Robin's Ramblings

A little bit of playing

2012-02-17T16:38:00.002+10:00

I always forget to start typing before I upload any photos! The one above shows a notebook cover I have made from the tissue which was painted and gilded and wiped with white spirit. The slip had similar treatment. I need to practise some more and not be so liberal with the gilding next time - but I like this anyway.

This one has been turned into a cover for a visual artist's diary. I scrumpled some silk then attached the cords and beads to the base fabric which like the one above has been rather too liberally gilded!

It hasn't been quite all play - I needed to restock the souvenirs as they have all sold and I have been very slack about making more. I should have Three of the reddish ones, but some how in a tidyup late yesterday I have lost one! I know I had it just before 5 pm, the gremlins must have been since then. I only had the final stitching round the outside to do - grrrr - I hate tidying up anyway, but I couldn't find most other stuff. At least I know it hasn't gone out of the room, yesterday morning was rubbish bin day and I hadn't finished it till after that.

Here are a few more magnets to add to the collection as well. they are small enough for travellers to slip into handbags or whatever to take home.
Now I need to make the next fabric page, and easy one this time - shades of pink. That gives me plenty of scope, even if pink is not my favourite colour. I am having two trigger fingers on my left hand repaired next Thursday morning and I may be restricted with sewing for a few days afterwards. The results will be all good though, and should get rid of the pain and clickiness in my fingers. Hopefully it shouldn't stop me blogging for more than a few days either.

44 Years today

2012-02-09T08:28:00.000+10:00

Well, this was us 44 years ago - not sure why Bill is looking so stary eyed though! This was the best photo I could find that wasn't in a frame. The cake has a story. We were married in Brisbane, but I lived in Goondiwindi, about 400 km away and I carried the iced cake on a blanket on the back seat of the car all that way. I was terrified of having to pull up in a hurry and having it land on the floor, so I was very relieved when I finally reached my destination safely - there were a couple of close calls though.

We have a few - well, quite a few - more wrinkles and extra pounds these days, but still here and still enjoying life together. Crabs and oysters for dinner tonight again I think. Have a good day

Great prize from Penny

2012-02-07T11:45:00.000+10:00

Yesterday the postman brought some lovely mail - a prize in Penny's giveaway.

I have always admired the sweet little birds Penny makes, and the doyley and brooch are an added bonus.

She also sent me this delicate pen and wash card done by Penny as well.
I am very definitely hiding in the air conditioning for as long as I can today. The temperature outside is 38 degrees with 53 % humidity (admittedly that is low for here), while inside it is 29 degrees with 35 % humidity - much more comfortable.
Now I am off to do some more playing from Lynda's book, I hope I shall have something more to show you in a day or so.

Frustration over - I think

2012-02-04T09:49:00.001+10:00

I have had a few computer problems over the last few days. I wanted to look at photos on Flickr, but it said I needed to upgrade my IE - so Bill did. Flickr was fine, but I couldn't get in to post on blogger any more, neither could I see the cards in a wonderful online site which I use regularly...........Grrrr. However -- late yesterday Bill installed an updated version of Wordperfect, which we use in preference to Word, and it came with Firefox (and a fantastic new mouse). I am still trying to navigate my way around, but I CAN ACCESS everything I want to!!
I have a few more bits to show

This is the beautifully worked January page I received from Birgit in Germany

and this is the page I sent to Lorenza in Italy. Her them is Van Gogh, the painting I chose is French Novels, one I had never heard of till I was googling his paintings.

This is the final birthday card - from Maria in Portugal. She doesn't think she does very good work, but I beg to differ

I have done a bit of playing with the online classes for Lynda Monk's latest book. This is made from rusted papers and fabric. I swore when I tried the technique several years ago that I was never going there again, but I seem to like it better this time. I have a problem however as we live in the tropics and everything we buy, including nails, washers etc, is galvanised to stop it rusting! That is fine till I want some rusty bits to add to my package - I shall need to go scrounging somewhere else! I found a couple of rusty nails and used some steel wool for this,
I painted some pelmet vilene, then foile it before adhering the rusted abaca tissue to the top.
The slip is scrumpled - Dale's latest POM for me featured that technique, which I rather like.

