PLODDING ALONG.

Not a lot of exciting things happening at the moment, but we take each day as it comes. 
The garden doesn't seem to know what season it is with a "few" warm days, then quite a lot of grey days with blustery winds, occasional very heavy downpours, which flooded the garage one afternoon & has left us scratching our heads with the current rainfall for this month at 100mm.  That is a lot for February here.
We've not been out and about much, so I went for a little photo shoot around the garden.

                                                       The Magnolia trying to flower.😖

                                    The waterlily in the pond finally giving us some flowers.
                                                    It overflowed in all the heavy rain.

I picked some silver beet for our tea & also found a "tiny red" tomato, though it has a small hole at the top.  This is the only one so far, but there are plenty more on the plants.  Hope we get a good feed                                                                            from them.

Back in January, we had a storm one night &  heard on the news that Melbourne had been hit by heavy rain full of red dust from the very dry western part of our state.  It rained here in the middle of the night, so I didn't think we'd had the dust, but lo & behold, our blueberries were all mucky & this is what the leaves looked like.

A BIT OF CRAFTING.....

Hydrangea Galaxy.

The quilt I'm making for Miss A from a paper piecing set of stars by Blossom Heart Quilts.  I've put them into my own setting to make the quilt bigger & will quilt it soon.  My long arm machine is misbehaving a little at the moment, so have made a call to the mechanic & waiting for confirmation on date for servicing.I do have one on the machine, so will get that done this week hopefully, before he comes out.

Another of my own designs, called "Second Helping" after colouring it several different ways & not being able to think of a name.  I'll show it in more detail once it's quilted.
I filled part of today with making some blueberry jam from surplus produce, as I'm running out of space in the freezer.

A silly post about nonsense in the Smith household.  Still grey outside at 6pm with the sun popping it's rays through for a few minutes every now & then.  Wonder what tomorrow will bring.  I need to move now to serve up our tea & ease my never ending back pain after sitting for more than about 10-15 minutes. 
Take care all & huggles from Susan.

Five on Friday - GRATITUDE - Feb'20

Joining in with Kate, although I'm a little late due to a wild thunderstorm & lashings of rain last night (Friday) & having to put my thinking cap on straight to realise, yes, I am grateful for so much, especially little things sometimes.  Still struggling somewhat, but we'll have a little look at what has made me smile over the last month.
Gratitude..............
1.  for having a garden.

Looking up under a tiger Lily.

As well as having a garden, which although the steepness is getting more difficult, it still produces plenty of amazing things after our weird weather patterns and I can take photos easily with my digital camera. 

2.  for nature.

The wonderful aspects we see all round us in nature, if we take the time to look & capture.  Isn't this spider web great.  It was huge and went from our pergola over to a shrub near the pond.

3.  for laughter.

We spotted this sign last month & I want to see if anyone can spot what made us laugh?

4.  for handy hubbies.

The start for my chest of drawers to go in my sewing room, instead of a stack of boxes that hold all sorts of bits and bobs.  Watch this space to see progress.......

5.  for lots of scraps & leftovers.

Not wanting to throw away odds & ends from some quilts I've made, I'm now able to make a quick start on some charity quilts for giving to uprooted people from both the recent fires & floods.  Hopefully I'll have them ready as winter arrives in the middle of the year.

I know I'm finding it hard to blog, but I've made some lovely friends through my little blog & if I didn't have them, life would be quite lonely, so here I am, hopefully easing back in.  Comments are wayward on my tablet & what with my old laptop not picking up WiFi anymore,  I'll try & get to the PC a little more & leave comments on your posts.  Thanks for sticking with me.  

Take care & huggles from Susan.

NATIONAL ARBORETUM......Canberra.

OK, I am still here and trying hard to get motivated to blog, thinking that it is probably pretty boring reading for most.  Not helping is the worldwide  disastrous news headlines about all sorts of happenings.  I'm going to do some catching up on our happenings over the last (6) months & will start with a visit to our son & family in Canberra, back in October '19.  On this particular visit we took ourselves out to the Arboretum (I've shown a little before) and discovered a few bits we'd not seen.
1.  The Bonsai House.

At the entrance to The Bonsai House.
I do love the candles all standing straight & tall.

Port Jackson Fig.

Bottlebrush.

River Red gum.

Coast Banksia.

The above four are all Australian natives grown in a miniature form.  I was quite blown away by these specimens, as most of the Bonsai I've seen before has been with exotic species.

We took a walk up to the lookout on top of the hill and saw these on the way.

Looking back towards the Visitor Centre and ancillary buildings.

Quercis trees or what I've always called The Judas tree.  They are so pretty in flower.

The views towards the suburbs of Canberra over lakes and towards the mountains.

Once at the top this is what we could see.

                                    The views over plantings of trees towards the mountains.

                                                           Framed by trees this time.

