Screened

All the screen panels for the outdoor living area are now in place:

There's a door to go in the opening next to the pizza oven, just visible inside the screens.  Neither of the doors have been installed yet.

AQC 2019

A couple of pictures of the quilt display area at the Australasian Quilt Convention:

Those windows on the left often make viewing the quilts a bit difficult as the sun streams in, blinding the viewer. You need something to shade your eyes. What you can't see in these photos is the absolute crush of eager quilters elsewhere in the building. The vendors area was impassable in places. I spent most of my time looking at the quilts, and running into friends. I did do one circuit of the trading area, but my only purchase was a couple of pairs of snips. (I regularly break them by dropping them on our concrete floor.)

For all the time I spent in the quilt displays, I took very few photos. Here's a handful that I did photograph.

I loved the use of colour in this quilt:

"Blurring the Edges" by Beth and Trevor Reid, won several prizes including Best of Show in Canberra in 2018, so appeared in the "Best of Australia" section of the exhibition.

Another from "Best of Australia":

"The Collective Language of Trees" by Cindy Watkins, winner of Best of Show and a couple of other prizes in Tasmania.
Close-up showing how Cindy created the trees with free-motion stitching over a collage of batik fabrics:

I seem to have been particularly attracted to circles this year:

"When the Sun Goes Down" By Jungeun Tark. This quilt was in the "Korean Style" section of the Exhibition. I always enjoy the displays from other countries that feature in this exhibition.
Close-up of the technique:

A confetti of fabric, held down by tulle then stitched over densely with fancy threads.

Lastly a quilt from the "Magic" challenge:

 "The Wish" by Neroli Henderson. Most of the quilts in the "Magic" challenge left me rather cold, but this one at least had a little magic about it. The top photo is taken with the ambient light. You can see that there are some sparkles here and there (Swarovski crystals), some painted effects, and heavy quilting everywhere. But you have to use a flash to see Neroli's wish:

You might need to click on the photo to enlarge it to read the wish, but it says, "I wish for a world where the darkness brings no evil". The piece is dedicated particularly to 3 women killed in Melbourne in recent years while making their way home at night, "and all the other women who never made it safely home". So it is about a very dark and sad topic.

A friend and I couldn't decide for sure how the glowing writing was done, but later I heard from someone who spoke with Neroli, who confirmed that it is the thread used for the quilting which reflects the camera flash.

Obviously this is only a tiny selection from the whole show. The whole thing is rather overwhelming and I would probably need several days there to take it all in. But it was definitely worth the trip to the city.

Autumn Fruit

Peaches and pears from our orchard:

Picked yesterday and eaten on our field trip. I thought peaches were more of a summer fruit, but ours are just ripening. And very yummy!

April Field Trip

Although we are in April, this was the first field trip for the year. The trips for both February and March had to be cancelled because the scheduled days were severe fire danger days, and declared as total fire bans. The Field Naturalists don't run excursions on Total Fire Ban Days. Even if they did, we would not want to be away from the house on days like that - we need to be home, ready to evacuate if necessary.

Our first stop today was Macarthur Park Wetlands at Miners Rest.

The wetlands are not natural, but were created to deal with the run-off from an adjacent housing development. But they successfully attract many species of wildlife.

We saw lots of birds, but these were new to me:

Chestnut teal ducks (Anas castanea) looking for food amongst the azolla fern which covers a lot of the water.

The next stop on our tour, Mt Hollowback, was completely different.

It had excellent mobile phone reception! It was also incredibly windy. It's a popular spot for hang-gliders and paragliding. There were some guys up there setting up model gliders to fly, but they didn't launch them before we left.

There are great views across the volcanic plains of western Victoria:

Where everything looks very dry:

No green to be seen:

Waubra wind farm on the horizon:

Our next stop was Mullahwalla wetlands, although the wetlands were rather lacking in water:

Look - away in the distance there is still a little bit of water:

And through a telescope it was possible to identify the birds swimming there. No hope with just the camera.

We need some rain.

The last part of the excursion could not be photographed. We went for a walk in the bush after dark, searching for nocturnal birds. Our guide for the walk has done a PhD studying the tawny frogmouth. We walked for an hour or so through bushland, with only a few torches covered in red cellophane to light the way. We didn't see any birds, although we did hear an owlet nightjar at one point. But it was an amazing experience to walk silently through the bush in the dark.

Bloom Nine and Ten

The next two Bloom blocks finished:

This means I'm at the half-way point already!

Linked to Cheryll's Bloomers Party, which is not a social gathering of women in rational dress, but a collection of people in different corners of the world making Lori Holt's Bloom quilt this year.

Not Pumpkins

The seedlings I hoped were banksias are starting to grow their real leaves:

And they look a lot like banksia leaves! Definitely not pumpkins.

First Screens

Actual wire screens added to a couple of the frames. Very hard to see! I couldn't tell at all from inside the house.