We have had precipitation!

Some rain has fallen from the sky this week, enough to put a little - very little - green on the hill behind us, such a change from the dry dead brown it has been for a few months.  Forecasts are a bit optimistic so hopefully there will be more to come.  Fingers, toes and everything else which can be crossed are crossed.

A little cutting out (easily my least favourite part of sewing) has happened.

 The rainbow fabrics will be part of a kaleidoscope quilt, the idea of which was born at a workshop a couple of years ago.  Like many projects, it has been languishing because of having to put the house back together after two floods in 2017.......but it is getting closer.  Now to cut several hundred pieces (!) of black and white prints.

A while ago I laid out some of the tumblers to see how they looked.  Not bad, I thought to myself, fan-freakin'-tastic actually, whether sideways......

 or upsie-downsies.  They were first sewn together in pairs, a lighter fabric to a darker fabric, taking no notice whatsoever at all of colours, except to not join two greens, two reds, etc.  Currently the pairs are being joined into fours, each and every stitch by hand.

Several of the fabrics are stripes or directional prints so they were cut both horizontally and vertically for variety, and absolutely none - not one fabric - was fussy cut.  If the cut went through a flower bouquet that didn't matter, I didn't want it to look planned to within an inch of its life.  Some folk just can't do random......I have no problem with it.  (not sure what that says about me......)  Some of these prints have been in my stash for nigh on 20 years or so, some are much newer, while just a few light gold fabrics were specially bought for this project to add variety.

Those tumblers had a lovely time traipsing around Canada with us last year, and in a few weeks they will be heading south to Canberra to enjoy a folk festival and some autumn colours.  This is going to be a well-travelled quilt by the time it's done.  Perhaps it should be called Travelling Tumbleweeds.

This morning's uke gig at a local monthly church market went very well.  We enjoy playing for them, they are really nice folk, and they love having us.  We will play again in late May as not everyone in the group can commit to a monthly gig; we were missing a few people this morning, but it's amazing how good just five people can sound when they put their minds to it.

Last weekend we took a Nice Sunday Drive - on Sunday! - so I could take in a quilt show at a town north of here.  Their show is annual, never huge but with some really nice quilts, and although I don't get every year I enjoy it when I do.

Big day during the week, our anniversary on Tuesday......43 years......that is a long time, you know.  Here's a chuckle for you; Kevin was wondering what the traditional gift is for 45 years (I like a bloke who is organised and thinks ahead, don't you?) so I just looked it up, and the answer is sapphire.  The list also says the traditional gift for 90 years married is engraved marble or granite.  Well yes, I suppose it would be......

"Courtship and marriage.
The correct behavior of young men toward young ladies, and of young ladies toward young men during that portion of their lives when they are respectively paying attention to, and receiving attention from, one another, is a matter which requires consideration in a work of this nature."

The book then goes on to give points of etiquette in various aspects of behaviour during one's courtship, engagement and marriage, useful knowledge for most of us, I would imagine.

Enjoy your days!

In which nary a stitch has been sewn

Do you ever have those weeks where you seem to be busy-busy-busy but at the end of the week there doesn't seem to be anything to show for it?  That's been me, this week.  Quite a bit of it has been taken up with musical stuff; we played yesterday afternoon at a 90th birthday party for the mother of one of our uke group members, and she loved it.  We wanted to do a good job so that meant making time for practice and playing during the week, but that's all right.  Playing music is never a chore.....just as well, because we have another gig in two weeks.

Consequently there are no new pics this week, but I can entertain you with a few more pics (oh no, not more, I hear you groaning) from last year's Canadian holiday.......some birds we don't have here in Australia, including a not-very-good shot of a snowy owl.  It's difficult to do justice to a white feathery blob on a dark background!  However it's an amazing bird, and I am so glad we had the chance to see one even in captivity.  I would love to see a snowy owl in flight.

Our friends took us to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre - I am trying to link the address but the interwebz tells me it isn't a safe site (although I don't know why), so you will need to do your own search.  It's a very interesting place, just the same.

 The inscrutable snowy owl......

 .....and her information board.  All birds had one of these.

 When this feller scrolls around on the computer we can't help smiling.....he's quite large, and that face!

 He can't be released because he has a damaged wing following a collision with a car.

We do have owls in Australia......but not these ones. 

