Q is for......................

QUIET..............

Yes I've been quiet!  Not a lot happening here what with more lockdowns/restrictions & the weather being very tardy, but here is a "quick" catch up.

Also "sorry" I've not done any commenting lately, but have caught up on reading blogs and can only  say that I've been down & just want to get back to at least some sort of normality in the future.

QUEUING.

As things were improving here a little, DH & I went shopping on Friday morning to our local Bunnings store (a large hardware chain) to purchase a few bits & bobs for a couple of projects and some veg plants to start getting ready for summer gardening & lo & behold there was someone in the store with Covid at the same time as we were there, so off to get tested yesterday.  We'd only had 5 cases here in our shire since it all began last year, so why now?  We sat in the car for 4.5 hours. Luckily the testing station was out of town at a large facility that caters for country shows for farming, cars, music festivals and also cattle sales.  Lots of cars, but at least we weren't queued on the road.  Just awaiting our results now & hopefully we are negative and can get out to buy milk, bread & some fresh fruit and veg.............soon.

Now, not sure whether I'm allowed to do this, but I've found an aerial photo via the i'net of the above venue.

Not too bad an area for our wait in the queue and we did take coffee, biscuits, my sewing and a book for DH.  We also heard plenty of birdsong/twittering from lorikeets, rosellas, corellas, butcher birds, magpies & wattle birds.

QUAKES.

 Last Wednesday around 9.15am, I was busily putting some washing on the clotheshorse (it was drizzling) and SUDDENLY..................there was a strange rumbling noise & then the house started shaking & although it was quick, it was quite scary.  We'd had a 5.8 earthquake some 100kms north of us, but it was felt far & wide throughout eastern Australia.  I even rang DD to tell her & she answered the phone, saying "yes Mum, we're having an earthquake" and they live on the other side of Melbourne. 

A rather strange month this September!!!!!!!!!!!!

QUILTING.

As we've been in so much lockdown and aren't allowed to visit or have visitors, I've been doing a fair bit of quilting, so a few photos follow of a couple of finishes for this month. One you have seen before the binding was all hand sewn.

Flower Power, the QAL I did with Jo Avery in Scotland & was in a previous post.

Chateau Garden.
One of my own designs which was a simple pattern to fill in between the QAL above.
Below a photo of the pieced backing as I can't get out to buy large pieces and as I've plenty of leftover bits, I'm making good use of them.

Rosetta.
Another of my own designs based on the traditional Buckeye Beauty block.
Again I'd had the curated bundle of fabric in my stash for a long time and am finally utilising it in these tough times.
Below the pieced backing.

On the design wall............

which will hopefully become this......

QUILT ACCESSORIES.

DH has been busy too and indulged my whim for a "HUG-A-RUG" for the hallway to display my wall quilts and now I can change them easily on a regular basis.

DH's clever rendition of the Hug-a-rug.

QUESTIONABLE.

Now for a few photos from the rather wayward garden at the moment.  As the weather has not been playing nicely, I'm not getting a lot done outside.

Azalea

Wallflower & Gazania

Only 2 bluebells have flowered this year.

The Snowball bush.

My Banksia rose starting to blossom.

If you click to enlarge, you'll be able to see one of our resident Skinks on the far edge of the pond.

OK, that's it from me and maybe someone out there will have a peek at a long overdue post.  I've had plenty of ideas swimming around in my head, but the words won't come and as for taking the camera anywhere with me, it isn't happening, so I need a good push to kick start my blogging mojo.  Maybe this will be a fresh start. 

Take care all, stay safe & huge virtual hugs.

Susan. xxxx

FRIDAY PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT - SCHOOL

 Linking with Astrid for the Hunt and this week's word is "School", which I really struggled with, but here goes.  

A lovely old school in the south east corner of Victoria.  I took this photo last year when we had our 4 day break away in an unlockdown period and was greatly appreciated.

A new school being built on the new estate near to us last year and it is now in operation.  What a contrast to the one above which was built in 1877.  

Now for a couple of photos from the 60's.

The non digital age of listening to radio programmes broadcast across Australia for schools, especially vital for children in remote areas who did all their learning via School of the Air.  I did have all 4 from my Primary School years 1958-1961, but I can  only find these two.  Once in High school it was all very different.

My two younger brothers and myself at the beginning of the school year in 1964.  G (on the far left), in his uniform ready to start High school for his first year and it was to be my last year at school.  My youngest brother (middle), not in uniform always went to a Special school due to being intellectually disabled.  Look at the daggy uniform I have on.  You ought to have seen our summer hat & winter beret!  Oh...........and black stockings in winter too.

OK, my lot for this week and found I didn't have the photos I thought would be good.  Remembered that I lost a lot of my schooling years memorabilia in my parent's basement flood a long time ago.

Not sure I'm going to be in for next week's hunt as DH doesn't like Pizza, so never on the menu.  We'll see if I can think outside the box..................

Take care all, stay safe and hugs.

Susan.

BEDDING PLANTS QAL - LINKUP.

 This is a quick post with a near finish of the Quiltalong I have been participating in with Jo Avery in Scotland.  I've had so much fun with this by using only coloured scraps/leftovers from previous projects over many years.  The white backgrounds for each row were from my stash as were the horizontal sashes, borders & binding.  I'm just now handsewing the binding down of a night.

A few photos so I can join in the link, though I do think I'm the only one without FB or Instagram, so maybe I'm a bit strange.  Here goes and I've actually called mine Flower Power and made it slightly smaller.

FLOWER POWER

A few photos to show each row and how they were quilted and what I used for the bed edgings.

One last thing before I go is to quickly show what my Garrya looked like this year after having one lone catkin last year.  It was gorgeous back in July.

GARRRYA

Off now to link with Jo and hopefully be back tomorrow with the Friday Scavenger Hunt.

Thanks to anyone I may have missed just lately with comment replies and I'm also having trouble with commenting on Wordpress blogs, so will have to sort that at sometime.

Take care all, stay safe & lots of hugs from down under.

Susan.