Back to nearly normal

We arrived home a week ago but have been busy since then, and I have been reclining on my bed of pain and suffering.  However, the lurgy seems to be on its way out the door, the fractured foot which has come back to haunt me is being treated, and all is slowly getting better with the world.

We had a good time - and would you believe, slacko that I am, no photos were taken?   Not one?  Probably because we have been to Canberra so often, and to the towns en route, that it would need to be something special to make me get out the camera.

Never mind......here are some pics taken on previous trips of some of the towns we drove through or stayed at.  This is the Japanese Gardens at Cowra, in the late afternoon.

 A pale camellia against one of the big rocks in the garden.

 Bathurst, which has lovely parks and gorgeous historic buildings.....

 .......and Sofala, a former gold rush town.  This magnificent tree 'disappeared' one night, taken down by a couple of locals with a chainsaw because they didn't like it, and Sofala today is much emptier without its canopy.

 We had an extra day on the way south and stayed in Cowra for two nights instead of the usual one, to see a quilt exhibition at the local regional gallery.  This tells you a little about it - the exhibition has now finished, but you can see one of the quilts.  Something not seen at many quilt exhibitions was the number of men present, both accompanying their female partner and on their own; perhaps the idea of recuperating soldiers making quilts and military tailors sewing was of interest to them.  It was really amazing and we are so glad to have had the chance to see those quilts and read their stories.

The costume exhibition from "The Dressmaker" was not large, but wonderful.......oh, those frocks!  Most of them silk, either vintage or newly made from vintage fabrics.  Sigh.......

In past years we have stayed on in Canberra at Exhibition Park, the site of the folk festival, but this year we were told to clear out by lunchtime on the Tuesday straight after Easter.  Scram.  Vamoose.  Seems the site was booked for a rock festival the following weekend and we didn't want to be around for that anyway, so we moved to Yass for a further week and commuted to Canberra as we needed to.

A little retail therapy was indulged in.......

 ......the black and white prints are for the background of a quilt, and the orange batik was just because I loved it.

Aren't these gorgeous flowers?  They arrived yesterday while we were out at lunch, a birthday gift from Young Euan and his parents.  He is four now and is shooting up like a weed after rain, with an interest in super heroes and fantasy characters - his father's son all over again.

That's a little of what we have been up to over the past few weeks.

"How to have shoes made.

The great fault with modern shoes is that their soles are made too narrow.  If one would secure perfect healthfulness of the feet he should go to the shoemaker and step with his stockinged feet on a sheet of paper.  Let the shoemaker mark with a pencil upon the paper the exact size of his foot, and then make him a shoe whose sole shall be as broad as this outlined foot."

Not a word about having a rigid heavy moon boot - not the most comfy shoe I have ever worn - made for a fractured foot, you notice.

Enjoy your days!

Happy birthday to me......

.....Happy birthday to me,
Happy birthday, happy birthday,
Happy birthday to meeeee!

Happiness is.......

.......different things to different people.......that's what happiness is!

You'll be singing it all day now, won't you?

Earlier this week I was a very happy little duckie when I found out that I did, indeed, own the 6 mm circular knitting needle required to knit up some of the luscious yarn brought back from Canada last year.

 'Funky Chunky' is by Gateway Fibreworks in Muskoka and is the softest cuddliest yarn I have felt for a long time.  The label includes instructions to make a cowl which is what it will become, as winters here in the Small Smoke require a warm scarf or cowl from time to time.  On a cold windy rainy day last November we attended the Royal Winter Fair which had a section for products from northern Ontario, so that's where it was bought.  Gail and I had a nice chat - fellow knitters always do! - as I was wearing my hand-knitted jumper; it was certainly needed that day.

Having bought one skein and been gifted another (a ball of yak yarn from our lovely DIL) I was yarn happy, but then my friend on Vancouver Island took me to a yarn store in Courtenay and I saw this.

Orange - gold - black - blue - very dramatic.  It is sock yarn but will be used for a scarf, because how could anyone want to hide that lusciousness inside shoes where no one can admire it?  It's by Biscotte Yarns in Quebec, a mix of wool with a little nylon, and the colour is "À la belle étoile".

Not so long ago the frame on my gorgeous green reading glasses started to break; it was made of two layers of metal, and they started separating.  Can be fixed said the optometrist, need to order a new part......probably not worth it, said I, they are already a couple of years old and I will be due for another test in a few months anyway......so the eyes were tested (doing fine, no better, no worse) and new frames were eventually found.  They are a bright turquoise, quite cheerful, comfortable to wear......but not green.  Very little choice in green frames and what there was I didn't like, or they looked silly on me because they were thick plastic.  So turquoise it is.  They are pretty, but they are not green.

