Wet stuff is falling from the sky!

Do we dare to hope that it's actually raining?  It has also cooled right down, so Kevin is a picture of sartorial splendour in the trakky daks.  I may be joining him soon as my bare tootsies are feeling a little chilly.

Two more houses have been made.

There's definitely an orange and purple vibe going with these two.  The aim is to make two houses a week; I'm not trying to bust a speed record with this, but they are fun and I enjoy making them.  I'm deliberately not matching patterns.......how they are cut is how they are sewn.

All the black and white fabrics for "Imprismed" are now cut, yay!  It will be foundation pieced, so lots of mindless sewing - my favourite kind - is involved.  Some thought is being given to how the edges will be finished, although that decision won't be needed for a while; I am leaning toward a narrow black and white stripe.  Perhaps.  Maybe.  On the other hand I had also thought of a facing sewn to the back, facings are often used on modern and art quilts......but I don't know if mine will be modern enough, or arty enough, or what.  (Probably or what, if truth be known.)  I'll let the quilt tell me what it needs when the time comes. 

Ukulele group met here on Monday afternoon, and we certainly had fun.  It was good to be getting together again after so long, and Clare arrived with these beautiful roses from her garden.  We have been enjoying them, they smell wonderful.

This beautiful tablecloth was made by my mother's Aunty Laura.  It was photographed to show to Karen - now you can all enjoy it.  The centre is linen, probably Irish, and measures 20-1/2 in square.

The tatting border is a bit over nine inches wide all round.

Aunty Laura's two children both died young, in sad circumstances.  She and her husband were left in their mid-forties with no children, so she seems to have turned her hand to making exquisite lace; I don't know whether she could already tat before then, but judging by the pieces she left she was no novice.  I also have several of her doilies (some with linen centres, some all lace) and a padded tea cosy of cream lace lined with pale green taffeta, possbly from the 1930s-early 1940s, as Aunty Laura died in 1948.

The question is, what's going to happen to all this beautiful lace when I die?  I very much doubt that either daughter-in-law will want it, and as I have no female descendants it will probably end up being thrown out or donated to an op shop.  I would prefer the op shop option, because hopefully then someone will see it and love it enough to want it.  

In the meantime, I shall enjoy owning and displaying it.

"Accepting hospitality a sign of good-will.

As eating with another under his own roof is in all conditions of society regarded as a sign of good-will, those who partake of proffered hospitalities, only to gossip about and abuse their host and hostess, should remember, that in the opinion of all honorable persons, they injure themselves by so doing."

This is true.  

Enjoy your days!

Ouch ouch ouch.......

........today I went to the doctor about a little 'thing' on my forehead, and sure enough it was a little lesion that had to be burnt off. By gosh it stings. My forehead looks as though someone has punched it hard or I walked into a door. I feel like Cyclops with that eye in the middle of his forehead. Unfortunately that's the price those of us with northern European ancestry pay for living in sunny Australia. For the next week or so, while it heals, I will not look as lovely as usual.

So to cheer me up you are all invited round for a cuppa and a nice piece of cake. I'll even get out the good china. This very pretty set (four cups, saucers and plates, plus a creamer and sugar basin) were inherited when my mother died several years ago, and I think may have been a wedding present when my parents married in 1946. The design is "English Rose" by Royal Doulton and possibly dates from the 1930s. The oh-so-glam tea cosy was made by my mother's Aunt Laura, my grandmother's sister. I have some of her tatted lace, isn't it delicate? The lining is pale green rayon taffeta and is ruched over the curve, there is a padded lining of white cotton inside.

The fabric which suffered a colour run last week is still ever-so-slightly pale green. So I have put it away in the stash cupboard for the time being, and bought new fabric for the challenge quilt. Pretty though it is, for this quilt I don't want pale green, I want white. It will be worth it, when it's all done.

We have no wildlife reports this week. Haven't seen the blue-tongue lizard again, and the frog(s) have been quiet too. But the garden is growing well, and some of the decisions as to what to keep and what to get rid of are gradually being made. We have been here now for nine months so we don't think there will be many more garden surprises - soon the plants will be thinking about their winter sleep.

Did you all have a lovely Valentine's Day? We went out to dinner to celebrate Kevin's birthday, Aussies of our generation don't generally do the Valentine's Day thing. It seems to be bigger with the younger folk and is really pushed at them by the media.

Now that's over we will be bombarded with Easter......chocolate, yum.......hot cross buns, yum again...........

It was surprising how many of you don't do retreats either, for the same reasons that I don't. Makes me feel better about not going, as reaction from several of those who will be attending made me think I must be a bit weird for not wanting to share a bedroom with several strangers. But that's how I am, and that's how you are too.

"If a gentleman calls upon a lady, his duty and his respect for her demand that he shall appear not only in good clothes, but with well-combed hair, exquisitely clean hands, well-trimmed beard or cleanly shaven face, while the lady will not show herself in an untidy dress or disheveled hair. They should appear at their best."

Untidy and disheveled? Doesn't sound like any of us, does it?

Enjoy your days!