Fifty one down.......

........only ten more houses need to be made!

A starry yellow house, and a tropical jungle with a parrot.  I had no idea of starting a quilt when the first house was made, it was just going to be an occasional thing to do during shutdown.....but then I found the design in my Freddy Moran book, liked it and that, as they say, was that.  It is a fun project, for sure.

How have you all been since last weekend?  We have had everything thrown at us this week - rain, heavy rain, more rain, hail, very strong wind, even a blackout.  Australia's stormy season runs from October to April but storms are more likely around the cusp of seasons, i.e. spring going into summer, and summer going into autumn, which is where we are now.  I can recall some really bad March storms when we lived in the Big Smoke, including The Great Sefton Hailstorm of March 1990 - we lived in Sefton at the time.  What a nasty storm that was, we had four windows broken, and two roof skylights; two storm fronts (one coming from south-west, one from west) met over Sefton, so we really copped it.

Probably one of the few times Sefton was in the news for something other than murder in the local pub car park.

However we made it through the blackout on Wednesday evening by going out for dinner, and by the time we returned power was back on.  

Yesterday at quilt group was the day we were supposed to take along our UFO that we hope to have finished by the end of the year.  Mine is my Canadian quilt again.  It wasn't taken yesterday because, although it was pinned out onto a backing, it can't be folded or rolled until all the applique is stitched down so it stayed home out of the rain.  Judy who is organising us was slightly derisive about my lack of visible UFO, but that's her problem.  That means that the tedium of all that zig zag stitching will be done during the year, and the quilt will be finished.

Hopefully......

Only four weeks until we go away.  Can you tell I'm looking forward to it?  Might even be able to fit in some shopping while in Canberra, it has a good choice of stores.  More than we have here, for sure, especially as some stores have closed over the past year.  They have probably done so because people weren't buying their clothes, but why bother to buy clothes when you couldn't go anywhere to wear them?  This might have to be the year, though, in which I buy or make some new trakky daks; mine are several years old, and are beginning to show their age.  They are never worn out in public anyway, but are getting a bit daggy even for at home.

The renno porn channel is currently showing a program filmed in Ontario, Canada, and I sign and drool over the glorious autumn colours which bring back wonderful memories.  We have now resigned ourselves to the fact that our last trip to Canada was our last ever; by the time the world opens up again we just won't want to travel so far.  Long flights are tedious enough when you are young and adventurous.....they are no fun whatsoever when one is older.

Oh well.  At least we have memories of times with family and friends, and pictures, and souvenirs.  Including fabric, some of which is now being made up.

"Dinner.

The private family dinner should be the social hour of the day.  Then parents and children can meet together, and the meal should be of such length as to admit of the greatest sociality.  It is an old saying that chatted food is half-digested.  The utmost good feeling should prevail among all.  Business and domestic cares and troubles should be, for the time, forgotten, and the pleasures of home most heartily enjoyed.  In another chapter we have spoken at length upon fashionable dinner parties."

That sounds like all of us, doesn't it?  Meeting together with family in the greatest sociality......no phones, no TV, no reading of books while eating......

Enjoy your days!

In which not much happens......again

It has been a fairly quiet week, our life seems to be quiet these days.  The usual hunting and gathering, sewing group, ukulele, choir......also quite a bit of wasted time with not much to show for it, but two houses were made.

The darker house has teeny cat footprints, letters on its roof, and flowers in its garden, while the other is a yellow and blue print with a nice green lawn in front.  The cat print is a Debbie Mumm fabric from a v-e-r-y long time ago; there was a small piece in my stash, and now there is a smaller piece.

That bring the grand total to 49 houses made - only another 12 needed,so at two a week that means six more weeks.  Then there will be black and white fabrics and lots and lots of green squares to be cut.......but that's allright.  When the first house was made early last year there was no intention of making a quilt, it was just a bit of fun.

The sewing group had fun making folded fabric coasters.  I suggested making one of each style to learn how it's done, and they all seemed to enjoy their lesson.  I predict that there will be coasters made for home use and for gifts, especially for one member who has family overseas and is always looking for lightweight gifts that don't cost the earth to buy or send.

