A foggy day.....in the Small Smoke......

Not quite as good as the original song!  The Small Smoke was enveloped, as they say (love those media clichés, don't you?) in heavy fog this morning, and it didn't lift until midday or so.  Usually fog burns off as the sun rises, but not today.  Our view up the hill looking slightly right:

 Looking left:

 Getting artistic here, taking in some of our garden as well as the hill:

Shame about the unlovely wire fence, but as the view is focused on it disappears from one's vision.

Out the front we could see the houses across the road - just - but nothing beyond them.  No glorious view of the valley, no distant hills, nothing.  Just wet misty whiteness.

One pink wall has gone gone gone!  The wall behind the computer desk, the largest of the pink walls, is now buttery cream......and it looks good enough to eat.  The entrance hall is now being done (Kevin is wielding roller and applying undercoat as we speak) and, with the removal of so much pink, the whole colour of the house is changing.  With the exception of doors and windows every wall in the almost-square entrance hall was pink, so as one entered the house one felt as though one was being gobbled up by a rose.  At night with the lights on it was even more noticeable.  Once the hall is done there is only one small pink wall remaining; once that is repainted all other walls, currently a darker cream than our chosen colour, will be painted to match.

I, for one, am looking forward to that!

Because life has been somewhat hectic lately the gorgeous autumn-toned variegated thread bought to quilt the maple leaf table runner hasn't even been wound onto a bobbin.  There might be a chance tomorrow......there's a possible small window of opportunity which is looking hopeful......all has not been completely untouched in the sewing room, however, as the ten black and white Winding Ways blocks which were cut out have been made up.  They, together with the 23 previously made, are reposing on the design wall, i.e. the spare bed.  It is looking good so far, she says modestly.  That quilt was to have 49 blocks set seven across by seven down and no borders, but now my mind is leaning towards a light (black on white) inner border then a dark (white on black) outer border.  It would mean purchasing fabric though and I am trying to just use what is in my stash apart from buying backing so we shall see........decisions, decisions......at least the binding fabric has been selected, an uneven black and white plaid which will be cut on the bias.

Making a completely colourless quilt is a departure from my usual cheerful choices.  It has been said that "value does the work but colour gets the credit" so here is my chance to prove it.  Some of my fabrics are dark when paired with lighter fabrics but lighter when paired with something darker so the interlocking circles of the design keep changing direction or disappearing, only to re-emerge somewhere else on the quilt.

That sounds as though I know what I'm talking about, doesn't it?

Don't be fooled.  I really haven't a clue.

"The importance of trifles"
Some people are wont to depreciate kind and tender qualities as trifles; but trifles, it must be remembered, make up the aggregate of human life.  The petty incivilities, slight rudenesses and neglects of which men are guilty, without thought, or from lack of foresight or sympathy, are often remembered, while the great acts performed by the same person are often forgotten."

Sadly, that is true.  How often we fasten on the negative, to the detriment of something more joyful and positive.

Enjoy your days!

To my Canadian family and friends.......

.......best wishes for Canada Day!

It is really, really cold today

It was really, really cold yesterday too.  Barely an hour here from here it's been snowing all day, and pictures posted on a local facebook weather page are quite amazing.  For generations people have been coming to Australia for warm weather and sunshine......they won't find any here today, we haven't even made double figures in celsius temperatures.

These pictures were taken at Hanging Rock, about one hour's drive south-east of here, a few years ago.  Today's snow falls are much deeper.

 Warnings are out to avoid the area completely.  Road conditions are quite dangerous, and even 4WD vehicles are not recommended along many roads unless they have chains.

While I realise that quite a lot of the world sees much more snow than we do, it's quite a novelty for us!  The Small Smoke is in a valley so it's the higher country an hour to the south, east and north of us, and also a few hours west, which is getting its coating of white.  Snow has fallen here occasionally but usually it melts on the way down; the last decent recorded snowfall here was, apparently, in 1984.

