Last WOW for April

Little wombats! A tiny bell that I bought in the Half-Way Roadhouse on the Windsor-Singleton Road in the bush a couple of hours out of Sydney, a wine bottle stopper our son gave me after a weekend trip to the Hunter Valley - lots of grapes and wine in the Hunter Valley - and a coaster that was part of my gift in a Secret Santa exchange. I've never seen wombats in trees though......perhaps they are koalas peering out from the branches. Koalas and wombats are related, scientists say they share a common ancestor thousands of years ago. As they evolved koalas started climbing trees and eating eucalyptus leaves, wombats started burrowing underground and eating grass.

The last couple of days have given us a taste of early winter, there is an icy chill wind blowing outside. The cats are behaving like ratbags (when they are awake, that is) - chasing each other, and their invisible friends, and elves and fairies that we can't see, through the house from one end to the other. Wind seems to affect children and animals that way, I remember when our sons were small. Even though Binky is twelve years old her inner kitten comes out in this weather. Then after a while she remembers she is Senior Cat, and settles down for a little sleep while Bianca rages on for a while longer.

Today I received a box from Canada containing this beautiful quilt top from Rose Marie, and star blocks from Kiera and one of her friends. The quilts, I know, will be gratefully received by their lucky recipients.

It's only 163 days until we arrive in Canada - woo hoo! Not that I'm wishing my life away, you understand; I'm just getting excited. As one does.

Have a lovely week.

Jennifer

Meet me at the fair

What with going away for ten days, and Kevin's heart jumping all over the place and all the associated running around that went with getting him to doctors and having blood tests, it has occurred to me that I have neglected to post finished pics of my Road to St Louis quilt. Here is some of the border quilting....slightly wonky because I am not very experienced at free-motion work, but finished nevertheless. The pretty variegated Aurifil thread is a lovely aqua colour.
And here is the whole quilt, well most of it - either Kevin moved when he was holding it up while standing on a little stool (those are the stool's legs peeking out at the bottom, not Kevin's) - or, more likely, I moved the camera j-u-s-t as I snapped the photo. As you can see, I am fond of green; the bottom photo is truer to the colour, the close-up looks a bit washed out but really it's a soft pretty green.

But it's finally finished. Yay for me. And it kept me warm on a couple of cold nights in Canberra.

Today Australia and New Zealand are celebrating, if that is the right word, ANZAC Day. It's the day when we remember the sacrifices of those who fought in wars for our country. My father was stationed in Papua New Guinea in WWII (as we found out a few years ago, he was in the War Graves unit) and never, never, ever spoke of his experiences - he was only 25YO when the war ended and it affected him profoundly. Consequently it affected all of us; my mother, my brothers and me. He was not a happy man, he was a distant, sometimes abusive, father who walked out one day and never contacted any of us ever again; we found out he had died many years after it happened. War doesn't only take people's lives....it takes away their souls too.

I don't celebrate much on Anzac Day.

Jennifer

Giveaway

Over at Vickie's blog is a giveaway....lovely Moda fabric....I need more fabric like a need a large hole in my head, but it is very pretty.....

Jennifer

Edible WOW

A chocloate Easter wombat! A gift from my friend Jasmine, when we caught up for our annual chat at the folk festival at Easter. So far it's still intact because how can I bring myself to eat a wombat, even a chocolate one? But no doubt the day will come when nothing but chocolate will do, and the wombat will be sacrificed.

And a Canadian friend has sent me some beautiful fabric with a design of red maple leaves, aren't friends wonderful! So I will re-think the Maple Leaf table runner design and use this fabric instead, my swirly red and white fabrics will go into another project. Possibly a larger Maple Leaf quilt........I've never been a 'red' person but this could change.......

Speaking of colour.....today we had to make a small foray to the shops and I noticed the displays for Mother's Day next month - they are pink. Pink packaging, pink products. Who decided that women must have pink? Not all women like it, I have never been a pink girl (neither would you be if you had auburn hair, brown eyes and freckles), neither of my girls-in-law are pink either. And purple - I have very few purple garments because of the poem "When I am an old woman I shall wear purple" - I don't think of myself as old, therefore I don't wear purple. Now green, for instance, or yellow; that's what I like. Why doesn't the poem start "When I am an old woman I shall wear sunshine"?

Have a sunny week.

