Shiver me timbers.......

......it's been a bit chilly.  So chilly that yesterday's temperature came within a foofteenth of breaking the record for the coldest day in May ever recorded here; eventually it creaked its way to 9.7 deg yesterday afternoon, while the coldest ever was 9.6 in the 1980s.  That of course means that, while the mercury may have reached 9.7 deg the 'feels like' was several degrees colder.  At least there was almost no wind - we were thankful for small mercies.

Needless to say, we stayed indoors.  Bianca spent much of her day asleep on her bed in front of the fire.

Houses have been built.

 Overcast days mean not-so-good conditions for photos, the palm tree roof is actually purple - not blue.

Here is the village so far:

 Just what I envisaged, bright houses all in a row.  Trees will also be made as spacers.  This isn't one of those "I must finish this as soon as possible" projects, it's more like a "just feel like making a house or two today" projects.

Another view of my pretty tiara, just because.  Lights on this time.

Every girl needs some sparkle-arkle in her life, yes?

All the leaves have been sewn down on the tree, now to quilt some markings on the trunk and branches.  More tumblers have been sewn together.  Stitches have been knitted.  Books have been read.  Not much else has been done.

Our world is gradually opening up.  While I can't see us going out on the town hitting the high (or low) spots when it's possible to do so it will be nice to order a coffee that I don't have to make for myself and sit in a cafe to drink it, with perhaps a treat as well, and watch the world go by.

Some of you have been making masks.  As we don't have to wear them, I have made none.  Even if we did, I wouldn't be making them.  My sewing room is a happy place, a place for having fun, and I don't want to bring the plague into it.

"Dress of hostess at dinner party.

The dress of a hostess at a dinner party should be rich in material, but subdued in tone, so as not to eclipse any of her guests.  A young hostess should wear a dress of rich silk, black or dark in color, with collar and cuffs of fine lace, and if the dinner be by daylight, plain jewellery, but by gaslight, diamonds."

So......I can wear my tiara by gaslight, it seems.......even if those diamonds aren't real.

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!

One whole decade!

This weeks marks a milestone.  On Thursday it was ten years - one whole decade - since we shook the dust of the Big Smoke off our heels and moved into this house.  It has gone very quickly; I find myself saying "just a few years ago" when describing something which happened after our move - but it's much longer than a few years, now.

It's been a good move.  While the Small Smoke has some drawbacks (mostly people who should have seen more of the world than they have, to open their minds a little) the slower pace suits us.  We have nearly everything we need here and we don't miss the traffic, construction, noise, too many people etc. in the Big Smoke.

Another milestone was my birthday yesterday, while not a Big Nought Number birthday I suppose every birthday is significant when one gets to my rapidly advancing age!  We had a very nice lunch delivered from the restaurant where we celebrated our anniversary in March, accompanied by the bubbly which was gifted to us on leaving that day - a gesture not asked for, but much appreciated.  It was very nice bubbly too.  Kevin mentioned that we were celebrating my birthday so with yesterday's lunch came another bottle of wine; how nice is that?  We don't have another Significant Occasion coming up - perhaps we should turn an ordinary day into one, and open our wine.

On Tuesday, if he was still alive, my maternal grandfather Pop Davis would have celebrated his 135th birthday.  Needless to say, he's not still around.  He was quite disappointed when I didn't arrive on his birthday (I was his first grandchild; my grandmother already had grandchildren from her first marriage but I was the first of Pop's five) but perhaps I wanted my own day.  Taureans can be a bit stubborn, you know.

Lucky last block of my Canadian mystery quilt!  Saskatchewan is done.

The applique in those 13 blocks needs to be stitched down, I am wondering about using a clear thread rather than changing colours every five minutes.  Some blocks also need a few embroidered details - animal/bird eyes, noses, etc - to finish them off.

Another block for Birdland (aka There Goes The Neighbourhood) is done. 

Two down......oh, maybe about another 98 something or so to go......I haven't decided how big it will be, but they are fun little blocks to make.  There will be trees too.

"A home.
After marriage one of the first requirements for happiness is a home.  It will best be found in a house or even a cottage apart from the immediate association of relatives or friends, acquaintances or strangers, and here husband and wife may begin in reality that new life of which they have had fond dreams, and upon their own actions must depend their future welfare."

Indeed.....it sounds quite idyllic, doesn't it?

Enjoy your days!

Happy birthday to me......

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

Falling into winter

It's only the start of May, but winter has arrived early!  We have had a fire for the past couple of days, much to Bianca's happiness.  The cold winds of the past few days are easing, for which we are thankful.

How are you all faring under house arrest?  Our conditions have been lifted slightly, we are now allowed a visit from two adults and their children, but somehow I suspect many people will stay right where they are until the plague settles down a little more.  There will, of course, be more plagues in future, but with a bit of luck our various authorities may have learned something from the current one.

