Last for March, and for a while

Books and bookmarks! The books have been gifts and so was one of the bookmarks. The bookmark with lots of writing is an Australian birth sign one - it was on the table upside down, silly me. Never mind. It seems my Australian birth sign is a wombat as my birthday falls between April 21 and May 21, isn't that amazing?

I have quilted the border on my Road to St Louis quilt, and machined the binding on the front, now I am hand-sewing it on the back. When it's finished I will put up a photo. It's such a great feeling to be so near to finishing!

We have had a reply to the letter we wrote to the shopping mall after our experience last week. The man concerned has been rapped over the knuckles, they took our complaint very seriously for which we are thankful. The letter concluded by saying something along the lines of "we hope you will continue to shop with us". We are not sure about that - today we drove to another mall a little further away, and will keep away for a while in case the bloke has revenge on his mind.

Speaking of shopping....one thing that bugs me is people who push the trolley by leaning on it with their elbows....how do they expect to steer the darn thing? Usually it's short older women although I have seen men do it too. I'm short too, but I use my hands not my elbows. End of whinge. Thank you for listening.

We will be going away this coming weekend for a few weeks, the National Folk Festival is held in Canberra over the Easter long weekend and we have been going to it for several years. We set up camp in our RV the previous weekend as I am a volunteer, I work in the office leading up to the start of the festival. Kevin isn't volunteering this year although if they find a job for an Olde Pharte that's not too strenuous he would be available. Last year he volunteered and was put on the Bar Set-up team, hoisting around kegs of beer and cider - he found it very difficult, I think it's a job for younger blokes. The festival is always good fun; lots of music, singing, dancing - I used to dance all day and night but haven't for a few years. If my foot lets me I might have a go again this year. Many of the performers are from overseas and it's always good to catch their acts as well as see the locals we love.

Then we will head off for our first trip away as retired folks. We don't yet know where we will be going but we will enjoy it when we get there. We'll be away for 3-4 weeks altogether.

The cat quilt on my last post has gained several comments! Thank you, I haven't been ignoring your comments, it's been difficult to reply as I have been having email problems again. I am in the process of getting a new email address and changing all my contacts over, then I will give my current address the flick. And good riddance.

Have a lovely week.

Jennifer

Random thoughts for Friday

Isn't the interwebz an amazing place! Zoe in Germany (who doesn't have a blog) found my Folded Star tutorial and emailed me to say how pleased she was, as she made one of those years ago but had lost the instructions to make another; and Geta in Romania has also found it. Check out Geta's blog, there are several tutorials, her wonderful trapunto and quilting, and she is having a giveaway. She has photos of a beautiful pale green bag she has made, it has an orange flower on the front and orange lining.......just scrumptious.

Thank you to all the lovely folks who commented on Monday's post, about our scary experience with the shopping trolley bloke. We have posted our letter to the shopping centre management so will see if anything is done about it. Hopefully it may also lead them to put up advisory speed signs in the carpark, far too many people (mums with children in the car as well as the young macho blokes) drive too quickly.

So far we are two weeks into Kevin's retirement and murder has not yet been committed, in fact not even an angry word has been spoken. And we have our wedding rings back so we are married again.

Do you like the kitty quilt? I used lots of bright prints with a black border to match the black noses, eyes and whiskers - all stitched with one thread of DMC black stranded cotton in hand buttonhole and stem stitch. The backing is a bright allover cat print and I called it "Psychedelicats". It was even pictured a few years ago in Down Under Quilts magazine, in an article on cat quilts. The fireplace is in our living room, our house is nearly 60 years old, and was built when nearly every Aussie house had a fireplace. It's not the most beautiful feature of the house so I hang a quilt in front of it in summer; we have a gas fire in it for winter warmth.

And tonight is music club night - wonder what cake I shall buy for supper? - our theme tonight is songs or poems on age. Old age, young age, teen age - any age. Should be fun.

Have a lovely weekend!

Jennifer

First WOW for autumn

This tin advertising sign looks old but I suspect it is fairly new, as the shop where I found it (an antique/junque shop) had a few similar signs, but as it appealed to me I bought it. That's My Lovely New Bernina it's leaning against.

On Saturday I used my Olde Pharte's travel card and caught the train to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains for a quilt show. Much better than driving, and much more relaxing! I finished the first sleeve of my blue cardigan while travelling along and then did some piecing of a flower basket block, that's 94 finished now. Only 75 to go. The quilt show was lovely too but because of the lighting and crowding in the venue it was difficult to take any photos, so I didn't.

We have a slightly unnerving experience this afternoon. We went to a local supermarket to do our weekly shop this afternoon. The supermarket is in a small shopping mall with an underground car park, and as it's been a warm humid day we parked there out of the sun. No problem. Went upstairs to shop, no problem. Came down again with our trolley of groceries, and as we walked to our car the trolley man (the bloke who drives around local streets looking for feral trolleys) drove into the car park a bit too quickly for safety; there are often mums with small children tagging along, or pushing strollers, and older people who don't move as quickly as cars do, so drivers need to be careful. Kevin signaled to him to slow down - the bloke stopped his car, got out and confronted Kevin, swearing in choice language that I won't repeat here because I am a lady. We both felt so threatened by his behaviour that we rang the manager when we came home to complain; she was suitably aghast and apologetic, and has asked us to send in a formal written complaint which we will do. Although she didn't say so I got the feeling that we weren't the first to complain. In the local area recently we have had several drive-by shootings, and a (supposedly drug related family feud) murder, so ordinary folk like us are a bit cautious these days. I'm not sure whether we will go back to the same supermarket or vote with our feet and shop elsewhere. We have lived in this area for over 30 years now and have seen many changes, some for the better but not all, peoples' attitude being the main one.