It makes for good staying-indoors-and-sewing-or-cooking-or-reading-or-just-veging-out weather, which is what we're doing right now.  Kevin is reading, and I have just taken a cake out of the oven - a pumpkin spice cake with streusel topping, which we will try for dessert tonight.

Last week I ordered some Aurifil thread in variegated autumn colours to quilt the maple leaf runner, and it arrived on Friday......it is gorgeous, yummy enough to eat.  There are ten Winding Ways blocks cut out ready to be assembled, they might be done first then the runner will be quilted.  After that, those Winding Ways blocks had better be prioritised if the challenge quilt is to be done for later this year - that will be one UFO out of the way, when it's done.

On Friday night the uke group made its premiere inaugural first-ever debut playing in the local Eisteddfod and while we didn't win, we had fun.  Now that we know what to expect, we will back next year.  The audience seemed to enjoy our playing and singing, and one comment by the judge was that we blended well - that's good, it means no one stood out as, except for my playing of the introduction, there were no solos.  We even had people singing along with us, and several people came up to us afterwards to say how much they enjoyed our performance.

Who knows, we might yet become rich and famous.......in our dreams, I suspect......

Removal of the wallpaper cornice is proceeding nicely.  The corner near the fire will have to wait until the end of winter, for safety reasons - the fire can get quite hot - but nearly all the rest is done.  Even without the walls being re-painted the lack of floral borders really opens them up, they look so much less cluttered already.  The new wall colour will be a pale buttery cream.

"Here is the test of true ladyhood.  Whenever the young find themselves in the company of those who do not make them feel at ease, they should know they are not in the society of true ladies and true gentlemen, but of pretenders; that well-bred men and women can only feel at home in the society of the well-bred."

Indeed.  Like attracts like, it is said.

Enjoy your days!

Welcome to the weekend

It's a long weekend, which makes it even better!  Even though we've been retired for several years a long weekend is still exciting.

The big news here is - the pink walls seen in this picture are finally going.  (That's not a real orchid you know, it's a gen-u-ine imitation)  It will be a little while yet until they are gone, but the process has started.  There is something like 4,000 metres of pink and blue floral wallpaper cornice border around the walls of the entrance hall, kitchen, large family room and hallway leading to the bedrooms......all right, perhaps 4,000 metres is an exaggeration but there is still an awful lot, awful being the word, it's probably quite all right if you like pink, which I don't......and all walls of the entrance hall plus two 'feature' walls in the family room are also painted pink from floor to floral border.  For six years - yes indeed folks, it's six years last month since we moved here - I have been looking at those pink walls and wishing them gone.  Kevin has started scraping off the border first, a tedious job but one recommended by the nice young bloke at a local paint shop who said painting over the border would not be a Good Idea.  (I also suggested it but I'm not a paint shop bloke, so what do I know?)  It's a lot of painting to do so getting it done will be like eating an elephant, one bite at a time.....or in this case, one wall at a time.

A teaser of my table runner.  These are more my colour choices than pink is.

The wadding has been purchased, and once a couple of small obligations are out of the way it will be next.  Every time we use it we will be reminded us of fall in Ontario.The background fabric was purchased locally and compliments the autumn prints well, I think.

Autumn colours around town are looking good now that colder weather has arrived.  While our autumn/winter season is nothing like that experienced in some parts of the world, it's cool enough for us......and for local plants too, it seems.

You will be pleased to hear that the uke hasn't been so neglected this week, and the uke is hopefully happy about that too!  All together now, Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you......

Column inches have been written here lately about the current habit of people calling each other "guys".  I don't like being addressed as "guy"; I know it has crept into the language, and while I accept that change is happening around me all the time, I don't have to like those changes.  For instance, when Kevin and I enter a shop I don't like the sales person approaching us saying "Hi, guys".  I'm old.  It's not my word.  One meaning of "guy" dating from the 1830s is a grotesquely or strangely dressed person, and it is used thus in "The Mikado" written in 1884-5 - "And the lady from the provinces who dresses like a guy, who doesn't think she dances but would rather like to try".

