Choofing along with the binding......

This is quite a large quilt, each side is two metres long so that makes eight metres of binding to be sewn down with tiny stitches.  Perhaps they don't need to be as teeny as they are; taking teensy stitches just comes naturally and I actually have trouble taking big ones.  It's looking quite good, if I do say so meself (she says modestly).

A minor conniption was had, however, when piecing the back as the fabric had a row of holes across the width!  The correct size pieces had already been cut and partly pieced, but fortunately there was enough left to be able to cut off the holey piece (possibly caused by machinery when it was wrapped round its cardboard core) and add a new pieced piece, so there are a few more seams on the back than I had originally planned.  At least there was enough fabric......the conniption would have been major had there not been, let me tell you.

A little corner of the not-quite-finished quilt bundled up on my sewing room table out of Bianca's way, as cats do love a nice soft quilt to snuggle into.  The binding is more than half done, and the Cunning Plan is to wave it around at quilt group on Saturday for show and tell.  Which will still happen, even if it's not quite finished.  Tonight is choir practice so it will be staying home for a couple of hours, it would be difficult to sing while bearing the weight of what has turned out to be a fairly heavy quilt on one's lap.  A few wrong notes might just be hit.......even wronger than usual.

Nothing to report on the house repairs, although we expect to be told very soon which builder the insurance company has selected to do the fixing.  As we are going away in less than two weeks it will have to wait until we come home in mid-May.

My toe is still attached.  It is tender and sore, but it hasn't fallen off.  The bursitis is still hanging around in my hip and driving me demented at times.  Older age is not for sissies.

Ms 64 has gone, and no one here is grieving. Her roaming cats have gone with her, for which the neighbourhood is thankful

Last Sunday we went for a Nice Sunday Drive (on a Sunday, something we seldom do!) to a small village an hour north-east of here for lunch at the local pub for our 41st anniversary.  Walcha Road Pub (it's pronounced wolka) is over 100 years old and bounced back from a major fire several years ago - the charred edges of the bar are evidence of that.  The food is excellent, unexpectedly so in a settlement of about 20 people, and it's a popular place for a weekend lunch.  We have been before but haven't visited in mid-winter, perhaps one day we will brave the snow and go there!

We have also had some excellent rain, after our dry February it has been very welcome.  Our garden is now smiling again, and the weeds are shooting up like you wouldn't believe.

"Proposals of marriage.

Rules in regard to proposals of marriage cannot be laid down, for they are and should be as different as people.  The best way is to apply to the lady in person, and receive the answer from her own lips.  If courage should fail a man in this, he can resort to writing, by which he can clearly and boldly express his feelings.  A spoken declaration should be bold, manly and earnest, and so plain in its meaning that there can be no misunderstanding.  As to the exact words used, there can be no set formula; each proposer must be governed by his own ideas and sense of propriety in the matter."

Well....I can't remember the exact words, but I'm sure they were indeed bold, manly and earnest.

Enjoy your days!

Would anyone like some heat?

Because we have more than enough to spare.

Never mind, it will be autumn in a few months......

Well, it seems that Ms 64 may be moving after all!  A "For Sale" sign has appeared on her front lawn.   As I said in my last post I thought she was just stirring up trouble when she told Mrs 66 that she was selling up and moving, and I have never been so happy to be proven wrong.  So long as she takes her roaming cats with her.......if she leaves them behind I suspect there will be several neighbours who will be getting a cat trap, because they are the cause of much angst.

Moving on to happier topics!

Our visiting fiddler is a nice bloke and we have all had many chats, both musical and otherwise.  He has been generous with his time and this afternoon helped me with some guitar tuning and tension issues.  He has given us tickets to the Golden Fiddle Award concert tomorrow and we are looking forward to it as there will be excellent musicians performing; after that, he will be heading back to the Big Smoke.

He has been a good sport, too.  Our hot water service has packed it in, so cold showers have been the order of the day!  Today a new system was installed so tomorrow morning's showers will again be warm.  Just as well it's been the middle of summer, because let me tell you washing long hair in cold water is not for the faint of heart.

A little has been accomplished in the sewing room.  Some applique preparation has been taking place and I have now modified the tree patterns a little to make turning the seam allowance easier.  There has also been some gorgeous green fabric dug out of the cupboard, and some pattern pieces have been cut.  It will be a new bag - are these not truly scrumptious fabrics?

The print will be the main fabric, and the shot green will be trim and handles.  Zipper will be black.  It's been in the cupboard for 18 months or thereabouts, so time it was made up.