I reckon it's Mother Earth saying to us: "Now hold on a minute there......there are way too many of you, and you are messing up the place.  Just stop it for a while."

I am missing out on autumn, and that makes me sad.  Our annual Easter trip to Canberra has, for over 25 years, given me a glimpse of beautiful autumn colours as we drive further south to cooler paces.  You can keep spring, you can certainly keep summer's heat......I could happily live in autumn all year round.

Ah well.

The penultimate block of my Canadian mystery quilt, British Columbia, is done.

The bear needs a nose, it will be embroidered.  This block nearly came to grief - as with all these pictures the background (in this case, dark blue) was cut to size and the rest of the picture made in stages, then fused to the background.  Shock, horror, gasp.....it was only cut 8-1/2in wide instead of the required 9-1/2 in!  So a one inch strip was cut and fused to the back upper edge of the sky, the rest of the background was lined up with it, and you can't tell.

Autumn in British Columbia, on one of our Canadian trips.

Lots and lots of maple leaves and glorious colour.

Meanwhile, the tumbler quilt keeps tumbling along, the scarf has actually had some stitches knitted, but the tree hanging hasn't had one stitch sewn.  Once the Canadian blocks are finished next week, work will recommence on it.  No more little houses have been made but more have been cut; the plan was to sew outside in nice weather, but of late it hasn't been nice at all!  It's going to be a pretty wild neighbourhood......

During the week a family milestone was passed.  Last Wednesday, if he had still been alive, my father would have turned 100.  He was quite an odd bloke; apparently he didn't have a good home life as his father was very harsh and he ran away from home before joining up during WWII but, according to his Army service record, seems to have spent quite a bit of time AWOL.  Once war ended he and my mother married, but I can remember times in my childhood when he wasn't there; apparently the habit of 'AWOL' didn't stop when he left the Army.  Early in 1972 he hopped in the car one night and drove away (to visit a work mate, my mother assumed) but - he never returned.  Turned out that he had been obtaining money by different means and gambling it away, living a double life that my mother never knew about.  The end of a 25 year marriage.  He moved interstate and never again contacted my mother, my brothers or me, or any of our family again although he made contact with his brother.  Mum started divorce proceedings, she wanted nothing more to do with him and neither did we.  Eventually he remarried and died three years afterward although my brothers and I didn't find that out for several years, our mother having died in the meantime.  We obtained a copy of his death certificate in case we needed to know about medical stuff which could affect us, and under previous marriages it has "Not known" - under children it says "None".  So whoever gave the information for that certificate (possibly the new wife) had no idea that he had three living children in their forties.

Talk about putting "fun" into "disfunctional".......even when one is an adult, one's parents splitting up in such a way is a huge shock.  However he (I can't bring myself to think of him as 'Dad') never met Kevin, he knew nothing about his four grandchildren, so he missed out more than we did.

I enjoy visitors to my blog, and I love reading your comments and always reply - but if you are a no-reply blogger I can't, so if you haven't had an answer I'm not just ignoring you.

"The first to bow.
In England strict etiquette requires that a lady, meeting upon the street a gentleman with whom she has acquaintance, shall give the first bow of recognition.  In Australia, however, good sense does not insist upon an imperative following of this rule.  A well-bred man bows and raises his hat to every lady of his acquaintance whom he meets, without waiting for her to take the initiative.  If she is well-bred, she will certainly respond to his salutation.  As politeness requires that each salute the other, their salutations will thus be simultaneous."

A simultaneous salutation would be a good thing.  In these days of 'no touching' a bow is probably a courteous way to greet a friend or acquaintance without causing offence.

Enjoy your days!

Rolling along nicely

But - we don't have much choice, do we? 

We have noticed that there is less traffic on our suburban street than usual.  It forms a semi-circle joined at both ends to a minor highway so doesn't get much through traffic, even though there are a few short streets leading off it and for whom the only access is our street.  It's always been a quiet street, and has become even quieter than before.  There is also very little air traffic over us, it's a rare thing to hear a plane!

How are you all coping with your house arrest?  We make one, sometimes two, trips out during the week for hunting and gathering, and one to the pharmacy for a drug run if needed.  It's enough to give us hope that other people are still alive out there, and if we are very lucky we even meet a friend to have a sociable chat.....at a suitable distance, of course.  Apart from those trips, we stay home.

Sewing has happened.  The next block, Quebec, has been stuck down.

Only two to go!  Although it doesn't look like it, those fabrics were pressed first.

There has been a bit of a thing online about making house blocks lately.  Many people seem to be quite taken by this one, which I quite like......but I wanted my houses to have a garden, which would make the blocks longer.  Aha, I thought to myself, I wonder what EQ7 has in the way of house blocks?  So I checked; there are several but I quite like this six inch square block called 'Little house', because it has a garden.  So.....fabrics were chosen, a purple house with an orange roof, a blue spotted sky, yellow window and bright checked door, plus a beautifully manicured lawn.  I can see many more of these in my future.....my Vintage Singer Featherweight (nigh on 70 years old) and I made it outside, in Birdland.

