Last for March, and for a while

Books and bookmarks! The books have been gifts and so was one of the bookmarks. The bookmark with lots of writing is an Australian birth sign one - it was on the table upside down, silly me. Never mind. It seems my Australian birth sign is a wombat as my birthday falls between April 21 and May 21, isn't that amazing?

I have quilted the border on my Road to St Louis quilt, and machined the binding on the front, now I am hand-sewing it on the back. When it's finished I will put up a photo. It's such a great feeling to be so near to finishing!

We have had a reply to the letter we wrote to the shopping mall after our experience last week. The man concerned has been rapped over the knuckles, they took our complaint very seriously for which we are thankful. The letter concluded by saying something along the lines of "we hope you will continue to shop with us". We are not sure about that - today we drove to another mall a little further away, and will keep away for a while in case the bloke has revenge on his mind.

Speaking of shopping....one thing that bugs me is people who push the trolley by leaning on it with their elbows....how do they expect to steer the darn thing? Usually it's short older women although I have seen men do it too. I'm short too, but I use my hands not my elbows. End of whinge. Thank you for listening.

We will be going away this coming weekend for a few weeks, the National Folk Festival is held in Canberra over the Easter long weekend and we have been going to it for several years. We set up camp in our RV the previous weekend as I am a volunteer, I work in the office leading up to the start of the festival. Kevin isn't volunteering this year although if they find a job for an Olde Pharte that's not too strenuous he would be available. Last year he volunteered and was put on the Bar Set-up team, hoisting around kegs of beer and cider - he found it very difficult, I think it's a job for younger blokes. The festival is always good fun; lots of music, singing, dancing - I used to dance all day and night but haven't for a few years. If my foot lets me I might have a go again this year. Many of the performers are from overseas and it's always good to catch their acts as well as see the locals we love.

Then we will head off for our first trip away as retired folks. We don't yet know where we will be going but we will enjoy it when we get there. We'll be away for 3-4 weeks altogether.

The cat quilt on my last post has gained several comments! Thank you, I haven't been ignoring your comments, it's been difficult to reply as I have been having email problems again. I am in the process of getting a new email address and changing all my contacts over, then I will give my current address the flick. And good riddance.

Have a lovely week.

Jennifer

Random thoughts for Friday

Isn't the interwebz an amazing place! Zoe in Germany (who doesn't have a blog) found my Folded Star tutorial and emailed me to say how pleased she was, as she made one of those years ago but had lost the instructions to make another; and Geta in Romania has also found it. Check out Geta's blog, there are several tutorials, her wonderful trapunto and quilting, and she is having a giveaway. She has photos of a beautiful pale green bag she has made, it has an orange flower on the front and orange lining.......just scrumptious.

Thank you to all the lovely folks who commented on Monday's post, about our scary experience with the shopping trolley bloke. We have posted our letter to the shopping centre management so will see if anything is done about it. Hopefully it may also lead them to put up advisory speed signs in the carpark, far too many people (mums with children in the car as well as the young macho blokes) drive too quickly.

So far we are two weeks into Kevin's retirement and murder has not yet been committed, in fact not even an angry word has been spoken. And we have our wedding rings back so we are married again.

Do you like the kitty quilt? I used lots of bright prints with a black border to match the black noses, eyes and whiskers - all stitched with one thread of DMC black stranded cotton in hand buttonhole and stem stitch. The backing is a bright allover cat print and I called it "Psychedelicats". It was even pictured a few years ago in Down Under Quilts magazine, in an article on cat quilts. The fireplace is in our living room, our house is nearly 60 years old, and was built when nearly every Aussie house had a fireplace. It's not the most beautiful feature of the house so I hang a quilt in front of it in summer; we have a gas fire in it for winter warmth.

And tonight is music club night - wonder what cake I shall buy for supper? - our theme tonight is songs or poems on age. Old age, young age, teen age - any age. Should be fun.

Have a lovely weekend!

Jennifer

First WOW for autumn

This tin advertising sign looks old but I suspect it is fairly new, as the shop where I found it (an antique/junque shop) had a few similar signs, but as it appealed to me I bought it. That's My Lovely New Bernina it's leaning against.

