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. 

Castlemaine

A lovely day out in Castlemaine. I met a friend for lunch, then she introduced me to a fascinating shop called Habadash:

Full of all sorts of sewing-related goodies. (Don't look at the cut-in-half sewing machine!)

Wouldn't you love to know what is in the "and more stuff" drawer?

I quite liked these keyrings made of vintage buttons and beads:

They were $50 each, but I have many many buttons and there are instructions on the internet, so maybe that's a project to try some day.

Next stop was the Castlemaine Gallery, to visit Liz Williamson's Weaving Eucalypts Project.

There are 100 woven panels, woven by Liz Williams from textiles dyed by 60 people in various countries (including India, South Africa, and of course Australia). Wherever they were, they used locally-growing eucalyptus trees for their dyeing. The range of colours was interesting. Eucalyptus cinerea, or Argyle apple, was responsible for the more orange-red pieces, but the mordant chemicals, the technique, and probably other factors, all influence the colour.

Last stop before going home was a walk around the Botanic Gardens.

It was a beautiful and enjoyable day out.

I got home too late to take my normal mid-month garden photos, so they will have to wait until tomorrow.

What's Been Going On?

How many times have I walked through this door without ever looking up to see the magpie stained glass window above it?

 

Late in June I had been called up for jury duty. I wasn't sure whether to be happy to get that insight into how the system works, or unhappy that I might have to listen to some horrible things and make difficult decisions. As it turned out I wasn't needed, so apart from watching the online orientation videos I didn't learn anything new about the justice system.

On the first of July I noticed the first of the jonquils was open:

On the 3rd of July we went on a field naturalist trip to Pittong and Happy Valley, areas about 30km west of our home.

Happy Valley got its name from the amount of gold found here. In the photo above you can see the effect of gold mining on the landscape. Despite the degraded landscape, we found lots of interesting native vegetation and fungi.

Stopping to take in the views across the volcanic plains.

On the 4th of July, I was driving to visit my mother when my phone rang, and it was the nursing home advising me that Mum had just tested positive for covid. Fortunately I was still able to visit her, I just had to wear the full PPE. In discussions with the nursing staff and the doctor, the decision was made to try Mum on one of the new antiviral medications. They weren't sure if she would be able to take it, as apparently the tablets are quite large. But she did, and as of today (6 days later) Mum is still with us, and has no fever or cough or other covid symptoms.

Some time during the week I made another hexagon rosette:

I've cut some purple squares for this month's RSC blocks:

Smaller ones for hearts, larger for "sprouts" blocks. But I haven't done any sewing of them yet.

The extra shed is progressing:

 

For various reasons I have not been to a hairdresser for nearly nine months. My hair has been driving me crazy, and this morning I decided I couldn't make it look worse than it was, so I did this:

The end result is probably a bit mullet-like, as it is easier to cut the hair at the front than at the back! At least it is not in my eyes any more, and if it does look a bit weird, I'm not the one who has to look at it. One day I will find a new hairdresser and they can turn it back into a proper hairstyle.
 

Today has been a lovely sunny winter day, so to finish off, here is a part of the garden glowing in the sun this afternoon:

 

June Happenings

Catching up with the second half of June (so far).

We were lucky that the monthly trip with the Field Naturalists Club, which is normally at the beginning of the month, was postponed due to dreadful weather. By the time it was rescheduled we were out of Covid isolation, so could attend.

Highlights of the day included a swan on its nest:

It could be the male or the female, they both incubate their eggs.

A wombat burrow:

We were in the Wombat State Forest, so it was nice to see evidence of wombats, even if we didn't see the actual animals. You can get an idea of the size of the burrow if you notice the field naturalists at the top left of the photo.

Slime moulds!

We saw several different coloured slime moulds. I was pretty excited by that, as I have never seen one before.

This cutie is an Eastern Yellow Robin (Eopsaltria australis):

The main focus of the outing was fungi, and we did see many many different species of them. I'll spare you the photos, though.
 

At home this is happening:

Who knew we needed more shed space?

I finished the Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt with a blue-grey binding:

It is nice to cross something off my list. Then I took it to the guild's Sit and Sew day on Saturday, but the person who collects the donation quilts was away so it came home with me again. It was my first Sit and Sew day for a long long time. I wore a mask the whole time but no-one else did. We made little hexie rosettes as a gift for a member whose husband has just died. Here's mine:

I may do a couple more before they are collected next month.

My other sewing for the month has been blue bits for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. I have not been very productive so far:

Given that I made one of these last year, this is not impressive. I do have the parts for two more hearts nearly ready. I have some squares and triangles prepared for the Scrappy Sprouts blocks, but haven't sewn any of them at all yet. There are a few more days left this month... next month is going to be purple, but I may be sewing blue as well to catch up.

I don't know what Blogger are doing with the comments process. It is frustrating when they keep changing things (seemingly for the worse) without warning or explanation. Some people's blogs still have the normal comment box, and I can easily comment on them. Others have a new process where there are 3 choices, Anonymous, Google Account, or Name/URL. I can comment on those by the Name/URL option. But some blogs have only Google Account as the method, and for those I cannot make it work. Unfortunately mine seems to be in this third category. I cannot comment on my own blog! I am logged in to my google account for my email, my calendar, and for blogger itself. But I just get an error message: "Unable to sign in to comment. Please check your browser configurations to allow sign-in."

If you are also unable to comment on my blog, I am sorry! I don't know if there is anything I can do to solve this, but I will look into it.

Altona

I drove to Altona to meet friends and do normal things!

The pier:

Friends getting the perfect instagram shots of the beach sculptures:

Me trying (and failing) to get an identifiable photo of a bird flying past:

We met up for lunch, then visited an exhibition at the Louis Joel Arts & Community Centre.

It was the last day of the "Abstract Threads" exhibition of works by Robyn Cuthbertson and Tania Tanti. 

In Robyn's work it is her free-motion stitching in coloured threads that creates the designs. I have shown some of her work before, when I saw it at "Golden Textures" last year.

Tania paints her designs on the fabric, then the stitching embellishes them.

"Just Me" above, and detail of "Flamingo" below.

Fun painted furniture pieces as well:

What a wonderful day out this was! Catching up with friends, visiting an exhibition, it was almost like life before the pandemic.

An Outing

Today we took a drive to the Melton Botanic Garden. It was great to get away from the family worries that have been consuming me lately. The gardens are looking fantastic, and have really grown and developed since our last visit. I'm not sure when the last visit was, as the only post I could find was our   bus trip in 2018. But we really need to make more regular trips to this wonderful spot.

This meadow argus (Junonia villida) butterfly was in the first plant I saw as I got out of the car.

The gardens are full of wildlife, like this musk lorikeet:

And this rainbow lorikeet:
 

I was so taken with the wildlife I forgot to take photos of the garden vistas, apart from these ducks helpfully sitting around the sign that tells you what species they are:

The reason we went to the gardens on a Thursday was to visit the nursery. And of course we did not come away empty-handed!

A haul of interesting and unusual plants to add to our own garden.

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!