Gathering nuts in May

..........and fruit as well!

 

Once again, my house is full of noisy tradies, and as the power's off for a while so they can install the new sensor lights, I've decided to retreat to the riverbank with a pot of tea.  It wasn't until I sat down, and looked from that different perspective, I noticed a pawpaw tree down the bank a bit, full of good size fruit.  So I scrambled down and picked a box full, even the green ones, otherwise the bats and possums will come and eat the lot.....or more likely, the possums will take a bite from each one and leave the fruit rotting on the tree. I don't mind sharing with the local wildlife, but don't want to see good fruit go to waste.  I'll leave these in a sunny spot and they'll  ripen in a few days.

Walking along the grass, I could feel the macadamia nuts under foot, so it seemed like a good time to gather them up as well, and I managed to find quite a lot. There's two trees here, and I was told by a local arborist that the one on the left, in the last picture, is part of the original Gondwana rain forest, one of the most extensive sub-tropical rainforests in the world.  It's a lighter green and has a finer leaf than the grafted variety that you can just see on the right of the picture.  Go  here if you'd like to know more about these rainforests and the primitive plant species that have direct links with the birth and spread of plants from over a million years ago.

Back to enjoying my pot of tea, the view and the peace and quiet.....

till next time.......

Little left over bits

..... of fabric, of course

In the midst of a week busy with hunting down second hand doors, sanding and painting  said doors, dealing with the electrician, the builder and the tree trimmer, and other pleasantries like enjoying the company of an old friend who came for a surprise visit, and making a start on my veggie garden, I managed some sewing.

First was this for a friend's birthday ....a mug rug, pot holder.....however she wants to use it....made from the trimmings from the latest F2F blocks I made for Claire.  It's around 7 inches square.

 And this one wonky star for green month at So Scrappy. I cheated a bit....I had this lot cut out ready to sew last year when I was making rainbow stars.  Putting my house on the market and getting ready to move meant it was packed away and forgotten but found this week while looking for something else!  

Both were made from scraps, so I'm linking up with Kate and Gun For ScrapHappy May and with Angela for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Lots of bloggers doing amazing things with scraps.
* Edited to add linking up with Cynthia at Oh Scrap!  as well......even more scrappy fun!

till next time....

F2F Catchup

The last time I posted about F2F was back in January, when we pulled out all the stops to get Pat's blocks made and away to Sue in the US, so it could be made up, and hopefully give her a chance to see it and enjoy the comfort of it.....a big hug from all of us.....in her last days. Happily, thanks to everyone's great effort, and particularly Sue who put all the blocks together into a beautiful quilt, and her son, who quilted it, Pat was able to see her quilt and enjoy having it close to her for a short while. Sadly, Pat passed away in early February, but her quilt remains as a legacy to her, and will now be used to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Society in the US.....a fitting tribute. 

The finished quilt - what a beauty

Looking back, I realised I've not shown any of the blocks I've made for the other F2F'ers since here last year.  So in order from then .........

Susan - August 

Sue - September

Lyn-October 

Avis -November 

Christine - December

 

Pat -January

Emmely - February

Claire -March

 You can go to the gallery here to see all the wonderful blocks that've been made, or here to see Avis's completed quilt,  here to see Lyn's in progress (scroll down a bit) or here to see how Sue's putting hers together.....beautifully creative work, ladies.

And so on to me.....April! I'm a bit in love with low volume quilts at the moment, so I chose soft, low volume mauves, and soft light grey or cream for the backgrounds. Here's my blocks so far.....it's been so exciting to open the packages and find these wonderful works of art.....I really appreciate the work that's gone into creating these lovely blocks for me.  Five to come...I think...plus my own, which I'll make once I have all the others together.

Kate has already launched F2F2 and you can follow along at the dedicated  blog if you like, when it starts again in June.  I had thought I'd join in again, then realised I had enough ongoing commitments already for the year, but I'm thinking I might sew alongside and make just my own blocks, I even have my colours picked out.....I'll see when June comes around.

As soon as I finish the son's quilt I'll be making Kate's  blocks, which will be grey, black and white with lime green....a lovely fresh palette. His quilt looked like this a few days ago, it's all sewn together now and has borders, if I don't get dragged away to buy paint or hunt down door handles, I'll be getting onto the quilting. 

Till next time.....

Last scrappy orange day

Yesterday was the last day of orange month, and although I thought I'd make a couple more orange churn dashes, it didn't happen.  I did manage to put this quilt top together with the scrappy log cabins I was working on in my last post....two and a half weeks ago!  My computer lost it's way, thanks to a Windows 10 upgrade, and after waiting nearly two weeks for  it to be repaired, I then had trouble connecting to my service provider.  After having 3 techs all go through the same troubleshooting with me, and disagreeing with me that it was the modem, a week later a 4th decided yes, it was and arranged for me to get a new one!   Bah!

This orange number still needs to be quilted, but when it's finished, it's off to Maya's Rest, a respite centre for seriously ill children in country NSW.  Donations of quilts and rugs For Maya's Rest has been organised by Knit4Charities and is one of their April charities of the month.  It needs to be finished and in the mail by next Friday, and since today is grey and wet, once Mirrhi has had her walk, I'll be staying indoors to work on this, as well as my son's quilt, which is progressing nicely.

