Modern Quilting Blog – Page 5

May 18th: The Name Origin of 3and3quarters!

So a request came in from one of my fabulous regular readers, Sharon (go check her blog out!) to share with you the origins of my blog’s name – 3and3quarters. I really can’t remember if I’ve shared the story behind it… It’s nothing too long or complicated or philosophical… Just a name that stood out and felt right!

**Flash Back to mid 2011**

As you may already know, I used to work at Spotlight in the Dress department, where I would listen to numbers and measurement requests and cut fabric all day long. I’d have so many different combinations of measurement requests thrown at me (in the nicest way possible of course!) from one-and-a-half-metres to two-and-a-quarter-metres so and so forth. So as I was brainstorming for a name to call a blog and online store I was hoping to set up, I kept coming back to the notion of naming it around a measurement. I thought it would be highly appropriate as what I do (quilting and sewing) is heavily based around numbers and measurements etc. So when I went through in my head the measurements that I was continually hearing at work, three-and-three-quarters struck a chord. I loved how it seemed to roll off my tongue and how it had a bit of an alliteration under-tone to it. It also seemed like a great name that wouldn’t be so easily forgotten!

So once the name was chosen, the real tricky bit I had was deciding on how to write the name out:

~~threeandthreequarters~~

~~three&threequarters~~

~~3&3quarters~~

3and3quarters – bingo!

And then from there, I worked up the guts to register for a blog domain and then wrote and published my first-ever post!

Since then, there have been lots of different updates and re-designs of my logo and blog layout as well as the gain of so many new quilty friends!! Yay!

Here are a few ways things have changed over the years…

The top logo banner at the beginning is a fashion drawing of a girl I drew up during my ‘inspired to be fashion designer’ phase! Happily the phase didn’t last as I would’ve been a rubbish fashion designer! I’d instantly crumble under the pressure! The quilt in the background of that picture is the Rail Fence Quilt I showed you in My Quilt Collection video earlier this year.

The last three banners were made on one of my favourite online photo editor websites called Pic Monkey! The site has some great tools to edit photos with as well a handy platform to make your own designs and creations from scratch!

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So that in a nut shell is how the name, 3and3quarters came about! I think it’s been working well over the years and people are beginning to associate the name with the things that I do online (which is very exciting!).

I’m curious… How did you come to find me and my blog? Was it through my YouTube channel? Instagram? Pinterest? A friend or favourite blogger? I would love to know!

🙂

I hope you’re all having a lovely week!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

May 17th: Mini Thread Spool Block Tutorial!

Today I woke up and was inspired to make a block tutorial for my YouTube channel!

Whether it was actual inspiration or a form of ‘YouTuber Guilt’ as I haven’t uploaded in awhile, I don’t know! But I put my head down and bum up and got into creating! And I’m so happy I did! There’s nothing like a good sewing session to soothe away the stresses of life!

So because time is quite limited for me at the moment, I stuck to a relatively quick and simple block to both cut and piece together. So when in need of a block like this, I always turn to my fab 130 Mini Quilt Blocks book by Susan Briscoe! There I found the inspiration to make a Mini Thread Spool block.

I’ve had an idea for a possible quilt design centring around the Spool block. The one I have in mind isn’t quite as small as this one and is slightly different in design. But I wanted to give this one a go just to see where I could take the design in my head and how to make it into a reality! (Stayed tuned for that one!)

But how adorable is this mini block though!? I’m so delighted at the size of it – it’s super cute!! I’m so keen to make more and then piece them together into a really sweet mini quilt to hang in my sewing room (that’s if I can find anymore room on the walls!!). 😀

Here’s how to make one yourself…

MEASUREMENT & CUTTING INFO:

Cut –
x1: 3.5″ square from a stripe fabric
x2: 5.5″x1.5″ rectangles from a dark or contrasting fabric (spool ends)
x2: 3.5″x1.5″ rectangles from a background fabric
x4: 1.5″ squares from a background fabric

Follow the steps in the tutorial to learn how to piece this adorable block together!

FINISHED BLOCK SIZE: 5.5″x5.5″ squared

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As always, don’t forget to share with me your finished blocks! Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter are the best ways to do this!

Happy Sewing, Friends!!

May 16th: A Few More Useful Tools & Notions!

As I sing out loud along to John Mayer’s song, ‘No Such Thing‘ (*sings* I wanna run through the halls of my high school. I wanna scream at the top of my lungs!), here are a few more tools and notions that I find super useful when I’m sewing and quilting!