It's still fairly warm here, but the edge seems to have finally gone from the heat.  We have been noticing colour changes on trees - not autumn foliage yet, it's a bit too soon, but the bright colours are fading.  Could just be heat stress, too......we're all stressed after the summer we have just lived through......it would also be nice to wear something different, we seem to have been wearing the same clothes for ages.  Soon it will be time to dig to the bottom of the pile and see what wonders haven't been worn for a while.

"The girl who has so educated and regulated her intellect, her tastes, her emotions and moral sense, as to be able to discern the true from the false, will be ready for the faithful performance of whatever work in life is allotted to her; while she who is allowed to grow up ignorant, idle, vain, frivolous, will find herself fitted for no state of existence, and in after years, with feelings of remorse and despair over a wasted life, may cast reproach upon those in whose trust was reposed her early education."

There has been much media coverage of women's issues over the past few days, so this quote seems apt.

Enjoy your days!

That's another month gone.......

Do you ever feel that your life is flashing by your eyes while you sit back and watch?  Whoever said time goes faster as we get older was onto something, I reckon.

Stitches were taken the other day in the sewing room and two blocks were made.

 Our quilt group was asked to make a six inch (six and a half inches all up) block in pretty pastel fabrics which will be made into a quilt to be given to Margaret W, whose husband recently died.  I couldn't decide between the blue or the green, so made them both.  They have been pressed although they don't look like it; I will whack them with a bit of starch and press them again before they are handed over.

At the start of the year I decided that the centrepiece on our dining room table would be changed at the start of each month, so this is March......a little touch of green.  The mat seems to be machine embroidered and belonged to Kevin's mother;  I suspect it is Irish linen.  The bowl belonged to my mother, it's the only green bowl I own.

There seems to have been a fashion many years ago for table ware made to look like leaves.  This one was made by Royal Winton but I have no idea how old it is.  To me it has a look of the 1930s-1940s about it, perhaps it was a wedding present when my parents married in 1946.

Digging way back in my memory there was another green leaf bowl, a larger one.  When my younger brother John and I were small - I was four, so John would have been three, Ian was only a baby so was too small to get up to any mischief - we were swinging on the bottom doors of the old fashioned dresser cupboard in our parents' kitchen.  Even though we were only little kids we managed to pull it over on top of ourselves, I can still remember being trapped by my tartan skirt.  Of course my parents, being careful young folk with not much money to spare, kept special pieces on the higher shelves which meant they fell further........and broke, including the larger green bowl.  My mother was in the back yard hanging out washing, heard the crash and came running to see what had happened.  She told me later she didn't know whether to kiss us, or kill us.

In The Great Flood of October 2017 anything and everything on the floor in every room was damaged.  In my sewing stash room every hanging I had ever made (and a few quilts) was stacked on the floor waiting for me to go through and decide where to hang them them.  They held an awful lot of water for we don't know how long, and there were some spectacular colour runs.  A few have been since washed with colour catchers but to little avail.  All that work gone for nothing is upsetting, but I have a choice: to persist with the washing, perhaps spoiling them more in the process, or to toss them all out.  I had the pleasure of making them and I have photos.  They will be tossed, and I will make new hangings.

So to that end, yesterday a kit purchased in Canada several years ago was taken from its box, and it will be worked on - and immediately hung when finished.  It's a lovely autumn scene by Edyta Sitar called "Holding On", raw edge free motion quilting, and I am looking forward to seeing it done; it will bring back memories of our autumn trips to Canada.  When I saw it made up at a craft festival I just had to have it but haven't been game to work on it since because I thought my skills weren't up to it.......but what the heck.  Finished is better than perfect, right?

A couple of days ago the uke group played at a local aged care facility, we had a few front row conductors and some very enthusiastic singers joining in.  They even have Happy Hour, the residents were served with a glass of wine or a beer while we sang for them.  However - there are still locks on the doors.

"Avoid talking of personalities.
Avoid speaking of your birth, your travels and all personal matters, to those who may misunderstand you, and consider it boasting.  When induced to speak of them, do not dwell too long upon them, and do not speak boastfully."

Er.....yes.  Probably. 

Enjoy your days!

Relaxing on the seventh day

After a very busy with commitments and appointments every day, we are doing very little today.  I had great plans to accomplish Stuff today, none of them look like happening......but that's all right too.

Where to start!