An Eagles nest made from scrap, which I found fascinating.  DH & I were discovering all sorts in                                                                             this  lot.
Back down towards the Visitor garden are a number of small areas dedicated to different organisations.  Now something I don't generally talk about, but feel it's relevant as this plaque (below), stood out as a reminder of my late younger brother. 

My brother passed away from AIDS in 1993 aged 41.  He did actually live in Canberra for many years, running a small restaurant, before he contracted the horrible disease.  I just found it emotional that this was in a place he lived & he also loved gardening when he had time.

                                     Part of the Memorial gardens with a red flowering gum.

             This was called the Labyrinth garden and had lots of lovely sweet smelling lavender.                 Walking up from the Visitor Centre carpark we spotted this little beauty.  How could I not take a photo, before we headed up to the opposite hill where my beloved rusty sculpture sits.

     A lovely Morris Minor panel van (ours would have looked a lot like this before it was pulled from the blackberry bush & the rusty van bit fell off 😊), and from near our part of Victoria.
Up the hill to this..............................

                     Part of the finishing words to the Dorothea Mackellar poem "My Country".

                                                                   The views from up here.

  One last photo, just because.......................

Well, that's it.  Promoting our capital maybe, but a place we visit when we can whilst up that way & never cease to be amazed by the growth of some of the trees in such a new planting & considering our harsh climate at times. Also discovering other areas I'd not seen before.   
Just at the moment we seem to be experiencing the worst of what mother nature can throw at us, as a country with drought, bushfires, flooding rains, storms & cyclones, all this season of summer 2019/2020..  We will survive all this!!!!
On the home front, it's been the same old & because of the strange weather, we've not been out'n'about as much.  I've had a dental checkup & need a few fillings replaced, possibly all done before I go onto a medication for my osteoporosis, which scares me somewhat, but should, I've been told, help with bone strength.  OK done for now as I've been sat here for too long doing this.
Take care all & big huggles from down under.  See you again soon.............
Susan.
                                           

JANUARY PHOTO SCAVENGER HUNT...2020.

Time again for our photo hunt linking up with the lovely Kate.  No the easiest this month for me, but here's what I came up with.

1.  LOST/FOUND.
This one (I think), I found the most difficult.  Not getting out much this month because of heat, fires etc., I'd not even really thought about the hunt.  Luckily I scoured both my archives and other bits'n'bobs & noticed this sitting in my library of DVDs.

A word for  "lost" and the "found" part is that I actually found something.

2.  PRINT/S.

A set of black & white prints my late mother-in-law gave me many years ago.  These are of Leeds & I framed them in certificate frames, which I felt suited them well & they have hung in our spare bedroom in each house we've lived in.

3.  LUNCH.

Lunch for a pair of King Parrots at our poor now defunct feeder, as the post rotted and fell down whilst we were away in UK last year.  We must resurrect it soon.  Their water bowl is still there & plenty of birds use it to drink.

4.  STARTS WITH M.....
OK, I couldn't make up my mind with this one, so all 3 have a place.

MOSS

The most sumptuous mossy wall.  This photo was taken on a walk in the Lakes District with my friend Jayne.

MALHAM COVE.

The gorgeous Malham Cove, somewhere I love.  I think I took this in 2014, when we said that we'd do the steps up the side next time we visited.  Sad to say, we've been back to UK twice and still not done them.

MORRIS MINOR.

Our beloved car with a rose arbour framing it.
Sorry about that lot, but this is what happens to a mad woman on a seering hot day of 40 degrees.
Ooh, it's yuk..............fires close to our son again in Canberra.... worrying times.

5.  ENDS WITH T.....

CRAFT.

And then---------------these all end with T too.  We have crochet, knit, quilt and woodcraft, which are my wool bowl & cute cat.  My 3 items are all in progress at the moment, though slowly as it's been hot & not comfortable to knit or crochet much.  The quilt has progressed from the photo last post to this and will be on the big machine before too long.

6.  MY OWN CHOICE.
OK, this was something I saw on the internet & thought about how some people have chosen a word for this year & this sort of fell into place for me.  I need a kick up the butt occasionally & I struggle feeling like I'm worthwhile, so I'm plucking up the "courage" to do something about it.  Maybe watch this space!

Enough of my waffling and I'm off to find a cooler spot  in the house, (no cooler outlet here in the study) and also prepare our evening meal of cold meat & salad.
Hope everyone has a great weekend, stay cool or warm wherever you live.
Take care & huggles from Susan.

TAH-DAH..................IT'S OFF!!!

Sorry to all of my loyal followers and I hope you are all well and enjoyed the Christmas/New Year break.  I think I'm getting my mojo back & although we still have the rest of this summer to endure, the support, kindness, donations and especially the time given from all the volunteer fire people has been overwhelming.  Not just here in Oz, but from all walks of life worldwide.  A huge thank you from me & I'm sure everyone else.
Now onto what the top of this post is about.
A quilt I made way back in 1999 & blogged about here  Well, it is finally quilted & waiting for binding.  This one worked up well whilst piecing, but has had me racking my brains for how to quilt and once I'd made up my mind, I procrastinated with my inability to do it justice.  At the beginning of December it hit the big machine, but all didn't go to plan. I won't go into the problems I had, but let's say, I persevered & it's DONE.......

