Australia Day

The annual celebration of all things Aussie!  It's also Robert Burns' birthday, for those of you who - like myself - have Scottish blood flowing through your veins.

Each year the "we should change the date of Australia Day" voices grow louder.  On 26th January 1788 the First Fleet dropped anchor in what is now Sydney, and modern Australia has grown from that event.  The native aboriginal people didn't always come off well in encounters with the new settlers and vice versa.  There is documented evidence of Dutch visits to Australia's shores in the early 1600s, even an attempt at settlement from shipwrecks, but until 1788 it remained the land of those born here.

Some parts of Australia think of Australia Day as being a celebration for the east coast only and for Sydney in particular, but I think that's a bit simplistic.  That early rag-tag settlement of convicts, guards, marines/soldiers and a few settlers grew and in time spread over as much of the inhabitable land as it could, for good or ill.  Many people now look on 26th January as "invasion day" but European settlement in this land was inevitable; a French ship landed only two days after the First Fleet, so who knows......we may have all been parlez-vousing instead of speaking English!

Incidentally, here's a snippet of historical trivia for you:  That French expedition was captained by Jean François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse, who was shipwrecked and didn't make it back to Europe.  A promising young cadet, a skilled navigator, was to have sailed with him but decided to go into the army instead of the navy, and stayed in France.  His name was Napoleon Bonaparte.....the course of European history would have been very different, had he sailed.

We will have carpet next week!  The carpet-laying blokes are coming on Monday morning and my sewing stash room is still not yet packed.   A new cupboard was bought to replace the one in my machine sewing room but it's smaller than the old one (which was pretty old, let me tell you; it came up from Sydney with us, as did the two in the other room) and shelves are shallower.  Consequently some of the baskets holding my stash won't fit, they are now too deep.  The new way of thinking is obviously "we won't raise the price, we'll just make the cupboard smaller".  Because of the harsh Aussie sun fading fabrics left uncovered I prefer to have my stash behind closed doors, so there will need to be some re-jigging of shelves to help that happen.

News from the slowly-coming-together sewing room, the second hexie rosette is done.

 All that red makes you feel hot, doesn't it?  From here the pin cushion is assembled by machine, and I haven't sat at a machine for months.  Let's hope I still remember how to use one.

Three units of four tumblers each.  In order to mix up the fabrics as much as possible I thought to join them in pairs then in fours, light-dark-light-dark.  I think I'm going to like this even though it's very different to my usual taste.....or, perhaps, because it is different.  Been a bit slack on the tumbler-cutting front lately because of the heat, but that is supposed to ease during the coming week.....it can't come soon enough for me.

Our summers have usually been fairly warm, a period of warm to hot days followed by a cooling down period, perhaps some rain, then it heats up again and the cycle continues.  This summer, however, started hot and hasn't cooled much at all; nights have been a bit too warm for restful sleep which makes it hard to spring into life each morning.  By the time I start springing it's well into the day......clouds are building up as we speak, and showers/thunderstorms are forecast.  Rain would be very welcome, everywhere is dry and brown.  You can tell which people water their lawns.....

Our gospel ukulele gigs went off well!  Sundays breakfast at a small church was very well received, and earlier in the week we had also been asked to play at the gospel tent which is part of the annual huge big country music festival.  We did so, but geez......it's difficult playing an outdoor gig with not enough microphones and dust billowing around.  Never give a bloke a leaf blower......one of the people connected with the tent took it upon himself to clean the "floor" while we were setting up and he blew all the dust our way.  With one voice we all yelled "hey!"  Oh sorry, he said, but by then he had stirred up quite a lot of fine dust which was very slow to settle.  Never mind, we soldiered on womanfully but were glad to finish.

"Receptions at Government House.
Stated receptions are given at Government House by the Governor, and all are at liberty to attend them.  Sometimes these are morning, and sometimes evening, receptions.  Upon entering the reception-room, the caller gives his name to the attendant, who announces it, and upon approaching the Governor, is introduced, by some official to whom the duty is assigned, both to the Governor and to the members of his family who receive with him.  The callers pass on, after being introduced, mingle in social intercourse and view the various rooms until ready to depart.  A caller must leave his card."

No doubt these receptions were accompanied by soft tasteful music......don't you think a ukulele ensemble would liven them up a bit?

Enjoy your days!

First stitches

Tumbler quilt is now a started project!

