The town is growing

Another couple of house blocks were made the other day, taking the grand total to nine.

One house doesn't use much fabric as they are only 6-1/2 inches square, so they are a long way from being stashbusting blocks!  It's just for fun......and we all need fun in our lives during what is becoming a trying time, don't we?

Some leaf blocks have been made, six are now finished.  This is how the quilt centre will be arranged, not necessarily with these four blocks.

There are also over 300 half-square blocks to be made each measuring four and a half inches, so they have become leaders and enders while making the fifteen leaf blocks - and I am very happy with it; those gorgeous autumn colours make my heart sing.

Yesterday was quite a momentous occasion, the first Saturday quilt group meeting since late February was held.  We aren't a big group even when everyone is present and there were a few missing anyway, but it was good to be out among friends chatting and sewing together.  To make the day complete we even had our morning tea and lunch at the cafe attached to the store where we meet.  That made the second coffee in a few days that someone else made for me, because we did shout ourselves a coffee and a treat earlier in the week.....and what a treat that was, after so long.

We have had a few cold frosty mornings, not surprising considering that it is, indeed, winter.  I much prefer winter to summer but do feel the cold, so you will usually find me rugged up for all I'm worth.  Our stroll along the main drag for coffee was a chilly stroll, but it was worth every minute when that coffee arrived in front of me.

Kevin has gone back to playing lawn bowls, and I am enjoying a little 'me time' when he does.  Twenty fours hours a day for weeks on end is a lot of togetherness.

We've been in the fortunate position in this town of having very few cases of the current plague with no new cases for two months now, so we're much better off in our smaller community that if we still lived in the Big Smoke.  Providing that things don't get much worse we are tentatively planning a trip to Canberra in September, nearly six months after we would have gone, but it is still tentative.  We won't be going to the folk festival north of here in October because sadly it isn't going to happen this year, and of course the festival at Easter had to be cancelled, but a break away would be nice.

"Requirements for a happy marriage.
Respect for each other is as necessary to a happy marriage as that the husband and wife should have an affection for one another.  Social equality, intellectual sympathy, and sufficient means are very important matters to be considered by those who contemplate matrimony."

I wonder if the writer of those words could anticipate the happy couple being shut up together for months on end?

Enjoy your days!

We're not locked in so tightly now

However I suspect the slight easing of restrictions won't make difference to us, we will still live a fairly circumspect life for a while yet.

Another little house is finished.

More are cut out, ready to be sewn.  This is going to be a very cheerful neighbourhood!

Finally bit the bullet and have started stitching down oak leaves.  The Cunning Plan was to - carefully - stitch around all those wiggly edges (erk) then stitch the veins, but some of the leaves weren't sticking down very well so I stitched the veins on one leaf before getting into the wiggly stuff.  Well, that is it.  Done.  There will be no more stitching on this leaf.  It's not going anywhere; the wind can blow all it likes but this leaf is staying on its branch.

The veins on several other leaves have been stitched since then and there are only a few more to go.  That will be enough to anchor them.

Did you know I own a tiara?

Way back when the internet was much younger than it is now I joined an online quilting group for Aussies and Kiwis.  The suggestion was made to have a get-together for a weekend, a few people put up their hands to organise it, and it happened.  It was such a success that the following year a group in another city put up their hands......and it has continued to this day, in a different city each time.  I have only been to one of those weekend retreats when it was held in the Big Smoke where we lived, but it was fun.  This year it had to be cancelled because of the current plague, but it still happened this weekend online - and what a hoot it has been.  In earlier years a few women decided to add a fun touch to the Saturday night dinner and wore tiaras; they ranged from a child's sparkly plastic tiara to bridal headwear and everything in between.  I bought this 15 years ago at a street market in a small town, it cost me all of $20......the woman from whom I bought it told me "that was my wedding tiara over 40 years ago.......it came all the way from Sydney, you know!"  These days that's less than a four hour trip, but back then it would have taken most of the day.

Kevin doesn't mind the odd drop or two of whisky from time to time, and when I saw the bag it seemed Just The Thing to store my tiara.  The pic was taken with lights off so you can see the design much better, it's not easy to photograph something so shiny and gleaming.