Sigh.......

In a few days we will be heading south to Canberra, over 700 kms each way......that's a lot of knitting time, which is why the yarn has come out to be fondled.  The hand-piecing will go along; our little caravan doesn't have TV, so my entertainment is reading, sewing, crosswords and music, because a uke or two will go as well.

Apart from spending time with the family and time at the folk festival there will be time for a little retail indulgence (Canberra is a Medium Smoke so has lots more choice than here) and an exhibition or two, one of which will be at the National Film and Sound Archive where costumes from 'The Dressmaker' will be on display.  Loved the movie - adored the frocks!  The characters were defined by their costumes, and parts of the plot had an 'Emperor's New Clothes' feel to it.  It was hard to sit still, however, when Kate Winslett's character Tilly heaved that lovely old Singer machine off the verandah; I felt like jumping through the screen to catch it in my arms.

So adieu for now, we'll be back early next month.

"Dressing well requires good taste, good sense, and refinement.  A woman of good sense will neither make dress her first or her last object in life.  No sensible wife will betray that total indifference for her husband which is implied in the neglect of her appearance, and she will remember that to dress consistently and tastefully is one of the duties which she owes to society."

You could say that.

Enjoy your days!

A quarter of the year has gone

Doesn't seem like the year is already one quarter over, does it?  Do you ever feel as though your life is flashing by before your eyes, while you sit back and watch it?  Because I do. 

We had very good rain yesterday, the most rain to fall in one day for over two years.  Not enough to break the drought - the water table is so low it will take more than 50 mls (or two inches in old money) to make much difference, but it has created optimism.  Gloom and doom has been the order of the day for quite a while now, it would be nice to see a smile on people's faces.

The rain also brought some cool weather with it - just like that, today is autumn!  If I could snap my fingers to show you how suddenly the seasons changed I would, but alas......I cannot snap my fingers.  Today is downright chilly, and several hours south of here in the Australian Alps it has been snowing. 

As it's near enough as dammit to the start of a new month, the table centre was changed today.

This was made from a kit purchased on one of our trips to Canada several years ago.  The little tree was a gift from our Canaussian son a while before he took off for Canada early in 2005; the tiny leaves, each one individually wired to the trunk, are green aventurine while the base is a solid chunk of bloodstone which is heavier than it looks.  Trunk and leaves are silver wire.

This table is in our 'good room'.  Aussies of A Certain Age may remember when children were not allowed in the formal living room, if the house had one; their domain was the kitchen where the family ate.  The 'good room' was kept tidy in case of visitors.  Our house has an informal kitchen/family room and a more formal living/dining room, so we refer to that room with a touch of irony as our 'good room'.  In days of yore it was probably called 'the parlour'.

However - it has become my music room, and has several bookcases full of books and CDs and a good sound system, so it does get used. 

Like many of you, I suspect, we like watching renno porn.  You know the home renovation shows, and house hunting shows, and others of that kind?  We have been noticing that the open plan kitchen/living/dining single room is quite the trend now, and I'm not sure that I am a fan.  If one has small children or teenagers it would be very noisy, especially as hardwood floors, hard surfaces and curtainless windows also seem to be popular.  I remember when our boys were teens the older one was very heavy-footed; I was very thankful that we had a single story home as I would not have liked to hear his great clodhoppers clumping over my head on a wood floor, especially when he came home late (or early morning, more like) after a music gig.  These new/renovated homes are not made for hobbies either, there is never a music room or sewing room, and the master suite takes up nearly half the house while everyone else is squashed into what's left.  How much room does one need for a bedroom - apart from bed activities of all kinds why do people think they need so much space? and who needs a TV in their bedroom anyway?

Things will be different when I rule the world, you know.

During the week we attended a performance of "The Three Musketeers" by a local amateur group, with real swords! and much fighting!  It was all jolly fun; the actors were entertaining, while King Louis and Cardinal Richelieu were excellent.  Next local production is "Beauty and the Beast" which we will probably miss although I am sure every eight year old girl in town will be there.

"The dress for the theatre."
The promenade dress with the addition of a handsome cloak or shawl, which may be thrown aside if it is uncomfortable, is suitable for a theatre.  The dress should be quiet and plain, without any attempt at display.  Either a bonnet or hat may be worn.  Gloves should be dark, harmonizing with the dress."

How about black pants with a lemon/lime shirt, all in linen?  I felt quite overdressed as quite a few of the audience were very casual, some even wearing shorts......although I think several may have been friends of the caste members, many of whom were young.  We come from the generation where one dresses up a little to attend the theatre; it pays the actors a compliment.  To me, too casual says "we don't care enough to dress up to see your performance, you're not worth the effort".

Enjoy your days!

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!