Usual stuff, shopping on Monday morning (because we need to eat), uke practice in the afternoon (fun), volunteering at the regional gallery on Tuesday (interesting), sewing guild on Wednesday (fun), massage on Thursday (relaxing), choir on Thursday night (fun), uke gig on Friday (great fun), quilt group yesterday (also fun) - makes me tired just thinking about it.

The challenge quilt is done.  It was finished on Friday night all ready to be handed in yesterday, as I had thought it had to be......but no, it doesn't need to be handed in until the end of the year.  Could have saved myself a panic, couldn't I?  At my age one doesn't want to waste too many panics.

Our uke gig on Friday went off very well, one of our best.  On Thursday night I told our choir director we would be playing the next day, he MC'd the concert and also performed on piano; thank goodness, he said, because two of our singers have had to cancel and we are short of performers.  Play for as long as you like, he said.  We ended up playing five songs with a bit of waffling in between to fill half an hour.  Our audience (nearly all older folk) loved our songs and joined in singing, especially the Aeroplane Jelly Song!  For the non-Aussies, Aeroplane jelly is like Jello, we all grew up eating it, and we can all sing the advertising jingle with its cheerful waltz tune word for word.  The feedback we received was very encouraging and Bill told me "you are very very good, you know......those harmonies were amazing".  He was talking about the group as a whole not me in particular although Claire and I are the harmony singers, that is high praise indeed.

Consequently I don't have any new pics this week, so it's time to trawl through the archives for some photographic memories.

While in Canada we spent a few days in Midland.  We had stopped there overnight on two previous trips but this time thought we would have a bit more of a look around.  It's a nice town with an interesting history, and large murals on some of the downtown buildings tell of its story.  Outside the local museum we found one of these:

 Even though it's out of action, it's a clever idea.

 As the sign tells, it is a horse trough/dog bowl/drinking fountain - liquid refreshment for the horse on one side, and the rider plus faithful pooch trotting along behind on the other side.

Probably a very welcome sight, back in the day.

It was quite chilly in Midland.  We dined at a local restaurant where we have eaten on our past visits - the whole idea of spending time in this town was to eat there again!  Our server picked by our accents that we weren't Canadian, we're Aussies, we told her......whereabouts, she asked......we told her the town name, she laughed......she is from a town just a few hours away, over at the coast.

However - today hasn't been a total loss, because I found my fishing tackle sewing box!  It was put away in A Safe Place quite some time ago, and amidst all the packing and unpacking following our two floods I had lost track of it.  Following a brainwave today I looked in just one more place, and there it was.  It was received in a Secret Santa gift exchange at a workplace back in the early 2000s, and I had never before realised what a useful thing a fishing tackle box is to one who sews.  Lift out tray.....pop up lid......deep base......plenty of room to store Stuff.  It's going to receive a good clean, then it will be used for the tumbler blocks.

"How to reprove.
Parents should never check expressions of tenderness in their children, nor humiliate them before others.  This will not only cause suffering to little sensitive hearts, but will tend to harden them.  Reproof, if needed, should be administered to each child singly and alone."

Would it had happened.

Enjoy your days!

It's been far too long

However now my world seems to have righted itself, The Dreaded Lurgy making my life miserable for the past couple of weeks seems be well and truly on the way out, hopefully the worst of the heat is behind us (except for the odd hot day or two coming up) so all is well with the world.

If you're not sure what the Dreaded Lurgy is, here is some information.  Australians of a certain age use the term to refer to a vague illness that is sort of like a cold, sort of like the flu......you know how it is when you don't feel well but don't need to seek medical attention, don't feel good enough to carry on with daily life without stopping to rest occasionally, cough a bit (or, as my case, a lot) which doesn't make for a good night's sleep thereby causing tiredness during the day making me thankful we are retired and don't need to front up to work bright eyed and bushy tailed.  It has made singing difficult but hopefully that will improve now too.

Consequently not much has been, quilting the challenge quilt is still not started although hopefully it won't take long to knock out tomorrow, several unmemorable books have been read on my tablet, and some hand stitching has been done.

We did have a social occasion yesterday.  It was Kevin's birthday on Thursday - Valentine's Day - and a couple of weeks ago I saw an ad online for trips in a vintage train this weekend.  Three rail motors are in town for a few days (a rail motor is a train carriage fitted with its own motor, not one pulled by an engine) and one could take a trip an hour north, stop for dinner at a country pub, then return.  So yesterday we did!