Let’s start by talking binding clips…

BindingClips&Thumble — Tin by Belle & Boo

When I’m binding my quilts, I use these little guys that look similar to the clips you use in your hair to hold it into place. I find that they’re so easy to snap open and close as I go along when I’m hand-stitching the binding to the back of the quilt. And although I haven’t had the opportunity to use them yet (Can you believe it’s almost half-way through the year and I still haven’t made a quilt yet! 2016 quilts are going to be a rare oddity I think!!), I was given a packed jar full of some craft clips from a friend that I think will be absolutely perfect to use for holding the binding into place. I’m so keen to use them! Must. Get. Quilting. Pronto!

The other little notion I love to use when I’m stitching on binding is that little yellow thumble. Called such as it sits on your thumb much like a thimble would on your finger and you use it to push your needle through thick layers of fabric. Many a times has this genius little tool saved my poor thumb from bloody stabs and week-long soreness!

These next few things I find really useful when I’m doing tricky cutting and squaring up block units.

The 4.5″ set square ruler is great for squaring up those pesky HSTs (as you would’ve seen numerous times in my YouTube tutorials), while the 18mm rotary blade is the perfect size for trimming as well as for cutting tight curved lines and corners. (Fab for cutting Drunkard Path unit pieces!) The Olfa Rotating Mat is super useful when you need to be really precise with how you cut your units and blocks. It pretty much just eliminates the step of having to turn the unit around to trim down the opposite side.

Applique! A wonderfully elaborate (at times!) and effective technique to add a little omph to any sewing project!

When I’making a project that involves applique (usually the raw-edge technique), I always turn to this stuff called HeatnBond Lite. Not only is it a great price (about $8 per metre from Spotlight), it’s so easy to use and never lets me down. Using the right application (warm-to-hot iron, no steam), it never peels away from the fabric once it’s been applied and can be easily sewn through either with the sewing machine or by hand. I use this all the time to fix my quilt labels into place before embroidering around the edge.

If you would like me to do a tutorial based around using this product, let me know and I’ll start planning something fun for us to make together!

And last but not least, never the underestimate the need of having a good solid hammer in your kit!

On many occasion has this hammer come in handy, especially when something just needs a good whack to get it into place. What I mean by this is when I’m making my Little Wallets and need to get the snap fastener securely into place! 😀 Super useful too when your hanging new art or a wallhanging on the wall!

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I hope this second post about other useful tools and notions has inspired or been helpful in some way!

It can be truly mind-boggling at just how many different things one can have in and around their sewing space that helps to make the process of making a quilt easier! I’m sure my little list of tools and notions barely scratches the surface!

Wishing you all a Happy Monday!

May 15th: My Top 7 Most Useful Tools & Notions

Hello!

I hope you’re all having a lovely Sunday!

So I had a great request from one of you guys a few days ago to share with you a few of the notions and tools that I find to be the most useful when I’m sewing and quilting. A few of them I have shared before, but if you’re new to these parts, I hope you find the following helpful!

First off are these two awesome little tools from Clover.

Both of these I find super useful when I’m paper-piecing. I use the Serrated Tracing Wheel to perforate the lines on the paper before sewing over them. Doing this also helps to tear the paper away from the seams and fabrics at the end. The other tool is called a Finger Presser and I use this to quickly press the seams open all throughout the construction of a paper-pieced block instead of using the iron. For me, it saves so much time on going back and forth to the ironing board and also saves my poor little fingers from getting burnt! Ouchies!

Next up is another Clover product called a Hera Marker.

As strange and weird as it looks, this little tool is so awesome and very useful to use for us quilters. Because I mainly incorporate straight lines all throughout my quilting, I use a Hera Marker and a long quilting ruler to mark out clear, even lines onto the quilt top that I then simply sew over, achieving a (almost) straight quilted line!

Since using this tool, I’ve seen a huge improvement in my quilting! Everything just looks so more consistent and pro-fesh, sky-rocketing my confidence by a mile!

The next two things I like to see as more everyday-type useful tools.

The Fiskars thread snips would have to be one of the best little scissors I’ve ever used! They cut through thread like butter and have a little tapered like point that elevates the blade away from the surface of the fabric but is still able to make the closest of cuts when trimming away thread! It really is like magic!

Ahh, the seam ripper. Where would we be without one! And just like all of the other Clover products, this one doesn’t disappoint! It’s light and easy to hold and rips through the toughest of mistakes like it’s no bodies business! It’s a fab little tool and I know I can rely on it to fix some of the worst mistakes I can ever dream of making!

