Up to three dozen trees now

Three dozen is 36, so that's several weeks' worth of trees.  A whole forest of trees.

On our visits to Vancouver Island we have been amazed by the trees - in fact, we call it "The Land of Tall Straight Trees".  If memory serves me right this print was bought on Vancouver Island, so it can be one of those tall straight trees.

Several years ago I looked at this print and thought....hmmm, I thought......there's a quilt in that.  Summertime Blues was the result, with the colours reversed; blue was the main colour - every shade of blue from pale turquoise to deep purple - with orange/gold as the contrast.  There was a piece left that was just big enough to cut one tree (fabric is cut 6-1/2in by 9in) and the contrast is also a leftover from my Canadian quilt, used to represent the ocean.  

An interesting pair of trees.  After sewing and trimming, they finish at 6in by 8-1/2in.

Spread out in all their glory.

They really are fun to make.  A group pic will be taken each time another 12 trees are added.

"The Land of Tall Straight Trees", for sure!

How have you all been this past week?  We finished off Easter, then had a few normal days before Anzac Day brought another holiday and another long weekend.  We don't do any special celebrating for Anzac Day, as most of Australia seems to do.  I have memories of that day when I was young, it was never a good day in our house; my father enlisted when he was 20 and was eventually sent overseas to New Guinea, where he served in the War Graves Unit - which would have been horrific  Like many returned servicemen he never joined in the march on Anzac Day, but he did play in a band which marched in the parade.  The march ended with an ecumenical church service at a sports ground, after which the adult band members went around town on a pub crawl.  They would set themselves up outside each pub in turn and play, drinkers would send beers out to them, they would get more and more stonkered - my father did not have a good tolerance for alcohol, it didn't take much to put him under - and eventually he would make his way home.  My mother's fuse was quite short by then (it was never a long fuse at the best of times) so of course there would be fights and arguments for the rest of the day, while my brothers and I tried to keep out from underfoot and away from arm's reach.  

So no, it was never a good day.

Words have been read, stitches have been sewn.  Sorting of the music continues. and will do for quite some time.  Some stitches were knitted; knitting is a good thing to have along when going to the doctor, as I had to a few days ago.  Nothing major or even exciting, just the medical driving check that we in New South Wales have to undertake every year from A Certain Age.  While I was there the nurse asked about having a flu shot....all right, I said, been having them for over 25 years without any problems....although I really hate, detest and loathe having injections.  (I don't like them, either.)  She must have hit a blood vessel because it bled, and we chatted about the fact that redheads - which I was, before going grey - bleed more than other folk.  It's genetic, she said.  Fancy that, I said, and we feel pain more than other people do too.  Apart from unusual tiredness for a couple of days there have, fortunately, been no ill effects from the injection so now I have a whole year to psych myself up for the next one.

A place we visited on our trip away was the Holtermann Museum at Gulgong.  Several years ago, while visiting the Big Smoke, we were lucky enough to see the exhibition which spawned the founding of this museum and found it really interesting.  Considering those photos are over 150 years old they are so clear, and paint a vivid picture of life on the goldfields of the time; women appear to be wearing their best clothes and children have been spruced up for the photographer, while men have also been fluffed and polished despite the mud and dust.  I wonder what they would think of us now, looking at them as they were back then?

It has been raining all night and most of today, gentle soaking rain.  It's been cloudy and misty, not very warm although not too cold, not quite, but an extra layer of clothing is welcome.  The thought of lighting the fire has even crossed our minds.  Quite a lot of rain fell here while we were down south but none since, so this rain will be beneficial.

"If a gentleman, when riding alone, meets a lady who is walking and wishes to enter into conversation with her, he must alight and remain on foot while talking with her."

Well yes, so he should.  The average woman - and people were generally shorter then than now - would probably develop a crick in her neck trying to converse with a gentleman seated on horseback while she was on foot.

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer