A finished project

Finished projects have been few and far between for several months, but hopefully will happen more now!  My top is finished, if you wear glasses you might want to make sure they are adjusted properly.  The fabric is a bit eye-popping......but rather gorgeous.

The front, it's a bit hard to see but the centre front is gathered to make a sweetheart neckline - pattern is Jalie's "Sweetheart Top".

The back, and as the print is asymmetric it was a wee bit tricky deciding where to place the various pieces so the pattern didn't form headlights on the front.  A viscose-blend knit in green, yellow and blue, and the green is much prettier than it looks here.  Green doesn't always photograph well, sadly.  The print design is bugs, moths, wings, and feelers; it looks as though the images were played with on a computer and this is the result.

Finished is a good feeling.

Now the project being worked on is the monthly block for my quilt group, last month's was a cutesy-poo owl appliqué and this month's is a cutesy-poo and fiddly-diddly pieced dog.  Fabric is supplied and we are asked to make two, one each with a red and a green background.  I don't mind making the blocks as they end up in charity quilts, but oh dear - cutesy-poo is difficult for me, and cutesy-poo and fiddly-diddly is even worse.  The fabric supplied is not good quality and one of them is a poly-cotton blend, so let's hope it doesn't melt when ironed.  Ah well, sewing it will keep me off the streets tomorrow, won't it?

The uke group had its moment of fame and glory a couple of days ago, and we even made the local TV news that night, and the front page of yesterday's paper, in all our glory.  For some reason I was the one the camera lovingly lingered on, double chins and all.......not a pretty sight, folks.......my fingers (and my gorgeous and somewhat expensive uke) were filmed in close-up while I was just noodling round on some chords, perhaps because no one else was playing at the time.  It's probably like many other skills - I know I'm not a marvellous player, but to someone who can't play a note it may have looked very impressive.

It's the same with sewing and quilting, isn't it?  We are critical of our own work, but when someone who doesn't sew sees a quilt we have made they are gobsmacked.  Blown away sometimes, even.  Does wonders for one's self-confidence, doesn't it?

This weekend is a long weekend for the Queen's Birthday, and I hope she is suitably impressed that her subjects on the far side of the world are having a holiday.  The monarch's birthday has been celebrated in Australia since the arrival of the first white settlers on the east coast in 1788.  Perhaps one day we will decide that we are a mature enough country to celebrate on our own behalf, and not on someone else's.

The following excerpt from my etiquette book shows how such matters stood in 1885.

"In Australia we have no titled or hereditary aristocracy.  The Australia colonies are, however, "Crown Colonies" at the present time, and will probably ere long be "confederated", and when that event occurs the title suggested by Sir Henry Parkes, late Colonial Secretary of N.S. Wales, may serve to bind them before the world still closer to the parent country, Great Britain, namely "The British Confederated States of Australia".  As colonists are constantly, to use an everyday expression, "going home" to England and visiting European countries, it is well to understand something of Regal and noble ranks and titles, and the order of precedence of the Royal family and of the nobility and gentry, etc., etc., etc."

Australia achieved Federation in 1901.  My paternal grandmother who never visited England in her life - indeed, who never left Australia's shores (although my paternal grandfather had migrated from England as a young man, and lived the rest of his life in Australia) used to talk about "home" - meaning England.  She may not have liked it much if she had visited, as England has long had the reputation of looking down its nose at 'Colonials'.

Enjoy your days!