Wombats are back!

This is a gorgeous wombat, is it not? Sally sent me this lovely bag all the way from Missouri and I love it. Embroidered wombat, pretty leafy fabric (lurve that fabric) and it has mesh sides too. I'm thinking it will be just the right size to go to quilt group with me tomorrow, to hold my lunch and a few other things. So far I have been to the Thursday quilt group, and another group which meets at different times.
Before we moved house Debbie sent me a PIF gift, part of which was a kit to make this splendid pincushion. The kit came all the way from The Quilt Patch in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, to Debbie in Alberta, and then halfway across the world to me, which I think is rather cool. I started it while we were still in Sydney, then it came to a halt during the move, and I finished it a few days ago. It's made of three little pillows in graduated sizes stacked on top of each other and tied with a pretty ribbon, and is a good idea because one can use it for pins of different sizes and types. I have quite a lot of pins......flower pins for quilting, pins for jersey fabrics, fine pins for lace fabrics, glass-headed pins, and just plain pins, so it will be very handy. The fabrics are a lovely fruity purple - think of plums or grapes - and are printed with fruit, so it is a lovely addition to my sewing table.

Speaking of rather cool, today has been! We are fast descending into winter now. The sun doesn't peep into our kitchen until 8am these days, when we moved here (a month ago already) it was just after 7.30am. This morning the reserve over the back fence was quite white with frost. I have been busy today so haven't really felt too cold, but by gosh it doesn't take long to cool down when you stop being busy. We had some rain last week and the visiting kangaroos didn't seem to mind it at all, but we haven't seen them for a few days because there have been three horses grazing (and leaving their calling cards which are probably good for the garden) and apparently roos don't like horses. Our two cats saw the horses through the large window at the back of the house, the horses were fairly close to the fence.......the kitties looked appalled.......then Binky the Brave turned tail and ran for shelter. I don't think they have had anything so huge in their little lives before. Bianca the Slightly Braver stood her ground for a while longer then she, too, quietly disappeared.

We are slowly settling into our new house. Nearly all the boxes have been unpacked, there are still two boxes of CDs remaining and a couple more boxes with stuff like Christmas decorations which we certainly didn't rush to unpack. Christmas comes soon enough without getting decorations out early! The dining room table still has quite a lot of things to be put away, and so does the desk in my sewing room. But we are slowly clearing those surfaces. We will need the table next weekend as our older son and his girlfriend are coming to visit, the little card table we have been using in the other dining space is barely big enough for two people let alone four.

This afternoon I layered and pinned the table runner I made from some of the pretty fabric I won earlier this year in Tammy's giveaway, I'm thinking it will look really good when it's on the table, it's cheerful and bright in red, pink, brown and white with lots of dots, hearts and curls. I found the perfect backing fabric, a tiny red dot on cream, one of Robyn Pandolph's fabrics. Haven't really done much sewing since we moved here as the unpacking has really consumed our time, and also getting other things we needed for the house, but never mind - I will get back to it. I had a dose of the guilts when I sewed because I thought I should be unpacking and sorting, but I have moved on past than now.

"Keep yourself quiet and composed under all circumstances. Do not get fidgety. If you feel that time drags heavily, do not let this be apparent to others by any visible sign of uneasiness."

Have a lovely week!

Jennifer

You can all stop looking now.........

..........the sewing machine feet have turned up. While I knew they would eventually it is still a great relief, Bernina feet are expensive and I have several, and a walking foot too. The little tin was in a box marked "sewing rm bks". There were perhaps a dozen magazines in the bottom of the box but definitely - no books. Each new box we unpack is a great adventure because the contents inside often don't quite match the writing on the outside. You can tell the packing and labelling was done by blokes.........

I am greatly relieved.

Jennifer

Still haven't found that little tin of feet

This is our view from our back verandah/patio/whatever you like to call it.....we call it the beer garden. The outdoor area of Aussie pubs is called 'the beer garden', and the name appeals to us. So far I have drunk plain water or coffee in the beer garden, but come summertime it might be a different story. But whatever name it's given, it is a very pleasant place to sit and watch the view. These pics were also taken when we first viewed the house and the garden wore its summer colours.
Welcome......should have put the pics the other way round, shouldn't I? Never mind. As you can see the windows are fairly low to the ground, which pleases the cats no end. An inside window sill is a wonderful perch for a kitty to watch what is happening in the street. Not much happens actually, it's a quiet street, but occasionally a bus drives by, or the cat from next door strolls across the road, or the dog opposite says woof. No doubt that is interesting if you are a cat.