Recently, after seeing one being used by a member of my quilt group, I bought myself a 'lap app' table.  You can pay a large sum of money for the real deal, or you can buy a less expensive option - guess what I did?  Mine came without a cover, so a padded liner then a pretty outer cover need to be made.  My stash yielded a cute print from long ago, a small-scale print of sewing machines and thread spools in blue on a cream background, which will be used for the outer cover.  One can buy a pattern for the cover, or one can wing it......which one is going to have a go at doing.  How hard can it be?

The leftover tumblers from the front of 'Why Not' are still being joined into a strip for the back, great portable handwork for in front of TV and for taking anywhere.  Once that's done, work on the flower basket quilt will resume.

A couple of days ago when we were out and about we noticed that some of the trees are less green than they were a month ago.  It's not yet time for colours to start changing but it is, it seems, time for them to fade a little and for some to have seed pods growing.  Days are shorter now, mornings are nice and dim, evenings are a little shorter, and it won't be long until there is a feel of autumn in the air - and won't that be nice?  

Not long now until we head south, about five weeks I think.  We are so looking forward to it; apart from a couple of day trips we haven't been outside our town for 16 months now, and April is a nice time to be headed south where it's a little cooler than here.  By the time we return, autumn will be in full swing.

Knowledge is quite a thing, isn't it?  Most of us know all sorts of Stuff, then there is Stuff we don't know, and Stuff that we know we don't know, and Stuff that we don't know that we don't know.......this morning a photo from one of our trips to Canada popped up on the screen, a small town on Georgian Bay with boats drawn out of the water for winter.  It reminded me that we also saw, in our travels, boats and an occasional RV shrink wrapped in plastic to protect them from the elements, and I wondered how it was done.  So I looked it up, it's quite an amazing process!  I doubt that it's done at all in Australia because our milder climate allows RVs to be used all year round, and in many parts of the country boats can be too.

Now we know how boats and RVs are shrink wrapped - a piece of knowledge that we may never need to use, but it's in our brains.

We move on to luncheon.

"Luncheon.

In many of our large cities, where business prevents the head of the family from returning to dinner until a late hour, luncheon is served about midday, and serves as an early dinner for children and servants.  There is much less formality in the serving of lunch than of dinner,  It is all placed upon the table at once, whether it consists of one or more courses.  Where only one or two are at luncheon, the repast is ordinarily served on a tray."

When I was a child our midday meal was called "dinner", and our evening meal was "tea", terms, I believe, imported from England.  Now we are more sophisticated so we have "lunch" and "dinner".  "Supper" is a snack served, if desired, between dinner and bedtime......although "supper" in Canada and U.S.A. seems to be the name of the evening meal.  "Luncheon" is also used here for a formal dinner during the day.

So long as you have enough to eat, and can eat what you have.

Enjoy your days!

Golden houses this week!

Of late there seem to be some darker houses made, so I decided to make up for it this week.

Two yellow houses, one with a very bright lawn in front and flowers in the sky, and one with a flower garden in front.  Don't you love the Aussie flag fabric on the door?  That's from a very very long time ago.

For our sewing guild meeting on Wednesday I have promised to show how to make folded fabric coasters.  There were my first attempts; the corners could be a wee bit sharper, but they haven't yet been poked out with my trusty chopstick.....which may or may not be done before the middle of the week.

Instructions can be found in several places online.  Trust me......'easy' doesn't begin to describe them; they are, as some people annoyingly say, "easy as".  The basket of Christmas fabrics was raided to make these.

The English language is continually changing and evolving, and mostly it drifts by me without too much irritation.  However, "easy as", "tall as", "blue as" all make me cringe and then restrain myself from forcibly whacking the speaker severly around the head while muttering through gritted teeth "easy as what?  tall as what?"

But, being the nice person as what I am, I don't do that.  I content myself with just the gritted teeth.

It has rained!  Yesterday was a damp drizzly day, and very welcome it was too.  Today is clearer and dry, and still quite mild considering it's the middle of summer......but apart from a burst of heat a few months ago this summer has been fairly mild, for a change.  Usually the second half of January is alive to twanging guitars when 50,000 extra people descend on our town for a country music festival but it was, alas, another casualty of the covid plague.  A few pubs and clubs had sit-down concerts with limited attendance (we went to one) but all those squillions of dollars which usually pour into our town didn't happen.  January is either stinking hot and/or pouring rain, but this year has been much better; it would have been ideal festival weather - but the festival couldn't happen!

