Trail Mix Progress

I've made all the blocks I can from scraps for this quilt. Not that I have no scraps left, it is just that most of the Trail Mix blocks use pieces larger than what I have in the scrap basket. So now I have started cutting into stash fabrics to make the blocks.

So far I have roughly half the blocks I need. The arrangement will change as I continue, but I have pinned them up to see if I like the look of them (not sure), or what sort of fabrics I need to throw into the mix.

Prunus Blossoms

This morning as the sun rose I was in the orchard to let the chooks and ducks out of their cages. A few members of the Prunus genus are flowering now.

Almond:

Plum:

Nectarine:

Apricot:

The cherries and peaches are also in this genus, but they aren't flowering just yet.

A Finish

I think this is the first thing I have finished all year, which is quite shocking, but then it hasn't been a great year so far.

Broken Herringbone quilt, made as a donation for the guild's "Quilts of Love" program. It was assembled in April, basted in June, and then sat around in my sewing room. A couple of weeks ago I gave myself a kick up the backside and sat down to quilt it. I finished the binding last night.

In bright sunshine above, which washed out the colours to some extent, and in too-dark shade below.

Back view:

I used some fabrics for the back that I didn't think I was likely to use on the front of a quilt any time soon.

The quilting isn't very clear in any of these photos. I wasn't feeling very inspired, but I needed to do something, so I went for overall large stippling, and a chain of leaves in the border:

I used up one of the few plasticy labels that were left, remembering to zig-zag it to the backing before basting the quilt. Now it is attached firmly with no hand-sewing required.

It feels good to have actually finished something!

At the Falls

With recent rain, the Lal Lal Falls are flowing again. We drove down to the falls a couple of days ago to have a look, took one look at the huge crowds of people, and kept driving and went straight back home. Today the crowds were much smaller, so we got out and had a look:

 

As we were walking around the reserve the dogs alerted us to the presence of some wildlife:

Photographing the echidna they found, to add to iNaturalist and EchidnaCSI:

 

It was a long way down there, so I stayed with the dogs and didn't get a photo of it myself.

Dot got excited about a kangaroo footprint in some soft ground, and tried to dig down and find the kangaroo. Or something...

Looking cute with her nose covered in dirt:

Walking

 Most days the dogs take us out for a walk, and although we walk the same roads there is always something new to see. 

Sometimes there are birds, like these two ibises:

Australian white ibis on the left, straw-necked ibis on the right. Just two birds, of different species, hanging out together.

 

There are horses to say hello to, and feed carrots if we have any to spare:

 

Today's highlight was this little guy:

A lamb, exploring the world, until his mother called to him and off he went:

Safe with Mum:

The Garden in August

 It is still winter, but spring is on the way in the garden. Here's what is in flower this month.

Spring stars:

 

They are more purple in real life.

 

Flowering quince, Chaenomeles:

 

 

Mahonia

 

 

White jonquils and anemones:

 

 

Hyacinths:

 

 

Hebe:

 

 

Cyclamen:

 

 

Anemones:

 

 

That's all in the back garden.

 

In the orchard a couple of the trees have open blossom, and many more have buds swollen and almost ready to pop.

 

One of the plums was first this year, the satsuma:

 

 

This almond tree has a handful of open blossoms:

 

Some broad bean flowers from the vege garden:

 

 

The flowers on my bergenia always look a bit sad close up:

 

The hellebores are looking good, but you have to get the camera quite low to get a photo of them:

It is easier to photograph the red-hot pokers, as they are just about at eye height:

Diggers speedwell in front of a leucodendron:

Acacia:

Can't find the label, will have to check exactly what it is later.

More spring bulbs, this time grape hyacinths:

 

 

Sunny-looking jonquils:

And a few daffodils:

 

Flowers I didn't photograph include the lavender, viburnum tinus, magenta pigface, borage and thryptomene.

A few more to finish off:

Rosemary,

A colourful euphorbia:

And lastly, the first flower for the year on camellia "Volunteer":

That's it for this month's roundup of the flowers in the garden.

Timesoup

I read an article this morning that suggested we aren't living in a timeline, but in a timesoup. "As the hours, days, weeks and months become a blur, it’s no longer clear if time is passing too quickly, or too slowly." That resonates with me!

I have no idea how much time has passed. I am very surprised at how long it is since I wrote a blog post. It was last month and we are now almost two weeks in to this month. 

We had snow on the 4th August:

 

I never wrote a stash report at the end of July, although when I went searching through my blog apparently I didn't do one at the end of June either. How did that happen?

Stash report for the end of July:

Thread:
No spools emptied, none added.
Year to date - no change.

Dress fabric:
None used, none added.
Year to date - up 4.25m.

Quilt fabric:
1.8m used, 0.5m added
Year to date - down 7.64m. 

But I've just realised that I never added into my spreadsheet any fabric used for face masks, so more fabric has been used than I have recorded.

 

There are signs spring is coming, such as more daffodils opening:

 

 Although the liquidambar still hung onto two red autumn leaves:

The tulips that took 3 weeks to travel 60kms back in May/June have started to pop up:

I planted the bulbs in a pot which just fits in my wombat planter. There were 3 tulips up when I took this photo 5 days ago, but by yesterday there were 5 up. I haven't looked at them this morning. 

This plum tree is the first tree in the orchard to have any blossom:

Photo taken on 10th August, when a birthday was celebrated in a very low-key isolated way.

Each day we watch for the new virus case numbers, hoping that the current restrictions will bring the numbers down, and worrying about what will happen if they don't. Doing too much worrying.

Some wildflowers are appearing:

Nodding greenhood orchid above, tall greenhood orchid below:

Nature is following its normal timeline, even if the humans are lost in timesoup.