The coast and the wine valley

We have had a fun week of camping and seeing a million new sights.  Everything is so new and interesting, it becomes somewhat overwhelming after a long day out and about.  I had a dentist appointment on Monday to fix the filling that broke off on Friday – and paid more than double what I would pay at home for the repair, although it is a “bang-up” job.  (I’m learning Aussie :)).  We left that afternoon to drive down to the coast.  Of course what with packing the car and getting all the last minute things together we didn’t get away until about 5 pm.  Plus we had to identify this snake we found outside the house.  Geoff bought a book of Australian snakes and we found out it is a small Marsh snake.

 

We travelled through Uralla and Walcha (where we saw this great sign – Dahn you’ll agree that I should bring one home…)

then down the Oxley Highway.  We decided to stop for the night in Wauchope, about twenty kms from Port MacQuarie as it was getting dark and drizzling.  The woman at the hotel we stopped at couldn’t believe we wanted to stop there rather than drive twenty more minutes to our destination, but we managed to convince her to rent us a couple of rooms.  We had dinner at the only open restaurant in town, Chinese food, which was excellent.  After a wonderful night’s sleep we headed off to Port MacQuarie in the morning and stayed at the Flynn’s Beach Caravan Park (for the uninitiated this is a camping area where there are some people who live long-term in motor-homes, they have small motor-home cottages for rent, or you can camp with or without power).  Here are the members of our greeting party… this lizard who is unidentified…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And these Australian Brush Turkeys…

After a walk on the beach and a swim (well really just a romp in the waves), we had lunch and fun watching the surfers and the birds…

Little Corellas (I think), a cockatoo

A Masked Lapwing (notice the wattle)

A Galah, another cockatoo.  The word galah is used to mean stupidity, but the birds are certainly pretty.

  In the afternoon we visited the Koala hospital.  We haven’t seen any of these animals in the wild, even though there are often signs indicating that they are about.  But they are nocturnal, and sleep in the trees during the day.  There is a terrible saga of these animals being killed for their fur, and losing their habitat through the removal of gum trees for pastureland.  They move very slowly and are rather cute.

This is all for now as I am off to a craft fair.  But I’ll be back to tell you more about the trip later…

Janet

We’re in Australia!!

Geoff walking his suitcase in Vancouver airport.  Nope he won’t buy a new one until this one falls apart.

The weather leaving Vancouver, 5 p.m. on February 23rd.  Yes that is snow falling.

The glitz of Los Angeles was overwhelming.  An instalment in the airport…

Arriving in Sydney around 10 a.m. February 25th.  A tropical isle!!

This land is so different, it is making me kind of crazy…. In my sister’s yard…

Ducks in the morning sun…

Alpacas in the field…

Parrots by the apple tree…

I have a lot more to show you but must be off for a walk to the dam right now, then making apple jelly before dinner.

Love to all at home.

Janet

52 week word challenge and some sewing!!!

The word for this week is “instantaneous”.  I have racked my brain trying to think what I could take a picture of that was instantaneous…. birds flitting to the birdfeeder and away again, a baking soda volcano, some kind of accident… Nope none of these will work. 

I found this old photo …. I don’t know if this kind of ice forms instantaneously or not, but in my romantic vision of it, it does.And it is pretty.

The opposite of instantaneous is delayed, late or slow.  Well that’s the category my sewing fits into.  But at least I am doing some!!

This block is for the Canadian’s Quilt swap that I am participating in.  My partner wanted that colour range and a star or stars.  This pattern is by Carolyn Beam, Creative Editor for Quiltmaker magazine and can be found in Quiltmaker's 100 Blocks, volume 5.

Then I made these blocks, the last ones for the Bee Balm swap that I signed up for last year.  For some reason I took a really blurry picture – it isn’t your eyes

And then I made these hexies for my January partner in the hexie flower swap… But I took the photo with only the red colour showing…

And now look what I am doing…. I’m really getting my sewing groove on!!

