The garden is planted!

Although not much has grown yet.

Just one little strip of green garden to go with this week's houses, a party house at night and a brick house surrounded by......barbed wire, perhaps?

That green strip will be joined to three others, and the resulting square will be cut into two triangles for two of the outer corners.  More will be made.  Eventually.  I could have used the same fabrics for all the setting triangles but this is more fun, don't you think?  The inspiration quilt by Freddy Moran was made with red squares, but I like the idea of my houses being set in a green park.

Some stitching has happened on the Canadian blocks, now there are just two to be done.

What an unpleasant day it is today.  The wind is blowing quite hard and it's a very cold wind, a nasty chilly wind, definitely a day for staying inside by the fire.  Which we are.  We keep expecting to see rain spots on the path outside, but so far none have appeared; it's so windy that, if any drops of rain were to fall, they would be blown sideways before they hit the ground.  It's definitely a day for the Big Green Jumper.

It's been another week of staying home.  Two necessary appointments meant having to go out and wear the dreaded mask, but fortunately once in the consulting rooms both practitioners said "you can take it off" much to my relief.  Nothing is on the calendar for the near future, so there will be more staying home.

Recently the front of the house received a little spark-up with new exterior lights being installed.  The previous lights were here when we came so were not our choice; they were 'coach lights', a popular style, it seems, for many years and indeed still sold, albeit with updated styling.  Both lights sported yellow globes, supposedly insect repellant, although we haven't really found them to be so; over the years they had become somewhat dim so needed replacing anyway.  We then thought......"if the globes need to be renewed, why not replace the whole thing?  They weren't our choice and we've never loved them"  So we did.  We looked online, found what we liked and made paper templates to hold up on the wall.  The small size was, like Goldilocks' porridge, just right.  Much was our glee when we found that a local shop stocked what we wanted so a phone call and a short drive later we had our new lights in hand, a visit from our friendly electrician a few days later and they were in place.

I still have plans to paint the front door teal......it's currently white.......but teal would be pretty with the light sandy-pink colour of the bricks.  Not sure what colour, if any, to paint the shutters and the fake colonial verandah columns, all of which are currently white - as was the style when the house was built in the early 1990s.  Perhaps just a fresh coat of white would be all that's needed.

"The host or hostess should not insist upon guests partaking of particular dishes; nor ask persons more than once, not put anything in their plates which they have declined.  It is ill-bred to urge a person to eat of anything after he has declined."

Indeed it is.  He - or she - may have a very good reason to decline a particular food, perhaps an intolerance or allergy, and I am sure a good host or hostess would not wish to make a guest ill.

Enjoy your days!

Done is a good feeling

Probably bad grammar, but still a good feeling.  All 277 of those 2-1/2 inch green squares have been cut; cutting is my least favourite part of sewing, especially fiddly diddly cutting, but it's now all done.

Lots of different shades of green, and bits of a few other colours too.  The Cunning Plan is to use these as 'leaders and enders' when sewing the next row onto the house blocks, an idea which came to me in a blinding flash of brilliance as I was settling down to sleep last night.

This week's completed houses, a pastel flower house and a black and white (plus colour!) house.

Before the decision was made to use black and white fabrics for the next row there had already been some houses made using these colours, but they still fit into the neighbourhood.

Nary a stitch has been done this week on the Canadian blocks, not one, but now all the tedious business of cutting squares is done that will change - I have high hopes of progress being made during the coming days.  The cutting would have been finished a couple of days sooner had not my hip decided to give me grief.  It's all downhill from 25, you know.....

Much staying home has happened this week.  Unfortunately two appointments await me this week (one is to get the whingeing hip sorted, something which really needs to be done) which will necessitate wearing the dreaded mask, but as soon as possible it will be taken off again.  

Remember the old song 'Stormy weather'?  'Don't know why there's no sun up in the sky, stormy weather'......you'll be singing it all day now, won't you?  It has been a bit stormy lately with rain, thunder, you name it.  Yesterday's wind was nasty chilly and blowy so we stayed indoors;  fortunately today is milder although it's a long way from being hot - or even warm.  Yesterday Bianca forgot that she is quite geriatric and raced around the house like a mad thing so today she is recovering in front of the fire.  Children and animals seem to be affected by wind, back in my days of working in schools the staff used to dread windy days.

Perhaps later today if the fancy takes I might make a fruit slice as no baking has been done for a couple of weeks, but then again I might lose interest in the idea.  We'll see.  I have discovered the wonderful world of cooking videos on you tube - what a marvellous place it is with really interesting recipes, much better than watching cooking shows on T.V.  If you want to watch something really mesmerising check out 'how to tie dye'......the revealed fabric or shirt is quite something to see although I can't see me wearing rainbow spiral tie dyed clothing, that ship has long sailed.

"If a plate is handed to you at the table, keep it yourself instead of passing it to a neighbour.  If a dish is passed to you, serve yourself first, then pass it on."

That is probably a good idea.  If a plate is handed to you it is meant for your use, not someone else's.

Enjoy your days!

The quilt group has a new home

The announcement has been made that we have a new meeting place, a building used by many craft groups, the 'Craft Shed'.  The shed has its own membership which we don't have to take out; when we first moved here I joined but left after a few years as it wasn't quite....."me".  Still, at least we have somewhere to go and it's not far from home, but oh......we will miss the meeting room at the back of the shop because of the convenience of the cafe.  That means we are back to taking a (probably unexciting) packed lunch along with us.  Oh joy......