Now I had better go and see if the papers have arrived in town yet - the road between here and Townsville, where they are printed, has been cut by floodwaters. Once again, we have been very lucky here, we have had sufficient, but not too much rain. The poor souls in south west Queensland and North West New South Wales are facing record floods - again.

More cards

2012-01-29T14:57:00.001+10:00

When I came home there were some more lovely birthday cards waiting for me. The one above is from Janny in the Netherlands.

Nel from the Netherlands made the top one, while Juliette from England made the lower one.

These two came from Ritva and Helena, both from Finland

This lovely card and beads came from Marja in the Netherlands and took a very roundabout route to reach me - the Post Office took so long to deliver it that Marja was about to make another one thinking this was lost! I am glad she did not have to.
Very hot and humid weather here, but we have been missing all the rain. I am about to start trying to catch up with some of the classes from Lynda Monk's book. I have rusted some papers and fabric so shall try to make a book later. I was not very successful at shrinking some other stuff shall try that again too. All this can be done in the air conditioned section of the house!

My sister's garden

2012-01-25T21:07:00.000+10:00

I came home late yesterday from my visit to Buderim (instad of Bali). Barb is making a good recovery and has now been officially diagnosed as having epilepsy. She is on medication so should stabilise and be able to drive again by the end of March. Thank goodness she didn't break any bones in this episode.

We were both very disappointed not to be in Bali, but I am glad not to have had the 9 hour plane trip. We watched the wedding in a sort of fashion on skype. Unfortunately the band width was not very good so the picture and sound broke up quite a bit, but we could see how lovely the bride looked.

The weather was pretty wet most of the time I was there, but I managed a few photos of her lovely garden.

This is a beautiful allamanda which I am thrilled to get such a good closeup photo with my new camera.

This is not a wonderful photo, but it was raining! This is a magnificent climbing frangipani (Chonemorpa Fragrans) which I had never heard of before. The perfume was glorious.

We managed to do a little bit of walking and this is one of the many Tibouchinas on the streets. The colour is spectacular all round Buderim.

I have no idea what this plant is - in the front garden of a house we walked past. I would love to know a bit more about it as I really like it.

Here is part of Barb's very sodden garden before the really heavy rain started! Thank goodness she lives on the top of the hill so has no flood worries. I travelled to Brisbane by bus to catch the plane and took over an hour longer than normal to reach the airport. Flooding all round the place again today, now moving down into northern NSW. I really feel for them. I just came home to very sticky, overcast weather and no rain!

Birthday cards

2012-01-14T11:29:00.000+10:00

Today I have been able to open my birthday cards from the Fibre Fever members. The two above are from Anne and Helga, both in Germany.

These are from Ati in Norway and Ashenka in Russia.

These are from Margreet in the Netherlands and Peggy in USA.

This one is from Maureen in Australia, and she also sent me the wonderful collection of goodies in the next photo.

There are still another 7 cards to come - a fascinating collection from all over the world.

I spent a long, frustrating couple of days cancelling our travel arrangements and trying, with some success to obtain refunds. I looked at a lot of blogs while I was on hold on the phone! Virgin have given me a credit for the amount of money I spent on the flights, less a cancellation fee. So now we have to work out where we want to go in the next twelve months and book before the 3rd April! Then I guess I hope we are all well enough to keep to our plans the next time!

My sister is recovering, home from hospital yesterday, not aching nearly so much now, but I will be glad to get down there to see for myself.

I have downloaded the first free online class from Lynda Monk's book, so shall gather together some bits and pieces to take away with me. We should have some play time together while I am there and then I may have something productive to bring home with me. It all looks very interesting. I should be back on 24th, but may even post while I am in Buderim.

December book pages

2012-01-11T11:36:00.000+10:00

Can only show the two pages now as Helga's did not arrive till yesterday. She lives in Germany.

This was my December page to Kath in Greece. Her theme is the sea, and this was from a picture of a very stormy sea. I love the way the internet connects us to people all over the world, we have a Russian in the group now and she has brought a very different perspective, fascinating.

I should be getting myself sorted to go to Bali for my nephew's wedding, leaving next Monday. However I think I shall only be going as far as Buderim as my sister is back in hospital having had a major epileptic seizure (we think). The doctors have ordered evry test imagineable so should know something definite by tomorrow. I really can't see her being able to travel in a week, so I shall go to her for 8 days instead. At least she hasn't broken any bones this time, and we can always look at all the photos and probably a video as well! I may even be able to start work on Lynda Monk's online classes while I am there - who knows.

Summer flowers

2012-01-06T17:46:00.000+10:00

Nothing much of interest has been happening around here. I know I have showed photos of these trees before, but the Buckinghamia (Ivory Curl) and the Euodia are both looking magnificent this summer

You probably need to click on this to reach its largest size, then you may see the lorikeet gorging itself. They have a wonderful time, but they are quite destructive, breaking off quite large branches sometimes. they also make a loud screeching noise, but we still love having them.

Now this Clivea should certainly not be flowering now, but I was so amazed I had to show you. I had to move them all after the tree fell over almost two years ago and this is the first flower since then.

I have actually been dong a bit of stitching, but I can't show you till the pages and birthday cards reach their destinations. I am so pathetically slow with hand stitching - only stab stitch, that is all I can manage with my stiff fingers - that I have taken about three times as long as I expected to finish them off. Now I hope to have a few days working on Lynda Monk's new book - it is so full of inspiration.

Christmas presents and a piece of history

2011-12-26T11:16:00.000+10:00

When my mother moved into a nursing home about twenty years ago, we found a tablecloth which she had partially embroidered before sh was married and had never completed. The threads were all still there with the cloth so I brought it home thinking one day I would complete it! that was wishful thinking, but finally my sister took it to a specialist on the Sunshine Coast who suggested she cut out the two completed corners and frame them. Here is the result, now hanging on my kitchen wall - a reminder of my mother every day!

Barb also added this cushion cover to the present - she made it up from a panel we did in a workshop with Lesley Riley earlier in the year at Textile Fibre Festival in Brisbane.

This is hard to see in the photo, but the buttons she added for the closure are enamelled and I seem to remember they were in Mum's button collection. Buttons were never thrown out, they were unpicked and saved for future use. We divided the collection between us when we packed up the house, and I have contunued to save buttons as well.

I hope you all had a very happy day yesterday. We had a lovely time with our family, the weather was perfect, sunny and not too hot. We even came home mid afternoon and had a snooze for a while without even needing the airconditioning on in our bedroom - the first time I remember that for many years.

Today I plan to do some stitching, listening to the cricket, then maybe relaxing with a book.

Carols and a birthday

2011-12-20T17:52:00.000+10:00

Well, Blogger has finally let me load some photos - this is my third try in 24 hours!

Last Saturday night was the annual Christmas in the Gardens event and you can see the crowd was enjoying it. The weather was balmy - till we were about to draw the raffle when there was a quick shower that sent lots of people home.

This is a very blurry photo but you can see the effect of all the children waving their glowsticks madly in time to the music - magic.

Two small boys were thrilled when the reporter asked to take their photo to appear in the local paper - and this featured both here and in the Rockhampton paper published by the same company. We had several texts from friends down there who saw it. They are becoming real media tarts, always seem to be in the right place at the right time.

Hamish turned six at the weekend as well and of course had to have a party - and present opening is very important.

As is cutting the cake!