 Two blocks have been joined, and another two started.....836 to go........no special colour scheme to this one, just picking one fabric lighter (or darker, if that's the way your brain works) than the other and joining them.  Over 300 have now been cut, just over 500 to go.

One hexagon flower is done for either the top or bottom of a large pin cushion, the other hexie has a brown centre with red fabrics on the outside row.  I have decided that I'm not cut out for EPP, but that's all right.......

.......whatever floats your boat.

Kevin has painted the walls of my sewing room, they look very nice, and the skirting (base) boards and some of the trim.  That paint has a very strong smell which is making me feel more than a little ill but I am not complaining (trying not to, anyway), I'm just glad it's getting done.

Our son is home, doing very well, and has started back at work; he can work from home, and it's occupying his brain.  His surgery was fairly major, it seems, but he has made a good recovery.

We survived the last heatwave and are now staring down the barrel of another, this time hotter temperatures for more days.  Yuck......I love Australia and couldn't imagine living anywhere else, but during heatwaves living somewhere with a whole heap of snow and ice becomes very a attractive thought.

Our town is filling up with tourists, most of whom are nice folks but there are some very entitled people out there, aren't there?  Many venues have free concerts although you have to pay for the major concerts, but those venues make money from selling food and beverages and the music brings more bums on seats anyway.  However, there are those who arrive early with their packed lunch, their flask of coffee/tea and their bottle of water, plonk themselves right in the front row and don't move all day save to visit the bathroom; they don't spend a cent and hog the good seats, something which cheeses off many other people.  Obviously they are some of the "special" people, the ones who make their own rules and thumb their noses at the rest of us, and they are the ones who leave a bad taste in the mouths of locals.  Probably related to those who hog seats in the buses and glare daggers at any poor local unfortunate who just happens to be going home with a child or children, a stroller and several bags of shopping.

I wonder if any will come to see the ukulele ladies on Sunday morning?  We have practised and hope to go well; we have decided that people will think we're so great because we're there at all that they will overlook any shortcomings.  We'll get them singing with us, then they can drown out any bum notes that we may play.......and there may be the odd one or two.  Or three......

"Singing and playing in society.
A lady in company should never exhibit any anxiety to sing or play; but being requested to do so, if she intends to comply, she should do so at once, without waiting to be urged.  If she refuses, she should do so in a manner that shall make her decision final.  Having complied, she should not monopolize the evening with her performances, but make room for others."

Believe me, we won't be refusing to sing and play on Sunday morning......you won't be able to keep us off that stage.

Enjoy your days!

In which we are one whole week into a new year

Doesn't time fly?  At this rate it will be Christmas again before we know it.

We are on the third day of a predicted four day extreme heatwave, and it is nasty hot.  Not quite record-breaking hot, but still most unpleasant.  It is certainly hot enough that I feel ill, and am guzzling water like there's no tomorrow.  We have today and tomorrow still to survive, then hopefully a little cooler.....for a while, at least.  Rain would be nice too, but we may have to wait for that.

Happy to report that our son is doing very well, and is hoping to go home in a few days.

This morning I took down the decorations, such as they were.  You know how some people just love Christmas and decorate their whole house from top to bottom?  We don't.

 Family room tree, on my grandmother's 1924 Singer 66 treadle.

This tree is on Kevin's mother's Singer from the late 1960s.  Just as well we have sewing machines to decorate, isn't it?  The pretty mat is from my ukulele-playing friend Claire.

That's it, folks.  The extent of Christmas 2017 in this house.

A week before we came home to a flooded house my jumper was finished, too late for last winter but nice and early for winter this year.

My own design.  For the basic jumper I used a Patons Classics book - one of two books sadly lost in the flood, not yet replaced but will be because it's so useful - and the travelling rib panel on the front is from a Patons leaflet with instructions for four different Aran-style jumpers published in the early 1990s.  Yarn is Bendigo Woollen Mills Rustic 8 ply in Hydrangea, blue with a hint of lavender.

Right now I don't have a sewing room at all.  Machines and furniture were moved out a couple of days ago, so the floor could be washed and so the furniture which is being thrown out could be removed.  The marks left by the flood have now been cleaned and the floor is spotless.  While standing in an empty echoing room I looked at the walls and thought to myself.......I thought......."perhaps this is the time to paint the walls?"  Which will be done later in the week when it's not so hot, then machines and stuff can be moved back in, and replacement furniture purchased, and I will be a happy woman again.