On Saturday I used my Olde Pharte's travel card and caught the train to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a quilt show. Much better than driving, and much more relaxing! I finished the first sleeve of my blue cardigan while travelling along and then did some piecing of a flower basket block, that's 94 finished now. Only 75 to go. The quilt show was lovely too but because of the lighting and crowding in the venue it was difficult to take any photos, so I didn't.

We have a slightly unnerving experience this afternoon. We went to a local supermarket to do our weekly shop this afternoon. The supermarket is in a small shopping mall with an underground car park, and as it's been a warm humid day we parked there out of the sun. No problem. Went upstairs to shop, no problem. Came down again with our trolley of groceries, and as we walked to our car the trolley man (the bloke who drives around local streets looking for feral trolleys) drove into the car park a bit too quickly for safety; there are often mums with small children tagging along, or pushing strollers, and older people who don't move as quickly as cars do, so drivers need to be careful. Kevin signaled to him to slow down - the bloke stopped his car, got out and confronted Kevin, swearing in choice language that I won't repeat here because I am a lady. We both felt so threatened by his behaviour that we rang the manager when we came home to complain; she was suitably aghast and apologetic, and has asked us to send in a formal written complaint which we will do. Although she didn't say so I got the feeling that we weren't the first to complain. In the local area recently we have had several drive-by shootings, and a (supposedly drug related family feud) murder, so ordinary folk like us are a bit cautious these days. I'm not sure whether we will go back to the same supermarket or vote with our feet and shop elsewhere. We have lived in this area for over 30 years now and have seen many changes, some for the better but not all, peoples' attitude being the main one.

And my guitar has new strings...it is sounding amazingly fantabulous, lovely and bright and clear.

Y'all have a good week now!

Jennifer

I'm a member of 'The Sisterhood'!

Goodness me, an award! I've never had one of those before, it was given to me by Di....thank you so much Di, I am very chuffed. Seems the rules connected to the award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post (done)

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude! (oh golly.....you are all terrific, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by singling out specific folks and leaving others off)

3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post. (see above)

4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog. (ditto)

5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.

I shall have to ponder deeply on this. Meanwhile it's nice to be a member of The Sisterhood; I don't have a sister (I have two younger brothers) and I don't have a daughter (I have two sons) although I have a wonderful girl-in-law Kiera. Small wonder, then, that I feel as though I have been surrounded by little boys all my life and probably also the reason why nearly all our pets have been girls.

We had a lovely anniversary dinner last night, many thanks to the nice folk who left good wishes on yesterday's blog post. And our post-St Pat's Day gig went well, and was fun. But I have realised the strings on my guitar need to be changed; it is sounding quite dead and it should have a lovely ringing tone, it's a gorgeous instrument. It's like changing your sewing machine needle, it should be done regularly, although I have known people to joke "it had strings on it when I bought it, nothing wrong with them, they'll do for another forty years". (the guitar, not the sewing machine)

Now it's time to sew a stitch or two, or possibly three, and turn into a domestic goddess.

Jennifer

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our wedding anniversary, we have been married for 33 years - my, how time does fly! The other day we took our wedding rings to a jeweller to be enlarged, we were both a little slimmer in those days and now the rings are a bit too tight for comfort - mine has worn quite a groove in my finger. Tonight we will be going out to dinner to celebrate, sans rings.

This afternoon my music club is playing our annual St Pat's Day gig at a local brewery, we play for the employees at the end of their working shifts. We have been doing it for several years and it's always just before or just after St Patrick's Day with lots of diddly tunes and Irish songs, I hope the employees enjoy listening as much as we enjoy playing! Probably should see if my green top needs to be ironed, and polish up my silver celtic jewellery - for our silver 25th anniversary Kevin gave me this lovely pendant, made by Desmond Mackenzie-Harris. Desmond makes wonderful designs based on traditional Celtic images with a few Aussie ones for good measure, I also have Western Rosella earrings that he made. We catch up each year at the National Folk Festival, in Canberra at Easter; Desmond has a stall every year selling his amazing pieces, he is very talented.

Enjoy the rest of your week, may your stitches always be neat and your points perfect.

Jennifer

WOW Day again

It's Monday again, my life is flashing by before my eyes, and March is more than half over. Summer's heat has gone (thank goodness) and autumn will soon be rolling in. Lovely autumn.