Oh well.  We live in hopes that it will again, next year.

Took my new glasses in to have the fit tweaked, but they are not ~quite~ right yet.  Never mind; it can be checked again this week.  It has been six months now since my eye surgery and the discomfort was definitely worth it, although I will be glad when the scars above my eyes finally fade completely.  That's the problem with old skin, I suppose; it doesn't bounce back like it would have done had I been a much younger person.

But when I was a much younger person I didn't need eye surgery......

"The breakfast table should be simply decorated, yet it may be made very attractive with its snowy cloth and napkins, its array of glass, and its ornamentation of fruits and flowers.  Bread should be placed upon the table, cut in slices.  In eating, it must always be broken, never cut, and certainly not bitten.  Fruit should be served in abundance at breakfast whenever practicable.  There is an old adage which declares that "fruit is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night".

Does that sound like your brekky table?  It's not mine, that's for sure.

And that's January gone......just like that!

Here we are already a week into February.  It will be Christmas again before we know it, folks......

This week's houses, a purple-urple house with a lime door, and a pinkish paisley house with a starry sky.

Some of these fabrics are really scraping the bottom of the barrel; that paisley has been around for who knows how long.  Perhaps an old lady lives in that house, I'm sure my mother's Aunty Emily had an eiderdown on her bed covered in something similar when I was but a mere child many many years ago.  I don't think, though, that her little house had a yellow door.

In a rush of blood to the head one day I decided to make the side and corner outer setting triangles pieced - all in greens, of course, because the neighbourhood needs to be surrounded by a park.  It does, however, call for 277, 2-1/2 in squares.  So far 20 squares have been cut from some scraps......but that's all right.  Each time I go anywhere near a green fabric I will cut some squares, and hopefully before we can turn around and blink they will all be done. 

It will be more work than just cutting those triangles from yardage, but the extra work will be worth it; it's all just straight sewing, and it's not as though my stash lacks for green fabrics from which to choose.

Earlier in the week I picked up my new glasses, but they will need to have the fit tweaked as they are a bit tight over my ears.  Since having eye surgery last year my face has changed shape, and it was time for a new prescription anyway.  The new glasses are, of course, green......not, sadly, a knock-your-socks-off lime, but a subtle green with mottled side arms.  Subtle, classy and elegant......doesn't that sound like me?  

In my dreams......

Life is resuming again after a long break over Christmas.  Choir started back last Thursday night, and U3A ukulele started back last Wednesday morning after nearly a whole year.  We have to jump through the usual hoops that we have come to expect these days, but we can play and we can sing together.

The uke group has a couple of new people and several returnees including Carol, a woman who, when it comes to 'enjoying ill health', must win first prize.  She insisted on showing us a new scar on her chest from surgery, and insisted on explaining why she was limping, and why something was hurting and why something else wasn't working......honestly, Carol, it may be important to you but it depresses the heck out of the rest of us.  We're not interested.  "How are you" is a greeting, not a question.  I just say something suitably vague like "g'day everyone, how's things" (terrible grammar, but it's an Aussie thing) and leave it at that.  If anyone asks me "how are you" I say "I am amazingly fabulous!" and that shuts them up......all except for Carol, who still has to tell us about every little twinge and ache.......

My mother was a woman like Carol, although not quite (thank goodness) in the same class, and it is depressing to spend time with people like them.  We all need to look after our own mental, as well as physical, health and spending time with 'down' people is a good way to end up 'down' ourselves.  

"The breakfast.

At the first meal of the day, even in the most orderly households, an amount of freedom is allowed, which would be unjustifiable at any other meal.  The head of the house may look over his morning paper, and the various other members may glance over correspondence or such books or studies as they are interested in.  Each may rise and leave the table when business or pleasure dictates, without waiting for the others or for a general signal."

How many of us still take a morning paper these days - or indeed, have morning correspondence?

Enjoy your days!

Back in the business of construction

Two more houses have joined the neighbourhood.

A fabric which has always reminded me of conversation lollies - remember them? - with their 'I heart U', cats on what may have been a hot tin roof at night, and gardens with pink flowers.  A couple more have also been cut out.

