Ho hum- beginning again

A scrappy catch-up post.....bits of my days and bits of fabric

So I'm back from my unintentional blogging break. It's been a few months of all sorts....busy fun, supporting friends who've been sick and/or hospitalised, dealing with some family 'stuff", which, while not mine, needed my attention from time to time, as well as the day to day tasks of home making - cooking, cleaning, taking care of my animals ...and repeat. After a while, it just got easier  to not blog, so I've made the effort today because it's ScrapHappy Day (maybe it still is the 15th somewhere?)  organised by Kate and Gun and it seemed like a good time to jump back in and post about my latest scrap projects.  Lest you think I've been tardy, however, here's a brief catch up of the last...umm.....however many  weeks it's been.

There were a number of distractions to start with....

Nimbin Mardi Grass  Nimbin's a small village about 30km south west of here, and although it's been a farming area for generations, and still is, in the 70s crowds of hippies piled into town for the first Age of Aqaurius Festival. Most of these stayed on in this quiet little hamlet of deep valleys and dense rainforest, planted their (illegal) crops of cannabis and spent their days quietly stoned...dropped out and tripping. Others developed a strong counter-culture, becoming activists and protestors, while at the same time, many mainstream businesses like yoga, healing and natural therapies grew out of the idealogies of the Aquarian festival, and people started growing organic food, setting up multiple occupancies (communes) permaculture farms and co-operatives. The Mardi Grass is an annual rally and celebration held to protest drug laws while celebrating the unique culture of Nimbin, and overall, having fun.  I love Nimbin, not just for it's counter-culture and history, or it's nude bicycle race but for the quaintness of the town, and the great sense of community, of artists, permaculturists and yes, even the activists.  I could write a whole blog post on Nimbin, but not today, so if you're interested you can read more here or ask Mr Google. I went to the mardi Grass this year to help a friend who had a market stall, so it was a busy time of fun and work.

Gunja fairies in the Festival Parade ! Yes, really.

Then along came MAT...Murwillumbah Art Trail......."A showcase of contemporary art at it's best, with exhibitions, free events, workshops, good food and music and all day and into the night"
You could just grab a map follow the numbers and walk the town, enjoying art and food and having fun. I did more work than play throughout this week, as a number of friends either had their own galleries open to the public, or were exhibiting in pop up galleries. As most of them have day jobs, I filled in to mind their spaces for them, meet and greet and sell their excellent art woks......10 days of work and fun.

Just follow the numbers on the map

Then there were the three big birthdays on the same weekend .....my friend Tash's daughter turned 18th, and I was roped in to help organise and set up.  Luckily I also had a 50th to attend, so was excused from the 18 year old's bash pretty early.  The next day I met up with Tash again to celebrate her baby's 1st birthday, which was a very tame affair after the other two.....strawberry sponge cake and apple juice....then dashed off to host another celebration for the 50 year old for friend's who couldn't be here for the night before.
Then there was gardening, because the weather has been just wonderful, and way too nice to be inside.

sowing 

growing 

and eating 

There was some house painting while the weather was sunny but cool. Outdoor chores are so much more enjoyabe with zero humidity. The outside of the house was brown and cream, it's all this nice blue-green now. I was sure I had some before photos, but they're being elusive.

 with grey railings and trim

On the few cold rainy days we did have have, I did some pink,

Blue 

and yellow sewing.

 ...........knitted a couple of beanies which went to Thursday Island for school boy footy teams.....State of Origin colours.

I did some hand sewing and beading and made a pretty bag for a friend's birthday.

and there was a soft toy or two that dashed out of here to bring some cheer to children in hospital.

So now I'm caught up, on to my ScrapHappy project......there's two actually. Firstly, a friend decided she wanted some pale blue in her life, and was considering buying a $300 quilt she'd seen in town......yikes!  So I suggested I make her one, on the understanding it wouldn't be a quick finish, and she happily accepted.

I'd seen a few bowtie quilts pop up on various blogs featuring their  Rainbow Scrap Challenge projects, then I saw that Sue of the Magpie's Nest was making them too, so I jumped on the bandwagon as well. Here they are pinned on the design wall, I think that darker blob in the middle is my shadow!?  I'm using light and medium blues, and as I don't have enough blue scraps there'll be some fabrics used twice, or more, and in a couple of blocks I've joined pieces to get the 4.5 inch size square I needed. I've made 15 so far, and try to sew a few every day, making sure I cut some ready when I've finished sewing, so I can just go straight to the machine the next day.

