Yellow Things

 As March draws to a close, here's all the yellow Rainbow Scrap Challenge pieces I made this month:

Six of Ivani's Hearts, and six pairs of Scrappy Sprouts leaves.
 

I took a walk around the garden looking for yellow.  

A rose:

 xDisphyllum "Sunburn":

A marigold:

 And lastly, a reminder that summer is over - my ginkgo is going gold:

Next month's colour is pink. It will be interesting to see if I can find any pink in the garden at the end of April.

Linked to the So Scrappy Yellow Roundup.

One Block Made

 This is the first block of the Quilt-Addicts Evolution quilt kit I started working on in my last post:

The black and the colourful stripes give quite a dramatic look!

This block had been half-assembled by the original owner, then she stopped for whatever reason. It is a challenging block to put together, and the instructions are minimal. None of the seams had been pressed before or during construction, so there are a few issues with seam allowances. But the assembled block has impact, and when the quilt is finished and quilted any irregularities will hopefully be unnoticeable.

Ten Kilos of Stuff

First, my white crepe myrtle has started flowering!

 

Some time late last year, I was offered "some fabric". The offer was made so long ago that I don't remember if the idea was that it could be useful for donation quilts, or if the person offering thought I might want it for myself. I also don't remember where it had come from or how it came to be available.

Then the omicron wave arrived, and the person who had the fabric also had covid, and I was staying away from people, so the fabric was forgotten about. But this week I finally arranged to collect it.

It turned out to be a large polypropylene bag, full of nearly 10kg of stuff. There are some books, two pre-cut quilt kits, several half-made projects, and quite a lot of fabric.

This kit tempted me to dive in straight away:

The original owner had started working on it. On the left-hand side under the pattern, there a bunch of scrunched-up sewn components. Here they are after I untangled and pressed them:

They are all there, although I haven't measured them yet. I think the original owner had some problems with their machine, as some of the seams are a bit dodgy.

They had only made a couple of the next component, so that's what I've started working on:

Joining the black and ecru quarter-square triangles, then adding a stripy trapezium, to make 48 of the next component. After this I will be ready to assemble blocks.

My thinking is that rather than make up the whole kit into one quilt, I will use the components to make 2 or 3 smaller donation quilts. We'll see how that goes...

Lost Trades

 Took a drive to Bendigo, to attend this event:

Lots of talented artisans demonstrated their skills, and displayed incredible examples of their work. 

As you might imagine, I spent a fair bit of my time in the textile and fibre area in the centre of that map. This was one of the intriguing demonstrations:

Spinning with a walking wheel. I had never seen one of these in action before. There is a nice article about this type of wheel at a museum in Canada here.

This patchwork silk coat was impressive:

It is inspired by the description of Gulliver's coat in Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. The design is that of a frock coat from that time (the book was published in 1726). The silk patches are from recycled clothes, and it is lined with silk from discarded wedding dresses.

I didn't take anywhere near as many photos as I should have, but it was a wonderful day out.
 

Paddle Boat

 This evening we had a fantastic outing on Lake Wendouree. A group we belong to hired this boat:

In case you aren't good at reading mirror-writing, the flag says "Golden City Paddle Steamer Museum Society". Details of the boat are on their website here.

During the cruise we saw the usual suspects:

Black swans.

Australian white ibis.

The boat took us quite close to things that are hard to see from the shore, such as these cormorants:

And these rowers:

Lots of happy travellers:

My highlight was seeing this pelican on an island right out in the middle of the lake:

You would never see it from the shore, as it would be completely hidden from view by the reeds and rushes.

What a great outing!

The Garden in March

Lots of flowers this month, so skip over this post if that's not your thing.

Daylily:

Only the daylilies close to the house are flowering. I found out why one morning when there was a wallaby munching its way through the daylilies at the edge of the garden. I took photos, then forgot I had and deleted everything on my camera. So no photographic evidence!

Propeller plant:

Roses:

Crepe myrtles:

There are three in this photo. The one furthest from the camera has dropped a lot of its flowers now. But one of the ones not in the photo now has buds, so I wonder if it will manage to flower before the frosts start.

Dahlia:

Hebe:

A couple of buddleias:

Viburnum tinus starting again:

Salvia:

 

Fuchsia covered in flowers:

Last month I mentioned that this Phygelius aequalis "Yellow trumpet"was lucky to still have some flowers, as I had seen some crimson rosellas biting off the flowers to get at the nectar. Well they have been back:

Cosmos:

A colourful bunch - hollyhocks, foxgloves, zinnias, delphiniums, and an echinacea:

Salvias, lavender, penstemon and belladonna lilies in one of the garden beds at the front of the house:

Melaleuca? But which one? (Need to look for the tag).

Correa:

Leucadendron:

 White belladonna lilies:

Let's finish with these:

That is several Haemanthus coccineus, or blood lily, flowers emerging from the ground. They open to look like this:

And then, like the belladonna lilies, will grow leaves later.

That's it for the March garden, although I probably missed things as I wandered around. If you made it to the end, I hope you enjoyed it.

Autumn Begins

The Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour for March is yellow, and I have made a start:

I have plenty more yellow scraps, but this has been put on hold for a moment because I've been asked to make some blocks for another project.

This is one of 12 blocks I am making (and I should have lined it up straight on the cutting board before taking the photo!):

They involve very careful cutting and piecing, because if that diamond shape in the middle doesn't line up exactly the whole block looks terrible. The first one I did is out by a bit and I'm not sure what to do. There is no spare fabric. I was given just enough to make the 12 blocks. Some other quilters are making blocks as well, which will be combined to make a quilt for someone's special birthday. 

In the garden, the autumn bulbs are popping into flower:

And if summer is over, it is time to take down the shade sails:

I forgot to take a "before" photo, but you can see what they look like in this post from when they were first installed.