It's still summer here

Roll on autumn, I am over heat......we're ready for some coolth here......

When we returned from Canada summer had hit with a vengeance.  The temperature on our final day was 9 deg C, it was cool, overcast, a little drizzly.  Just nice.  We arrived home to temperatures 30 degrees hotter with no chance to acclimatise, and I haven't recovered yet.

Just when it becomes unbearable some of our pics roll round on the computer, and instantly I feel cooler.

 Kew Gardens is a park between the Lake Ontario boardwalk and Queen Street East, which goes for miles and miles and miles.  (the street, not the park)  The day we visited was really nice, the view even more so with changing colours.

 View from a friend's window in Goderich, just imagine waking to that every day of your life!  Although right now that hillside is bare of colour and the river has ice floating on it, I have seen my friend's photos on facebook.  Goderich is a town I could live in, it has gorgeous scenery, a really good music shop (where I helped the Canadian economy just a little) but sadly no quilt shop.  There used to be one but the owners retired and hadn't found a buyer, hopefully one might re-open in future.  I left some dollars behind me on our last visit in return for some fabric and a pattern and other things in the quilt shop......probably just as well it wasn't there last year......

Yes indeedy, we did see snow in Canada.  All six pellets of it.  I look at this and remember how cold it was that day, and straight away I feel cooler.

However I have noticed that some trees hereabouts are starting to get that late summer faded look, and the Virginia creeper on the fence of a local sports field is changing to bronze......so perhaps summer will eventually end, woo hoo!  And what a happy woman I shall be then!!

Under the sewing machine needle as we speak is a new skirt.  While in Canberra I visited a quilt/craft shop I hadn't been to before (unlikely as that sounds - we've been visiting Canberra for nigh on 20 years) looking for a black and white print to make a new skirt.  There was one fabric I liked but didn't quite love enough to buy, then I saw another.....and it was lurve at first sight, a black and grey floral print on a white background.  My favourite skirt pattern is a flared A-line with a hip yoke, and for this skirt I cut the front and back, usually one piece each, into three panels which are then joined with fine black piping.  It's looking very gorgeous if I do say so meself (she says modestly), and all my solid colour tops will hopefully look good with it - teal, blue, green, red, yellow, orange.  Not pink though.  Definitely no pink.

Years ago when I was younger (and much more slenderer......sigh......) I used to be totally fearless when it came to dressmaking.  I would blithely swap the sleeves of one pattern with another, change the necklines, add bits here and take them away there, and ended up with some really interesting clothes.  I'm a self-taught dressmaker and no one ever told me "you shouldn't do that, it won't work" so I did it.  The older I have become the safer I play it with clothing and that's a shame, isn't it?  Perhaps this re-done skirt may lead on to bigger and better things; I'm thinking it could be a good idea for using a featured piece of a special fabric, the three panels could be confined to the front with a one-piece back as per the original pattern.

Make no mistake: I'm a chickybabe no longer, I don't have gorgeous legs, I was never tall and willowy (thanks to my not-very-tall parents and other ancestors), but in our summer a skirt is so much cooler than pants, so I wear skirts.

Last week our uke group started up again.  We were all pleased to be back, certainly I was - I have missed our music making!

We've also had the front garden re-landscaped; since our lovely big tree came down in a storm nearly two years ago the garden has changed.  Plants which needed the tree's shelter were struggling while others enjoyed the lack of competition and were threatening to take over the entire universe.  The roses are gone (yay!), donated to our neighbour Elaine who loves roses, and the crepe myrtle which was infested with some sort of mould has also gone because we didn't love it either.  In their places are native plants which will, hopefully, grow well in our hot dry climate.  Pics will be taken soon, if I get up early enough.....summer days are sunny and the sun's glare after mid-morning makes it difficult to get good pictures.

"But a love of dress has its perils for weak minds.  Uncontrolled by good sense, and stimulated by personal vanity, it becomes a temptation at first, and then a curse.  When it is indulged in to the detriment of better employments, and beyond the compass of means, it cannot be too severely condemned.  It then becomes criminal."

Goodness me......I hope I'm not that vain!  One can't help wondering what the ladies of 1885 would have thought about our modern clothes?  Perhaps, after the initial shock, they might like them - our clothing is softer and easier to wear, especially as we no longer wear corsets.

Enjoy your days!