My second use of scraps is a bit different. I've tied the white trimmings and leftovers of projects onto a string across my garden beds of kale and chinese cabbage, to deter the cabbage moths from laying their eggs. Apparently they see the white fluttering in the breeze and thinking it's rival moths,  they move on.  It seems to be working, no holey greens since I did it.

Hop over to Kate's blog to see what others are doing with their scraps, or to get the details if you have scrappiness you'd like to share.

Till next time..........

Scrappy, yellow, crumby quilt

.........halfway there

I wrote about this quilt last post, and my dilemma with the outer border., and whether to use really cute chicken fabric, or bold oranges.  I did end up going off to my nearest quilt shop and bought some yellow spotty fabric.  

This quilt will be donated to Logan Fire House Support Group, who are based in south-east Queensland, and provide support and material goods to people who've not only lost everything in a house fire, but anyone needing help and support following a disaster.  As well as providing basics like toiletries and clothing, they like to be able to give a blanket or quilt to the kids.  So while I did like the chooks and oranges, I thought they limited who the quilt could be given to, and now an older child might like it as much as a younger one.

It's now under the sewing machine, being quilted.

I'm doing very simple wavy "eye-balled" lines, which soften the squares of log cabin strips. I found a nice soft cotton sheet at the op-shop, the perfect size for the backing.  I'm about half-way there with the quilting, but have almost run out of the top thread, so it's off to the local haberdashery shortly to get some more. 

I'm joining Kate and other scrappers today for ScrapHappy May. It's easy to join in if you love sewing with scraps, or just go have a look and be inspired by all the other lovely scrappiness on show. 

...till next time.

RSC May - a start

A new month, a new colour. Angela has chosen pink and rose pink for us this month.  I made two churn dashes,

and two crumb blocks.

I have a lot of strips and crumbs in these colours, but not a lot of larger pieces to make hst for my churn dashes, so it'll be an interesting month.  I'll have to be creative, or make tiny churn dashes!

I sewed  those yellow crumb blocks from last month together, adding white sashing and borders.

I need to add more borders to make it a bit bigger, and found a kind of caramel coloured solid to use for a first narrow border, but the only large yellowy pieces I have in my stash are chickens........

or oranges.........

This will be donated for a child's comfort quilt, so either pattern will work,  I like the chickens, they're fun, and have a similar mix of yellows, golds and oranges as the scrappy blocks, but I'm not absolutely convinced. It looks like a trip to Spotlight this week to see if I can find something that works better.

Linking with So Scrappy, pop over and have a look at all the projects that have everyone in the pink this week!

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.

A Wall of Yellow

for April RSC 

We're at the end of April, so that means no more yellow. It's a good thing, because all I have left are crumbs.

I made another two churn dashes and met my goal of 6 of these for the month. These are 9" unfinished.

Running low on larger pieces of yellow, so the centres of these are crumbs. 

I worked on the crumb blocks, and have 4 finished to the 10" size I want.......

and 6 with a couple of rounds still to go. I'm running out of long pieces and have been joining different fabrics.

I have a plan for these crumb blocks! 

And looking at all my yellow blocks together, it's been a productive month.

Yellowness!

I'm off to make a cake for afternoon tea.  Ginger! Yum! But I'll leave you with a picture of my very  supple supervisor.  I moved a new table into my sewing room for my lap top to sit on, and Neesa immediately took possession, making herself very comfortable.  Ah well, she'll get tired of it soon, and move on to somewhere else. 

Linking with SoScrappy RSC.  Go check out everyone's yellow projects.

Have a good week........

I'm ready!

for the knit-along 

Photo posted with kind permission of Say Little Hen

The weather's just right for finding the perfect ball of yarn, dusting off the knitting needles and finding a sunny spot to sit and knit.  

And Sarah at Say Little Hen  is more than happy to indulge us.  She has very kindly organised a knit-along to make one.....or as many as you like.....little mice. ..... Tea Mice! 

There's still time to join in if you're itching to get those needles clicking.  We start tomorrow, so it's too late to buy a kit from Sarah, but if you have some pretty yarn tucked away and a scrap of co-ordinating fabric, you're set to go. There's even time to pop out to your lys tomorrow, or duck into Spotlight if you need yarn and needles.  The pattern is easy, knitted flat and perfect for learner knitters and first timers, and you can find out how to purchase it and details of the knit-along here

I'm making mine in a soft golden yellow organic cotton that I had in my stash.   

If you not up for knitting mice, you could always just go have a look at Sarah's shop, she has lots of good things for sale there.

Photo posted with kind permission of Say Little Hen.

I can't wait to start.

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