We all need some sparkly fun in our lives, don't we?  Mine is a tiara to wear to a quilting dinner, and it is also worn each year on the last night of the Easter folk festival.

"The full dinner dress.
The full dinner dress for guests admits of great splendor.  It may be of any thick texture of silk or velvet for winter, or light rich goods for summer, and should be long and sweeping.  Every trifle in a lady's costume should be, as far as she can afford it, faultless.  The fan should be perfect in its way, and the gloves should be quite fresh.  Diamonds are used in brooches, pendants, ear-rings and bracelets.  If artificial flowers are worn in the hair, they should be of the choicest description.  All the light neutral tints, and black, dark blue, purple, dark green, garnet, brown and fawn are suited for dinner wear."

There you have it.  I wonder if a rhinestone tiara would be acceptable?

Enjoy your days!

September in the rain

Wouldn't that make a good song title?  Oh, wait.......okay......

However it is September, and it has been raining, and many roads hereabouts are closed and the river which flows through town is flooded.  There was a flood a couple of months after we moved here, they happen every so many years; I can remember some really bad floods when I was a child.  We're surrounded by hills, so the river gets a lot of water coming down.

Meanwhile, here's some of our soggy garden.  Our lovely little plant had its name changed some years ago; it used to be called eriostemon myoporoides, but no sooner had I learned to pronounce it than some learned botanists put their heads together and decided it wasn't that at all, it was something else altogether.  It's apparently related to citrus, the leaves smell heavenly when rubbed as they have a lot of oil in them.

 Our somewhat pricey standard grevillea, which makes quite a statement in the front garden.

Hardenbergia, fortunately not the variety which takes over the universe......this one is more discreet.

 Another grevillea, 'Robyn Gordon' - birds love these flowers.

 As promised, the green chair.  It's more turquoise than green, and is so much prettier than when it was an old person's chair!

Don't worry about the mess in the background, I'm not the world's best housekeeper.  Just admire the chair.

Had a good time at the craft show last weekend, even though it was small.  I did buy some fabric for the next hand-pieced project which has started percolating in my brain; those Flower Basket blocks which have been 'on the go' for over ten years will soon be too unwieldy for a portable project, but my fingers will still need something to do.  After much deliberation and cogitation I decided to make a tumbler quilt using my stash of repro fabrics, some of which go back nigh on twenty years, but they needed more neutrals.  This morning I ordered a tumbler template online. and have been fondling my repro fabrics a few times to get acquainted with them.  At this stage I have no idea how big to make it, so I think I will just start sewing and take it from there.

The black and white blocks are coming along nicely.  The whole quilt may or may not be done for the Big Reveal at the end of November, but who's worried?  Not me......it will be done when it's done.

At the Annual General Meeting of our small but quite serious quilt group last year I put up my hand to be our Charity Quilt Co-Ordinator and so far my services haven't been needed.  Recently Madame Presidente contacted me about providing a design and block instructions, and much to my surprise she said she really liked my BOM (last month it was my turn to provide a BOM sample and instructions) so much that she would like our quilt for a Good Cause to use the same block design.  I had fun putting together a few layouts in EQ7, and the diagonal setting was a hands-down winner.  Her mantra is "it's gotta be BRIGHT......make it BRIGHT......it's not BRIGHT enough......" and, while I also like bright colours, there is a point when bright crosses over into garish.  Hopefully any somewhat quieter bright blocks will all play nicely with the louder bright blocks to make the cheerful quilt requested by a children's cancer organisation.

What is it with blokes and the TV remote?  Are they congenitally incapable of keeping their hands off the thing?  Even Euan, who won't turn two for another three months, keeps playing with theirs.  Obviously his grandfather's remote fiddling genes have passed to his father, who has passed them in turn to his son......it is so irritating when one is watching something and, as soon as an ad comes on, the household bloke starts scrolling through the alternatives.  Makes one think that the cultures who chop off a hand for certain misdeeds have the right idea, they could add TV remote fiddling to the list of crimes.

