Tuesday, October 31, 2017

So Close

Every day I think my Coral Charm peony will open, but today is not the day.

Monday, October 30, 2017

Test Two

This block will be much easier to demonstrate:
Ice-cream cone found here. That linked page has lots of tips for paper piecing if you want to try making an ice-cream cone yourself.

I think I will use this pattern for my demos on the weekend. I will pre-make the cone section, then in each demo session I will make one scoop section and attach it to the previous section.

To answer some questions from my last post, I'm doing a few short demonstrations. Anyone watching will just watch and ask questions, it isn't a workshop. So there won't be a kit or instructions. I will have some other items to show, and my Zoo Animals quilt will be hanging in the show for anyone to check out if they want to see a finished quilt using this technique.

I'm also doing demos of English paper piecing. For that demo I am planning to cover a hexagon or two and stitch a couple together each time. Nothing fancy! Other people will be doing demos on a range of skills such as basting with pool noodles, free-form curved piecing, and a few other things I've forgotten. It is the first time we have done something like this at a show, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Test Sew

I volunteered to do a couple of skill demonstrations at the quilt show next weekend. One of my topics is paper foundation piecing:
I thought I might use this block for my demonstration. It is "Songbird" by Kristy at QuietPlay.  But as I sewed this test I began to think it might be way too complicated. Maybe this will just be an example, but I will actually demonstrate something much simpler...

Saturday, October 28, 2017

Colac Gardens Tour

We went on a bus trip organised by the Ballarat Horticultural Society

First stop:
It is hard to read in this photo, but the name of the property is in wrought iron on the gate: Narroghid. The garden was designed by Edna Walling at the same time as the house, in the early 1950s.

Seaside daisies are a weed in lots of parts of the country, but they do look lovely growing in and around these stone steps:
Lots of curved pathways and garden beds in this garden:

And pretty spots to sit and relax:

Gorgeous cottage-style borders against the house:

Lots of natives thoughout:
 It was a beautiful day for visiting gardens.


Next stop:
Colac Botanic Gardens

Beside the lake:

There's a nice-looking cafe overlooking the gardens and lake
but which was inexplicably shut on a Saturday afternoon. Apparently their hours are 8:30 - 4, Mon-Fri. There is no sign up about that, I found the info on their website later.

Plants in the gardens are nearly all labelled, which was handy for plants I'd never seen before, such as this snowy daisy-bush, Olearia lirata:

The gardens are full of very large old trees which offer welcome shade on a sunny day.

All the roses on the rose arbour in the background are labelled with their name, their country of origin, their breeder and the year they were bred (or maybe released?). Not all are in flower yet, but in summer it should be beautiful.

Gardenesque or picturesque?  I always get those two garden styles confused, but I think it is safe to call these gardens "gardenesque".

Our third stop was a small nursery where purchases were made but not by us.

Last stop for the day was another private garden:
Green:
I was quite taken with this lorepetalum:
The ones in my old garden never got more than about 50cm tall, but look at the pergola behind this one to get an idea of its height.

I thought this was another lawn area when I first caught a glimpse of it between the trees, but it is actually a pond. There are even a couple of ducks swimming on it, but they are in the shadows on the other side so you might not be able to see them.

Enticing pathways through the garden:

 Male and female cones on a wollemi pine:

Some refreshments on the back lawn:

Then it was time to get back on the bus to go home:
It was a wonderful day!

Friday, October 27, 2017

Week Twenty-Two

Here's this week's rosette for my temperature-based year quilt:
So far every one of my 22 weeks has included at least one aqua/teal day (meaning a top temperature of 10.1 to 15.0 degrees). As you can see in the data below, this week could easily have had 4 aqua days:

27/10/2017    23.6    yellow
26/10/2017    15.2    green - only just
25/10/2017    15.1    green - by 0.1 of a degree
24/10/2017    21.0    yellow
23/10/2017    18.7    green
22/10/2017    13.5    aqua/teal
21/10/2017    11.2    aqua/teal

Next week will not be my first week without aqua; the forecast includes 3 aqua days.

Linked to Sarah's Weekly Weather Report. Check out the other temperature quilts under construction.

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Hanging Sleeves

I have only eight days left to get everything ready for the Ballaarat Quilters exhibition. Details if you are interested in attending:

Saturday 4th November 2017 10 am – 5 pm
Sunday 5th November 2017 10 am – 4 pm

Venue: St Patrick’s Cathedral Community Hall, Dawson Street South, Ballarat Central

Over 100 member quilts on display, including Art, Contemporary, Traditional and Modern quilts. Raffle, shops, viewers’ choice and display of red & white challenge quilts.