Today's wombat is a little different as it's a stained glass picture. As it looks good with the light shining through I placed it against my sewing room window to take its photo, that's some of our little backyard in the background. I bought this one on one of our trips to northern New South Wales, in a little town called Walcha. Walcha has a great craft shop selling goods made by local people (I seem to remember I also bought some apricot jam, apricots are my very favourite fruit) and this was hanging in the window. It's made by a lady who lives at Ogunbil in the Dungowan Valley....the beautiful place in my blog header. Wouldn't that be a wonderful view to wake up to each morning.

Had an email from my friend Alison the other day; she looks forward to Mondays, as she enjoys seeing which wombat will be having its turn in the spotlight that week! You can see here the bowl that Alison made as a retirement gift.

And today is the first day of Kevin's retirement, you can't count the weekend can you? Today is the first day he hasn't had to go to work, not counting holidays, since he was a young bloke of 17 or so. It's whole new life stretching out in front of us both.

Have a good week.

Jennifer

Not quite Road to St Louis

This is a quilt made by a colleague and me a few years ago, for another colleague who was about to go on maternity leave. It's based on the Road to St Louis design that I have been blogging about, but instead of pieced blocks we used squares of kids' prints, and alternated them with hourglass blocks. The blue/lime/turquoise striped fabric in the border gave us the idea for the colour scheme. It's backed with a cute frog print. The original design used 6in blocks so I wrote the instructions for this using 4in blocks. (did a terrific job if I do say so myself) I quilted it using a blue variegated Aurifil thread. We bought the border fabrics, and the fabric for the hourglass blocks; the kids' prints came from our stashes - we had one duplicate! We specially included a couple of cat prints as the recipient isn't a cat person and we both are....she took it in good spirit.

Many thanks for the encouraging comments about having a retired husband! It will be a new step in life for both of us, no doubt we will get on each other's nerves from time to time but we wouldn't be human if we didn't. Kevin is playing in a lawn bowls tournament this morning and I am enjoying peaceful music.

Last night we had a daddy of a storm - thunder, lightning, and very heavy rain; we had the TV volume up to 21 and it normally never goes over 12. It had stopped by about 8.30-9.00pm so the party around the corner continued, from the sounds of it they are still going and it's now midday. Must have more stamina than I do. Perhaps I should gently point out that their music, like mine, has a volume switch that turns to the left as well as to the right?

Enjoy what's left of the weekend.

Jennifer

Peaceful Friday

I made this cushion several years ago, the kit was a gift. Not my usual colours but soft and pretty, and I agree with the sentiment; I have been told it's from a quote by Homer (the Greek bloke, not the Simpson one).

Thanks to the lovely folk who have been so encouraging about my green quilt. Meggie asked if I was using my domestic, yes indeed. I am quilting it on My Lovely New Bernina Virtuosa 160 (which is now nearly ten years old), and it's doing a great job. I have been busy for the last few days so haven't gotten back to quilting the borders but it will be done soon. Today is not looking good either, but you never know. I am off to the shops soon to buy supper for the music club tonight - I don't mind being the supper shopper because I get to pick the chocolate biscuits and cake I like!

Today is Kevin's last day at work for ever. Tomorrow he will be a retired Olde Pharte like me. It will be strange having him around all the time, of course we have had holidays together but that's not the same, as holidays end and then we go back to work. And we will be sharing one car, because for some years now the car that Kevin drove belonged to the company for whom he worked. I bought my own little car in....oh, must have been late 1974, maybe early 1975......we have had two cars since then, except for when our sons were living at home when we had three or four cars in our driveway and on our front lawn. It did get crowded at times. Kevin plays lawn bowls every weekend which is almost sacred to him, but I pointed out that there might be times when I have something that is sacred to me too (like quilt guild, or a music club gig) and need the car to get there; public transport where we live isn't great, to say the least. Can't see me walking 20 minutes to the train station carrying a fairly heavy guitar in its case, and a music stand and guitar stand, then trudgeing up and down the station steps, changeing trains (more steps) and then walking home again. I would be too knackered to play a note by the time I arrived at the gig. Compromise will have to be the order of the day.

No doubt all will be well in the end.

Now I am off to the shops to buy cake for tonight, probably chocolate cake, because chocolate makes nearly everything seem right.