I bet the good folk of the 1880s would have had something to say in the etiquette book about fiddling with the TV remote when one's wife is watching a program.

"The true gentleman.
Politeness is benevolence in all things.  A true gentleman must regard the rights and feelings of others, even in matters the most trivial.  He respects the individuality of others, just as he wishes others to respect his own."

Doesn't that sound to you as though it means "keep your hands off the remote when your wife is watching her program"?  I don't change channels when he is watching sport, sport and more sport, much as I feel like doing so.

Enjoy your days!

Wet stuff is falling from the sky!

Could it be - rain?  Real actual rain?

It's been so long since we have seen decent rain that we may be forgiven for forgetting what it's like!

It's much colder too.  Summer has finally finished, the hottest and one of the driest summers on record, and autumn has been warmer than usual too.  However yesterday morning we had our first frost of the year, and the previous night we lit our first fire of the year, so there is hope that we may even see winter this year.  And hopefully more rain.

There may even be snow in the district.  Last year our neighbours took their children to see the snow about an hour south-east of here, and brought back a snowman on the back of their truck.

Their at-the-time three year old son had great fun running down their driveway and jumping onto the snowman over and over again......considering how badly it was treated, it lasted surprisingly well.

It looked a bit spooky at night, though.

No more finishes to report.  Some cutting-out has been happening in the sewing room but nothing is at the finished stage yet.  I've been looking for fancy zipper pulls for the bag shown in the last post but they have been hard to find - perhaps gussied-up zippers haven't made it as far as the Small Smoke yet?  This morning I called in at the big store which sells fabrics and craft crap and haberdashery and household linens and candles and all manner of things (Aussies will get the reference, the rest of you don't need to worry about it), checked out their beading section and, much to my surprise, found some charms in the right gold/bronze colour which will make suitable zipper pulls.  They and their additional findings have come home with me, so now my bag can be finished.  I didn't want to use it until it was complete, trims and all, because then it would never get done.

This Saturday is quilting group, and recently we were evicted from the venue which has been home, they tell me (because we didn't live here then), since 2000.  It is the textile/sewing room of a local high school; the teacher who uses it most has been trying to get rid of us for some time, and has finally succeeded.  We paid rent for the room so that is money the school now won't receive.  Fortunately a local quilt shop owner, a member of our group, has stepped in and offered one of her classrooms - but if the downstairs room is already in use, as it may be this weekend, we will be traipsing up and down stairs carrying our sewing machines and other requirements.  What fun.

One of the currently 'trending' news stories seems to be that a member of the British royal family has worn a suit to a garden party that she also wore to her child's christening.  How is this news?  Do they honestly think we care?  Because we don't.  I have enough trouble deciding which of my sumptuous creations is fit to be worn in public to worry about what someone on the far side of the known universe from here (both literally and metaphorically speaking) wears.

"Extravagance in dress.
Dress, to be in perfect taste, need not be costly.  It is unfortunate that in Australia too much attention is paid to dress by those who have neither the excuse of ample means nor of social culture.  The wife of a poorly paid clerk, or of a young man just starting in business, aims at dressing as stylishly as does the wealthiest among her acquaintances.  The sewing girl, the shop girl, the chambermaid, and even the cook, must have their elegantly trimmed silk dresses and expensive cloaks for Sunday and holiday wear, and the injury done by this state of things to the morals and manners of the poorer classes is incalculable."

Do you mean to say there may be some people in this world who care what rich people, half a world away and completely removed from their own humdrum lives, are wearing?

Enjoy your days!

Done!

The green top is finished!  It's a much prettier colour than this - green can be difficult to photograph well.

I wonder why this should be?  Greens in nature are easy to photograph, leaves, grasses, trees all look good - but for some reason, green fabrics look flat and dull.  This is somewhere between lime and olive.

The purple/blue passion jumper is coming on well, so far over 31cm - about 12 inches - of the back has been done.  The alpaca yarn is not bad to work with but the working edge curls like nothing I have ever experienced before, that could be because it's being knitted on a circular needle.  Ever since I discovered circulars over 20 years ago I don't knit with straight needles, circulars are so much easier on one's wrists and hands because the weight of the knitting is supported on one's lap rather on the wrists.