Perhaps they aren't greeting us at all, but are passing comment on how we are dressed?

Oh dear......that makes it even worse.

"Good manners are only acquired by education and observation, followed up by habitual practice at home and in society, and good manners reveal to us the lady and the gentleman.  He who does not possess them, though he bear the highest title of nobility, cannot expect to be called a gentleman; nor can a woman, without good manners, aspire to be considered a lady by ladies.

Just remember those words when you are next in the company of other ladies.

Enjoy your days!

Good weather for staying indoors

Yesterday it rained.....and rained......and rained some more.  We had more rain in one day than the June average, so that's something to be cheerful about!  It was a good day for being inside and reading, and sewing, and just doing nothing much at all.

Some work was done on the latest project, a maple leaf table runner.  I am pleased with it, haven't taken any pics yet but will do so this week.  The print fabrics were gorgeous autumn leaf print fabrics, Canadian souvenirs bought at The Cottage Quilter.......what a lovely place to live and work, on Shady Lane beside Lake Nosbonsing.

Showing my age here, but who else remembers "The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane" sung by The Ames Brothers?  That's a trip down memory lane (hah!) for you all, I bet you'll start singing it any minute now......

Probably should get on with some knitting too.  The current project, Dragonfly Wings lace scarf, has been ongoing for some time because I am finding it difficult to get enthused about more than 200 stitches on the needle at once.  Never mind, the stocking stitch bit is nearly all done then hopefully the lace stitch border won't take long, even though there will be something horrendous like 273 or more stitches to keep track of.  And beads.  I have never knitted with beads before.  Even though I started knitting as a child and over the ensuing umpteen years have knitted countless garments, knitting with beads will be a new experience.  If it all becomes too much, you may even hear me yell from your place.

My poor uke has been sadly neglected of late but the uke group is entered in the Mature Age section of our local eisteddfod in a few weeks, so some practice would be a Good Thing, yes?  Each contestant is only allowed one piece with a time limit of five minutes from the first note being played (time spent setting up stands and chairs is not counted) and our teacher reckons we play "Dream a Little Dream of Me" well enough to inflict it on the paying public.  Last year we vaguely talked about entering but no one did anything about it, so this year I entered us then told the group we were in it.

Some more memories of our recent holiday:  did you know we have volcanoes in Australia?  According to reports, some are overdue to erupt; now that could be interesting.  You can read about them here.

 It doesn't look like much, but this paddock was once a volcano.

 I wonder if this rock was thrown in an eruption, or if someone picked it up and moved it?  That would be quite a job......it was fairly large.

Many years ago while touring in south-western Victoria we visited Tower Hill, an inactive - but not extinct! - volcano not far from Harman's Lookout.  Tower Hill crater is now a lake with a wildlife reserve on the shores and the day we visited there were many emus roaming around.  If the humans didn't bother them, they didn't bother the humans.  However one silly man, one of a tour group visiting from overseas, kept holding out his lunch sandwich to an emu then snatching it away just as the bird went to take it.  He thought it was hilarious - but the emu didn't, so next time the man pulled his lunch back the emu followed through and went to grab it.  The man wasn't having that so he turned to walk away, and the emu followed......the man started running, the emu kept following......the man was jumping, dancing and running to get away from the emu while it was having a great time chasing him.  The man's companions were laughing too much to go to his aid, and Kevin and I laughed too.  Eventually the emu tired of its game and walked away - and, hopefully, that bloke will think twice in future before teasing a wild creature.

"Can any one fancy what our society might be, if all its members were perfect gentlemen and true ladies, if all the inhabitants of the earth were kind-hearted; if, instead of contending with the faults of our fellows, we were each to wage war against our own faults?  Every one needs to guard constantly against the evil from within as well as from without, for, as has been truly said, "a man's greatest foe dwells in his own heart.""