This is my tape measure…

I have it sitting on my desk and I would say that I reach for it at least five times during one day! Whether that be for answering your questions, figuring out size scales for patterns and blocks as well as playing with it when I’m bored or procrastinating! My nephews also love playing with it too! 😀

I particularly find this one useful as it has centimetres on one side and inches on the other. Because I use both of these types of measurements in my quilting, it’s so helpful to turn to it and quickly figure out what 5″ is in centimetres! (It’s about 12.5cm if you’re curious!) 😀 The tape measure is also super long, measuring up to 120″ (300cm) which is helpful when figuring out how much batting and backing fabric one needs to finish a quilt!

And last of all is a tin of basting pins.

I don’t usually baste my quilts with pins but when I do I find these ones super helpful! This is because they have a slight bend to them almost acting like a hook as you pierce them through the three layers of the quilt. They close nice and quickly and also undo almost instantly as you’re quilting along on your machine. This particular set of pins I bought from Spotlight and are by a Australian haberdashery company called Birch.

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So there are just a few of my top tools and notions that first came to mind to share with you!

In tomorrows post I’ll go through a few more that didn’t quite make the top seven! 🙂

Do you have any top fave tools and notions that you find useful when your sewing and quilting? Let me know!

Happy Sewing, Friends!!

May 13th: Quilt-Along Poll Results!

Last week I wrote a post about gathering some ideas and feedback for the next Quilt-Along series I’ll be doing later on in the year. Stuck on what I should do, I created a poll with a few ideas that I had floating around my head and asked you to help me with my decision!

Well, the results of that poll are in and there’s a clear winner!

The next QAL series will be a Star Block Sampler! Yay!

I also received some other great ideas for future QALs like doing one from Charm Packs, another using House blocks as well as using Civil War Era Blocks to make a wallhanging! What fab ideas to take on board and brainstorm with!

Thank you to everyone who voted and forwarded on their suggestions! It has helped so much!

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So planning for the Star Block Sampler QAL has officially begun and very conveniently, I found this awesome reference chart on Pinterest of some wonderful star blocks!

There are a few in there that I would love to make in the QAL! They include the Maple Star, Crown and Star, Crystal Star, Janet’s Star, Missouri Star and the Star X blocks! Which ones would you like to make?

Over the next month or so I’ll begin researching and sourcing a lovely fabric range with your suggestions in mind that I think will be perfect for the series! And like I said before, I’ll make sure it’s an easy one for everyone to find and use if they so wish!

If there are any other star blocks you would like me to consider for the QAL, let me know in the comments section! I’ve already had a request to include the Colorado Star block as well as the Diamond Star block! Yay!

OooOoo, such exciting times ahead!!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

PS. I’m hoping to get the QAL underway sometime in July (or August at the very latest!)

May 12th: My Sewing Room Playlist!

I don’t know about you but I find that when I’m in a sewing mood and groove, I gotta have some good music playing in the background! Whether it be soothe and sultry sounds of a bluesy jazz track or a raging hook from an alternative rock band! Whatever it is, music plays a huge roll in how I work. It inspires, it pumps me up, mellows me out, calms my nerves when something isn’t going right and just simply makes my happy space an even happier one!

So today, I wanted to share with you some of my favourite albums and artists that I love listening to when I’m sewing! To be be completely honest with you, my music mood changes daily! Hourly even! One minute I might be loving the futuristic tones of some fun electronic-pop then do a complete 180 and be craving some sweet ol’ crooning jazz!

The Current Faves!

James Bay/Chaos and the Calm: I’ve had this album for a couple of months now and have never really taken the time to listen and subsequently fall in love with it! It’s a really lovely, laid back type sound with a few catchy songs that get stuck in my head way too easily! Favourite songs include: Craving, Hold Back the River, Let it Go and Move Together.

The Japanese House/Clean EP: I shared this EP with you in a post from last month where I proceeded to tell you just how down-to-earth and insanely relaxing I find their sound! I heard them by chance on a radio station I listen to at home and in the car called Triple J and made sure to remember their name so that I could listen to more of their music! Favourite songs include: Letter by the Water and Pools to Bathe In.

The All-Time Faves!

