A momentous week

It has been, indeed!

First up: on Friday 19th March Kevin and I celebrated the 45th anniversary of the evening we stood up in front of family and friends, and plighted our troth.  Forty five years.....and neither of us has yet committed murder!

The forty five year anniversary gem is, it seems, sapphire.  Are these not gorgeous?

My jewellery collection, though no doubt modest by many standards, has some very pretty things including some earrings from Annette Piper; I like her designs and how she puts colours together.

Nothing was posted last weekend because - I went to a quilt show, the first for a couple of years!  A town an hour north of here has their show each March, but of course last year's had to be cancelled with not much notice.  This year's was a little smaller than usual, no doubt due to the restrictions on how many people can be in one place at a time, but the quilts were wonderful and it was good to be 'somewhere'.

Two houses have been made, a red swirly house, and an Aussie kangaroo house with grass for them to enjoy and cockatoos flying through the sky.  Only four more to be done; they will be a "when we are home again" project.

Work is happening on the flower basket quilt.  The date on this pic is 26th November, 2014 - these blocks have been sitting for a while, haven't they?  Never mind; they are now progressing.

All the triangles for the autumn quilt have been trimmed and they are now in their box ready for the next step which will involve lots of lovely mindless sewing.  No doubt you can see the gleam of my shiny halo from your place.

We had more rain during the week, and we even had a flood.  When I say "we had a flood" I don't mean Kevin and I, but the town!  Yes indeed, the river rose above the banks and flooded farmland and sports fields, two out of the three bridges were closed because they were under water, but as far as I know no buildings were damaged here......which is more than can be said for many other parts of the state.  There has been a lot of damage to a large area - why, oh why do councils permit building on areas known to be flood plains?  The more that natural drainage such as grass, undeveloped fields and creeks is covered by buildings and roads, the more damage there is.

When I rule the world, things will be different.

The day after tomorrow we are heading south for our holiday, to catch up with family and friends and to enjoy some autumn colour.  I probably won't have a chance to keep up with reading blogs on my aging tablet, but will resume when we are home again late next month.

"Refrain from making a noise when eating, or supping from a spoon, and from smacking the lips or breathing heavily while masticating food, as they are marks of ill-breeding.  The lips should be kept closed in eating as much as possible."

As children we were told "keep your mouth closed while you are eating", but judging from the behavious of people I have seen eating in public - not everyone was.  I wish they had been.

Enjoy your days!

It has rained, it has poured......

......and it will rain again soon, judging by the weather radar.  It's been a long time since I have driven in such heavy rain as I did on Thursday night coming home from choir, the closer I came to home the heavier was the rain and wind; Kevin was drenched running from the house to the garage, and we were both drenched getting inside.  Our garage is under the house roof but doesn't have an entrance inside the house which is normally not a problem, but it was that night.

The drought has broken in our backyard, for sure, and it's now raining steadily again.

Don''t you love our wet world?  Taken just a few minutes ago.

Two more houses made this week, bring the total to 55.  Six to go.

Another cat house and a butterfly house, both with flowery gardens.  Today's dull conditions make for dull photos.

Trimming of the autumn blocks has not yet happened.  It will.  Hand piecing a panel for the back of the tumbler quilt is done, now some machine work remains.  I have no idea about backing fabric; there is one possibility (which may be too busy) in my stash, and my favourite shop doesn't have anything which floats my boat either.  There is another quilt shop here but I seldom go in as the owner is a bit of an odd duck, although the fabric for the inner border was found there.  However - there are quilt shops in Canberra, so perhaps the perfect fabric awaits down south.

A year ago we were also planning a trip to Canberra for the folk festival, but it wasn't to be.  This time the trip will happen but the festival will not.  Last year our musician son had a gig lined up which we would have been able to attend, but it, too, had to be cancelled almost at the last minute - we were really looking forward to that, as we have so few chances to hear him play these days.  He is hoping to have one for us this time, so fingers crossed.  At least we will be able to be in the same room as family instead of having to grin at each other on a computer screen.

