ScrapHappy day - October

No waste - waste triangles 

I meant to post this ScrapHappy Day post yesterday, the 15th, but had a nap instead. So better late than never.

While browsing around on Pinterest, looking at scrappy quilt inspiration, this lovely bright block  caught my eye. It's from here and the maker used up scrap triangles to make the blocks, rather than hst and set them in an ocean waves pattern.

 

Seeing all those little "waste" triangles, the bits cut off the corners of hsts, reminded me I had some saved "somewhere" so went rummaging and found this lot. I hate throwing anything out, and save the hard plastic containers that berries and cake come into the house in (I don't buy ready made cakes from the supermarket, but friends do and bring to share) They're the ideal size to put those waste triangles in and stack neatly on a cupboard shelf.

Saved in plastic "waste" containers

Not strawberries, little waste triangles

 These purple remnants came from the op shop, and are the perfect colour for background blocks, as the small pieces will show up well against the darker mauve. I cut them into 4 inch squares and sewed a tiny triangle across one corner.

And ended up with these..........I could sew them together like little butterflies......

or into ocean waves like the red ones above.  I'll make a good pile of them before I decide. 

Knitting for Brisbane's Needy has put out the call for baby blankets to go to an organisation that supports young mums who are on their own, so I'll work towards it going there.

Kate and Gun host ScrapHappy Day on the 15th of each month, so go visit if you want to see what other scrappy goodness is happening around the world. So far there are scrap hexies, jewel box stars and zeppelins...... that's a tempting line-up and definitely worth a look. If you're inspired to join in, follow the link to either Kate's or Gun's blog and they'll get you going. It's easy.

The sun's out, and it's exciting, after not seeing it for nearly 2 weeks, but just for a little while, as there're storms racing in from the west, but plenty of time to get out in the garden and potter a bit, check out what's grown, what's been damaged in the wild weather, smell the newly blooming roses and sweet peas and maybe pull a few weeds. I've missed being out there.

So till next time............

Planning a garden bed

and an unexpected gift 

I've been working on this garden bed in my front yard for a while now, just chipping away at it, letting it evolve as my ideas of what I want it to be change. It started off as a pile of silt left over from the flood, and I was just going to spread it out across the grass.  Then I thought about how much better it would be to have a garden there, rather than just grass, and imagined what I'd plant and how it would look eventually, and the idea grew on me, and so the garden bed was begun.

After lots of research, looking at garden bed ideas, thinking about the kind of plants I wanted, removing grass to make it larger, lots of digging and reshaping, I then had a rough shape of the bed I wanted. It's a keyhole bed shape, which will  give me more area to plant, and as I plan to add vegetables around the edges, these will be easier to harvest.  Keyhole beds traditionally have a compost bin at the centre, but I'm not sure yet if I'll do that.

Removing clods of grass = very sore back

I played around with adding "features"......some rocks from around my garden, and fallen branches from the local park.

I had decided I wanted a plumeria pudica  ...... an evergreen variety of frangipanni.........in the middle, and when I saw one at a local nursery, I grabbed it.  I'm a bit of an impatient gardener, no waiting until everything's done before planting, so in went the plumeria on the high spot, next to my "landscaping" logs.

It will look like this when grown with pretty white flowers.

I wasn't happy with the look of the logs, and really wanted an old  tree stump, a vertical feature, but even if I found one, probably wouldn't be able to lift it into the car to get it home, so was resigned to logs and rocks. Meanwhile, the digging continued, moving earth around and giving the bed the shape I wanted, with a nice high point sloping gently down.

I had muttered to a few people about wanting a tree stump, and was met with eye rolls, and outright laughter, but one friend listened, and last weekend, her son pulled up with the trailer on his car, and in the back......yep, you guessed it, a tree stump.

It's perfect, I dragged it into place in front of  the plumeria, which will grow up nicely behind it.

Still life with dog.

The 'keyhole' is just visible on the right of the picture, behind the pointy rock. 

It even came with a little collection of fungi, and a very large spider, which is now hiding under the bark, away from Mrs Greedy Chicken.

I've put a couple more plants in, cuttings I've been given, and plan to fill it with some low growing spiky natives, to provide food and shelter for small birds, unusual herbs, some annuals for seasonal colour, and green leafy vegetables around the edges, and anything else that takes my fancy......a little bit cottagey, a little bit native , a little bit productive.  While it looks grey and dull right now, once the plants start to grow, and there's colour, interest and form, and a good layer of pine bark mulch, it's going to look smashing.

I'm pretty happy with my unexpected gift and the results of my hard work.

My weekend plans include more work refining that garden bed shape, as I've decided to make one side a "kidney" shape, so there's some more grass to be dug up.  To give my poor old back a break,  there'll be time out to do some knitting or sewing,  and tomorrow a couple of friends are coming for lunch on the riverbank.....hopefully the rain will stay away.  What do you have planned for your weekend? Whatever you're doing, enjoy! 