Here it is arriving at our station:

 The lovely old carriages - No 12 was at the front, then No 24 (ours) and No 25 at the rear.

 At our destination an hour north, after a steep climb.  We even had to stop at one stage to switch another motor on so we could continue up the hills!

 This is Walcha Road with its attractive station which dates from the 1880s (and which you can't quite see behind the train, sorry about that, it is a nice old building).  We then walked down the hill and across the road to the renowned pub for an excellent meal, before hiking back uphill, onto the platform and into our seats for the return journey.

It was very quick, as it was all downhill!  Because it was dusk and getting steadily darker, we did see a few wild kangaroos hopping around. 

It was of interest to us both; to Kevin because he hadn't been further north than our town by train, and to me because it was a trip I hadn't done since the mid 1960s.  There used to be several small stations on this line which have now been removed, I remember the trip taking longer because trains used to stop at every little siding and station.  The rail trip is not the same as a road trip; the road is much further west, so the terrain is very different.

So now back to reality.

Currently our state is supposedly celebrating Olde Phartes by having a Senior's Festival, as if growing older and hurting everywhere is something to be celebrated.  It is better than the alternative, I suppose, but why does it have to be so darn painful?  Anyway, next Friday morning there is to be a concert with awards being handed out to Senior of the Year, and Senior Group of the Year (which, I am proud to say, our choir won last year) followed by a concert then a free cuppa.  Never knock back a free cuppa, I say!  The uke group will be playing a few songs at the concert including a doozy called "The senior's lament".  "Are you lonesome tonight? does your tummy feel tight? did you miss your Mylanta and Tums?" etc......it always makes older people laugh, so we thought it was a good choice......except for Prue, who doesn't like playing it because she reckons it is all too sadly true!

"The bow is the touchstone of good breeding, and to neglect it, even to one with whom you may have a trifling difference, shows deficiency in cultivation and in the instincts of refinement.  A bow does not entail a calling acquaintance.  Its entire neglect reveals the character and training of the person ; the manner of its observance reveals the very shades of breeding that exist between the ill-bred and well-bred."

We bow after a performance, which obviously shows our good breeding.  When we remember......

Enjoy your days!

Anyone feel like sharing what I have?

Because I don't want it......don't know what it is, could be a cold, could be something else that makes me feel crook and saps my energy......but I really don't want it.

Never mind.  This too shall pass.

This week's weather hasn't been quite so fiercely hot, thank goodness.  January.....the less said the better, apparently it was the hottest January ever recorded.  Daytime maximum temperatures were 5.4 deg C over the long term average, and night time temps were 4.4 deg C over the average.  No wonder it was so nasty.  Actually, knowing that it really was hot makes me feel better, because then I know it wasn't just me being a grumpy old woman having a whinge - there was something to complain about.

Moving right along.

The large pin cushion mentioned last week is finished, done, but not photographed.  One more ticked off the list.  The charity challenge quilt is pinned ready to be quilted, for which I need orange thread - don't think one small spool will be enough, so that means a trip to Spotties.   Once that is done and out of my sewing room - with much relief - I can get back to my own projects.

Selfish as it may sound I have decided that I don't care about making charity quilts, I would much rather work on my projects.  The local quilt group has one or two members who churn out huge numbers of quilts for Ronald McDonald House as if there is no tomorrow, and a few members who make a (much) smaller number.  At my age not knowing how many years I have left to me.....not being morbid, just curious, after all I am on the downhill side of 70.....I would rather spend that time on my own Stuff.  The churners justify it by saying "I don't need any more quilts myself but I like to make them" - well, darling, that's fine.  You can do that.  Just don't force me the guilts on me to do the same because it won't work.

These are the embroidered Aussie flowers on the hanging made to go to Canada.

 All embroidered with one strand of DMC floss, the first was started with two strands but it was much too chunky.

 When these pics were taken they had not been trimmed down and pressed.....they looked more finished afterwards!

 The original pattern was for redwork but I like the look of old botanical etchings, that was the look I was going for.

 Or old sepia-toned photographs.

Back in the late 1990s-early 2000s two Queensland women started Oz Dye-Art to sell their own patterns and their own hand-dyed and printed fabrics.  The company lasted for several years until one moved interstate; however those of us who have those patterns still treasure them and use them, because they are Australian flora and fauna.  Not pretty flowers from overseas, not cute little animals which don't live here....they are all Australian, something which was quite difficult to find at the time.