Christmas is looking good, even though I still have lots to do. I had photos of my eyes today after the latest injection last week and there is a definite improvement, yippee.

I also had a session with the physiotherapist today - lots of massage and heat and some funny strapping on my leg. My leg, and especially my knee feel so much better I am tempted to try for a short walk again.

If I don't get back before Christmas, I hope you all get everything you wish for, have a very happy time and we will be in touch again after the festivities.

Grandkids' activities

2011-12-15T21:32:00.001+10:00

The two boys attended an activity session at the Botanic Gardens yesterday morning to make Christmas cards and decorations with Maya, the Education Officer. She always has full classes and the kids have so much fun. They were all concentrating very hard, in fact there was almost no talking - how amazing is that!

This photo does not really show how good the decorations looked - all the gold paint and glitter is on the sides of the leaves not visible!

Then there was a lot more concentration as they decided where to put decorations on the tree. This was in the very early stages, LOTS more went on the tree after that! They thought it looked beautiful when they had finished, so of course we did too - and I am sure they will not be visiting when I have to pack it away! That is not nearly as interesting.

I have discovered the tree which I thought was a miserable specimen of the Hymenosporums with which I grew up is not that! It is actually a tree ixora, I have no idea of its Latin name, and I don't know where it originates, but it has a glorious perfume.

What's flowering in the Botanic Gardens

2011-12-11T17:26:00.000+10:00

I was on roster today at the Gardens and ventured out of the air conditioning for a short time to take these photos. The Cassia javanica is putting on a lovely show. It is immediately below the cafe so the patrons have an extra special view.

This is a slightly closer picture of the flowers - I was going to get really close but the ground is very uneven and I could feel the knee protesting!

I love these Christmas orchids (Calanthe Australasus) - and I only know the Latin name because I read it on the label!

This is not a very good photo of Hymenosporum flavens flowers - a very strong northerly wind was blowing so you can see I was trying (not very successfully) to hold it still.

If you click on the photos to enlarge you should be able to see this miserable specimen of a tree with the flowers on it. they have the most heavenly vanilla custard sort of scent which carries for a long way. We had these trees growing in our garden when I was growing up. The trees are native to the coastal ranges behind Mackay, but this tree does not look nearly as strong and healthy as our used to look. The flower clusters are bigger, but the flowers themselves are only about half the size as those on the trees in my home town. I find that interesting as the climate there is supposed to be all wrong for them. I remember seeing dozens of them when we were in Adelaide a couple of years ago. I haven't heard thatthere are different varieties, so shall have to inquire further.

Huge storms all round Queensland for the last day or so. We had a massive electrical storm last night, but only 36 mm rain and thankfully no wind so no damage. Jock couldn't care less thank goodness. More storms everywhere today - I hope they all vanish before next weekend. We are scheduled to have Christmas in the Gardens next Saturday night and we don;t want it washed out for a second year

Cards sent and received

2011-12-09T16:38:00.000+10:00

Our fibre Fever group has a Christmas card exchange taking place. The card above is the one I received from Margreet and the one below is what I sent to Janny.

I have also received a very early birthday card from Margreet (wrapped separately) with instructions not to open it till 14 January! Margreet's cards are always so lovely I am going to be sorely tempted long before then!

There is not anything else I can show you yet - I am still struggling to find my way with this wretched fibromyalgia, I was fine a couple of days ago and today I can barely move, no idea of what is different. Very frustrating, I want to work on Lynda's book some more and I desperately need to get out into the garden to attack the weeds! We have finally had about 16mm rain so everything is looking lovely and green again. Just showers and storms in our area, if you were lucky enough to be underneath one. Some people recorded anything up to 60 mm!

No Christmas decorations up yet, the grandkids will be with me for the day next Tuesday so the tree will go up and be decorated (or overdecorated) then. Last year it was way over the top, but who cares - Christmas is for children and they thought they had done a beautiful job! I will post a photo when they have finished.