Leftover tumblers are still being joined for a panel on the back of 'Why Not'.  It's an easy project at night in front of TV, without requiring too much brain power.

Some half square triangles have been made in autumn prints and lighter background fabrics for my (eventual) autumn quilt.  Feeding them through the machine is wonderfully mindless sewing, then they have to be trimmed and pressed.  Trimming can get tedious so I try not to do hundreds at a time; there are over 300 required for the quilt, but I am trying to do smaller batches because my back rebels at having to stand and trim for too long at a time.

We haven't had rain for a couple of weeks, the grass which until recently was green and lush is drying off again, but there is rain forecast for the coming week.  Fingers crossed some of it falls on us.

Absolutely no progress has been made on clearing out the pantry, it's been a bit too warm.  That will happen in due course.

So, as you can see, it's been a good week for doing very little.  We haven't been out at all, apart from a little hunting and gathering and a drug run.  As the weather starts to cool and energy comes back, there will be no stopping us.  It's now been more than a month since the summer solstice, and we are noticing that mornings are darker than they were not so long ago.  It's the beginning of the end of summer, although it will hang around for quite a while yet.

Speaking of TV, there isn't much to watch that appeals to us......or to me, anyway.  Kevin likes to watch some sport which doesn't bother me, so long as he turns the sound off (those commentators can get very loud at times; I can't stand their screaming and the noise of the spectators), we have a few renno porn shows that we enjoy, and that's about it.  We like some police/mystery shows but most are on their umpteenth repeat; once is good, twice is maybe not too bad, but we don't need to watch it three or more times when we already know who dunnit and any surprise is lost.  Having a lot of channels - compared to years gone by we do, even without cable - doesn't always guarantee that there will be something you want to watch, does it?  

So the 'off' button is clicked and the radio turned back on, either to a classical station or to my new favourite, an internet folk music station.

Continuing on:

"In private families it should be observed as a rule to meet together at all meals of the day around one common table, where the same rules of etiquette should be rigidly enforced, as though each member of the family were sitting at a stranger's table.  It is only by this consistent practice of the rules of good behaviour at home, that good manners become easy when any of them go abroad."

This is true.  At times it might be easy to take the path of least resistance and let everybody do whatever they wish, but you tell yourself that they will - hopefully - thank you one day.

Enjoy your days!

And - it's done!

My quilt top is finished!

You can count the full and half tumblers if you wish, or you can take my word that there are 792.  Add the eight border strips, and there are exactly 800 pieces in this quilt.

The narrow dark stripe ws placed along the inner edge of the outer border, and the inner border fabric will also be used for binding.

One of the four mitred borders.  I don't want to fritter away mitred borders on a quilt which is unworthy of them; however, I think this quilt is worthy.  It was taken to quilt group yesterday for show and tell......when I unfolded it and held it up with Kate's help there were gasps of "oh, Jennifer!" which I am taking as a compliment.

It's difficult to find somewhere in our house to photograph a large quilt but pelmet brackets at the top of the window meant there was somewhere to prop the pinned-to-a-sheet top for a picture......so that's where it had to be.  Both inner and outer blinds were closed behind the quilt, but light still comes in unless it's night.

A name popped into my head this morning almost as a joke: "Why Not?"  I couldn't begin to count the number of people who asked me why I was sewing by hand, to which my reply was inevitably  - "why not?"  The more I think about it, the more I like it.

No houses were made this week as it has been quite busy, but I have hopes of doing better next week.  Some of the leftover tumblers have been joined for the backing.  That's about it.

We have had a small piece of excitement in our miserable lives.  Last night we actually went to a concert, a real concert with real musicians playing on a real stage for us!  Audience numbers were limited, we had to sit stay (like well-trained dogs) unless we were going for food, drink or bathroom, no singing along or jigging around.  Everyone behaved as they should, and it was a fun night.