My 1886 etiquette devotes a whole chapter to "The Language of Flowers" but even though it's revised for the Australasian colonies (of, I suspect, an American original) no Aussie flowers make the list.  Pity.....I would love to know what emotions the waratah and red flowering gum stood for!

"Bring one of the commonest field flowers into a room, place it on a table, or chimney piece, and you seem to have brought a ray of sunshine into the place.  There is a cheerfulness about flowers.  What a delight are they to the drooping invalid!  They are a sweet enjoyment, coming as messengers from the country, and seeming to say "Come and see the place where we grow, and let your heart be glad in our presence."

Indeed.

Enjoy your days!

One day closer to autumn!

The heatwave continues.

We have had friends of a musical friend staying for a few days while the big country music festival took over the town.  They are very nice people and we all enjoyed ourselves, saw some great concerts with them and without them.......and now it's just the two of us again.

The whole town is starting to empty as the music-loving tourists leave.  Yesterday morning Kevin and I were chatting to two interstate visitors at a concert and, when they found out that we were locals, the bloke said "you don't look like locals".  What does a local look like, we wondered?  Did he expect us to have straw between our teeth, wear boots with spurs, and say "yee har" with every sentence?  Perhaps he didn't expect two neatly dressed Olde Phartes; many of the tourists don't know the meaning of the words "neatly dressed".

Enough of that.  It is a very entertaining time, and people watching is a good part of the entertainment.

During our Toronto visit our lovely Canadian DIL and I attended a quilt show in Ajax, east of Toronto, and one of the things purchased was a kit to make a small bag using only one side of a zipper.  A strip of the unused portion becomes a loop at the side of the bag.  The idea has been around for a while but I hadn't tried it before - and it works!

 Interesting fabric, isn't it?  Not what I would normally choose, but it came in a kit with a lime zip and gold-speckled-lime lining and that was enough for me.  Everything was supplied, outer and lining fabrics, zip and fusible lightweight batting.  After ironing it to the outer fabric I quilted it in a wide two inch grid in case the adhesive ever fails.  I didn't get around to boxing the bottom corners but that won't stop the world from turning, will it.

This bag requires you to (gulp) cut off the zipper end pull which is eventually restored to the folded-around zipper tape; instructions say "this may require some swearing and a glass of wine, but it can be done"!  How could you not try it?  Kit was from Sew Have Fun in Oshawa, also east of Toronto.  An odd thing about this fabric:  to look at it you would think the colours are blue, grey, pink and lime on a purplish background, yes?  Wrong.  There is no pink......it's a trick of the light, those flowers have only white and blue petals.

Currently partly made on the sewing table is a large pincushion, a door prize won at a large meeting a couple of years ago.  Next step is to press a whole heap of 2-1/2 in squares into prairie points, but it has been a bit hot for ironing.  So it waits......

There is also a song to arrange.  The uke group will be playing for a 90th birthday early in March (the lovely mum of one of our members is having a Big 0 day) and I have re-written words to a celebratory song to reflect her and her family's names, for a bit of fun.  Because I didn't want to cause hurt or offence it was first run by the uke playing daughter for approval, she said "Mum will love it!" so now it needs chords.  Easy peasy.

Life will gradually get back to its normal busy routine, U3A launch day on Wednesday - that's when we put our names down for courses which appeal, mine of course is ukulele - and the choir is singing at a funeral on Tuesday afternoon for one of our members who recently passed away.  There is a reason the choir was awarded Senior Citizens Group of the year last year.......we're getting old.  We also lost another member while I was away, both of these people were in their 80s.

"The saddest of all ceremonies is that attendant upon the death of relatives and friends and it becomes us to show, in every possible way, the utmost consideration for the feelings of the bereaved, and the deepest respect for the melancholy occasion.  Of late the forms of ostentation at funerals are gradually diminishing, and by some people of intelligence even mourning habiliments are rejected in whole or in part."

When our choir performs in public we wear black bottoms - skirts or pants - and a bright shirt or top in a single colour; with over 30 members of different ages and body types we can each choose something flattering.  This also applies when we sing at funerals, so my outfit on Tuesday will probably be a flared black cotton skirt and turquoise top, and I will sing my heart out for Tony.

Enjoy your days!