Coldplay/A Rush of Blood to the Head: This is my favourite Coldplay album ever! My memories of it are popping the disc in into my DiscMan at night and listening to it as I fell asleep all the way back when I was in high school! It’s such a great album to chill out to and reminisce about all of the good times that high school brought! Favourite songs include: All of them! 😀

Crowded House/The Very Very Best of Crowded House: Crowded House are so awesomely quirky and fun that my spirits are lifted every time I press play on this album! They were the first band I ever saw in concert in 2007 and will always hold a special place in my heart because of it! Favourite songs include: Distant Sun, When You Come, Fingers of Love, Weather With You, Locked Out, Four Seasons in One Day and Recurring Dream.

John Mayer/Continuum: I’m a huge fan of John Mayer (just his music that is!). If you listen closely, the stuff he writes and makes is so insanely fabulous it makes me swoon every time! One of my all-time favourite songs is on this album… When Gravity comes on it just instantly relaxes me and reminds me all is well with the world. I’m not really too sure why this song has such an affect on me… I think it has to do with that bluesy guitar rift that opens the song that gets me every time! Favourite songs include: All of them! 😀

Passenger/All the Little Lights: Passenger is my ultimate singer/songwriter! The guy is just so incredibly passionate about what he does that it’s soul-wrenching! Watching him play live is a whole other experience too! Simply brilliant! This is just one of eight albums of his that I love listening to! Favourite songs include: Feather on the Clyde, All the Little Lights and Patient Love.

The Mainstream Faves!

Ed Sheeran/X: I love this album as well as his ‘+’ one. It’s one of those albums that you can have on in the background and easily sing-along to in most parts (except for when he does that fast singing/rap type thing!). Favourite songs include: Bloodstream, Tenerife Sea, Thinking Out Loud, Afire Love, Shirtsleeves and I See Fire.

Taylor Swift/1989: Gee this girl sure is taking over the world! And no wonder why, this album is so much fun! It’s great for one of those long sewing sessions you crave every time Monday morning rolls around! Favourite songs include: All of them! 😀

The Jazz Faves!

Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong/Ella & Louis: Ooo, I love a good bit of jazz blasting in the sewing room! And this is the album I always go for! These two are my favourite jazz musicians both separately as well as when they come together! The reason why I love to listen to jazz (and not just because it sounds beautiful and makes my heart sing with happiness!) is because it always reminds me of my Dad who also loves listening to jazz. It’s a daddy/daughter connection that I cherish deeply! Favourite songs include: All of them!! 😀

John Coltrane/Coltrane for Lovers: This is another one of those newbie albums I’ve been listening to recently and that has instantly made it onto my (almost ultimate) favourites list! It’s bluesy, soulful, lazy and relaxing. It’s a Sunday afternoon kind of album, where the light is slowly dimming and you have a cup of tea next to your sewing machine and a whole load of chain-stitching to do! Ahh, heaven! Favourite songs include: There’s just one at the moment that really sticks out and that is My Little Brown Book.

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I do have a fair few other albums and artists I love to listen to when I’m sewing but these are just the ones I tend to go to the most! I also have some favourite playlist I like to press play on when I can’t make up my mind on what I want to listen to! I usually put these playlists on shuffle and hope for the best!

Now I know that not everyone likes to listen to music when they sew. Podcasts, TV shows and movies are all popular choices for quilters to have on as white noise when sewing. What do you like to listen to or watch when you’re sewing? Do you stick to the same type of music every time or do you like a nice quiet environment where you can concentrate and not be distracted?! I would love to know!

See you tomorrow!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

May 11th: Sewing Room Organisation & Storage Tips!

Now, I’m possibly not the best person to be chatting about sewing room organisation and storage! One glance into my currently messy sewing room and you’d get it! My organisation skills are chaotic, simplistically naive and (perhaps) a little non-existent! While my storage areas are overflowing, out of order and oddly colour-coded!

However, I think there are a few things here and there that I can share and inspire you with! And I’ve also been researching on how one or two other quilters have organised and stored things which I’ll share with you as well!

Firstly, let’s get into a few of the ways I organise and store things in my sewing room! I’m one of those people that like to re-use as much as possible and keep things quite simple. So I have lots of bits sticking out of glass jars and broken mugs (rotary blades, pencils, scissors, buttons and paint brushes!), items secured in pretty but battered tins, fabrics roughly folded and stuffed backed onto their shelves as well as a tonne of those handy plastic containers you can get at the $2 shop! 😀

Tins:

You may’ve caught me mentioning in my recent Sewing Room Tour video that I love to use tins to store and organise lots of stuff! From pins to threads to hexies to notions. Pretty decorative tins are everywhere and I love it! I’ve been lucky in the fact that my Dad is a keen collector of Arnott’s Biscuits tins as he worked for them for nearly 30 years! So very happily we have lots to spare so that I can store all of my sewing knick-knacks in them! I’ve also sourced a lot of my smaller tins online from little indie companies such as Belle & Boo, Emma Bridgewater and Lark.

