Nine Flowers

All the flowers are now open. Cymbidium orchid - Peter Pan X Snow Eagle 'Malcolm'

My Contribution

Hard rubbish collection day is tomorrow, so today I put out the items I wanted rid of:

I know, the ladder looks OK, but it doesn't fold up anymore, so takes up a lot of space and can't actually be used for anything practical. I'm always amazed when people throw out usable items, but I didn't expect much of this to actually go to landfill.
Approximately two minutes later, the first item was grabbed:

I told him that it couldn't be folded, but he wasn't too fussed. It just made it a bit tricky for him to load it onto his truck.

By late this afternoon, only a couple of items remained. (Added later - before it was collected to go to landfill, everything except a rusty iron bar and a strip of perspex had gone to new homes). Further down the street I helped a girl load a table into the back of her car. I've tried to avoid collecting stuff myself this year, but I've seen some interesting items go to new homes.

Farmers Market

Proof that this suburb has changed a quite a bit since I moved here:

Coburg Farmers Market started today at the local primary school, and is scheduled to run twice a month. It will be interesting to see how it goes. There were lots of people, but I don't know how many were buying. Having bees, chooks, a vege garden and fruit trees of our own meant I didn't need most of the things being sold. It should be good for the school, though, as they were asking for a gold-coin donation from everyone.

Scatterday - L

This week's letter is:

And our categories are:
# sky
# purple
# city
# and a lap quilt


Sky:
The sky over my home is the approach path for planes landing at Melbourne airport. Having spent my early years around air-force bases, I'm used to the sound of planes and rarely notice them. However this one still makes me look up:

A Qantas A380 about to land.

Purple:

Very purple lounge chair, marked down from $240 to $180 if you want it!

City:

Thylacine Family sculpture in the heart of Launceston.

Lap quilt:

I made this quilt for my mother's 80th birthday in 2008. It's "Pinwheels and Posies", designed by Beth Ferrier.

See how others met the "L" challenge via the links on Cinzia's blog.

About to Open

Bud on the orchid I was given two years ago.

It looks like there is only one spike this year, so I probably won't get four months of flowers like I did last time, but I'm happy that it is blooming again for me.

Plant Sale

The Growing Friends Autumn Plant Sale is on this weekend.

This salvia "Lime Bracts" attracts bees and people!

AQC2013

A full day at the Australasian Quilt Convention.

I enjoyed seeing the "Twelve by Twelve" Colourplay series:

I'd seen them all on the internet as they were released, but seeing them in person was so much better! It was also great to attend the floor talk by two of the "Twelves", Brenda and Kirsten.

Elsewhere there was plenty to be amazed at. Here's some of the inspirational free-motion quilting in the background of Helen Godden's challenge-winning Galloping Wild and Free.

And by way of contrast, a white-gloved attendant shows the incredible hand quilting on My Welsh Try by Janet Wood, which you really have to see from the back: