I haven't knitted in public for a while.............

I might just knit in public again.  I haven't for a while. One of the last times was quite eventful....I had my knitting confiscated on a Qantas flight in the post 9/11 madness.  I had spent 3 hours of a 5 hour flight peacefully knitting when one of the flight crew stopped and asked me what I was doing. My innocent reply was knitting.  I was using large wooden circular needles - blunter than the cutlery they provided me with to eat my meal - to knit a bag.  However, because I was knitting they deemed I was using knitting needles, which were a prohibited "weapon" on flights.  My innocent effort to allay their fears, in hindsight only escalated their concern  - I referred to knitting as a meditative art form.  I think their eyebrows raised and an alarm bells went off!  "We have a crazy here".......The federal police who were waiting to greet me as I left the plane were less than impressed with the flight crew's interpretation of ''weapon''....

Meanderings and wanderings with my Nature Trail quilt....

So I've a few things to share following my long absence...but I'll start with the present...I'm working on my autumnal quilt, although I think now I'm leaning towards the name "'Nature Trails" quilt as it looks like snippets of landscapes and nature that you would see and touch and feel on a bush walk or outdoor tramping holiday in late summer or autumn.  I find myself thinking of the wonderful walks in the woods I always loved in England.  I love the changing colours of the seasons there.  We have them here on a lesser scale - actually lesser scale is not truly accurate.  It is more a different level of colour saturation. The colour palette in Australia is unique and lovely in its own right.  We are embracing spring and emerging from our safe warm wintery hidey holes.  It's exciting and there is a sense of anticipation and excitement.  I ponder all this as I sew.  Such lovely musings wandering through my mind!

My original plan was to use the linen as sashing to create a contrast to highlight the quilt blocks themselves.  Perhaps as though you were looking through a window (middle picture) or as a pathway through the countryside (picture 3), but now I'm contemplating no sashing at all (first picture)....  I will contemplate away as I construct more blocks.

All fabrics are Liberty tana lawn.  It's high time I stopped hoarding them and made them into quilts and things.  Really it's an injustice to have them sitting in a box in a cupboard, they need to out and played with and enjoyed and appreciated.

Having moved house in June, has highlighted how much fabric I own. Quite crazy!  I can't part with any just for the sake of reducing the size of my stash.  I have to use it all, so I'm on a mission, to sew sew sew, so that when I move next (I'm only renting for now) I have a lot less fabric to move.  I greatly need to economise in my new circumstances too, so I'm going to try to use my current resources.  I may even begin to offer quilts for sale....but I'm getting way ahead of myself...

Any thoughts on sashing or no sashing from the above pictures?  Please share if you do - it would be lovely sharing creative ideas....

Summer dazey days

I've been enjoying a busy social fun summer here in Perth.  Getting out and about and seeing movies, Fringe Festival shows and now a couple of PIAF shows too.  '

Also going for lots of lovely morning and weekend walks, around our beautiful river and at the beach occasionally too.  I spent lots of hours finishing my hexie quilt - or at least finishing the TOP.  The grand total is 1243 one-and-a-half inch hand pieced hexagons!!  I can't really remember when I started, but I've been working on it (and off it for long periods of time) for about 5 years.  I have truly loved the hand stitching process.  Call me crazy, but I've bought a packet of little 1 inch hexie papers for my next one!!  I am going to make it all out of my Liberty stash, BUT, I am not starting it until I finish a few more unfinished projects, in particular, 3 crochet rugs that are near completion. Not to mention 4 quilt tops in progress and the 4 finished tops that need sandwiching.

I am christening my hexie quilt Twelve Forty-Three in honour of the grand total.  Here it is gracing my bed.

And here it is outside over the rail in the garden....

There's been a little bit of cake time too...this one made by our resident chef at work.....Banana cake with cinnamon cream frosting with honeyed pecans...he is the reason I stay in my job.....insert happy face here.....

Perth puts on the Perth International Arts Festival every year and as part of that said festival there is one huge free event held in the city each year.  This year was truly incredible.  The Giants came to town:  a little girl and a man. Here are pictures of the girl taken as she danced above the crowd. The atmosphere over the 3 day event was electric in the city. The crowds were formidable and quite overwhelming at times, but it was worth it to be a part of the fun.

Happy New Year

The bag model :)

One of my bags

Pea pancakes

Lemon cake

The Raw Food Kitchen

 

A few bits of delicious Liberty Tana Lawn from a visit to Materialise

Hello from my little plot!  I'm back to the rhythm of my normal life after a wonderful 10 days of flying by the seat of my pants. Days spent doing things on a whim.  It was pure delicious-ness to throw routine out the window and move easily through my day.  A dear, dear friend came to visit, which was so special - we had such an amazing few days.  We did not stop talking as we explored, drove, ate, cooked, walked, swam, shopped, drank. We had so much catching up to do.  I have known Sal from the day she was born (I'm a little bit older!) so our families have a long shared history. It was incredible to have time together - it was the first time Sal had left all 3 of her children, in 13 years.  It filled up our souls, reaffirmed our friendship and sparked all our creative juices.  Sal is the most wonderful person, with an incredible ability to live a truly creative life.  I love her to pieces. Our time together is something I will treasure forever.