And my guitar has new strings...it is sounding amazingly fantabulous, lovely and bright and clear.

Y'all have a good week now!

Jennifer

I'm a member of 'The Sisterhood'!

Goodness me, an award! I've never had one of those before, it was given to me by Di....thank you so much Di, I am very chuffed. Seems the rules connected to the award are:

1. Put the logo on your blog or post (done)

2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude! (oh golly.....you are all terrific, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by singling out specific folks and leaving others off)

3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post. (see above)

4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog. (ditto)

5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.

I shall have to ponder deeply on this. Meanwhile it's nice to be a member of The Sisterhood; I don't have a sister (I have two younger brothers) and I don't have a daughter (I have two sons) although I have a wonderful girl-in-law Kiera. Small wonder, then, that I feel as though I have been surrounded by little boys all my life and probably also the reason why nearly all our pets have been girls.

We had a lovely anniversary dinner last night, many thanks to the nice folk who left good wishes on yesterday's blog post. And our post-St Pat's Day gig went well, and was fun. But I have realised the strings on my guitar need to be changed; it is sounding quite dead and it should have a lovely ringing tone, it's a gorgeous instrument. It's like changing your sewing machine needle, it should be done regularly, although I have known people to joke "it had strings on it when I bought it, nothing wrong with them, they'll do for another forty years". (the guitar, not the sewing machine)

Now it's time to sew a stitch or two, or possibly three, and turn into a domestic goddess.

Jennifer

Happy Anniversary to us!

Today is our wedding anniversary, we have been married for 33 years - my, how time does fly! The other day we took our wedding rings to a jeweller to be enlarged, we were both a little slimmer in those days and now the rings are a bit too tight for comfort - mine has worn quite a groove in my finger. Tonight we will be going out to dinner to celebrate, sans rings.

This afternoon my music club is playing our annual St Pat's Day gig at a local brewery, we play for the employees at the end of their working shifts. We have been doing it for several years and it's always just before or just after St Patrick's Day with lots of diddly tunes and Irish songs, I hope the employees enjoy listening as much as we enjoy playing! Probably should see if my green top needs to be ironed, and polish up my silver celtic jewellery - for our silver 25th anniversary Kevin gave me this lovely pendant, made by Desmond Mackenzie-Harris. Desmond makes wonderful designs based on traditional Celtic images with a few Aussie ones for good measure, I also have Western Rosella earrings that he made. We catch up each year at the National Folk Festival, in Canberra at Easter; Desmond has a stall every year selling his amazing pieces, he is very talented.

Enjoy the rest of your week, may your stitches always be neat and your points perfect.

Jennifer

WOW Day again

It's Monday again, my life is flashing by before my eyes, and March is more than half over. Summer's heat has gone (thank goodness) and autumn will soon be rolling in. Lovely autumn.

Today's wombat is a little different as it's a stained glass picture. As it looks good with the light shining through I placed it against my sewing room window to take its photo, that's some of our little backyard in the background. I bought this one on one of our trips to northern New South Wales, in a little town called Walcha. Walcha has a great craft shop selling goods made by local people (I seem to remember I also bought some apricot jam, apricots are my very favourite fruit) and this was hanging in the window. It's made by a lady who lives at Ogunbil in the Dungowan Valley....the beautiful place in my blog header. Wouldn't that be a wonderful view to wake up to each morning.

Had an email from my friend Alison the other day; she looks forward to Mondays, as she enjoys seeing which wombat will be having its turn in the spotlight that week! You can see here the bowl that Alison made as a retirement gift.

And today is the first day of Kevin's retirement, you can't count the weekend can you? Today is the first day he hasn't had to go to work, not counting holidays, since he was a young bloke of 17 or so. It's whole new life stretching out in front of us both.

Have a good week.

Jennifer

Not quite Road to St Louis

This is a quilt made by a colleague and me a few years ago, for another colleague who was about to go on maternity leave. It's based on the Road to St Louis design that I have been blogging about, but instead of pieced blocks we used squares of kids' prints, and alternated them with hourglass blocks. The blue/lime/turquoise striped fabric in the border gave us the idea for the colour scheme. It's backed with a cute frog print. The original design used 6in blocks so I wrote the instructions for this using 4in blocks. (did a terrific job if I do say so myself) I quilted it using a blue variegated Aurifil thread. We bought the border fabrics, and the fabric for the hourglass blocks; the kids' prints came from our stashes - we had one duplicate! We specially included a couple of cat prints as the recipient isn't a cat person and we both are....she took it in good spirit.

Many thanks for the encouraging comments about having a retired husband! It will be a new step in life for both of us, no doubt we will get on each other's nerves from time to time but we wouldn't be human if we didn't. Kevin is playing in a lawn bowls tournament this morning and I am enjoying peaceful music.

Last night we had a daddy of a storm - thunder, lightning, and very heavy rain; we had the TV volume up to 21 and it normally never goes over 12. It had stopped by about 8.30-9.00pm so the party around the corner continued, from the sounds of it they are still going and it's now midday. Must have more stamina than I do. Perhaps I should gently point out that their music, like mine, has a volume switch that turns to the left as well as to the right?

Enjoy what's left of the weekend.

Jennifer