Sunroom

I spent the afternoon in a friend's warm sunroom,

doing a little handsewing over afternoon tea.

Yarnbombing

Yesterday was apparently International Yarnbombing Day (and apparently also World Wide Knit in Public Day!), and a few people I know were involved in a local project. Today I went to have a look at their handiwork:

That's a bird hanging from the sign. There are lots of other birds nearby, some of which can be seen on this blog post: Don't feed the birds. There are more details of the process here.

Not your normal wall graffiti:

Cute family in another section of the installation:

I hope that potential vandals will enjoy the whimsy of it all, and leave it alone.

To Daylesford

A day trip to Daylesford, to see this:

And a touch of autumn colour on a wintry day.

On the way, a quick stop to experience the turbines of the community-owned Hepburn Community Wind Farm:

They were turning slowly but it was very difficult to hear them until there was a break in the traffic on the road nearby.

Here they are from 10km across the valley in Daylesford:

As you can tell, it wasn't a day for generating solar electricity!

After the quilt show, I wandered round the town a little. This bush caught my eye in someone's garden:

There were a scattering of buds and flowers over the bush, but most striking were the masses of lovely pink medlar-like fruit. Does anyone know what it is?

Two More Potholders

Finished these today:

I was asked for traditional-style blocks, with a botanical theme. On the left is a maple leaf block, and on the right a churn-dash made of botanical(ish) prints, including kangaroo paw in the centre.

So that's last year's Christmas presents caught up with!

Teacher For A Night

Or three, really.

I'm filling in as teacher for a patchwork class for three weeks. Tonight I took along a few quilted items to show the students:

Some of these I've shown here before, such as the hottie cover and the potholder closest to the bottom. In the background is my "friendship star" couch quilt, which I made quite a few years ago. On the left is my uneven log-cabin Christmas wreath wall hanging. I worked out the pattern from a photo seen on the internet, and then after I'd made it I discovered I actually had the pattern in an old Burda magazine. The yellow daisy is another potholder I made earlier this year, which I don't seem to have blogged. The block design is "Daisiez"by Jan Mullen. For this potholder I used one layer of the Thermolam batting, and one of cotton, which seems to be a good combination. I'm making a couple more potholders with the same batting combo. (Pictures to follow).

Slow

I've had a quiet weekend, recovering from the week. I haven't gone out, or done anything much. But I did notice this caterpillar as I was hanging out my washing:

Unknown caterpillar on a buddleia. I suppose it is not too surprising that a butterfly (or moth) might lay eggs on a butterfly bush, but it seems to be very late in the season for it to still be a caterpillar.  The temperature was only about 7 degrees when I took this photo, and neither the caterpillar nor I was moving very quickly.

Surprise Flowers

At work today I had a surprise visitor who brought me these flowers:

She had just read my blog post from last Sunday, so she popped in with this gift. I was very touched, as well as surprised.

Thanks, Chris!