At last, I’m back home after a wonderful three weeks on holiday. Wow, did we do some miles! We traveled 3,750 miles (6000kms) from our home here in Brisbane Queensland to Port Fairy in Victoria. On our return trip we traveled through the “high country” of the Snowy Mountains. Our highest mountain is situated in the Snowy Mountains and is named Mt Kosciusko. It measures 7,316 ft or 2,230 m. Ok, stop laughing, I know it’s not very big on the world scale, but it’s our biggest and we’re proud of it!! There wasn’t any snow (our snow season runs from about June to September), but there was snow on the mountain caps, and beautiful wild flowers everywhere.

From there we traveled to a little fishing village named Kiama and spent four gorgeous days on the beach front, just relaxing. We then traveled to the guest house we honeymooned in 33 years ago. It’s still operating as a guest house, and it was really special to be able to go back to those memories. (My DH suggested we go, how romantic!!).

Anyway, after so many miles it’s sure good to be home again. I’m churning through the washing and ironing and catching up with my emails and correspondence.

I missed being in touch with you all while I was away. I hope you haven’t given up on me. I’ll be here each Wednesday for the foreseeable future I promise.

I got lots of quilting done while away – I always stitch in the car. I was busy English paper piecing a quilt centre in all sorts of scraps. It was fun doing it in the car, and pretty easy most of the time. Sometimes, DH would take a bumpy route and I’d have to give it away for a while. I also continued with my latest Hardanger piece, which is coming along nicely.

I had an interesting email from Jan in Western Australia. She told me she had a very expensive cutting board, which she had accidentally left in her hot car and now it is warped. She asked me if I know how to fix this problem. I have to confess I’ve done this myself and have shed a few tears before going and purchasing another one. Do you have a “fix” for the problem of the warped cutting mat? If so please pop over to the forum and tell us your solution. We could all learn something. Here’s the link:
http://forums.bellaonline.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/568099/Warped_Cutting_Board_any_fix_s#Post568099

Your gifts from now until Christmas Day will be great Christmas present ideas I’ve sourced from the web. I hope you enjoy them. Today there are three for you:

http://www.craftypod.com/2009/10/15/how-to-make-a-button-and-wire-brooch/ button and wire brooch – very chic

http://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0Bz0bCIMQ68d1OGI3MGJhMDEtNDg5ZS00M2Q2LTlhZmEtN2RjNjI0ZjNiZjAw&hl=en fabric covered clothes pins

http://www.sewmamasew.com/forum/index.php?topic=2486.0 Door Slam Buster

It’s so lovely to be back doing what I love most – talking quilting with you. I do hope this newsletter finds you all well and keeping warm and of course staying happy with your quilting in hand.

Cheerio for now, see you next week,

Judie Bellingham, Quilting Editor
http://Quilting.bellaonline.com

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