Bianca and I are keeping each other company for a few days as Kevin has gone Down To The Coast to play in a lawn bowls competition.  Last year his team made it through all their games to get to the state final, but then the world shut down and the final was postponed......and postponed again......now it is to happen over the next few days rain (probably), hail or shine.  He will be back sometime on Wednesday, so it will be a quiet house until then; not that he is a raucously loud person at any time, but having one person away when there are only two of you anyway always makes for a quieter house.  Bianca isn't much of a conversationalist unless it is getting near what she considers to be her dinner time.

Lately we have been noticing that trees are definitely getting ready for autumn.  Those bright greens are fading, and trees which produce seeds are doing so.  It will be cooler down south, autumn arrives earlier there - something to look forward to.  

"Greediness.

To put large pieces of food into your mouth appears greedy, and if you are addressed when your mouth is so filled, you are obliged to pause, before answering, until the vast mouthful is masticated, or run the risk of choking, by swallowing it too hastily.  To eat very fast is also a mark of greediness, and should be avoided.  The same may be said of soaking up gravy with bread, scraping up sauce with a spoon, scraping your plate, and gormandizing upon one or two articles of food only."

That last bit of gravy soaked up with bread is always delicious, don't you think?  Even if it gets us kicked out of a polite dinner party......

Enjoy your days!

Only eight houses to go!

There is a 'but' here......but we are going away in three weeks, so not all the houses will be made before we go because I am sticking to my goal of two per week.  Never mind; they will be here to welcome us home again and all houses will be done by the anniversary of our moving into this house, eleven years ago in May.

Aren't these fun with their colourful gardens?

A lavender house with a garden of iris, and a light green house with pots in its garden.  The green fabric was pulled from my stash to make the roof for the lavender house, and I liked it so much that it also became the next house.  It has been in my stash for a very long time, the selvedge says "Stained Glass for Quilters".

Some trimming has also been happening.  The blocks on the right have been trimmed but need to be pressed and have their corner 'ears' snipped off, while the pile on the left is awaiting trimming.  Too long spent with the cutter aggravates a soreness in my right forearm, so I take it easy and don't have marathon cutting/trimming sessions.  This is the autumn quilt.

Eventually both these quilts will be done.......and then I might have to think of a new one!

The coming week holds the promise of rain, even possibly quite a lot of rain.  We shall see.  We have watched promised rain clouds part and go around us before now; even with the weather site saying "95% chance of rain" we have missed out on even one drop.  Our town is on the edge of a wide valley with hills to the north and east, and those hills make their own weather.

We are now feeling confident about making plans for our sojourn down south.  Two interesting exhibitions will be on while we are in Canberra, one at the National Gallery of Australia of European paintings, and another at the National Library of Australia of Australian art - which is the one I really want to see.  Way back when I was a Sweet Young Thing and worked at the library here it held a copy of "The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia" with its beautiful engravings published in the 1880s, which was fascinating to a somewhat naive teenager who didn't know much about anything.  It was republished many years ago but I didn't get around to buying a copy, and now it's probably out of print.

My etiquette book is a reprint of a book from the 1880s.  Back in the 1970s-1980s several older books were reprinted in facsimile editions, meaning that they are an exact copy of the original......and this in the days before computers and scanners.  To all intents and purposes it is exactly as it would have been published in those earlier days, except of course for the information about it being a facsimile reprint.

By the way - if you have left a comment and I haven't answered it's not because I am ignoring you, I really love having visitors and like to reply!  It means that you are a "no reply blogger", so if you would like a reply you might want to check your settings.

"The knife and fork.

The knife and fork were not made for playthings, and should not be used as such when people are waiting at the table for the food to be served.  Do not hold them erect in your hands at each side of your plate, nor cross them on your plate when you have finished, nor make a noise with them.  The knife should only be used for cutting meats and hard substances, while the fork, held in the left hand, is used in carrying food into the mouth.  A knife must never, in any account, be put into the mouth.  When you send your plate to be refilled, do not send your knife and fork, but put them upon a piece of bread, or hold them in your hand."

I recall, as a child, being told "don't put your knife in your mouth".  To this day, if I do so - I do it with guilt while looking over my shoulder to see if my mother is watching, despite the fact that she has been gone since 1999.

Enjoy your days!

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!