Red Bits

 The RSC colour for July is red, so I whipped up a couple of red heart blocks:

As I was putting them away I realised I never posted photos of the orange blocks I made back in May, so here they are too:

I didn't make any hearts in June because the colour wasn't something I needed for this quilt.

I had a look around the garden for red things, but there isn't much happening at this time of year. This coprosma cultivar has red leaves all year, but they look particularly good when the sun shines on a winter day:

Reddish leucadendrons:

Correas:

Salvia hanging on through winter so far:

Flowering quince getting ready for spring:

I finished assembling the last charity quilt top:

Regular readers may notice the odd green block is missing. That was my guilty secret - I decided not to use it. And then I went to our quilt group meeting and was handed several squares that someone else had "left over" from a top they had assembled. So now I have this lot of odd blocks:

It looks like there may be one more LAST quilt top to come, if I can think of a way of making these work together.

Another red thing - this "mad cap for skiing"I saw in an exhibition at the Bendigo gallery last month:

Sadly the date of the magazine isn't in focus, and I can't remember what it was exactly. Do I need to try and find the pattern and make it?

I wrote most of this a week ago, but left it as a draft and didn't get back to it. So I will link it to the next SoScrappy RSC link-up, rather than last week's.

And here is the link-up: Scrap Happy Saturday

Purple Things

Purple is April's Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour.

So far I have made two purple hearts using Ivani's Hearts pattern:

Pictured sitting on a project board made last month after reading Jo's post about making some.

And here are a few purple things around the garden at the moment. Firstly, Nepeta:

Dark purple salvia bracts:

 Melaleuca nesophila:

and chives:

I will link this to the RSC weekly link-up on Saturday. And here it is!

March

A whole month has gone by with no blog posts. Here's what I remember of it.

Inspired by Jo's post in February, I made myself a couple of project boards. Here's one of them with 2 hearts I made for the March Rainbow Scrap Challenge:

The boards are A3 size, and were very useful for the heart blocks.
 

A sad thing happened in the garden. The largest of my crepe myrtles, which was just beginning to flower, blew over one very unpleasant hot and windy day:

It snapped off at the base. It is very disappointing. My imagined row of lovely crepe myrtles along this part of the garden is just not working. Of the 5 trees, 3 haven't flowered for the last couple of years, and are struggling to look like trees. None of those three are taller than a person yet. The two that have grown taller and did flower have now been reduced to one. They also flower very late here - they are almost ready to drop their leaves before the flower buds open. So I need a re-think.

In the background of that photo you might just be able to see the very first dahlia flowers of the year: 

They have been very slow this year, too. And some from previous years seem to have given up and not grown at all.

I've finished the piece I posted about in January. If you look at that link, you might notice that there is a significant difference between the starting point and the finished piece:

There are various reasons for that, which I won't go into, but at least I have a finished piece for the show.
 

Late in the month our very good neighbour who has helped us with so many projects around the house was seriously injured in an accident. We wish him well for his recovery journey, which will probably involve many months.

One morning as I was eating my breakfast, I looked out and saw this bird looking back at me:

It is a sacred kingfisher, a bird I have never actually seen before!
 

I had a few outings in March. We had a field trip to Melton Botanic Gardens, a family get-together in Ocean Grove, and I went to Colac to see a quilt show. In Colac we also went for a walk around a wetland bird sanctuary and saw several new species.

I ventured into the city one day and met up a friend to visit the Rone exhibition, "Time":

 It was an amazing installation, and quite an overwhelming experience.

There are sounds and lighting effects in each of the 11 rooms of the show. So many details, probably more than you can take in at one viewing. Windows along the corridor were covered with newspapers from the 1930s-50s, which also made fascinating reading and triggered childhood memories for the two of us.

We booked some weeks ago, and this was the first time since the pandemic began that I have planned something weeks in advance and have had it actually happen!

So that was March in one blog post. 

Pink

February's Rainbow Scrap Challenge colour was pink. Here's a pink wildflower I saw earlier in the month, the spotted hyacinth-orchid, Dipodium pardalinum, which is an endangered species:

Here's some pink birds I saw today:

 

Galahs.

A few pink things from the garden, starting with a pale pink hoya:

A deep pink hydrangea:

A bright pink penstemon:

I made two of Ivani's scrappy hearts this month, 

I know that is four, but the bottom two of them are left over from last year. Speaking of last year, this month I sandwiched last year's hearts

And now I'm quilting them.

Linked to the final pink link-up at So Scrappy.

Scraps of This and That

 I'm doing the Rainbow Scrap Challenge again this year, in a very low-key way.

I've made 2 of Ivani's Hearts blocks this month.

Last year I made 6 of each colour, but when I assembled the quilt top I only used 4 of each. So 2 new and 2 left-over hearts will give me enough for another quilt the same size this year.

I'm adding the sashing as I go this time.

Linked to the SoScrappy link-up here.

A bit of quilting practice:

I'm going to make a cover for my machine out of this happy fabric.

The greenhouse is now fully assembled:

That photo was about a week ago - now it is full of plants and has shadecloth over the top.

And just because, here is a superb fairywren having a splash in one of our birdbaths:

Then flying out of the water:

To dry off in the sun:

So cute! (And blue, for the January RSC colour).