Winter has hit with a vengeance!  Mornings are now frosty and cold, water in the bird baths is so frozen that even a Pied Currawong missed out on its breakfast drink this morning, and the fire is burning day and night.  Frosty gardens make for a very pretty picture, but I'm not going outside in my jammies at 7 am to take a photo.

This morning I had an appointment way over on the southern edge of town - we live on the northern edge so it meant Crossing The River, something many locals seem to fear for some reason that escapes us - my knitting came along in case I had to wait, and I found out that the trip from here to there is long enough to knit two rows each way.  Another row or two while waiting made it a very productive trip!  Must get into the habit of taking the knitting every time we go somewhere.

Our trip to Canberra in a few weeks will mean even more knitting time because I can knit in the car.  I can also crochet without getting nauseous but can't sew or read; some folks can, but not me.

The uke group has another gig coming up in ten days for the women's organisation we played for recently.  We will part of a Musical Afternoon, doesn't that sound genteel?  There will be a men's choir from one of the local churches, a women's choir (the local chapter of an Australia-wide organisation), and us.  Perhaps we will be the comic relief.

In a couple of months the quilting group is having its annual weekend workshop with a visiting tutor, and this time I will be joining in.  She is making things difficult for us as she doesn't answer emails and her web page contacts don't include a phone number.  We would like to know fabric requirements in advance, I know most of us plan to use fabric from stash but in case there are any gaps we don't want to be forced into a last-minute spend.  Between now and our Canberra trip I will pull out fabrics I plan to use, any gaps can be filled from the shops there.  There are a few stash fabrics that I have in mind.......

"In receiving morning calls, it is unnecessary for a lady to lay aside any employment, not of an absorbing nature upon which she may happen to be engaged.  Embroidery, crocheting or light needle-work are perfectly in harmony with the requirements of the hour, and the lady looks much better employed than in absolute idleness."

My thoughts exactly.

Enjoy your days!

Sproing

Some people say that spring starts in Australia on the first of September.  When I was at school (a thousand years ago at least) we were taught that seasons start at the spring and autumn equinox and the winter and summer solstice, which is more like it......but then, who said that we only have to have four seasons?  Some countries have only two, wet and dry.  For many years Australian aborigines have held the belief that there are at least six seasons, based on animal movements and plant growth.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that, although this is the first week of September, it's not yet spring because just 40 minutes from here the best snow fall of the year happened only two days ago.

Here are some spring pictures from a few years ago, taken at a local park.

 A pretty Eremophilia or Emu Bush, an Aussie plant - native birds love them.

 Golden wattle.

 A quiet corner.

 A Grevillea, one with spiky leaves - and a spiky leafed Grevillea is a spiky thing indeed..

Should you wish to get married in this park, you can.

Have you all had a good week?  I have, albeit a rather busy one.  Last night three of us from the uke group performed at a concert at the music school where we have our weekly meetings, that was two other brave souls and me.  For various reasons we were the only ones from our group who had the evening free which was a shame, because the concert was performances by adult learners only - no children on stage or in the audience.  It's a lovely idea, and is apparently an annual event.  Adults start music lessons for various reasons, in my case I always wanted to learn as a child but the money wasn't there.  If I had been the boy I suspect my parents wanted I could have had free lessons with a local boys' club brass band as my brothers did, but alas.......no.  There was nothing similar for girls in those days, if you wanted to learn music you had to pay.

Tomorrow the uke group is playing at a wedding!  We have A Big Gig!!  We will be background music while the guests are enjoying canapés, and I hope to goodness there are more than three of us.  One of our tutors will be playing with us, and if we are lucky the bride will join us for a song - she is a great singer and a lovely young woman who loves the retro look of the 50s, and she will be a gorgeous bride.