My task for today was to finish adding hanging sleeves to a couple of quilts I'm putting in the show that didn't already have them:
Cross that task off the list!

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

Dahlias In

My dahlia tubers have all started shooting, so it is time to get them into the ground:

It's the first time I've actually lifted dahlias for the winter (rather than because I was moving house), so I'm happy to see that they want to grow again for another year.

Some more spring bulbs looking good:
 Pink tritonia above, and Gladiolus (carneus?) below.

Monday, October 23, 2017

Charbagh

Looking through the gate on the north-east corner of the back garden:
The charbagh is starting to look quite nice.

Sunday, October 22, 2017

Woowookarung Wildflower Walk


A walk in the park, guided by naturalists, with about 40 or so other people, looking at tiny wildflowers: 

Pink bells, Tetratheca ciliata:
I've never seen it before, but it is growing through lots of the park.

Just buds on this penny-leaf flat pea, Platylobium rotundum, which is a rare plant formally described in 2011:

You can see where the beard orchids (Calochilus) get their name:

Although the common beard-heath, Leucopogon virgatus, is not so obvious until you zoom in:
The flowers are tiny, and I couldn't see their little hairs at all.

The Field Naturalists' club have put up information signs (you can see one in my second photo) which will stay there for a week or so, for those who couldn't be there today.



Saturday, October 21, 2017

Delightful Flowers

Last week I noticed three spikes of iris flowers in the part of the garden where the rescued plants were planted two years ago. Actually that photo from October 2015 is so incredible I'll repeat it here:

My first piece of "garden" here! Just a few sad plants and a lot of bare earth.

Anyway, lots of those rescued bulbs and daylilies have flowered since then, but not the irises. Now it is their turn, and the first one opened today:
Photo above with my regular camera, and below with my phone:
The phone comes closer to the real colours.

I don't know if all three iris plants have the same coloured flowers. The buds look pretty much the same (you can see a few tips of buds of the others around this flower, particularly in the phone photo) so they could be the same or they may surprise me.

In the back yard, one of my wisterias is flowering:
I wanted to do a colour comparison on that light purple as well, but I just could not get the phone to focus on the flower at all.

Elsewhere in the garden, my peonies are delighting me. Here is a lovely fat bud on Coral Charm
 It didn't flower last year, so I'm looking forward to this one opening.

And this one I'm very excited about:
That's a tiny bud on the peony rescued from the same garden as the irises. I have no idea what colour its flower might be.


Friday, October 20, 2017

Warming Up

Week 21 looks a bit different:


I thought this might be my first week without aqua, but at the last minute (today) the temperature dropped back to winter again:

20/10/2017    13.3   aqua/teal
19/10/2017    22.5   yellow
18/10/2017    28.2   orange
17/10/2017    27.6   orange
16/10/2017    25.8   orange
15/10/2017    22.1   yellow
14/10/2017    15.9   green

Those warm days got things moving in the garden. Here's the first of the regular roses to open:
 Fragrant Plum.

Post linked to Sarah's Weekly Weather Report. This week there is a new participant, who has added her own terrific touches to the concept.

Thursday, October 19, 2017

Edith Head in Bendigo

The Bendigo Art Gallery's latest exhibition is The Costume Designer: Edith Head and Hollywood.

I used my phone for photos inside the gallery, as photography is allowed but no flashes. My camera would not have been able to take shots like this:
Costumes worn by Dorothy Lamour (the tiny sarong), and Barbara Stanwyck (the black one and the white one). All those actresses seemed to have been very tiny - particularly around the waist!

As well as about 70 costumes (and not all of them are women's), there are photos and movie clips showing them being worn, sketches with fabric samples, an Oscar, and documentary films.

I was very interested in these items:
I had read that Edith Head had done some Vogue pattern designs, but I'd never seen any before.


Lori Kennedy at The Inbox Jaunt has a regular series of posts called "Seamstresses in Fine Art". I'm always amazed by her finds, as I don't remember ever seeing a painting in that category in a gallery. Until today! This painting is elsewhere in the Bendigo Gallery:
Amalie Colquhoun, Australia, 1894 - 1974. The Bridesmaid, c1942.
Not a great photograph of it, as it is very high up on the wall.


This wonderful shady flowering tree grabbed my attention:

The shade was inviting as it was 30 degrees in Bendigo - higher than expected, so I wasn't dressed for the weather. The tree is a horse chestnut. There are a couple of smaller ones in the adjoining park:
 Just gorgeous!
 And bees love them, too:

The Edith Head exhibition is on until January. Worth the trip if you are at all interested in movies or costumes.