Glorious oceanic lusciousness!

Late last year I was lucky enough to win a giveaway on Linda's blog, and yesterday my fabrics arrived from Sew Sisters in Toronto, Canada......aren't they gorgeous?

Colours of the ocean, from a tropical lagoon to a stormy sea!  Thank you, Linda, for letting me join in, and thank you to Sew Sisters for such beautiful fabrics and for sending a second parcel when the first one failed to arrive.

The cunning plan is to put these with more blue batik fabrics from my stash and to add touches of yellow/gold for contrast, what do you reckon?

Only one block on Euan's quilt to be quilted, then the border, and then it can be labelled and bound.  It might just be finished in time.......machine quilting is hard on one's neck and shoulders, so after every block I take a break to stand up, stretch, walk around, have coffee or bring in the washing, all of which slows down the quilting but makes for a happier body.  Right now it's coffee o'clock.

If you were here with me now, enjoying coffee, you could also listen to my new CD purchased recently in the Big Smoke, "Pilgrimage to Montserrat" by Australian early music group The Renaissance Players.  Musical from the middle ages really speaks to me, goodness knows why - it's not as though I can remember hearing it when it was new!  We do have shops here where CDs can be purchased but they are not all my taste, so I content myself with online ordering and the occasional visit to a Larger Smoke when I can treat myself to some new old music.

Lately we are seeing signs that summer is on the way out, today is beautifully mild, but looking ahead at the forecast for later in the week hot weather is to return  - with a vengeance!  Hopefully, though, not too hot and not for too long.  We've even had a little more rain, so gardens are smiling.

This quote from my 1885 book is for my friends in colder climes.

"Putting away furs for the summer.
When you are ready to put away furs and woollens, and want to guard against the depredations of moths, pack them securely in paper flour sacks and tie them up well.  This is better than camphor or tobacco or snuff scattered among them in chests and drawers.  Before putting your muffs away for the summer, twirl them by the cords at the ends, so that every hair will straighten.  Put them in their boxes and paste a strip of paper where the lid fits on."

I hope that advice is helpful......are muffs still used anywhere?

Now I am going back to the sewing room to quilt, and to fondle my new fabric again.

Enjoy your days!

Back in a few weeks!

On Tuesday morning we head off in our little caravan to Canberra to catch up with our older son, and to attend the National Folk Festival.  We're both volunteering at the festival and nearly all my work will be done before it starts, hence the early arrival; and our son's birthday is next weekend, so we will be able to celebrate with him - something we aren't always able to do because of the distance between us.

A couple of years ago Easter was late in April so the big tree just inside the festival entrance was showing its autumn colour, but I don't think it will this year.  You can see coats and jackets being worn too, wonder how cool it will be this year?  I'm taking a coat because walking back to our caravan after a late (sometimes very late indeed) night singing session can be a little chilly......some years we have even had frost.

That big tree is the mark of the seasons, to me.  Every year it's different, this year I expect more green - but one never knows.

Tomorrow will be somewhat frantic, what with packing, and trying to fit in some last-minute house cleaning so our house sitters won't think we are total slobs, and a little baking so we have treats to take with us, and an appointment with the chiropractor......tomorrow has already taken on a life of its own, and it hasn't even happened yet.

Forgot to mention, a couple of weeks ago I won a giveaway on the Aurifil blog!  I have been using Aurifil threads for several years but some of the ones I received were some I haven't yet tried, so that will be interesting.  One spool is a fine 50wt thread in the ecru colour being used for my hand-pieced flower basket blocks - would you believe the original spool is still going strong, seven years and nearly 198 blocks later?  While it should be enough to make the remaining blocks (225 altogether) it may not be enough to join them together, so that smaller spool is very welcome.  It was originally started as a portable project and has served that purpose well, been on goodness how many caravan trips and also been overseas four times.  A well-travelled quilt.......and still in progress!

"Recognizing friends in the street.
No one, while walking the streets, should fail, through pre-occupation, or absent-mindedness, to recognize friends and acquaintances, either by a bow or some form of salutation.  If two gentlemen stop to talk, they should retire to one side of the walk.  If a stranger should be in company with one of the gentlemen, an introduction is not necessary.  If a gentleman meets another gentleman in company with a lady whom he does not know, he lifts his hat to salute them both.  If he knows the lady, he should salute her first.  The gentleman who accompanies a lady, always returns a salutation made to her."

Every year while walking round the folk festival our progress is slowed down by friends we meet, people we see only once a year, and it is so good to catch up with them and hear their news, and sit down for a drink or a meal together.  Makes for slow walking, but what does that matter when meeting friends?

Enjoy your days!

So.....tonight's the night!