Oh dear, I am falling apart,  It appears that I now have bursitis in my left hip - it is booked in to be treated next week, not looking forward to that but on the other hand it will be nice to be pain-free again - and I have to learn not to lean on my left elbow while at the computer, or reading, or writing, because the nerve in that elbow is inflamed.  It's now strapped with bright blue tape......talk about a fashion statement!

It's all downhill after 25, you know......

"Premature declaration.
It is very injudicious, not to say presumptuous, for a gentleman to make a proposal to a young lady on too brief an acquaintance.  A lady who would accept a gentleman at first sight can hardly possess the discretion needed to make a good wife."

I would have said the same thing myself.

Enjoy your days!

500th post - fancy that!

According to the counter thingy on blogger this is my 500th post, it was started in October 2008.  That's quite a lot of blather, isn't it?  Sometimes serious, often light-hearted.  If, in those years, I have hurt or offended anyone I humbly apologise - it was never my intention, but after all it is my blog so I can say what I like.

A new project for a new has been started, but has ground to a halt because I don't own a small paintbrush.  It has a pieced background with applique so I thought I would try the freezer paper and starch method, something I have never done before, so took myself off to the computer and sat in front of a tutorial to find out how it's done.  It wasn't a fabulous tutorial because of the tutor's hands hiding what was being filmed but I did get the gist of it, so now all the applique shapes have been traced onto freezer paper, cut out, and ironed to their respective fabrics just waiting for that paintbrush to be purchased.

Monday is usually our day for food shopping and socialising, so in addition to buying bananas and milk and other such exciting items I shall buy a small paintbrush.

The first project for 2017 has been started.

The top picture is part of a row by row (blogged about a couple of months ago) which was a gift from a friend in Victoria, Canada, on our last trip.  The pieced strips in front are the background fabrics for the new project, a row by row from northern Ontario - thank you, Rose Marie!  The fabrics are the same, not surprising since they are all by Northcott (under the 'Archives' tab, 2015 Row by Row Experience), and the Cunning Plan is to turn them both into table runners by adding a narrow dark brown border then a wider pine tree green border.

Today in the Small Smoke it is mild with a pleasant breeze blowing, quite a change from the heat of the past week.  I'm sure it's not just me getting older......something over which I have no control, but I would if I could......but summers seem to be getting hotter than they used to be.  Once we would have the occasional few hot days with one or two very hot to spark us up a bit, but now we have a week of heat wave temperatures.  The past week has been nasty, with nights too hot for refreshing sleep.

Never mind, it will be autumn in a few months......

Late in January there is a big humungous ginormous country music festival held here, and the diehards have been arriving since before Christmas.  They quite happily pay camping fees for that extra month to get a good spot.  Our neighbour across the road refers to them as 'the bumpkins'.  They do, however, spend a whopping amount of money while they are here so we are all nice to them.  We were asked by one of the organisers/performers, who runs a fringe festival within the big festival, if we would billet another performer for a few days and we said yes, so we will be having a really good fiddle player staying here!  Yee har!

A couple of days ago our neighbours at No 66 moved out and soon we will have renting tenants living next door.  Ms 64, the cause of their moving, told them that she would be putting her own place on the market too - she is a nasty woman.  It hasn't appeared in real estate listings so far; we are tipping that it won't appear at all, that she was just stirring up trouble and leaving bad feeling behind.  It is quiet now, they have left a lovely garden behind and Mr 66 was out mowing or blowing nearly every day.

"Politeness.
Politeness is kindness of manner.  This is the outgrowth of kindness of heart, of nobleness, and of courage."

Something Ms 64 is lacking in spades.

Enjoy your days!

We're having a heatwave.......

.......a tropical heatwave......

Today is the fourth day of a very hot five day heatwave, and I for one am over it.  It can go away now.  According to the weather people it is being caused by a large slow-moving mass of hot air moving south from central Queensland.  As far as I am concerned they can have it back - we wouldn't want to deprive them.

On to happier topics.

The quilting is all done on my Winding Ways quilt, the last stitches were taken yesterday.  Now to sew a line of stitching around the edges and trim off the excess backing and wadding, and make the binding from a printed black and white uneven plaid cut on the bias.

This fabric - what do you reckon?  I laid it out to get an idea of how it would look, I think it will work well.