............till next time.

Golden yellows

In the garden........

 

Lime yellow foliage

And beautiful bird attracting orange

Grevillia Honey Barbara

A golden chicken

Juno - majestic plymouth rock

We don't see the beautiful colours of autumn here in the sub-tropics that colder climates produce,  apart from some gardens that have Japanese Maples, but the flowers and shrubs that put on a show are just as vibrant and welcome.

And in my sewing room ...........

The afternoon sun......lovely and warm and bright, but without the bite and glare of summer

A growing pile of crumb blocks 

Only one churn dash this week, and what a one!  18" square with a 6"heart at it's centre. It was hard to get a good photo of it, the fabrics are very pale, but I like the stained -glass look. I wasn't concentrating when I was cutting this one, and made the background hst too small, so had to use a different yellow to the other background pieces. For me,this is what scrappy's about, using what's there, and as this quilt will be for me when it's finished I don't mind. I've since found a tutorial for a range of sizes of hearts, so I'll be using this again.

Finishing off today with my golden girl, who's still having some ear issues.  We're heading out to the garden now before the forecast afternoon rain and thunderstorms swoop in, me to finish some weeding and mulching, and Mirrhi to enjoy a bone. Perfect Sunday afternoon.

 Linking with So Scrappy Rainbow Scrap Challenge

Beating the heat

Spring has skipped on by and it feels like summer is well and truly here, with temps in the low 30s C(80s F), so I've been walking Mirrhi very early, heading out as the sun lifts over the rim, and then working in the courtyard garden until the sun moves up higher and eats away the shade and it's too hot to stay out there.

I've been working on this patch of dirt next to the newly paved area, and under a very old, tatty pine tree.  I've since removed the little fence, it made the garden look like a cemetery plot!

Edged with stones instead....much better.

I found that nice old piece of wood on a vacant lot while walking Mirrhi, so lugged it home,  I like how it looks here, with an agave and a pretty nemesia tucked behind it.

Up close....rocks, wood chips and seedlings.

From the top of the driveway side

I've started to plant it up with heat loving colour.......this area gets sun all day from the north and then the west.......so there's cineraria, pig face and verbena here.  I'll continue this combination around to the other side as well.   Bromeliads will get some shade tucked against the tree trunk.  It's all heavily mulched with bark chips to keep moisture in and the roots cool.  I picked up a pair of big cement pots at the tip shop for $5, one is painted that soft orange, and the other's waiting to be painted. It'll go on the other side of the path, and they'll be planted up with blue/petunias and blue lobelia.

I have a day of sewing planned now, so until next time.............

New beginnings

..............in the garden

I've been absent from here, mainly due to illness,but also spending a lot of time reclaiming my garden.  The flood waters left soil behind that's contaminated very badly with e coli, heavy metals and chemicals, and although I've been scrupulously careful, I've ended up with nasty bugs and infections that linger on for ages.  It's taken me ages to write this post, it was harder than I realised to go back and look at the photos from the flood.

So, there's lots of *then* and *now* pics, and they pretty much speak for themselves.

This is what greeted me the next day when the water had started to go down .....fences gone, debris and mud piled up everywhere...... 

That black and white splodge is a magpie, flying low, not stuck there.  My roses are under there somewhere!

They haven't suffered from being drowned under water, mud and debris though and are looking beautiful.

And now,  with the debris and mud cleared away, new fences up and the beginnings of a garden it's looking much better .... 

Still a way to go replacing all the garden but bit by bit it's happening

***

The side of the house has gone from looking like this

To this 

Looking a lot better

New paving put down, using bricks that surfaced all over the yard when the water was gone.  No idea if they were already  buried in the yard, or were washed in from elsewhere.

I've put woodchips right along here, not wanting to do a lot of in-ground planting, but also to give Mirrhi her own place to sleep in the garden, and so she can see what's going on through the fence and talk to passers-by, without getting into trouble for being on the garden

A work in progress......photo is dark, I took it at 5.30 this morning

This is looking back towards the new courtyard, it ended up looking worse than this, as it's where all the mud that was cleared from the paths and under the house was shovelled to.  That tangled mess of green to the left was my greenhouse, full of seed trays and seedlings ready to be planted. 

 

The mud set like cement and was impossible to dig and 60cm to1 mtr (2-3ft) deep in places

A man driving past one day saw me struggling to move it, went home and got his shovel and pick, and came back and dug it all out for me.  

He came back the next day with these snapdragons his wife had bought for me.  The generosity of strangers after the flood was heartwarming and their acts of kindness just wonderful.

A strangers kindness brought the beginnings of colour and life back to my garden

And here's that 'mud heap" today

So that's it, the beginnings of the tale of reclamation and growth.

I'll be back tomorrow to join  Kate and others for ScrapHappy Day.

See you then.........