Yes folks, tonight marks my debut as a radio announcer with my own weekly program and apparently the station is now streaming so you can listen online, should the time suit.  From 7pm to 9pm Eastern Australian Time, which is probably stupid dark o'clock in some parts of the world - if you would like to listen you can find world clocks on the interwebz; we are in the same time zone as Sydney.  Station details are here.

The ukulele and Beethoven are becoming more friendly toward each other, you will be pleased to hear.  Oh my......last week teacher Sam let me use one of his tenor ukes.  Mine is a soprano, the smallest size, then there's concert size, tenor, with baritone being the biggest.  Tenor is so much easier to play because I am used to playing guitar, my fingers are long and often reach too far on the little soprano's neck so I end up playing wrong notes.  Didn't have that problem with Sam's tenor uke!  I can foresee a tenor uke in my future, and some of the time spent at next month's National Folk Festival will be checking out the hand-made instrument makers' display to find just the right tenor uke.

We need a picture, don't we?  Let's see what we can find.

This really made us chuckle, we thought it was fun!  In Sidney, B.C., Canada, this tree beside the water had bottles hanging from its branches.  You may not be able to see the contents of the bottles, but there were objects like a key ring (with keys attached), a little yellow duck and a red poppy - it was a few days after Remembrance Day.

There was even a sign attached to the tree giving an email address, perhaps it's the Keeper Of The Tree?  One would need to be nimble and a little fearless to hang a bottle from some of those branches.

Last night I received an email to tell me I had won some Aurifil thread from a blog giveaway, isn't that great?  It's a thread I really like, and use often; I've been buying thread online from them for several years.

The other day I checked in with Emma the physiotherapist and she has given me the green light to start walking, but not too far, in addition to the usual walking while shopping etc..  The doctor has said 30 minutes a day, but so far 10 minutes is about all my foot and ankle will happily do - according to Emma, we should stop when it starts hurting so as not to damage still-healing tissues.  That's all right by me, I am so unfit and out of condition that it will take a little time to build up my fitness again.  We live near the top of a hill so walking away from our house is fairly a easy downhill stroll.......but coming home is always uphill.  I can't believe how long this is taking to heal, it seemed a fairly ordinary (if somewhat painful) whack when it was first done!  Just goes to show, you can damage yourself more easily than you think.

Last weekend Kevin and I went to see "Quartet"......it's gently humorous and has some wonderful performers who can still sing and play up a storm although in what would be considered their senior years.  While it's not the best movie I've seen about older people we both enjoyed it, and friends who have seen it have also liked it.  It's good to see a movie which doesn't depend on violence, action, special effects and sex, sex and more sex to tell a story.  Is that really what people want to see these days, or is it what movie-makers want to make regardless of the public's taste?

"After you have visited a friend at her country seat, or after receiving an invitation to visit her, a call is due her upon her return to her town residence.  This is one of the occasions when a call should be made promptly and in person, unless you have a reason for wishing to discontinue the acquaintance; even then it would be more civil to take another opportunity for dropping a friend who wished to show civility, unless her character has been irretrievably lost in the meantime."

Oh dear!  I have sometimes lost my way, or lost an object.....but to lose one's character would be disastrous.

Enjoy your days!

What a week it has been

Like the rest of Australia and much of the world we have been watching and reading media coverage on the floods in Queensland, New South Wales and now Victoria. Stories of unbelievable heartbreak, and also of great courage. Stories of ordinary people, whose lives will never be the same again. My heart goes out to everyone involved.

And now the clean-up has started, tons and tons of mud and muck to be shifted and cleaned out of homes, gardens and businesses. Offers of help have been coming from everywhere, however what is needed at present are helping hands - literally - to clean up, and money to get people back on their feet again. Toni is co-ordinating auctions from goods donated by craftspeople. Other people have started making quilts and other items for when they will be needed. Here is an official government site with details for donations.

Over the past few months parts of Australia that were in drought until recently have been having rain......so much rain, in fact, that the water-logged ground could not hold any more. But the rain went on to fill rivers and creeks and dams even more than they already were, and they joined together across the land, until now we have an area half the size of Europe under water. We had El Nina weather conditions like this in late 1973-early 1974. Officials were expecting this flood to be bigger than the one that put much of Brisbane, Queensland, under water in January 1974......but this time the water was a metre less in height. However land that was empty then is built on now, so the damage will probably be much greater.

Although the floods are some hours away from here this town will still be affected. So far attendance at The Festival - the big country music festival held here in January - is down, roads to the north have been closed so some people can't get here, and some attendees and performers live in areas affected by floods. One couple who arrived here last week and were in a campground saw their house on TV as it went under the floodwaters. The Festival brings a lot of money to our town but that will be down this year too. Various sports organisations collect fees for letting people use their grounds for camping, fees which are then used to improve the grounds and amenities for the players, but there will less this year. Motel bookings are down, and restaurant/food outlet takings will be less. While this is nothing compared to the losses suffered by people in flooded areas the effects reach far and wide.