Perhaps the bloke could have saved himself much angst if he had been kind-hearted enough to share his lunch sandwich with that emu, instead of using it to tease the poor bird.

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!

A pair of gallivanters are we

We have been out and about this week, it's a change to be home this afternoon.

Last Wednesday night we attended a performance of "Mary Poppins" by our local musical society, and what a wonderful show it was!  Amazing cast, the costumes and scenery were very well done, and the musicians were excellent.  No one connected with the show was paid......it's a completely amateur society......but there was nothing amateurish about it.  The musical society put on its first performance in 1888 and has been going strong ever since, with interruptions for two world wars and the coming of television when people preferred to stay in rather than go out to a show until the novelty of TV wore off, but it has always bounced back better than ever.  Way way back, a very long time ago last century when I was but a mere teenager, I was in the chorus of "Annie Get Your Gun" and it was great fun too.  I was also going to be in the chorus of "Kiss Me, Kate" but sadly couldn't make it, although I did attend rehearsals for a while and can still sing the songs.

Monday afternoon we took ourselves off to the movies to see "Florence Foster Jenkins" - my heavens, talk about going from the sublime to the gor blimey in just a few days.  Mrs Jenkins loved to sing, but unfortunately she was no singer.  She is quoted as saying "People said I couldn't sing......but no one could say I didn't sing"!    Her dream was to sing and perform, and she was wealthy enough to make her dream happen.

Friday saw us taking a trip to a town an hour north to visit their excellent museum, and last night the museum director was guest speaker at our historical society.  He certainly gave our members food for thought.

Of course there was Thursday night choir, and Tuesday night ukulele, and yesterday sewing guild......just as well we're retired so we can fit in all this socialising, isn't it?

On Thursday night after choir I was driving home up our street which winds along the side of a hill, came round a sweeping right-hand bend, and there in the middle of the road was a kangaroo looking at me.  Aussies know that hitting a roo is to be avoided at all costs (your car will come off second best, you may be injured and it doesn't do the roo much good either) so I stopped.  It turned and hopped slowly up the street, I followed very steadily.......it hopped onto the grass verge at the side, I stayed on the road, I'm not silly you know......it turned onto the driveway of the house two doors up from us and watched me drive past.  That's as close as I wish to get to one of our national symbols, folks......even though they make very good eating.

This is the view from my sewing room.  We often see kangaroos grazing and hopping around up there on the hill.  There's also the wash line and garden shed, but hey......they have to go somewhere.

 Little did we realise, when we lived in the Big Smoke, that we would see wildlife outside our windows!

My bag is done.  I love the fabrics, the kit was bought last October at the Creativ Festival in Toronto from Flare Fabrics.

 The front has a zipper pocket, and behind the brown band is another deep pocket.

 The back also has pockets, one big one stitched down the middle to make two smaller ones.  Inside didn't photograph well, but it also has two smaller pockets; the top is closed with a zipper so nothing can fall out.  I wear a lot of blue and green, and blue/green (and green/blue too, would you believe?) so this will be very handy.

Another purchase at the Creativ Festival was yarn by Fleece Artists, deep rich orange for autumn.

It's sock yarn but is much too pretty to hide away inside shoes, so was made up using the Noro Bias Lace Scarf pattern on Ravelry.  I can recommend it as a quick, easy - but very effective - knit.  When winter eventually arrives here (it's being a bit tardy this year, but at least temperatures have finally cooled down from summer) a warm scarf will be handy.

"A hunting sport, which is essentially Australian, is called "Kangarooing", and is often indulged in by both ladies and gentlemen.  In the country districts of the colonies, wherever kangaroo are to be found, they afford most excellent sport to the lovers of the chase."

The good folk of 1885 were a hardy lot, weren't they?  Chasing a roo on horseback couldn't possibly compare to following it in an air-conditioned car with heated seats.

Enjoy your days!