Jennifer

WOW Day already!

Tammy asked to see the Road to St Louis quilt I am working on, so here are a couple of pics. I could have sworn I was loading three pictures but only two came up...never mind. As you can see it is good for using up little scraps and is made of two alternate blocks; my blocks are 6in finished. The fabrics in the hourglass blocks are a soft tone-on-tone green and a darker grey-green batik printed with jade green fish. When the fabric is cut up the fish lose their fishy shape and just become swirls and squiggles - interesting! The quilting thread I am using is a pretty sea-green variegated Aurifil thread which blends beautifully with all the fabrics. There is a 1in red border (you can just see it at the top of the picture), then a 2in border of the batik, then a 3in border of the pale green. I have quilted in the ditch on both sides of the red border and will quilt a flowing leafy design in the green borders; the binding will be the same red as the inner border.
This wombat is a painting that Kevin bought for me at the Umina folk festival a few years ago, a local lady was selling some of her pictures. It's probably copied from a photograph as there are no wombats in Umina, it's a beach town. I really like it although it looks a bit incomplete without a frame, but one of these days I will have it done.

Jennifer

A 10 minute quilting break

Been working on my 'Road to St Louis' quilt, it's not huge but is the biggest one I have quilted on My Lovely New Bernina. Manoeuvering it through the machine's throat is like wrestling a large animal, perhaps a kangaroo. Not an elephant. When I made new curtains in block-out fabric for our bedroom a couple of years ago........now that was an elephant.

But I am enjoying the quilting process. I have quilted straight and curved lines using the walking foot, and I will quilt something free-motion and flowing in the border which will be interesting, as I have no talent for drawing whatsoever. (I'm not putting myself down here, just being honest.) Free-motion-feed-dogs-down quilting is like drawing with a needle instead of a pencil. In the past I have quilted the recipient's name in free-motion work but that's not drawing, just writing. I can write, even though my teachers at school despaired of my not-very neat writing. I just can't draw.

It doesn't help either that my hand gets sore; in the middle of last year I sprained my wrist in a fall, and although two different lots of X-rays didn't show any broken bones the physiotherapist wasn't totally convinced there wasn't a break. The sore spot when I quilt is where the soft tissue hurt for some time after the fall. I stop when my hand says "how about a break now". Then I spread the quilt out on the floor to admire how much I have done, before I put it back on the table for Binky to lie on.

Jennifer

First WOW for March

I haven't shown a quilt for some time, so here is a Double Wedding Ring quilt that I made a few years ago using foundation piecing. The background is deep rich purple, the squares where the rings meet are two lavender prints with writing; one has tiny hearts with the letters I and U in different colours, the other has words like "sweetheart"and "I'm in the mood for love". The rings range from pale cream through yellow to deep gold. It's 16 inches (40cm) square, is backed with lavender solid fabric, and has a label made of a small embroidered white-on-white doyley. The rings were made and joined into a lattice, then they were appliqued onto the background. And I may live to regret this - but I left the foundation papers in place to give the rings more substance. It has its turn on the wall in rotation with other hangings.....let's hope it never needs washing.
The fridge in our kitchen has several wombat magnets and magnetic notepads, some of which have been gifts over the years and others bought on our travels. There's a little magnetic beanie wombat peeking over the top. The wombats in the picture were part of a beautifully carved chess set, all the pieces were Aussie animals and the wombats, in two different coloured woods, were pawns. It was on display last year at a gallery not far from here; the picture was on the card advertising a woodcarving exhibition. The notepad on the top right has a picture of a wombat lying on a hot water bottle with the caption "so much to do, so little motivation". My thoughts exactly.

Kiera-Oona is busy making stars for the bushfire quilt project, I have been slack in not making any but that will rectified soon. She has posted a pic of a pretty pink star block on her blog and links to the information.

This morning at the local Salvo thrift shop I bought a two-tiered shelf for my sewing room, now I can move my hi-fi out there to have music while I sew. We're old-fashioned, we don't have an ipod, but we have music playing all through our house just the same. Today I am trying to drown out the workmen's radio on the building site next door, and the noise of the big digger thing they are using, and their rather fruity language. Perhaps I should stick my head over the fence and tell them they are offending the little old lady (namely me) next door, but somehow I don't think they would care.

Jennifer