Fat Quarter Drawer

A little while ago I purchased this hard-plastic type drawer from Spotlight made especially for storing fat quarters. It’s about 50cm (20″) long and can hold well up to 20-30 FQs. I’ve found it so handy to quickly place new FQs into it and then be able to pull the draw out and easily rummage through what’s in there.

Fabric

I’m quite boring when it comes to organising and storing my fabrics. I don’t really have any fancy folding or hanging system. I have a main bookshelf next to my sewing table that has all of my favourite or most used fabrics in a very relaxed colour-coded system: Whites, creams, yellows, browns and oranges on the top shelf, pinks and reds on the next two shelves, green and blue hues on the two after that and then right down the bottom I have my purples, greys and blacks. The majority of these fabrics are all half-metre (or half-yard) pieces or less. I tend to store all of my larger cuts of fabrics in the plastic containers I have under my sewing table. They’re quite easy to slide out and to have a quick little rummage through when I need to. These aren’t colour or range coordinated. Just folded up nicely and stacked one on top of the other.

Very conveniently, one of the crafty YouTubers I watch, Melanie Ham just recently uploaded this video showing how she organises her fabrics in her sewing room! I think if I had the time (and cupboard space!), this would be such a great idea to follow! I hope it inspires you just as much as it has me! 🙂

Another YouTube video I found that was all about sewing room organisation was this one by Stephanie De Pasquale Soebbing from Quilt Addicts Anonymous. I found that she had a fab idea for storing your ironing board, jelly rolls and pre-cuts as well as another neat and lovely way to store and organise fabrics.

Tools:

I tend to try and keep all of the tools I’ll need when cutting and sewing dotted around my cutting mat as this is like my central space in my sewing room. So here I have my rotary blades and quilting rulers close to hand along with my pins, thread snips, lead pencils, essential paper-piecing tools as well as threads and binding clips. These items are either stored in glass jars, pretty tins or placed in an easy to reach spot on my pink IKEA shelf.

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So as I sit here and look around at all of the different areas in my sewing room, there are still so many little things to do with the way I store and organise stuff that I could share with you… Like the way I’ve organised all of my craft stickers and die-cuts, to how and where I have my coat-hangers ready to hang a finished block or quilt, to the way I organise and store all of my patterns and paper-trail as well as the way I’ve organised my books based on how much I love them!

But unfortunately, I just don’t have the time to get into every nook and cranny that cleverly hides away a WIP or stray crafting notion! Today I just wanted to stick to the major areas that most people tend to struggle on finding a solution for… I hope I’ve helped in some little way!

Though in honesty, all of us quilters have our own unique way on how we like to organise our sewing spaces and store all of our wonderful fabrics and notions. I don’t think anyway is the wrong way. As long as whatever system you use works for you and the limits of your sewing room than that’s all that matters!

Have you got any fab ideas on how you organise or store things in your sewing room? Feel free to share it with us in the comments section below!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

May 10th: My Sewing Space Set Up

For a while now, I’ve been trying to come up with a way of showing you how I have my sewing space set up as well as how I move in and around it when I’m sewing. I’d considered doing a video about it on my YouTube channel but realised quickly that the software I use to edit my videos wasn’t quite good enough to get the vision I had in my head onto the screen!

So we’re going old-school and doing a blog post about it instead!

So this is a birds-eye view of my sewing room.

I set it out in a way where I would be able to work as efficiently and hassle free as possible.

When I’m cutting my fabrics I stand along the left side of the sewing table in front of where my quilting rulers hang from a hook. Close at hand on and around that pink IKEA shelf I have my rotary blades, pencils, thread snips and pins ready to go as I cut and piece blocks together.

Then I have my sewing machine set up as close to the window as possible so that I’m working in natural light. (FUN FACT: I do a lot of my sewing standing up! I find I work so much more efficiently and quicker when I do. I’m able to do this as the table is quite tall and is at the perfect height for me to easily sew while standing. The only time I sit and sew is when I’m quilting and sewing on the binding!) The ironing board permanently stands in the corner and in front of the window ready to press units and blocks as soon as they come out of the machine.