Here's your piece of useless information for the week:  did you know that if you forget about a large tin of apricot halves in your pantry for goodness knows how long, there's a chance it may explode?  We found that out recently.  One evening we were sitting quietly when we heard a really loud bang.  We couldn't find the cause; there were no storms so it wasn't thunder, and we forgot about it.  Last Sunday night I reached into the pantry for a jar of olives (I like olives on my home-made salmon pizza) and noticed it was dripping as I took it to the bench.  Olives were decanted to another container, glass jar was checked......no, no cracks.  Check pantry and......woops.  The ring pull lid on the tin of fruit was half open, obviously the cause of the explosion.  Fermented apricot juice on the wall, on the shelf......not good......it has now been cleaned, but the pantry needs to be emptied, de-cluttered and re-organised, a task long overdue.  Needless to say, 'use by' dates on cans, bottles and packets will be checked in the process.

It was, as far as explosions go, quite an almighty one.

More on table manners, continuing from our last.

"Even when persons habitually eat alone, they should pay due regard to the rules of etiquette, for by so doing they form habits of ease and gracefulness which are requisite in refined circles; otherwise they speedily acquire rude and awkward habits which they cannot shake off without great difficulty, and which are at times embarrassing to themselves and their friends."

Hopefully while you are not embarrassing your friends, they in turn are not embarrassing you.

Enjoy your days!

Stitching on.....and on......

The border fabrics for my tumbler quilt have been stroked, fondled and pressed ready for cutting.  The inner borders are cut but not yet joined, while the outer border fabric has been drooled on a few times because it it so gorgeous.....and so right.  Cutting will have to be done one piece at a time; no layering and cutting all four together, because the stripe pattern needs to be correct.

The inner border is called 'Broken Stripe', from the 'Sycamore' range by Jan Patek, in a golden brown colour.  The outer border is a leafy stripe from 'Old Cambridge Pike' by Barbara Brackman, and although they are from different ranges by different designers I think they hold hands quite nicely.

The inner border will be 1-1/2 in wide, the outer border will be......I'm not quite sure, it will depend where the stripes are cut but probably a bit over six inches.  Each leaf repeat is a smidgeon over two inches wide.

Those borders will, of course, be mitred.  I firmly believe that every quilter has so many mitred borders in them and when you use them up they are gone forever, so best to use them wisely.  Happily I still have a few left.

This week's houses, a purple house and an aquatic house with fish.

A name for the house quilt has popped into my head - "There Goes The Neighbourhood", what do you reckon?  It's probably not very original but I like it, and it's name of a CD in our collection.  (Remember CDs?  Yes, we still use them, we haven't gotten into the downloading thing at all)  

The tumbler quilt still needs a name, but no doubt a dazzling thought will occur to me one day like a brilliant flash of lightning, and that will that.

Flower basket blocks are being joined into larger pieces......perhaps one day it, too, will be a finished top.

Speaking of lightning - we have had a lot this week!  A few nights ago we were trying to drop off to sleep (the neighbour's younger dog has been very barky because his people are away, we're the dog feeders until they return) when a storm which had been lighting up the valley for an hour arrived with a vengeance.  Much lighting, rumbling thunder rolling around the hills, strong wind and - for a very brief while - heavy rain.  It was quite dramatic, but didn't last long.  The following evening just after 6pm following a few quiet rumbles there was a very loud clap of thunder, one of the loudest I have ever heard in my life.  It sounded as though it was right overhead.  Bianca was quite perturbed (as was I; actually, it scared the living daylights out of me), the kangaroos on the hill were also agitated and were hopping hither and yon.  A few drops of rain, a bit of wind, and it was gone - we checked for damage, fortunately there was none.  

We are going ahead with planning a trip to Canberra at Easter, although there won't be a folk festival.  However we will still be able to spend time with family, and hopefully with friends, and enjoy some autumn weather.  We will take a different route home to meet a distant cousin with whom I have been in touch; we have only met once before, so we plan to catch up again.  Our mothers were first cousins so - I think - that makes us second cousins, and we share the same middle name.

Continuing on from the last posting on table manners and etiquette:

"To be thoroughly at ease at such times is only acquired by the habitual practice of good manners at the table, and is the result of proper home training.  It is the duty of parents to accustom their children, by example as well as by precept, to be attentive and polite to each other at every meal, as well as to observe proper rules of etiquette, and if they do so, they need never fear that they will be rude or awkward when they go abroad."

Yes indeed.  Practice makes perfect, whether it is good table manners or anything else.

Enjoy your days!