Jennifer

Bloggers Quilt Festival

A quilt festival on line? Sounds like fun to me! I have decided to enter with my Kiwiana quilt, that I wrote about in my last post. Thanks to Nanci for telling about it. So far there are over 200 entries, it could take a long time to look at every one.......the link is on my sidebar so make a coffee (or tea if you prefer, or hot chocolate, or your favourite tipple), open a new bar of chocolate, and enjoy.

After I posted yesterday I resumed work on a UFO that had been stalled for a while. I'm not good at free-motion stitching but am slowly improving, that was why it had been sitting for a while waiting for my skills to become more skillful. Between My Lovely New Bernina (celebrating its 10th birthday later this year) and me, we are learning one stitch at a time. This UFO was bought in Ketchikan, Alaska in 2006, I want to have it finished and hanging up.

Happy sewing,

Jennifer

Ten years ago I won a quilt

The online group of which I have been a member since mid-1997 holds an annual retreat, and there are always opportunities for those who can't attend to be involved. Ten years ago it was held in Adelaide, South Australia, and those who couldn't be there in person were invited to send a photo of themselves to be displayed in a "Rogues' Gallery", with some prizes. One prize was still undrawn at the end of the retreat so the photos were put in a box and one lucky photo drawn out.......and I won a quilt.

"Kiwiana" was made by members in New Zealand and, as you can see, features various New Zealand scenes and images.....sheep, kiwis (lots of kiwis!), native birds, pretty yellow kowhai flowers, white flowering clematis, marine pictures, ferns and a row of batches - New Zealanders have little holiday cottages they call "batches". The reverse side has hearts signed by various members; both front and back use New Zealand fabrics with batiks. All the colours used are very evocative of New Zealand. There is also a book made with leftover blocks, and photos of the quilt in progress. The beautiful quilting was done by Marilyn Giles of Auckland. It hangs in my dining room, I see it every day ----- and I still can't believe it's mine!

My maternal grandmother was born in New Zealand and I have rels there so it was meant to be, I reckon.

At every quilt show I buy at least one ticket in the raffle quilt - there's always a raffle quilt - but I don't know how many quilts one person is allowed to win in their lifetime.

Jennifer

Back home again

What a lovely festival! Lots of good music, lots of catching up with friends (some of whom we only see once a year, at this festival), interesting food to try - Ghanian chicken and spinach stew, for instance. Yum. Not many photos taken as it's difficult to photograph a stage performance when you are a short person and everyone sitting in front of you is taller, and the stage lights make it difficult to get a good shot. But I did get some shots of an outdoor belly dance display, and some morris dancing too....now that looks like hard work. Even the heavy rainstorms on two consecutive nights didn't dampen our spirits, although we felt sorry for those who were camping in tents. My voice gave out at about 1.30am on Tuesday morning, which was a pity as I was singing at the time.

Every year I have attended this festival (about 14 years now) I have bought myself a souvenir, usually earrings or something similar, but this year I bought a blue hat, and a multi-coloured silk scrunchy for my hair. Spending hours outside in the sun was all very well when I was young and silly; these days I wear a hat and seek shade.

And Kevin is well although he will be visiting the doctor for a while yet to adjust his medication dosage, so all is good in our world.

Jennifer

The best laid schemes o' mice and men gang aft agley.......

.....or to put it another way, things don't always go according to plan. We will be going away on Sunday, not tomorrow, and coming home after the festival instead of travelling around for a while. Kevin has been having some medical treatment this week - something we didn't know about last week, it's all been very quick - he has another appointment two weeks from now. He's fine now, the visits are to sort out medication doses. So, we will go to Canberra and enjoy the festival (as we always do!), come home again, and plan a trip some other time.

But the best news is that we have been thinking of another visit to Canada later this year to see our son who is four years into his 12-month working holiday, and this week we have it all booked. Because of the 'current economic climate' (to quote the media) there are some very good air fare deals at present, so our trip will be $2000 cheaper than when we last went over in late 2007! Unfortunately the cheap deals are only between Australia and the US, we had hoped to fly into Vancouver first and hop over to Vancouver Island to meet up with friends, but those are such good prices we have decided to go via Los Angeles again. Our son and his sweetie Kiera live in Toronto so we will spend our time there.

Do you like my rather gorgeous fabric and thread? It's for a Maple Leaf table runner, so we can set a Canadian table on July 1, and toast our Canadian family and friends. Positive/negative fabrics are interesting together, and the thread is Aurifil which I often use, I like it - this one is polyester in variegated red and white which I haven't yet tried, but their cotton thread is lovely. And guess what.......the Road to St Louis will have the last stitch put in its binding this evening.

Have a peaceful Easter!

Jennifer