A HUGE surprise !!

I am blown away this afternoon. I have been watching the opening day of SAQA's 2014 Benefit Auction. My little 12"x12" piece is in group one so it is in the first group to be bid on. Last night ( when I ASSUMED bidding was over for that group at $750) , seven pieces had sold. That was pretty good with six days to go. Anyway, at noon today, my iPad bingbonged me so I stopped making lunch to see who was emailing me (DD is ill and I thought it might be she). It was NOT. It was Martha Sielman, the head lady at SAQA, congratulating me on my quilt having fetched $750!! Bidding for the first day finished today at 1:45 EDT ! I am truly BLOWN AWAY! My piece from last year went for $350 and I was excited at that!

Here is the little quilt- called Pink Peony Centre.

It is all cotton, hand dyed, raw edge and heavily machine embroidered. I will post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com  Have a look there and DO go to the SAQA 2014 Benefit Auction site ( google it) and see what other people are doing. Feel free to support SAQA with a bid on a little quilt. There are bidding instructions on the site! Enjoy

Small problems

Thank goodness for DH! He is a wizard with building stuff and with  electrical things. Here is my problem!

Here is where I sew! Compact, springs to mind.

See how crowded I am ?

Do ya see the heat vent?

Here's what happens when I try to roll my chair!!!

Well, I sweet talked DH into making an extension on my table on the right hand end so I could slide the table away from the vent and roll my chair easier. He agreed and measured it all up. We had the desk pulled out from the wall to measure and I went behind it to mop and dust and found THIS!!!!!

We had had two power bars plugged into the socket behind the table.This had happened to each plug!

The receptacle looked like this when DH dismantled it!

We THINK there must have been a lightning strike or a power surge to do this as nothing plugged into this could/would do that. Good old DH! He has replaced the plug,replaced the sheathing burned off the wires and  replaced the two power bars and tonight, he is ALMOST finished the desktop extension. Photo to follow. In light of all of the postings about renovated sewing studios, I decided to post about this massive undertaking ! I shall post the finished job tomorrow AND the NOW FINISHED Giant Hollyhock!

I have spent all afternoon at the Art Gallery of Burlington(ON) doing a decent job as a docent for Fibre Content, the joint show of fibre arts with SAQA and several other local groups. VERY nice show. It is on till next Tuesday (16 Sept) so DO drop by if you are able! No charge for admission but a $5 charge for the lovely catalogue.

I shall post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com . Drop by and see what's up. I shall edit this in the morning when the light for taking pics is better.

And here I am back again- like a bad penny! Here is the table now-

If you look carefully, you can see the added bit AND where my chair and knees will go -AND THEY WILL MISS THE HEAT VENT! YAY , DH!

AND- ta, da- the finished Hollyhock-

All done!

OK, NOW go to TNTN! The link is above. Enjoy!

What to do on a hot day... and the next day- and then a somewhat cooler day!!

It is sultry. It is just plain old HOTTT! VERY humid and I am NOT a fan. I NEED a fan! Actually, thank heaven for Air Conditioning. Tomorrow may be cooler- or so "they" say. I shall hold "them" to it!

Anyway, in the steamy heat, I have been gainfully employed. I have begun the quilting of the Hollyhocks. I have the big full one pretty well done except for the centre and a few embellishments which shall wait till the end. Here it is to date. That is a LOT of sewing. I think I will treat myself, the hollyhock and my machine to a fresh needle and I'll clean the machine and oil it. It has worked hard this afternoon.

Centre not done , partial bloom not done but the main flower is pretty near to finished .

I shall see how much I get done before tomorrow. I MAY post this on TNTN. Maybe I will have the energy to go further tonight. Enjoy a pleasant evening one and all.

And here we are again- with the blooms all stitched . We had RAIN this afternoon- GOOD rain with even a bit of thunder :-) Anyway, here are the two blooms all stitched and quilted. All I need to do now is the stem but I shall leave this and HOPE to walk tonight in the cool? We'll see. I AM going to post this to the needleandthreadnetwork.blogspot.com This IS still a WIP so here it is , so far...

Bloom and a half all stitched. Tomorrow- the stalk and then- the BACKGROUND!

I may not keep that much background but we shall see! Enjoy TNTN!

Here I am back again. You will be sick to death of these hollyhocks but I am taking a little break fro the background quilting now! Exhausting, but I am liking it so far. It is a huge acreage to do and I may not keep it all. I shall, however, DO it all. I DO like the look of the background all nicely flattened down :-)

There we are! Top right hand corner done! I have been all afternoon at that.

OK, once again, check out TNTN! And- ENJOY!

ps.- You DO know that you can click on a photo to enlarge it and then click in the background to go back to the post?