I did make a change to the sky; the original block provided templates to cut two pieces reversed but I thought again to myself, I reckon you could sew diagonally across a 2-1/2 in square of sky fabric for each corner and it would still look good - as well as being easier.  It does, it was, and the roof pitch is now a different angle.

Meanwhile the knitting continues, the tumblers keep tumbling, the tree hanging is not much further along.  When it comes to machine quilting I hesitate because I know my skills aren't very good, but then - if I never practice they never will be, will they.  I would really like to get it done so will have to hoick up my big girl pants (which used to be much smaller......sigh) and Have A Go.

Meanwhile, we spend a lot of time online, not much time watching TV, and are having fun discovering online radio stations which play music that we like.  I also managed to get an arrangement done for the uke group.

Yesterday I really pushed the boat out and made Anzac bikkies.  Some people like theirs thick and chewy, I prefer thin and crispy - which these are, but they are also a bit crumbly.  Because I have some I added 1/2 tspn of pumpkin pie spice, which doesn't hurt the flavour at all.....even though I am sure purists would shudder, but then they don't know what they are missing.

"Pastry should be eaten with a fork.  Everything that can be cut without a knife should be eaten with the fork alone.  Pudding may be eaten with a fork or spoon."

If you would like to try one of my crumbly Anzac bikkies with a fork alone, good luck to you......these are definitely finger food only.

Enjoy your days!

Well, that's April more than half done

This month is going by fairly quickly, considering that not much is happening.  If Kevin's mother was still alive she would be celebrating her 107th birthday today.......that's quite a number, she has been gone for 13 years.

Some quilting was done on the tree hanging, but it's a way from being finished yet.  The leaves haven't stuck very well to the background - perhaps having the fusible ironed on for a couple of years before it was made may have something to do with that?  That'll teach me not to leave it so long again.  The trunk and branches have all been sewn along their edges; after the leaves have been stitched down I'll go back and quilt in some details.  First, however, the leaves need to be fastened firmly so they don't have their own fall and I am left with a bare tree.

Speaking of autumn, it has cooled right down here.  The ceiling vents have now been closed off as we're not going to need the cooling system for several months, windows in seldom used rooms have been closed......we've had the heater on a few times now, and have even started thinking about a fire. 

Some stitches have been knitted on the belle étoile scarf.  The tumblers are tumbling along nicely.  I am trying to keep the number of projects being worked on to a minimum, rather than taking tiny nibbles at a lot of projects and getting nowhere with any of them.

Manitoba is done.

 We haven't been to Manitoba, but we have seen buffalo - bison - we drove past a bison farm in Ontario.  They are quite large beasties.  We've eaten bison sausage too.

Earlier in the week a couple of rainbow lorikeets decided to mooch around in the Eremophila bush for a while.  Trying to photograph mostly-green birds in a green bush against a green background through the back window was a challenge that the camera didn't ~quite~ rise to, but it made a valiant effort.

First time we have seen lorikeets in this bush, although we have sometimes seen Eastern Rosellas.  The flowers have nectar at the base so honeyeaters can stick their pointed beaks in, but rosellas and lorikeets have parrot beaks - which are not pointed.  We have seen rosellas nip off the flowers then chomp on the base for a minute or two before dropping them to the ground......whatever works, I suppose.

We had our usual quiet week, a trip out for our own hunting and gathering, another one to hunt and gather on Bianca's behalf because cats don't drive (she is on an Olde Catte mobility diet which we buy from the vet, it works so well for her that we're tempted to try it ourselves) and a drug run to the pharmacy.  While out on Bianca's trip I called at the quilt store to collect a ruler which I had ordered some time ago, and which will be used when I get to continuing on my autumn leaf quilt.  It's so nice chatting to other people on these outings - at a safe distance, of course - sometimes it feels that we are the only two people left alive.

In recent times an ad has been popping up on TV occasionally for an an insurance company.  We have no idea what is being said (our remote has a 'mute' button for a reason) but the wording on the screen is "we'll keep you covered in hardship".  Now I don't know about you all, but I wouldn't like to be covered in hardship.  I would much rather be covered in flowers, or perhaps antique jewellery......emeralds would be nice......someone was probably paid good money for thinking up that slogan, but I don't think they earned it.

"Satire and ridicule.
Young persons appear ridiculous when satirizing or ridiculing books, people or things.  Opinions to be worth the consideration of others should have the advantage of coming from mature persons.  Cultivated people are not in the habit of resorting to such weapons as satire and ridicule.  They find too much to correct in themselves to indulge in coarse censure of the conduct of others, who may not have had advantages equal to their own."

I will venture to suggest that the person who was paid for that badly-worded slogan was younger than I am.

Enjoy your days!