Along the back of the room, I have my design wall. It’s nothing fancy. Just odd pieces of white cotton batting simply pinned onto the wall using thumb tacks! It spans about 60″x65″ (1.5mx1.6m) along the wall and can easily accommodate most of the quilt top designs I make. I find having a design wall such a help! Sometimes you can get so engrossed in what you’re doing close up that you forget to step back and see what the bigger picture looks like. With a design wall, I can place all of my blocks up, step back and see what (if anything) needs to changed, swapped or binned!

Another big area in my room that I had to plan cleverly was the placement of my computer and desk. I wanted it to be in a position where it would be central to me when I’m sewing so that I can listen and change music, read and follow a tutorial or pattern, find inspiration easily as well as to document my sewing adventures and knowledge on my blog and on my YouTube channel.

In terms of storage, I have a few book shelves here and there where I lazily (yet strategically) stack my fabrics, craft accessories and books. I also have a few huge plastic containers of fabric meterage under my sewing table as well as tubs full of scraps, strips, leftover batting and lots of WIPs!

So that’s the basic layout of my room and I how I find it best to work within it. When I am working on a project, like anything, it does take me a while to get into a rhythm or flow with how I move about and get things done efficiently and safely! I usually do all of my cutting first (whether that be for just one block or a for good chunk of quilt I’ve got going on), then lay out all of the cut pieces in the order I need to sew them, I pin, piece and press and then pop it up onto my design wall. Then repeat until I flop! 😀

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Look out for tomorrow’s post where I’ll be delving deeper into a few ideas and ways you can organise your fabrics, notions and general everyday-ness in your own sewing room or space! Hopefully a few things might inspire you (and myself to be honest) to get your sewing space in tip-top organisational heaven!

Happy Sewing, Friends!

May 9th: Sewing Room Tour!

Hello and welcome to week two in my Everyday May series!

I thought for this week, I would dedicate it to writing more about my sewing room and addressing a few of the requests from you guys about organisation, how to set up or layout your work space as well as a few other fun things I think might be helpful!

So first off for today I wanted to share with you a simple tour of my sewing room.

A few of you might’ve already seen this, but I uploaded this video onto my YouTube channel a few weeks ago showing you some of my most favourite nooks and crannies and bits and bobs that make this room a happy and inspiring one for me and for my quilting!

To be honest, there really isn’t much more to add to what I say and show you in the above tour… In it, I just really wanted to try to capture the essence and those little things that matter the most. Such things include my ever-watchful Buzz who guards the room so diligently, some of my favourite pieces of stationary, the way I like to store my embroidery threads in colour order, the cherished photo of me with my parents along with the sewing machine that helps me bring my thoughts, designs, dreams and passion into something brilliantly tactile and real!

I’m so grateful that I have the opportunity to have this space at all! (You can read a little about the back story here!) And never a day goes by where I don’t spend a good couple of hours in here! It’s like my safe haven, my hub, my happy place. 🙂

No matter where you plan, design, cut, sew and work I hope that you enjoy the space you occupy when creating! Tell me about it in the comments section – I would love to know!!

Happy Sewing, Friends!!

May 8th: Happy Mother’s Day!

Today in Australia we celebrated Mother’s Day!

I treated my mum to a lovely bunch of red roses that we bought when visiting the flower markets yesterday morning as well as a fun little wooden trinket sign that reminds me perfectly of her!

We (my family and I) spent a really nice, relaxing day together by taking a lovely afternoon drive around Colo Heights and Ebenezer which are ‘country’ like areas north west of Sydney, close to the Blue Mountain ranges.

I only got out of the car once (not only was it raining but there’s been a lot of smoke hanging around in the area due to back burning) when we stopped at a beautiful old church in Ebenezer which happens to be the very first Presbyterian church in Australia!

It was a beautiful building to step into. Very little and quaint. It even had a fab Ohio Star tile design in the front foyer!

The church itself is surrounded by an ageing yet very locally historic cemetery with families buried together dating from the mid 1800s+. There were even a few young ones who died in battle in WWI. It was fascinating yet very sombre. It was such a sweet place to visit.

Then after driving up and down through some very winding roads and navigating our way though the thick smoke trapped in the mountain ranges, we arrived home late in the afternoon to have delicious chicken burgers with a fresh salad and then a slice of cake! (What’s a Mother’s Day without a decadent sponge cake! Yum!)

And that was mum’s day made!

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Wishing all of you Mothers who read my blog a very Happy Mother’s Day!

Lots of love!

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The Current Faves!

The All-Time Faves!

The Mainstream Faves!

The Jazz Faves!

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