Kaleidocrosses.

Talking about quilts, brings me to one of the other reasons I'd not blogged much lately and that is being ridiculed by, I expect, well meaning people who seem to think that there are plenty of books, magazines & the internet to make my quilts from, so why would I design my own & it makes one doubt themselves, but I've decided, I am me & that's how I come.  Oh & it's not been through blogland I've been hurt, but locally.    Enough.............here's some more of what we've been up to.

 Picking blueberries and watching my two tomatoes & a couple of rows of silver beet growing.  With our weird weather at the moment, I' surprised anything has grown well, but 16kgs of berries so far & we've had a few meals with the silver beet.  Tomatoes are definitely not ready & quite slow forming.

Both the Wonga vine & Wisteria have been having a mad growth spurt on the pergola at the top of the stairs.  We'll do a wander around the garden in another post.

My fabric cupboard has had a tidy up whilst I was working on the quilt on the design board below.

This quilt is destined for our lovely granddaughter Miss A. who has just moved into her first flat with her boyfriend, whom we've met & found so nice.  Very much a gentleman.

The star patterns are paper pieced & were from Alyce Blythe of Blossom Heart Quilts here in Melbourne.  The setting is my own as are the colours.  It is a bit further along now, and I'll show more progress in the weeks ahead.  

Hubby has been busy too.  He has had a few commissions with one before Christmas & another I'll show once it is finished.  First up will be a photo of "my" pen.  He has also been asked to make a few of these and they can be quite tricky.  I wonder who will guess what they are made of and how?

My pen.

A log truck made for a friend's son's cousin.  This little boy already had one and wouldn't let his cousin anywhere near it, so his Mum commissioned one for the other lad for Christmas.

 The same Mum thought her daughter would love a quilt, so I took two to show her.  Her Mum happened to arrive whilst I was there & took the other for her own Mum (Bec's grandmother), so I sold both.  Wow!  I've plenty of quilts to gift or sell for a little pocket money, which I made & never used.   Luckily I took some photos before I took them for viewing with a couple of others.  Many of the ones I made before blogging have not been on the blog or even photographed so I am slowly remedying this.

A simple "Hunter's Star" made from a magazine.

Evening in Ireland by Trudie Hughes from her book
Even More.

The back of the above quilt.

Two more quilts were photographed that day whilst we were out and about.

A stack & whack quilt made in a group workshop.  The fabric I had in mind didn't work, so a quick trip home saw me bring back some shell fabric, which was much better.

I've two shots of my quilt called Rainbow Stars, which I made after practicing the no waste way of making flying geese blocks.  Only two fabrics were used in this quilt, which were the black & the multi coloured fabric.  Once the geese were made I played with setting them & this is what I ended up with.  

Rainbow Stars.

A lovely dog photo bombing.  He was way more interested in my quilt rather than the dog treat DH had been given to make him turn around for me.

OK, so that has been a small catchup of a few moments from recent months.  One last photo to finish and more than likely I'll be here on Friday for the Photo Hunt.

Picked from the garden yesterday & placed on our side table between the two armchairs.  Bit messy, but I am crocheting of a night with my Christmas present from DD, which was the wool for Attic 24's dahlia rug.  Not far with that yet, so it will be shown in progress soon.

Best go as I'm starting to feel weary.  Take care all & huggles from down under.

BLOG ON HOLD!!

Due to the unbelievable fires here in Oz, which are breaking my heart with the devastation, loss of life & homes, businesses and the manpower needed to tackle the situation, I feel not in the least interested in doing any blog posts.  SORRY, SORRY. 
My friend Joy and I hope to get a few things together in the only way we know how to help with our quilting, which doesn't sound much, but better people keeping out of the fire zones if they don't know what they are doing and lending a hand in some other way.  Hopefully I'll keep you posted in the coming weeks, to at least keep my hand in on the blogfront.  I'll also be around for our Photo Hunts.  I'm finding it hard to comment on your posts, but do a little occasional catch up. Again an apology to all of you that I follow.
Just one photo of where we ate our picnic lunch on Christmas Day with the smoke from New South Wales and East Gippsland here in Victoria spoiling the beautiful view.

The "view" from Jindivik Cricket Ground.

Yesterday was appalling with the smoke hanging around, but doesn't seem quite as bad today with a strong breeze blowing, which doesn't bode well with the spread of embers which start more fires in the tinder dry conditions.  Please, please, we need rain................
Happy New Year to all my (hoepfully still), blog followers and today is also our youngest son's 42nd birthday.  Happy birthday J.
Take care all and the biggest huggles from Susan.