But the wombat household had some good things happen, my prize from Quilting Gallery's Birthday Bash Giveaway arrived! So far I have read "Wild Goose Chase" and enjoyed it, what a fun read. Terri Thayer is the author, they arrived direct from her - and they are signed too! Thank you Michelle for having the giveaway, and thank you Terri for the books.
Isn't this interesting? It's made from, I think, wheat and came from my Secret Santa Lucy in the UK. This is a fun exchange run each year on a music list - I was 'Santa' to Allison in New Hampshire. Last year my 'Santa' was in Northumberland, England, and my 'Santee' was in Texas.....so you see, it's very international.
Lucy made everything she sent including a pretty necklace with green beads, a bright yellow bracelet, and a beautiful star ornament. While it looks like a Christmas star I am thinking it could hang in my sewing room to be enjoyed all year round. Santa's elves were so busy that it arrived a little after Christmas but that didn't matter at all, such lovely pieces were worth waiting for, weren't they?

Our lovely neighbours moved out last weekend, and the new ones moved in today. We had to ask the removalists to shift their truck, which they had parked right across our driveway while they were unloading - asking us if we needed to get our car out first would have been courteous. As it happens, we did. While we know that was the fault of the removalists and not of the new newcomers it doesn't start the neighbourly relationship off well, does it?

Tonight, and each night for the next week, we will both be volunteering at festival concerts - we are looking forward to seeing some performers whose work we have previously enjoyed, and also those new to us.......volunteers get free tickets, woo hoo!

"During the performance complete quiet should be preserved, that the audience may not be prevented from seeing or hearing. Between the acts it is perfectly proper to converse, but it should be done in a low tone, so as not to attract attention. Neither should one whisper. There should be no loud talking, boisterous laughter, violent gestures, lover-like demonstrations or anything in manners or speech to attract the attention of others."

We know how to conduct ourselves properly at a concert. Let's hope the rest of the audience does, too.

Enjoy your days!

Winter has come back

A close-up of the quilting on my scrap Road to St Louis quilt which is entered in Quilting Gallery's weekly contest - not prize-winning by any stretch of the imagination, but not bad for a mug like me. All done on My Lovely New Bernina. I traced the pattern onto lunch wrap paper (not waxed paper) and quilted through it, then one good movie on TV......a rare occurrence, I must say.......was enough to provide entertainment while I tore away the paper.

Deb has a giveaway but you can't enter, because I want to win the lovely fabric and book she is so generously giving to one lucky person! While you are there you must admire her gorgeous chocolate brown quilt, do you think if I asked very nicely do you think she would give it to me?

Winter has returned here today with a vengeance, we are having very cold winds and rain. Instead of the usual 23 deg C (that's 79 deg F) it was only 4 deg C (39 deg F) at 11.30 this morning. That is very cold, so we have our woodburning stove keeping us (and the kitties, it's all for them you know) from feeling too chilly. This weekend some local gardens are open to the public, we had hoped to go to one in particular but it's so cold and windy and nasty that we have stayed in. We'll see what tomorrow brings. I feel sorry for the gardens' owners as they have worked hard to make their gardens beautiful, then the weather comes along and mucks things up.

Have started on quilting my challenge quilt and will do a little more later when my pedal foot recovers from standing in the kitchen while making chocolate hedgehog slice. For the non-Aussies, that's broken plain sweet biscuits (cookies) mixed with melted butter, sugar, dessicated coconut, cocoa powder and beaten egg, pressed into a large pan then iced with chocolate icing. No, I don't intend to eat it all myself - although I may have to try a piece to make sure it's OK before serving it to guests on Tuesday. Don't know what I have done to my foot but by gosh it is sore. But it was worse before the chiropractor worked her magic the other day, so that's something isn't it.

"Cleaning silver.

For cleaning silver, either articles of personal wear or those pertaining to the toilet-table or dressing-case, there is nothing better than a spoonful of common whiting, carefully pounded so as to be without lumps, reduced to a paste with gin."

Or you could put up with your silver being tarnished, and drink the gin yourself. A much better use for it, I would have thought.

Enjoy your days!

Pretty things!