The tumbler project is not packed away so at least boredom can be staved off occasionally, and there is always an instrument to pick up and plink because there is a big gig coming up in a couple of weeks.  Those hexies are now being joined into big flowers for the top and bottom of a pincushion.

Now that the Christmas/New Year break is over we are hoping to hear about our house repairs, what is to be done and when.  We're looking forward to having it all done, finished and put back to rights again, we have had enough of living in limbo.

"The obligation of an introduction.
Two persons who have been properly introduced have in future certain claims upon one another's acquaintance which should be recognized, unless there are sufficient reasons for over-looking them.  Even in that case good manners require the formal bow of recognition upon meeting, which of itself, encourages no familiarity.  Only a very ill-bred person will meet another with a stare."

Do people still bow on meeting?  It seems they did back in the early 1880s, at least.

Enjoy your days!

Happy New Year!

Best wishes for wonderful things in 2018.  We would just settle for no more floods in our house......hopefully it will be a better year for us than 2017 was.

How many of you made it to midnight last night?  We didn't, we were in bed by then, but we did hear some loud bangs at what was probably midnight.  Perhaps someone had managed to get their hands on a couple of fireworks.

Something to report:  I have been sewing hexies!  Me!!  Who normally finds sewing hexies unutterably tedious!  Early last year the New South Wales state guild visited our town (they have an annual 'away' meeting, when they venture out of the Big Smoke and dip their toes into the country) and at the fun part of the meeting I was lucky enough to win one of the lucky door prizes, a kit for a large pin cushion complete with precut 2-1/2in squares, hexagon papers, and pattern.  First one makes two hexagon flowers each using 19 hexies, these become the top and bottom of the cushion; the rest is assembled by machine, so this part makes an easy project for stitching in front of TV.

 Hexies for the centre of one flower laid out but not joined, the outer ring fabrics will have a brown background.

While we were staying at our home-away-from-home I started cutting 3-1/2 in tumblers from 19th century reproduction fabrics for the next hand-pieced project.  Each fabric had a 3-1/2 in strip cut, then that was cut into tumblers; the number from each strip varied according to whether it was a fat eighth, fat quarter, skinny quarter, or larger piece.  There are 20 tumblers in a clip, so that makes 240 tumblers in this pic. 

There are also some warm gold fabrics to be cut, although they are not repros I think they will stop the quilt looking too dark and gloomy - some of those repros are dark, because fabrics way back then often were.  Once the hexies are done, the first stitches will be taken on this project. 

It will need a name......'Tumbling Tumbleweeds', perhaps?  Nearly all my quilts have musical names.  Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds......

Forgot to say, the last block in my Flower Basket quilt is finished too!  It took months to do the last one; I was in no hurry, because once it was finished there would be no take-along portable project until another was prepared.  The first 24 blocks are packed in a box somewhere in the garage.  Still haven't decided if I will join them and have it quilted by a long armer, or quilt it as I go (can't say 'quilt as you go', because you're not doing it - I am) one block at a time myself.  It's quite large, it would cost a fair bit to have quilted, so perhaps I will Do It Myself.  Eventually.

We have had a fairly warm start to the new year, while over there in Canada if our son wasn't in hospital he would be freezing.  His poor partner certainly is; at least he has now been moved to a facility very close to where they live so she doesn't have to travel too far.  His operation went well, tumours were removed, bone was grafted from his hip to his hand.  I believe hip bone grafts are incredibly painful and he will require a lot of physiotherapy and rehabilitation.  Walking, even standing, was out of the question for several days.  He has lost his index finger; the alternative was to have it fused at a 90 degree angle to his hand which would make using the hand very difficult, so he and the doctors decided on amputation.  Fortunately it's his left hand, which isn't his dominant hand.

Canada is so very far away.......

"Be careful always to dry the hands thoroughly, and rub them briskly for some time afterward.  When this is not sufficiently attended to in cold weather, the hands chap and crack.  When this occurs, rub a few drops of honey over them when dry, or anoint them with cold cream or glycerine before going to bed."

Extreme cold is not good for one's skin whether on the hands or elsewhere, and right now Canada is extremely cold.  Record-breakingly cold.  Coldest temperatures for over 100 years cold.

Enjoy your days!