To see more delicious orange projects,  hop on over to the RSC link up.

I'll be back tomorrow with a long over-due F2F catch-up.  I'm Miss April, so there's plenty of blocky goodness to show as squishy parcels have been arriving in my mailbox.

'till then....have a good day.

Scraphappy Rainbow Days

This beautiful sunrise full of promise has turned into a grey, chilly day!

I've missed the last couple of months of the Rainbow Scrap Challenge.....packing and moving house will do that, throw the schedule right off!....and although I missed the first week of April, I managed to haul out the scraps on the weekend. April's colour is orange with a touch of brown....like a jaffa!  This was timely, as I still had orange and brown scraps on the table after finishing the March F2F blocks, which were shades of brown, orange and red.

I made these two churn dash blocks...a 6.5 inch and a 9 inch.....these will be added to the blues I made in January, which I'm yet to find, I'm sure they'll turn up before I'm ready to sew these blocks into something. 

.....and a handful of scrappy log cabins. These need a few more rounds to finish, then they'll become a quilt for Maya's Rest a respite centre for terminally ill children and their families. 

The scraps will take a bit of a backseat this week while I start a quilt for my son's 40th birthday....40!!??  It's this one, it's called Radiant  and is a very simple block, but looks complicated and geometric...he'll like that.  I'm making it in shades of grey, black and white and blue/turquoise/teal for the centre blocks.  

So that's it for now, off to tackle the veggie garden that has turned into a jungle, I'm keen to do some autumn planting.

Linking up with so scrappy........ there's lots of orangery goodness to check out there.

'till next time

Catching

This handsome fellow glided in ever so quietly as I was having my first cuppa in the garden this morning.  It wasn't at all bothered by my presence or Mirrhi crashing and banging along the river bank, enjoying the smells of overnight visitors....... it was just focused on catching it's breakfast.

Across the river, the white cockatoos are still massed in their overnight roosts, waiting to catch the first warming rays of the sun.

A different kind of catching!

Enjoy your day

***

Settling in nicely and ScrapHappy

Into my new home, that is. 

I took this photo of what is now my home, one foggy winter morning, long before I had any idea I'd be living here one day. It sits right on the river, and has a wonderful outlook onto parkland.  

I wrote my last post the day before settlement, and life sped up after that, as I had a month to finish packing up my house, while renovation and restoration work was getting started on the new house.  I thought that part  would be easy, just let the tradies get on with it, but it ended up being incredibly busy and quite stressful at times.  It was a few of the hottest weeks of the year, and I seemed to spend the days going back and forth to the new house to "site meetings".  While my head was still pretty much at the old place and focused on getting out of there and leaving it spic and span, it was hard to think about where I might want a light switch or a power point at some hazy time in the future. The photo below was taken from the front window of my new house, and there's the old one, across the road and up the hill, behind the frangipanni tree.....not a great distance, but in nearly 40C ( 104 F) and 90% humidity, it might as well have been a million miles.

The new house is in really good condition, but was old and tired, all rooms had musty old wallpaper, which I thought was going to take forever to remove, but a lovely surprise was that the wallpaper was attached to plywood panelling, which was in turn attached to  beautiful old original tongue and groove boards, making the job an easy one of just ripping that panelling off.  The old carpet and vinyl were pulled up, to reveal more beautiful wood, which has now been sanded and sealed.

I'll do some more posts about before and after, and the progress of the renovations, as this post, to launch me back into blogland, is about scraps.....fabric scraps, and to link up with Kate and others for ScrapHappy Day, which falls on the 15th of each month.   In the few weeks before I moved, for some reason, I mostly ignored the packing, pulled out my scraps and started a scrap quilt., just as if I was going nowhere.  I think some of that was the sense of disbelief that I was actually moving, it had taken 18 months of being very unwell from my ex-neighbours cigarette smoke ....I wrote about that here ......to being so close to moving away from her for good, that it felt unreal. Although it was around 12 months ago that my offer on this house was accepted, there were many delays until settlement, including a long drawn - out probate process, and waiting for documents from Council, to actually selling my house. Talk about 2 steps forward and one back, no wonder I couldn't quite believe it was actually going to happen.

So, the scraps are technically February's project, but since last month's ScrapHappy Day was the day I moved, I was far too exhausted to think about writing a blog post.  Since then, I've done some more work on the blocks this month, so I think it can now qualify for March. I cut 2 inch squares and 2 inch strips, and made these square in a square 6 inch blocks.

Seventy of them........

And have been joining them into sets of 2, then 4 and now I'm onto the rows. This part will be about 40 inches square, so I'll add a couple of borders to make it a bit bigger. It'll end up going to a charity asking for kids quilts for winter.

I also made this small prayer flag together from scraps for a friend's 60th birthday last week.

This is put together from op-shop linens and lace, an old tea-towel that had the bird and music on it.......Wendy's a singer and a musician, so this and the musical note charm were appropriate for her........other scraps I pulled out, lots of stitching and old buttons.  I chose the bird theme and stamped the word 'soar' because Wendy is building a new life for herself after her divorce....flying free!.... then to finish  I stitched a red thread through it, for protection.

Joining Kate  for ScrapHappy Day......check out the links on Kate's page to see what others have been doing with their scraps, maybe you'll be inspired to delve into your scraps next month, and reduce your stash. a little too.

Till next time........