Olive Elephants and Sewing Bees

When someone says “Don’t think of blue elephants”, you can’t help but think of at least one blue elephant. Colour combinations can be the same for me. This month’s Australasian Bee block for Jo was to be Olive, black, grey and white. All of a sudden I was seeing the colour combination everywhere.



The feature fabric had a little ochre in it, so I think this sign sums it up too.


Just to satisfy your curiosity, here is the final block. I like to think of it as my very own Olive Elephant.

Bee Catch Up

I have been catching up on my bees recently. If you look to the left side bar there is an updated list of the bees and links to all the lovely ladies sewing along. 3 Bees just kind of crept up on me. I’m really enjoying running the Anzac Bee. I feel honoured to be an international member of the U.S. Stash Busting Bee and the Australasian Bee is just up and running. If you are following along in reader, take some time to have a look. There are some new friends waiting to be met there.


This one above is for Abi at Home Heart Happiness as part of the ANZAC Bee. I had great fun experimenting with the hearts. Watch out for a tutorial as the experiments grow and grow.


Christine R. has requested houses of any size for her ANZAC month, resulting in a fine wobbly neighbourhood of little houses. The larger one needs something in it's garden so I will think a little more on this one.

To add to the catching up fun, we have been learning about posting letters in our house. Little E is my helper at the post office on regular occasions. One nice thing about sending parcels is getting to use different stamps. We choose dinosaurs where ever possible.

Giddy With Liberated Love

Sometimes I am so sensible it is stupid. I fell in love with Gwen Marston’s Liberated Quiltmaking when I first started quilting. I was so proud of myself for resisting the urge to buy it. How was I to know it was going to go out of print?

When I heard that there was a Part II, I was in giddy liberated love. I called the ladies at Minerva and they had it in my mail box the next day. The book is fantastic and I am already scrambling for every chance to try something new out of it.


Here is Peg’s block for the Stash Busting Bee – my attempt to try the saw-tooth boarders from my newest love.

Name That Blanket

Check these out. I was recently given some vintage shop samples of Onehunga Blankets. Beautiful little tabs complete edging ribbon and with a sample of the edging ribbon. If you look closely you can see that some still have a little sticker bearing their names – Dusky Pink, Imperial Red, Sunset, Champagne, Maize and so on.


What on earth am I going to do with them that will do them justice? Their names alone have me falling in to textile love. How can you not adore a blanket named Guava? Those without names feel a little orphaned, so maybe I need some new names too.