This morning we had 14 or 15 Rainbow Lorikeets in the small tree in our back yard. It is deciduous and has lost nearly all its leaves now, the ground underneath is a carpet of gold. Bianca the Beautiful has been watching the leaves fall, and finds it very exciting. I suppose if one is an inside cat one has to take one's pleasures where one can. After the lorikeets had chomped on the leaves for a few minutes one of them must have given a signal because they all flew up and off together. And I missed the mob of kangaroos this morning, Kevin said there were six or seven coming out of the mist (it was very foggy) and they came closer to the house than the last mob we saw. He turned away for a second and when he looked back they had hopped back into the mist again.

Today I called in at a local quilt group and was made very welcome, so next Thursday I shall go along. Don't know how I will find it as I'm a fairly solitary person, but I will give it a go. I used to be a member of a group and found the constant pressure to have work for 'show and tell' each month was too much, I didn't measure up to the expectation of exquisite applique and a prodigious output, so after several years I gradually fizzled away.

There are still several boxes marked "sewing rm" and I am sure that the little tin of sewing machine feet will be right at the bottom of the last one I open - what's the bet? I have sewn the top of a table runner together but need the walking and quilting feet to go further, so it will have to wait until I find them.

But the etiquette book has turned up! As we are heading into winter here, this may be timely.

"Coughing, sneezing, etc.
Coughing, sneezing, clearing the throat, etc., if done at all, must be done as quietly as possible. Snuffing, hawking and expectorating must never be done in society. A sneeze can be checked by pressing the thumb or finger firmly across the bridge of the nose. If not checked, the face should be buried in the handkerchief, during the act of sneezing, for obvious reasons."

The punctuation and spelling in these quotes are as they appear in the book. The folk of 1885 were fond of the comma, weren't they?

Enjoy your days!

Jennifer

The life is wild here

Another view over the back fence, just as the light was fading for the day. Just past the line of slightly longer grass in the distance is where we have occasionally seen a small mob of kangaroos.
An occasional visitor! This is an Eastern Rosella and, wish as I may, the little blighter would not turn side-on to the camera so I could photograph his/her glorious colours. So you will have to make do with a back view, but if you click on the pic to enlarge it you can see the colours a little closer. Red head, yellow and black back feathers, green under the wings, and a blue chest which you can't see.
I don't think these alpacas are wild, aren't they gorgeous? Mum and offspring I think, with a white friend just poking its nose in too. One of the pics I took on our visit to the alpaca farm a couple of weeks ago. They all had eyelashes to die for. I have never had lashes like theirs.......it's not fair, is it?

Today a wallaby visited the reserve in the middle of the day - just one on its own. I didn't take a picture because it was a bit far away for a clear photo, it would have looked like a rock in the grass.

The unpacking is continuing. All the furniture is in place in all the rooms, even the cupboards have been moved into my sewing room. Kevin found that, if he took off the doors and removed the shelves, that the outer shell wasn't very difficult to move, so he did. Then he reassembled the cupboards and I am slowly filling them. Eventually the wombats will be unpacked too, so we will be able to go back to having a wombat each week until all have had their turn on the blog. Unpacking is made more interesting by the fact that the written label on a box doesn't always bear any resemblance to what is actually in the box.

The table runner that I am making is also proceeding, all the blocks have been made and pinned into rows. It is looking very pretty! Hopefully tomorrow the rows may be constructed, in between going to the library and unpacking a little more. Perhaps I will find the little tin box of sewing machine feet........and my etiquette book........

Have a lovely week!

Jennifer

The view outside

This is a small part of the view over (and of!) our back fence looking north I think, or perhaps slightly north-east. The grass isn't quite that green now as it's browning off for winter, I took this pic when we first viewed the house in early March. But the trees are still there, and we never tire of just looking at the trees and the birds. This morning I saw a couple of King Parrots in the trees slightly to the left of this view, those trees are fairly close to our fence and are a popular resting place for a variety of birds. The parrots were chattering away while I was hanging out the washing - then off they flew, to the trees in the distance. I have the door onto the outdoor patio open at present and the birds almost sound as though they are in the room with me.

And you can all stop panicking, My Lovely New Bernina has been found and is set up for sewing. But the tin containing the different feet is obviously at the bottom of a large box, because it hasn't surfaced yet. Foot no. 1 is wider than a quarter inch so I have stuck a strip of tape on the machine bed to make a seam guide, because.......I have started to sew! I have started on a table runner from some very pretty fabric that I won in Tammy's giveaway earlier this year and cut out before we moved. The ' Woven Squares Table Runner' pattern is from "Fat Quarter Frenzy" by Susan Purney-Mark and Daphne Grieg, fabric colours are creamy white with pink, red and brown - I'm hoping it will look very flash on the new table that we ordered a few days ago.

