travellers came from all over the countryside, from Queensland to Melbourne (and New Zealand!), united by our love of quilting and blogging and everything in between.

Our 'Tribe' - 

The bloggers amongst us - 

It's a great sized room and we all have enough room to play, with the dining tables and kitchen along one side and sewing everywhere else.

A hive of activity!

Travel buddy and partner in crime Sue, sewing up a storm-

My sewing wasn't as productive as I would have liked - more on that another post - 

(Thank you to Chooky for lending me her machine ❤)

Saturday night was our celebration night - we were shooed out of the hall to have nibbles and watch the sunset-

Sue caught a photo like this last year, I managed one this year--------

The theme for Saturday evening this year was Stars.....something you could interpret any way you wanted.

We had Lea of the Milky Way-

Tina and Harriet and Star Wars, with child star Shirley Temple Kylie watching on-

and Sue and I donned starry outfits and had a good laugh!

Chooky has more photos of everyone dressed up on her blog if you want to take a look *here*.

This post has been sitting waiting to be finished for a few days now. I accidentally pushed  Publish when I was struggling to get wi-fi at the airport, so put it back into Draft to tidy it up.....however, I will leave it here and start afresh next time ☺

'til next time,

happy stitches,
Raewyn

Tiki Touring

I'm off on another adventure! 

A few days ago, I set off from New Zealand -

And landed at Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne, Australia.

Kiwikid Sue picked me up after a bus trip to Geelong. This was the first leg of our trip together up to our quilting retreat, Scrub Stitching, in New South Wales.

First of all, a little sight seeing around Geelong. Sue regularly shares photos of the decorated Bollards there and I was excited to see some of them. They are very clever, lots of personality!

Sue and friend - 

This couch was made out of limestone - very cool!

I also saw bats for the first time - there is an area of trees which they live in. I was quite amazed!

(Yes, what I thought were a whole lot of seed pods were actually 100s of bats hanging out!)

We then set off onto the Great Ocean Road, described as one of the world's most scenic coastal drives, along the southwest coast of Victoria. It was built by WW1 veterans, mostly by hand, and opened in 1932. It is considered a memorial to these men, who carved it out of the rock. This is at the start of the Great Ocean Road - 

(However, we started at the oppsite end so didn't see this till the end of our journey! We wish we'd seen and understood this first.)

We spent two days enjoying this coastline. 

The Twelve Apostles. Being made of limestone, there is a lot of erosion on the rock and cliffs. Some of the Apostles have collapsed-

At the Gibson Steps there was a steep climb down the 70m high cliff to the beach below- 

Those 86 steps are shown about halfway along the cliff-

A lighthouse from afar. There were many shipwrecks along this rugged coast-

These cuties were at Lorne-

After our adventuring along The Great Ocean Road, we went back to Sue's at St Leonards for a couple of nights. I was excited to see Pelicans for the first time (after admiring them in her photos in the past).

And saw these lovelies in her garden-

Since then, we've started the trek up to Scrub Stitching. We did some Adventure Labs along the way. These are where you stop at a place, walk around finding the answers to the questions posed....it's a great way to explore a new place and learn something of its history or stories. At Jerilderie we folllowed the story of the infamous criminal Ned Kelly on his raid through the town.

(Made from bread baking tins.)

A lovely sunset at Narrandera after doing an interesting Adventure lab at the cemetery-

Last year we visited the painted grain silos on our travels; this time we found a painted water tower at Narrandera- 

We also visited Elvis at Parkes today - 

(Oh yes, and may have done a wee bit of shopping at 'Sew Fab' in Narrandera!)

Tomorrow we will arrive at Baradine ready for Scrub Stitching. It's been fun reading the travelogues of the other travellers as we all converge :-)

Apologies for the photo overload,

'til next time,

happy stitches,

Raewyn