Well, the new green glasses are a thing of beauty, to be sure!  As I need to wear them when taking pictures I'm not sure if I can get a photo to show you, but you can see them here, the green/lime colourway.  They are comfortable to wear and seem to do what I need them to do, which is to help my somewhat aging vision......what more could a person need?  They have a slight cat's eye shape, something I haven't worn before.  According to their brand website they are "Urban Kool".  Doesn't that sound like me, Kool to the bootstraps?  (don't forget the capital K, so much kooler than just cool.)

A little sadness here at Chez Wombats, our nice neighbours at Number 66 have sold up and are moving early next month.  We will be sorry to see them go but understand why they are going - their neighbour on the other side, Ms 64, is making their lives very difficult.  Ever since she moved in a few years ago with several unrestrained cats there has been friction and bad feeling (we are all fed up with her free-ranging moggies, even those of us who like cats) which culminated in her bloke and Mr 66 exchanging punches last year when we were in Canada.  It ended up in court and has caused a lot of acrimony, so for the sake of their health they have decided to go.  On the other side two doors away Number 72 is also on the market but not because of nasty neighbours, this is due to a marriage break-up.

A couple of weeks ago while out shopping we bumped into Mrs 66 who told us she had been responsible for capturing a teenage burglar in our street that very morning.  She had been out walking their little pug and was coming back up the street when she saw a young bloke riding slowly, checking out houses and gardens as he went.  She became suspicious then remembered she had left her back door unlocked, so picked up Pud (probably short for Pudding, he's a roly-poly little dog) the pug under her arm and sprinted for home.  Once at her house she saw the bike beside the house across the road and a side gate open so went inside her house and rang the police, who came very promptly - and caught the young bloke in the act with some jewellery in one hand and car keys in another.  He couldn't say "oh no, it wasn't me" could he?  He must have laid hands on a police person too, because one of the charges he faces is assaulting police.  15 years old......why wasn't he at school?  Now he faces a criminal record and time in criminal detention where he will probably learn even more bad habits, and come out with something to prove to himself and society.

Like many communities we here in the Small Smoke have our share of opportunistic crime, some committed by young people who regularly truant from school and think the world owes them a living......a 'skill' probably learned from their parents and grandparents, and so it goes on down through the generations.  However far and away the majority of people here are decent people and a few bad apples don't taint a whole case.

"The pernicious influence of indolence.
If you would preserve your children from the pernicious influence of indolence and all its corrupting tendencies, you must be earnest in purpose, active, energetic and fervent in spirit.  Earnestness sharpens the faculties; indolence corrodes and dulls them.  By the former we rise higher and higher, by the latter we sink lower and lower.  Indolence begets discontent, envy and jealousy, while labor elevates the mind and character.  Cultivate in your children habits of thought which will keep their minds occupied upon something that will be of use or advantage, and prevent them from acquiring habits of idleness, if you would secure their future well-being."

Indeed.  Somehow, though, I doubt that the parents of these young miscreants would understand these words, let alone act on them.

Enjoy your days!

Just so you can see.....

.......how far we can see from our front verandah, on a clear day.  Judging by the weather radar when it's raining and how far away the showers are, we estimate that those hills in the far distance would be somewhere between 20 and 30 kilometres away.  That's approximately 12 to 18 miles, but it could be further.  Last week's rainy day pic is what we can see during heavy rain........not much really, except a white mist over the top of Rose-the-neighbour's house with its green striped blinds.

My parents' house here had a lovely view across the town to the hills in the south-east, and when we were looking for a house to buy the requirement at the top of my list was "a view of hills"......and I have it, even though this is looking south-west-ish rather than south-east.  And as we live part-way up a hill there is more hill behind us, so lots of hills here.  That makes me happy, because I need hills in my life.

Did you all have a lovely Valentine's Day?  We took ourselves out to dinner and had a fabulous meal because 14th February is my husband's birthday - yes, he's a Valentine's Day baby.  But his name is not Valentine, it's Kevin.  There was once a Saint Kevin, it seems, and his feast day is 3rd June.  Perhaps we should celebrate then, too.  I always enjoy a meal I haven't had to cook.  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind cooking.......but after more than 40 years of being a domestic goddess in one form or another, the novelty has worn off.

You should all be proud of me, because this week I put up my hand to be newsletter editor for the craft group at our local craft centre.    It will be a bit of a learning curve, but after having a blog for a few years hopefully it won't be too difficult.  As I said at the meeting, I can do a good line in bull dust.  Except I didn't say dust.  I said the other word that starts with sh and ends with it.