This is the skirt I finished making recently.....as you can see, it's quite bright. It looks small, but I'm a fairly short person. The colours are even brighter than they look here, and my wardrobe contains a few bright tops that I plan to wear with it; red, orange, green. It's a Kwik Sew pattern. Not bad for just a few dollars - $2 for fabric, not much for a zip, and I already had the yoke lining, interfacing and pattern.
The Kiwi place mats have been given to their recipient, and she likes them. I left off the applique that spelled out various Kiwi words for a less casual look, which was the look I wanted. Six fat quarters was all it took, the fabrics which look like solid black and white are in fact printed, and I quilted them using black and white variegated thread.
My giveaway parcel from Tammy has arrived, I am so lucky! Thank you Tammy, you are very generous. A lovely pattern, and two packs of charm squares - Village Green by Thimbleberries and Garden Party by Moda, some little scissors and........
some very pretty Valentine's Day fabrics - and - chocolate! Should have taken the pattern out of the packet as the glare is a bit bright, it says "Little Charmers 5". The little scissors will replace the embroidery scissors I had confiscated at Sydney airport on our way to Canada last October. (It was my own fault - I had swapped things from different bags around, and forgot the scissors were still in the bag that I put in my backpack instead of the one I put in my checked case - but I had those scissors for over 20 years, and I was quite peeved to lose them.) (and of course women like me with our little embroidery scissors are a dreadful threat to air travel aren't we.....can't have that)

Nice young physio bloke said yesterday he is pleased with my progress, to keep doing the exercises, and only go back to him if I feel it's necessary. While I was there I mentioned my left shoulder to him, it's been sore ever since I broke my arm, but I put that down to carrying the weight of two casts on my arm and to having restricted movement for a while. He checked it out and suggested I have an ultrasound done, as he thinks I may have torn a shoulder tendon when I fell - my left arm (the one which broke) ended up under my body, so I probably wrenched my shoulder at the same time. I still can't extend that arm out to have a stretch as it's too painful, and it also hurts if I put my arm behind my back. So it's worth checking out, but I'm a bit sad as I thought my arm was getting back to normal.

On the home front......we have contacted the agent we decided to go with, and he will come on Monday to start the paperwork to sell the house! Yay! Last time we did this was 1987 and things may have changed in that time. We certainly have.

Next sewing project will be to make a bag using the Thimbleberries Canadian fabrics I bought in Toronto - it was a "Twice The Charm" roll - and the Maple Greetings bag pattern from Hopscotch Quilt Shop, Alberta. The last few projects I have made have been for other people but this one is for me!

"The plan of reviving the old Saxon names has been adopted by some, and it has been claimed that the names of Edgar, Edwin, Arthur, Alfred, Ethel, Maud, Edith, Theresa, and many others of the Saxon names are pleasant sounding and strong, and a desirable contrast to the Fannies, Mamies, Minnies, Lizzies, Sadies, and other pretty diminutives which have taken the place of better sounding and stronger names."

My maternal grandmother was named Edith, and she was born in 1887 - just two years after the book from which this is taken was published. One of her sisters was named Ethel, and a brother was Alfred.

Have a great weekend!

Jennifer

A few holiday views

This church at Stroud, N.S.W., was built by convicts in the 1830s and, like churches of the time, sits surrounded by graves of former parishioners. Stroud is a lovely little town, with many buildings from the same era as the church, in a beautiful valley. My family has tenuous connections with Stroud; in the 1800s it was a company town for the Australian Agricultural Company, and my grandfather (and I think his father also) worked for them near Tamworth. I don't know if they - my ancestors - ever visited Stroud, so I did it for them on a beautiful clear winter day.
The interior of the church - the woodwork is Australian cedar, the pews have carved backs. The gallery upstairs is where convicts sat for church services....they didn't sit downstairs and mix with the hoi polloi, they knew their place.
Ten days earlier we drove from Nundle to visit Arc-en-Ciel trout farm - it was really really cold, as you can see! We would normally have been able to see much further into the distance but the clouds were very low, snow had fallen the previous evening and the locals were expecting more. This snowy yard was a short distance from the farm. We had coffee, and sat by the fire, and I bought some smoked trout pate.....yummo.......the trout farm dog is My New Best Friend and I had the muddy paw marks on my jeans to prove it. Fishing at the farm would be fun on a lovely day, their website has interesting pictures and recipes too.

Only two months until we go to Canada, 60 days to be precise but who's counting? The locals are even putting on a craft show for me! Creativ Festival will be held while we are in Toronto. How much fun would that be.......speaking of being creative, Kiera-Oona has a video on her blog showing how she makes rag rugs from tee shirts that aren't fit to be worn in public any more. I have never used a crochet hook that size but I'm sure I could learn. If you couldn't crochet, you could probably knit rugs.

Elaine has a giveaway on her blog, a "Quilter's Stimulus Package" - wonder what that could be? There are times when I could do with being stimulated. She lives in coastal California and has lovely pics on her blog.

I shall leave you with a quote from "Australian Etiquette, or the Rules and Usages of the Best Society in the Australasian Colonies, together with Their Sports, Pastimes, Games and Amusements. Revised, Illustrated, and Compiled expressly as a Household Treasure for Australian Homes. 1885":

"It is the duty of Australian women to exercise their influence to form so high a standard of morals and manners that the tendency of society will be continually upwards, seeking to make it the best society of any country."

Jennifer

Pop on over to Yellow Bird Art......

....they have a lovely blog and they are having a giveaway with some lovely goodies!

Jennifer