Quilters At The Showgrounds

But not many of them.

The walk from the tramstop was long, and the showgrounds seemed deserted.

I kept going past the Pie In The Sky sculpture, and eventually found the Mad Quilters' Gathering. Unfortunately for the people who had stands there, very few people actually attended today. There were lots of different businesses, many of whom I haven't seen at the larger shows. I wandered around and looked at everything, but didn't buy much. I spent some of my time doing a workshop to make a 3D mariner's compass, which was done using a pattern and tool designed by Cheryl Phillips.

During the workshop we only made half of the compass. The problem with that was that it was very difficult to get exactly the same seam allowance on my machine at home, so my two halves were not exactly the same. The full compass might look OK:

But believe me, it is far from flat! I bought the pattern so I can make it again. Reading the pattern at home afterwards showed me that there was a point early in the construction when I should have fixed one of the issues that lead to this not sitting flat. Even with that knowledge, I think I'll probably need to make it a couple of times before I try it with precious fabric!

Morning

When the curtains opened this morning I saw black clouds looking threatening.

A minute later the sun made them beautiful.

Later in the day there was pouring rain and cold wind, but for a few moments the sky was lovely.

In Melbourne Today

Went into the city to meet up with some quilting friends. But first I walked past this landmark, which is closing tomorrow after 60 years:

I glanced inside, but the dark, mouldering heaps of fabric are far from inviting. It is hard to imagine that there is anything still worth buying inside.

For a colourful contrast, a rainbow of umbrellas decorate the Australia on Collins Arcade:

And the Myer windows have a preview of Mali in the City, a herd of 50 elephants, decorated by artists, which will be installed around the city in August.

This particular elephant was decorated by Mali herself! I'm looking forward to seeing them all around town.

Amazing Insect

Checking the TreeProject seedlings today, I noticed that the recent damp weather has not helped the powdery mildew on the the swamp gums (Eucalyptus ovata). However, I wasn't planning to spray them with anything this year, even before I found this little guy:

It is a fungus-eating ladybird (Illeis galbula)! Both the adults and larvae eat fungus, so I'm very happy for this one, and any relatives it wants to invite over, to feast away on the powdery mildew.

And for proof that the sun shone for a while today, see the blue sky reflected on the ladybird.

Citrus Gall

In 2009 my lemon tree was so heavily infested with citrus gall wasp (Bruchophagus fellis) that I cut off every branch.

It has grown back into quite a nice tree, and thanks to the bees, it is covered in fruit. But today I noticed that the wasp is back:

I've pruned out all the galls I could find, but will have to keep a close eye on it to keep removing them before the adult wasps emerge towards the end of August.

Gadget

One of my favourite shops in the city is Tokuya, the Japanese "everything's $3.50" shop. Trying to guess the use of some of the products is a challenge, but I think this one will be useful:

Fortunately there are diagrams on the back:

Amazing!

I do have a bit of elastic to thread, so this could be handy.

Depressing

Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. It was also very cold! I didn't venture outside much, but I did try to photograph some fluffed-up sparrows in the next-door neighbour's trees.

As you can see, I didn't manage to catch a sparrow. And that's the last possible picture of any of the trees.

This morning as I headed off to work the neighbours had a wood-chipper parked in their front drive. Tonight when I got home, all the trees were gone.