This week's blocks, a spring rainbow house and an autumn oak leaf and acorn house with a very pink roof.

Some cutting has happened, more of the 2-1/2 in square green pieces have been cut for the outer setting triangles.  There are now 101 cut, 176 to go....yes, I keep a running total so I don't run short.  Odd shaped green fabrics are trimmed and cut into strips then squares while larger pieces are being left for other projects.

Stitching down the applique on the Canadian blocks is also coming along well, only four blocks left to go.

A couple of days ago we had rain - the pattern for a few weeks now has been rain late in the week then dry after the weekend; the coming week's forecast is for more of the same - we have noticed that the kangaroos on the hill seem to enjoy rain.  There were several roos hopping around, this one came close to the fence.  One was a fairly small joey which reminded me of an out-of-control baby just learning to walk, it hopped a little unsteadily for a few steps then veered off in another direction entirely before falling over.

Our unglamorous wire fence is a barrier to a marauding roo but doesn't obstruct our view, this is one of the smaller roos in the mob.

When we moved here it was such a joy to see these animals so close.  I grew up here but don't ever remember kangaroos being so close to town, and during the drought they were coming right into town to take advantage of what green there was in people's gardens.  As the years go by we remember the Big Smoke less and less, it feels like we have always lived here......and we both say, we couldn't go back now.  It's been a good move.

We managed to get the masked hunting and gathering done last week without too many acrimonious words.  I don't think I have ever moved so fast around the supermarket while throwing things in the trolley.  Once we arrived at the checkout (where, fortunately for once, there was no line) I was out of there, the mask came off as soon as I stepped out into the car park.  

The date and maple syrup cake/muffin was very nice.  Now that the pantry holds pecans it just might get made again, with the addition of nuts next time.

The knitting is coming along although my right arm complains if I do too much, so I suspect little and often is the way to go as it gets used to knitting a whole garment again.  Over the years a lot of my knitting has been done on car trips, but with so much of our world shut down again who knows when the next outing will be?

Sigh......

"The old-fashioned habit of abstaining from taking the last piece on the plate is no longer observed.  It is to be supposed that the vacancy can be supplied, if necessary."

I wonder how the custom even started, of leaving the last piece on a plate?

Enjoy your days!

Half the year is done

According to the fount of wisdom which is the internet (how did we ever manage before it?  Greatest thing every invented, in my humble but honest opinion) two days ago, 2nd July, we reached the half-way point of the year; 182 days had passed since last year's end, and there were 182 to go.  Now we are the downward slide.

Nothing, however, will be said about the Big C occasion just before the year's end.......

Thursday, 1st July, was marked by making date and maple syrup muffins using maple syrup from Canada, but instead of making 12 muffins I made a cake.  You eat a whole muffin whether or not you need a whole muffin, don't you?  So the mix became a nine inch square cake, yielding much more than 12 serves, and it's quite nice.  It would have been even nicer with chopped pecans added but the pantry held none.

This week's completed house blocks, a purple house with a scribbly border, and a cat on a hot tin roof house with almost the last of this chrysanthemum print.

These blocks are such fun - I really like how the black and white sets them off.  Considering that there was no intention of making another quilt when the first few blocks were made, it's coming along nicely.....as are (finally!) the Canadian blocks with seven having their stitching finished, six to go.

On our trip down south, on a warm sunny day in April, we stopped off in Blayney to pay our respects to two members of Kevin's circus family.

Charles Henry Perry was a cousin of Kevin's grandmother.  Back in June 1923 Perry's Circus was setting up for a performance in Blayney when both men were killed in a gas explosion.  Charles' sister Elizabeth was married to William Sole, so she lost a husband and a brother in one evening; Charles Perry had recently sold the circus to William Sole as he intended to retire, but had stayed on for a few weeks to help out.  Both men are buried in one grave, and newspaper reports of their funeral the following day indicate that it was the largest ever seen in Blayney.

On arriving at the cemetery we couldn't at first find the grave, so I asked a couple of young blokes who were, to judge by the sign on their work truck, familiar with many cemeteries in the area.  They took me straight to it and one bloke, in particular, was really interested; he said he had often wondered why the grave was so big and why there were two names as double graves are unusual.  We chatted for a while and he said that the company they worked for was one of the last remaining in the region which restores and makes grave markers and headstones......"it's a dying trade", he said.  I bith my thongue and didn't laugh because I didn't know whether he was making a joke or being serious.......but yes, I suppose in these days of people being cremated and their ashes scattered, instead of having a grave with a marker, it has meant that there is a lot less work than there once was in the monument industry.  It also means no headstones for family historians which is a shame, as they often contain interesting information.

It's been a quiet week as we - particularly me - have been lying low.  An edict has come from the state government in the Big Smoke that everyone in the state, regardless of where they live or how far away they are from cases of the current plague, must wear a mask in public.  That's a problem for me because as soon as I put a mask on I can't breathe then I have a panic attack.  So I stay home, which is fine.  However as Kevin did such a bad job of shopping last week (most of the items on the list were missing when he finished, including chopped pecans for the date and maple syrup muffins/cake) I fear that I will have to run the gauntlet of the hunting and gathering tomorrow while he pushes the trolley.  He's not getting out of it.  

I would rather stay home, and breathe, and sew.

"Do not find fault with the food."

This is probably tactful, no matter whether you are dining at your own home or someone else's.

Enjoy your days!