I sent her off with one of my bags, and forced her to model it for me in the above picture.  It looked so great with her outfit!  Much better than the table pic, don't you think?  The food pics were taken as we ate our way around Perth.  Everything pictured is gluten free - from Sayers Sister in North Perth and The Raw Kitchen in Fremantle.  All of it was a taste sensation.  Sal and I talked food and nutrition a lot and have decided to share recipes across the country. I've sent off the first one, which is roast potatoes with prunes from the Jerusalem cookbook.  I made them one night and served them alongside Jamie Oliver's lamb with a green leafy salad.  Dessert was one of my small Christmas cakes - another success!  See pictures below...I can't take credit for the potato shot - it's from the cookbook....but the Christmas cake is my pic.

Potatoes and Prunes in caramel sauce from Jerusalem by Ottolenghi

Recipe from Cake Angels by Julie Thomas.

As you can see it was a bit of a foodie-fest!

Bon appetite...until next time.....

Scrappy Trip Around the World Quilt

I realised I have got something to show in the quilt department. I have about 3 more blocks to go and I am ready to put this one together.  It's on the list to finish over my Christmas break.  The list is a bit ridiculous and I am destined to fail really - it's a wish list rather than a to-do list!  But it's also an ideas list.  I regularly pop quilt project ideas on to it. So I'm not going to beat myself up about it - the main thing is that I spend some time creatively.  I feel totally stifled lately, due to a busy daily life and my fatigue.

Update

My fatigue levels since having Dengue Fever seem to have increased tenfold and I seem to only have energy for the necessities of work and home life.  Although I feel under pressure all the time as if I always have a million things to do/chasing my tail/not getting anywhere.  The end result has been anxiety and fatigue.  I'm limping over my work finish line next Tuesday.  I have until the 5th of January off.  I'm staying close to home.  I swing between getting excited about some days spent sewing and reading, walks at the beach, catching up on things and then telling myself not to put any pressure on myself to cross anything off a list. Perhaps what I really really need is complete rest - both physical and mental. No pressure on myself to achieve anything.  Needless to say the blog has gone by the wayside.  I've had no time to read other blogs and feel quite cut off from my creative world.  Don't worry my list of craft and quilt projects keeps growing, even though nothing is being done to finish those.  Daydreaming is what keeps me going.....honestly I am the best daydreamer ever...solidly grounded in reality ...ha!  Some are ridiculous Hollywood happy ending style daydreams, although George Clooney managed to shatter one of those by getting married.  LOL! Others are very very ordinary daydreams, that I hold dear and no-one can shatter, that's the wonderful thing about daydreaming, isn't it?

And because I don't have any quilty/crochet pics to share here a some random Christmas photos from the last few days at my house....

Sweet happy pics from my little corner of the world.  The deer is one of my newest decorations, from a darling sister on the other side of the world. The fairy is my oldest decoration and arrived on my first ever Christmas stocking, er-em just a short 50 years ago!!!

Wishing each and everyone of you dear readers a blissful time over Christmas and a wonderful 2015.

xxxooo

Checkerboard quilt

So I put my foot down on the quilting accelerator and finished one of my 7 quilt tops in various stages of development.  I've given myself a bit of a talking to and decided it's high time they got finished as tops at least - the sandwiching, quilting and binding can happen later.  Perhaps I'm just missing the wonderful feeling when you step back and view the finished top.  It's a lovely stage of the whole wonderful process for me.

I had a styling assistant help with the photos....or is it what you call photo-bombing?  Tilly takes such and interest in everything I do and likes to help at all times.

Instagram

I'm posting quite a bit to Instagram these days - it's so quick and easy, whereas the blog is a bit more effort. I like recording snippets of my day by photos - I think it's a nice gallery to reflect on. My life revolves around flowers, my dog, baking, reading, crochet, if you take a look at it.  Some may think my interests are very basic...each to their own.

Some of my activities since I last wrote.

I've been to a play - this is not a love song - brilliant
Out for a couple of yummy meals - Bivouac in Northbridge top of the list.
I've nearly finished my v-stitch crochet rug.  So a picture will follow.
After living her for 20+ years I finally visited Araluen - it was fabulous.  The colours of the tulips were awesome.
Baked and cooked a bit
I finished 'Still Alice"- an easy read and I really enjoyed it.
I went to see the film "The 100 foot journey" and LOVED it.
Out for breakfast with friends
Out for lunch with friends
Gone on lots of walks
Patted Tilly a fair bit
A little bit of quilting, but not enough!

I'm back!

So I've been away for a while.  I headed off to Bali to turn 50 somewhere warm and tropical. It was all that I could have wished for and more. A great holiday with family and friends. Then the kicker....I got dengue fever! Bit of a downer. But I'm bouncing back, well crawling back :) what a revolting few days I had with that. Anyhow I'm through that dark tunnel and back at work, back to reality.

Here are a few snaps from Bali - they are very random as my phone that I took all my photos on has died.  Hopefully, I'll retrieve them at some point.  For now I only have the ones I uploaded to Instagram or Facebook whilst I was there.

We stayed at Villa Kukka - as the description said - ''it oozed Bali funk",  It was a fabulous haven.

The door to Villa Kukka aka paradise

Birthday girl - our first breakfast

Mosaic Marilyn in my bathroom

First Bali Kopi (coffee) of the day

View from the cabana
 

Everything was fabulous, the company, the food, the pool - I loved every minute of it. It was a dream come true. 

Cheaper than therapy