Hopefully by next week I’ll have some finish pictures of this quilt to show! 

Edited to add – I just found out that Shaz is in the hospital and has extended the word instantaneous for another week.  I hope Shaz is better by then!!

Janet

52 week word photo challenge

I missed the photo challenge last week.  I just plum forgot about it until it was too late.  But I’m in this week.  I just looked up what the word for the week was this morning – and it was a perfect word for me because today it was very beautiful and BRIGHT outside.   Kind of like this …

After two weeks of spring like weather – above zero everyday and lots of melting – the temperature has finally cooled a bit.  All the ice on the lakes was starting to melt and it froze up again making a beautiful skating surface in some spots.  For my BRIGHT picture I am choosing this one…

That may look like two lonely boots out on the ice, but it is really a hockey net…. Here’s one more photo so you can see the set up…

Don’t you love how  I snuck three photos into my BRIGHT photo display

Head on over to Alsha's Space and check out some other BRIGHT photos.

Janet

Sunday, oh Sunday

I guess I have to quit crowing about how we have no catastrophic weather in the Yukon.  We had a big wind storm this past Thursday and eight or nine trees came down in my yard.

This one took out our bird feeder.

This one flattened hubby’s storage tent.

This one landed on the greenhouse but didn’t too too much damage – just bent the eaves-trough a bit.

Another one fell in the five or so feet between the chicken coop and the sail boat, but didn’t hit either of them.  Another one landed inches from the wall tent on the back of the property.  We’ve been cleaning up for the last couple of days and things are starting to get back to normal.  And the power never went off at all!

I have done exactly NO sewing this week.  But I’m doing well with my other resolutions.  And my friends and I had a great time at a glass fusing class yesterday.  Here are the pieces lined up in the kiln to be fired.

And here are some of the finished products…

My pieces include a fridge magnet, a small hanging and a pendant…

And pieces for a wind chime…

This scenery piece turned out kind of weird.  I might add to it and re-fire it.

A good friend passed away this evening.  He has been really sick, so it is a blessing, but there is still sadness. 

Janet

English Paper Piecing party

I haven’t done any machine sewing this week.  I’m battling a health issue (again – it has been almost a year solid – grr) and taking copious amounts of antibiotics which have many side effects including nausea, dizziness and tiredness.  I haven’t felt much like sewing, except for sitting on the couch doing hand piecing.

I have started putting the flowers together for the Grandmother’s Flower Garden, and I’m getting some concrete ideas about what size and shape I’m going to make this quilt.  Here are the beginnings…

And two other flowers with their second rounds…

Jan from Georgia sent me these two sets of second round hexies for the Inchy Hexagon Flower swap for December.  The red and white flower on the left also came from Georgia from my friend Alberta.  A completely Georgian flower!

I am also starting to remake the backwards block from my flower ball.  Fortunately the maker was generous with the fabric and I will be able to remake the large flower using the fabric she chose.

I’m off now to view the other EPP projects being posted at Hydee Ann's EPP linky party.

Janet I’m trying to use all the different fonts, just for fun…. this is what MT Extra looks like. Janet

52 Week photo challenge

To help me get back into blogging I have signed up for a 52 week photo challenge at Alsha's Space.  You know I like taking pictures  

The word for this week is “beautiful”.  I do live in the most beautiful place in the world, (tee hee) but we have had grey days for quite a while now.  The light playing off the mountains this afternoon looked really beautiful.

Janet

Happy 2014!

One of my many new year’s resolutions is to get back into blogging by writing a blog post at least once a week.  What are the others? 

Write in my diary every morning.

Sew a little bit every day.

A minimum of thirty minutes of aerobic exercise daily.

I have lots of other things I would like to do, but those four are the ones I am focussing on.  How am I doing so far?  Well I’m acing the diary and exercise….  And here I am writing a blog post for this week.   

I haven’t done so well with sewing, but not so bad either… today I made this block; the last one for the Simply Solids swap from 2012.  I was behind with this block – it was suppose to be mailed by December 25th, but I was really scared to make it.  So complex!  But it was actually easier than I thought it would be. 

Edited to add – here is the link to the pattern for this block  Snowflake block

On January 1st I sewed together this cute hexie piece for the 2012 Get Your Hex On swap.  Just one more block to make for the last partner in that swap. 

Hey I just noticed that these are both snowflake blocks.   Cute!

I didn’t do any sewing on the other three days…. Oh well, maybe I’ll only sew every few days.  That would be an improvement over the last couple of months…

Happy new year everyone!

Janet

Back from Toronto and EPP link party post

I had a great time in Toronto last week, although it seems like it is almost forgotten already.  I came home to a huge snowfall that took about four days to get cleared off the roads.  And now it is –40.  Brr!!

The highlights of my trip were a visit to the textile museum where there was a special exhibit on Mayan fabric, attending Friday night knitting group with my friend, seeing Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra at Massey Hall, a weekend visit with friends north of the city and a quick trip to Niagara Falls.

And I got to make friends and play with this cutie…

I managed to complete the pathway round on one of my hexie flowers while on the plane coming home.  One of the ladies at the knitting group tuned me in to using a dental floss container to cut your thread on the plane so that they don’t confiscate your scissors.

One down and seventy-four more to go!!

I received one of the two missing pieces for my flower ball.  I just love the bright, fabrics that Kelli used in her piece (the happy pink and red flowers at the top of the ball)

The two big pieces on the left and right are all stitched together, but not to each other.  And I still have that pesky upside down piece to fix. 

I’m adding this update on my English Paper Piecing projects to Hydee Ann’s In-hand EPP link party.  Check it out to see other fun EPP projects!

Janet

It’s December!!

This year has whizzed by and continues to do so!  I am off to Toronto very early Tuesday morning to visit a friend, but I need to put up a post before I go.  Otherwise it will be close to a month before I get a post up and that won’t do!!

I have to stay in town tomorrow night as I have to be at the airport at 4:45 a.m. to check in for my flight.  Brutal eh!  Ah well, I arrive in Toronto around 3 p.m. which will be nice.  If you have any suggestions for things I just have to do while in Toronto, please leave me a note.  My friend already has quite a bit of our visit time booked up, but we can be flexible. 

The last couple of weeks have not produced tons of sewing.  I was busy all last week creating an Advent calendar for my Newfoundland granddaughter.  I had to get it in last Monday’s mail if it had any hope of getting there for December 1st.  I haven’t heard from DD # 2  that it has arrived but Canada Post’s tracking site said it was being delivered on Friday, so I’m going to take a chance on showing it.  (DD was working all weekend so probably didn’t have time to pick up a parcel, or open it with her stepdaughter, or call me. )

This is a panel.  I did outline quilting around all the shapes and left it at that as it is only going to be hung on the wall.  Santa’s bag is full of fabric discs with pictures on them that get hung on the buttons, one per day.  The pattern didn’t have any directions for a place to store the discs.  I came up with the idea for Santa’s bag and I think it is ultra cute, although I should have made it slightly smaller. 

The “ornaments”…

DH asked “where’s the chocolate?”  Oh dear, there isn’t any…. but one could hang chocolates from the buttons and take one off each day prior to hanging the ornament…

The only other sewing I did over the last couple of weeks was my flower for the flower ball.  Here you can see where the two pieces I haven’t received yet go.  My flower is the very bottom one on the right.  Each of the two big pieces on the right and left are all sewn together now, but not sewn to each other.  My next task is to fix the upside down piece.  And hopefully someday soon I’ll receive the other two pieces.

That’s it for now.  I have to get some sleep, although I’m pretty excited about taking a holiday and may not be able to fall asleep.  But I’d better as I do still have to work tomorrow.

Janet