At this stage I don't think I can unpack any more boxes marked "sewing rm misc" or "sewing rm materials", because I need a couple of cupboards moved into what is to be my other sewing room - the smaller room is good for sewing because it has a large window and is bright, but it is too small for storage as well. So cupboards, shelf units and a desk will go into the fourth bedroom (because I doubt that we will ever need all those bedrooms) which also means that the smaller room will not be too cluttered. Mess is the enemy of creativity, I have decided - one takes a look at the untidyness, and making sense of it all becomes too much, so one just walks away without having sewn a stitch or knitted a row. So this move is giving me a chance to organise my creative space for the better, I hope.

Speaking of knitting, the cardy that I made twice is sewn up and being worn, it is slightly loose around the shoulders but that means more room for layers underneath. Unfortunately the remade sleeves are a bit too long and I am blowed if I am going to unpick it yet again, so I have turned them back to form cuffs. It is quite warm because of the wide sailor collar adding another layer over my shoulders and back, even if the width of the collar makes me look as though I am rather enormous. But you know, it's so warm that I don't care.

All this unpacking and putting away has made my wrist a wee bit sore so I have gone back to doing the exercises prescribed by the physio after the plaster was removed late last year. I've only been doing them for a couple of days and can already notice the difference. I have also started wearing a wrist brace when I am moving and unpacking boxes - I'm trying not to lift anything too heavy and it's usually possible to slide boxes instead of lifting them. After the plaster came off I had to wear the brace for a while for support, and while the physio said it's best not to use it for too long - it is certainly helping at present. And it's a temporary thing, because once the boxes have been unpacked and removed I won't need it.

Once again I apologise, but the etiquette book still hasn't been unpacked, because not all the bookshelves are in their final positions. So talk nicely to each other, and be kind to the people you meet, and just pretend those wise words came from the etiquette book instead of my head.

Now I am going to sew another stitch or two......I am enjoying it very much!

Jennifer

We are online again!

This is the view we have each time we step outside our new front door....it goes on forever! But it's not so sunny today, we could get rain later. Yes, that is a bus stop right across the road, very handy.

Yesterday we found the box containing all the computer bits so we are now connected to the world again. That means I can keep up with my favourite blogs once more, I have missed you all.

We are slowly unpacking and deciding where things are to go. When the furniture was delivered we could only say "put that one here......and this one there" as we weren't sure what was going in which room. Now that we have been here for ten days we have more of an idea where shelf units and cupboards need to go. No doubt there will be a local handyman who can help two Olde Phartes organise their lovely new home.

My new sewing room has a window looking up the hill to the trees - no other houses in sight, just natural bush. We can see neighbouring houses when we are outside, but not when we are inside looking out.

The kitchen is unpacked and organised, and we have unpacked our clothes. So we have food to eat, and clothes to cover our nakedness! Today I unpacked my Singer Featherweight machine but I haven't yet come across My Lovely New Bernina, although the extension bed, cords and foot pedal were in the box with the Featherweight and sewing desk lamp. Every box unpacked is a voyage of discovery........haven't found my etiquette book either, so unfortunately there will be no quote today. The wombats that have been unpacked so far have already had their turn as wombats of the week, but don't worry - there are more still hiding in boxes. Unpacking and organising my sewing space will be a big job but one I am looking forward to doing, because then I will be able to sew again.

Have a lovely week, I am going to look in another box to see what is lurking!

Jennifer

Update on unpacking

Thank goodness for the local library, which is where I am again today! We haven't yet unpacked the computer modem and cables as we don't know which box they are in. Last week Kevin was packing all the computer'stuff', he turned away for a second......and when he turned back, the box he was using had been taken, filled with something else, sealed and stacked with the other boxes. (don't you just love blokes.....) The packers wrote the name of the room on the outside of boxes as they packed them, but not a description of the contents. Never mind, it will be found eventually; meanwhile each new box we unpack is a voyage of discovery.

This morning when we were having breakfast some kangaroos hopped out of the trees at the back of the reserve, so now we really know that we are in the country! The other day an Eastern Rosella - a lovely parrot with vivid red, green, blue colours - was ambling around on the grass just over our fence but the camera battery was flat, as I discovered when I tried to take a picture. Bummer. Hopefully it will like that piece of ground and come back. Meanwhile the kitties are looking wide-eyed at the reserve and the birds......I would love to see the look on their little faces if a kangaroo came close.......

Now I must go because my booking time is limited, but I will keep you updated as and when I can. And who knows, perhaps we will fnd the modem before too long!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Jennifer