According to this morning's local paper we are having the coolest mildest summer since records began, over 100 years ago.  Today is warmer than it has been for a couple of weeks, but it's still not as hot as last summer was.  There is a large deciduous tree which we drive past on our way into town - and during the week I noticed that it's changing into its autumn clothes!  So is the it's-either-Virgina-creeper-or-ornamental-grape growing on the wire fence of the local football ground, and so is the we-think-it's-an-apricot-tree in our backyard.  Perhaps it's because we are in for an early autumn - it's certainly not for lack of rain.  Considering we should still have at least 6-8 weeks of summer left, those leaves are changing quite early.

Today is a day for cutting out fabric, there are a couple of monthly block obligations to be done and there are more Bears Paw blocks being cut out.  There's no scheme in mind for them so far, it's just the fun of playing with lovely leafy prints and my favourite autumn colours.  When that's done, the skirt from the fabric shown in the last post will be cut out.  I don't know about the rest of you but I find cutting out very tedious, wonder why that is?  I start with good intentions then drift off into doing something else.......meanwhile the fabric is still sitting partly cut.......my neck, shoulders and upper back give me problems sometimes, standing with bent head for long periods of time does them no favours so I keep having breaks.  Like this present blogging and coffee break.  Then I don't always get back to cutting.  But I have promised myself that I will, because I want to make that skirt.

"Trifling with a lady.
A man should never make a declaration in a jesting manner.  It is most unfair to a lady.  He has no right to trifle with her feelings for mere sport, nor has he a right to hide his own meaning under the guise of a jest."

Something to ponder on for Valentine's Day next year while accompanied by beautiful red roses such as those in my blog header, cut in our garden one day last summer when their flowers were bowed down by rain.

Enjoy your days!

WOW Quintet

Some years ago a friend painted these wombat coasters and storage box, she even painted a wombat on the lid of the box, that's the larger one at the top. It was an unexpected 'thank you' gift - thank you, Ros!

It's raining and misty today, not specially cold though, just the sort of day where it's hard to get motivated to do something. Anything. The fabric for my newest bag is all quilted ready to be cut out and made so perhaps I shall do get in the mood soon. And I have bought different fabric for borders on my wombat quilt. That dandelion fabric, pretty though it is, was never right for the quilt - it just wasn't dark enough. So I took off the borders and bought a dark striped fabric which will compliment the quilt so much better.

I've just been mucking around on the computer and as you can see have changed my blog picture. Much as I like the other picture (and I really do love it) I thought this would also make a rather nice header pic. This is the MacDonald River at Bendemeer, about half an hour north of here, and was taken last year in mid-winter.

Aren't you proud of me, I've been walking! For quite some time now I have been having problems with back pain, and last week the chiropractor told me that if I walked for 10-15 minutes a day that would make a great difference. Our street turns off the main road, heads uphill and curves back down to the main road again, and to walk around that circuit takes about 25 minutes. I don't think we will be walking today because of the rain, the road becomes slippery especially downhill, and the last thing I want is to fall and break something again. But it's also a good way to get to know our new neighbourhood and some of our new neighbours; a couple of days ago we found ourselves walking along with an older lady who lives a little way from us and we had a nice chat. We check out the gardens to see what plants are growing, and have also met a couple of the local cats and dogs. One house has four identical floral design wall plaques set two each side of the front door, and that has given us the idea to hang the wombat plaque on the front door for the world to see rather than in the beer garden.

We bought two plant pots for the front verandah and have planted grevilleas in them. The ends of the verandah have no way to stop anyone falling off, and we didn't want anyone to fall over the edge as it would do them a nasty mischief (and they might sue us for every penny we own), so the pots are rectangular and block off the ends very well. There are a few plants in the garden that I wouldn't mind getting rid of, but we'll wait for a while yet in case they turn out to be spectacular at certain times of the year. So far they're a bit ordinary. We have a great liking for Australian plants and there aren't many here, but that's easily fixed isn't it? However......we have wrens visiting our backyard from time to time and we don't want to get rid of any plants that they use for shelter, we want to make sure they are happy with any changes. They're such pretty little birds and it's lovely to have them. We have also planted a rosemary bush which is (hopefully!) enjoying today's rain.

I shall leave you with some words of wisdom from the etiquette book.

"Forming street acquaintances.
A lady never forms an acquaintance upon the street, or seeks to attract the attention or admiration of persons of the other sex. To do so would render false her claims to ladyhood, if it did not make her liable to far graver charges."

Enjoy your week!

Jennifer