The quilting on Maritime Beauty is all done and now it needs its edges trimmed and binding to be made and sewn on, but it has been put aside temporarily because more time is being spent on the uke this week.  There is also a block obligation to be met by Monday, so with a bit of luck it will be cut and sewn on Sunday......and if it isn't, why then, it won't get done, will it?  My quilt group meets twice a month, on a Saturday and on a Monday, and the Monday group is all fired up and gung-ho about making charity quilts.  I have missed so much sewing time this year due to my shoulder that I am not fired up at all, I would rather spend time on my own projects right now.  We take it in turns to 'win' the blocks of the month which are then made up into charity quilts, although it has been said that we don't have to do that if we don't want to - but I feel the pressure is on to do so.  This does not make me a happy little Vegemite, so I will think seriously about whether I will continue with the Monday group next year.  Perhaps I will bring it up on Monday, and see what happens.

Or perhaps I will be a coward, and not say anything.

"Unwise expression of opinion.
Another class of people, actuated by the best of intentions, seem to consider it a duty to parade their opinions upon all occasions and in all places, without reflecting that the highest truth will suffer from an unwise and over-zealous advocacy.  Civility requires that we give to the opinions of others the same toleration that we exact for our own, and good sense should cause us to remember that we are never likely to convert a person to our views when we begin by violating his notions of propriety and exciting his prejudices.  A silent advocate of a cause is always better than an indiscreet one."

Which is a nice way of saying, if someone else expresses an opinion, don't ride roughshod over it.

Enjoy your days!

Progress

On my first visit to the local library after we returned from our Easter trip to Canberra I was shocked, horrified and flabbergasted to find out that the library staff don't check one's books out for one any more, it is strictly self-service!  While I'm not frightened of doing so (over 30 years of my working life was spent in libraries) I don't like the idea of doing away with the friendly faces of the staff at the desk.  This morning I was lamenting that fact yet again to the solitary librarian who was hovering - there is usually one hovering - round the book checking computer, and he did agree.

That's progress.  We can accept it's here, but we don't have to like it.  All the local supermarkets have done away with several cashiers and replaced them with self-service checkouts too.  Even if I am buying only a few items I will wait in line and deal with a real person rather than a machine - because if shops and libraries decide that machines can do that job, there will be no real people left to deal with at all.

Last Sunday the local historical society held their annual history walk, taking in some of the area I remember as a child.  It was very interesting!  We found out snippets of very early history, and checked out the exteriors of some lovely old homes.  In the late 1800s-early 1900s there was a tannery, a skin buying business, and a soap factory all in fairly close proximity.......can you just imagine the smell?  On second thoughts, perhaps it's best not to......

Today is cool with a little drizzling rain; looking at the rain radar there is heavy rain to the north of us, and to the south of us, and there is a little clear patch over us.  So the mingy drizzle we are getting now may be all we are going to get, and we need rain quite badly  too.

 It was raining the day we visited Kincardine last October, too.

Overcast days make for photos with clear colours and no shadows, so the fall colours glow.

Kevin is now not wearing the sling for his shoulder and is steadily able to do more things, but hanging out washing is not one of them.  Neither is driving the car, although he can park it in the garage and bring it out on the driveway again.  So I let him do just that.  He can prepare vegetables and grill chops.  I let him do that, too.

After much pondering recently, I decided to resign from the post of newsletter editor for the Thursday quilt group and did so last week.  I have also decided not to renew my membership for that group when it comes due next month.  They are nice ladies, but I have realised it's not the group for me.  I go to quilt group to do just that, quilt, not to listen to a continuous litany about various members' (and their family's) ailments, illnesses and woes. It's quite depressing, and as one who has a tendency to gloominess anyway it's something I can do without.  After all, it's not as though I lack for something to do......there is still another quilt group, two choirs, ukulele group, the Sunday night radio program, and two volunteer 'jobs'.  And when I really feel the need for something to do, there is usually a floor waiting to be swept.......

"Be sympathetic and animated.
Do not go into society unless you make up your mind to be sympathetic, unselfish, animating, as well as animated.  Society does not require mirth, but it does demand cheerfulness and unselfishness, and you must help to make and sustain cheerful conversation.  The manner of conversation is as important as the matter."

Couldn't have put it better myself.

Now I shall take myself off to my sewing room and make a start on one of the many block obligations hanging over my head at present.

Enjoy your days!