Boating with Chloe

As I live on a small island in Moreton Bay the water is an everyday part of life. To go to work, or to go anywhere you have to go on the waterbus, you can see the water from the house, and I find myself thinking and talking about the weather like my Grandfather who was a (sugar) cane farmer. A few years ago we were in a terrible situation in Australia with drought, permanent water restrictions, lifetime habits of leaving the tap running while cleaning your teeth, hosing off the driveway and watering the lawn gone forever.



Fast forward to the last 2 years where everything has changed. We are now in a La Nina weather event, and as a result it doesn't seem to have stopped raining since. Gone are the days when you could go sailing on every day off, and putting the dinghy in whenever you felt like it are over. Unless you don't mind being wet all the time that is. The wretched grass never stops growing, so that has to be mown between showers (when you could have been walking the dog), and generally speaking I'm a bit grumpy that I don't get to go boating as often as I like. What's the point of living by the sea if you can't get out there?



A week or two ago Chloe and I managed to get the dinghy in for half a day. It was a bit overcast, but still warm enough for a swim, so we took off down between the islands and stopped on the sand. Chloe turns out to be a natural in the boat - I'm wondering if she'd been boating with previous owners as she had a few homes before she came to live with me. Yes, skeletons in the closet...  She sits beside me on the seat and off we go.



She is a beagle so generally speaking she can't be trusted off the lead, but with my heart in my mouth I've let her off when we're on the sand and she's come back, so far. She has a lovely time and in this photo ran like a mad thing up the side of the island in the sand, then roared back down with her eyes closed. The sand is very fine and falls out from underneath trees and their entire root systems.



It's nice to get out of the house and onto the water, and as you can see, Chloe knows how to have a good time!

The Original

This is the original photo of the quilt that I'm making. I have this photo in my photo album but I have no idea where it came from. There is a secondary design in the half-square triangles if you look closely, but I've decided not to go with it.

I have included a few blue and cheddar triangles for a bit of a break from the red. Clare likes the cream with the blue on it, but I have to admit I've been leaning toward the dark brown the whole time.



I'm even thinking of making a smallish quilt so that I can finish it (fancy that) and try some utility quilting by hand with perle cotton. This will be new for me so a smaller project might be the best plan.

Triangles

I've actually been doing some sewing. I seem to have a 'thing' about the sewing room at the moment, so I brought the sewing machine downstairs and put it on the end of the kitchen table and did some mindless chain piecing while watching the cricket.



As I have no pattern to go by, just a photograph which is on the ipad, I'm not sure how many blocks I'll need, but I guess I'll work it out as I go along. I had a look in the stash and found these 3 big pieces of fabric, so gave them an audition for the plain blocks in between the triangles. The original quilt has dark brown which is what I'm most likely going to use, but I thought I'd try the others.



This particular dark brown fabric I bought from ebay some years ago as a large piece for backings. I used it on the back of the couch quilt which has been washed many times, and when I hang it out I always hang it back to the sun to protect the front. The back has faded terribly, so I don't know if I should use it, but this quilt won't be getting the wear. One or two of the red and cream fabrics are a bit on the thin side as I sort of started it as an experiment and have used up some fabrics I wanted to get rid of. Don't know, will think about it.