It must be Christmas

2011-12-03T11:49:00.000+10:00

These wonderful Flame trees, one of the Brachychitons, are in full flower along the footpaths around our area. They are making a magnificent display.

Also the poincianas are a blaze of red all round Mackay

and even the Cassia Fistulas are coming into flower - nearly a month earlier than they used to. I love the brilliance of the summer flowers.

I have been off to see a specialist and have at last come up with a diagnosis, I have Fibromyalgia. It is incurable, so I will live with it for the rest of my life, but at least I can understand the aches and pains and work around them - just another fun (?) part of growing older!!!!

I received my copy of Lynda Monk's scrumptious new book Fabulous Surfaces yesterday and now I am sorking out whether to start on that or her article in Workshop on the Web this month - that is fascinating too. Lynda is such a talented lady, we are spoilt for choice.

Not much happening

2011-11-22T14:39:00.000+10:00

This is the November page I received from Helga in Germany. If you click on it you will see the embroidered cat 'Paul' which belongs to her neighbour.

She also sent me this postcard with the explanation of the page on the back of it. Both very nice.

My November page had to be about a Van Gogh landscape, which I needlefelted, using both the embellisher and a hand needle. You can see the picture I was trying to depict in the photo below!

There has not been a lot of activity around here lately. I seem to have spent my time going to doctors trying to get my legs to work properly! Shall just have to put up with everything for a while, the soonest I can get in to see the next specialist is mid February. Christmas activities are going to be minimal this year I suspect - too hard to walk far, so everyone will get gift vouchers to spend on what they want. Actually the older grandchildren will get cash in the hand - they like that better than anything as they are always saving for some project. I remember when our boys were small they used to spend half the year working out what they were going to buy with the money they knew they would get from their grandparents at Christmas - the priorities changed frequently, but they had months of fun planning!

We actually have a bit of cloud cover today and managed 2 mm rain! This October/November had been so dry and with strong northerly winds blowing the garden is desperately dry. At least we can water and save plants - the hinterland has quite a few bushfires burning, some lit deliberately. That is so awful for the landholders trying to keep fodder for their stock.

Now I am off to my workroom to see what inspiration I can drum up.

More flowers - and Jock

2011-11-13T15:13:00.001+10:00

the Leichardt trees are starting to flower at the Botanic Gardens. I just love the golf ball sized flowers, especially looking up through the canopy as in this photo. Looks even better if you click on it to enlarge. Whenever I hear the name Leichardt I always think with amuzement of the directions being given on my sister's GPS system. We were driving around Brisbane and were directed to go down 'Leechart' street. It took a few minutes to realise the young girl reading the directions had no idea of the pronunciation!! I know she was young as she comes from Mackay and obviously did not study history of any kind at school.

I brought a cutting of this shrub home from my sister's garden in Buderim a couple of years ago and have struggled with it ever since. At last I think I am doing the right things by it and this lovely bloom has appeared. I am driven to distraction as I cannot remember the name of the shrub and I can't find the article in a gardening magazine - when I know it is there somewhere! Does that sound familiar to any of you?

This is a not very clear photo of our crazy dog, who then got into trouble for pinching my new 'feet seat' which he was sure was a new toy for him to play with. He was running around the room and trying to toss it into the air. We have been having words about it ever since, I think I am winning but I am not too sure, it is place out of reach when I am not using it.

Now I had better get a cup of coffee for my hard working husband who is putting up some guttering around our greenhouse.

PS. I have finally found the name - Ruellia Chartacea, a native of South America. I googled it and I am now going to buy a larger pot and keep it in that. I had been planning to plant it into a garden bed, but apparently I will do better with the pot.

Some birds at the Gardens

2011-11-06T16:27:00.000+10:00

I have finally managed a short walk in the Gardens again taking my new camera along with me. I am really thrilled with the zoom in this coolpix camera - much improved on my old camera, but no doubt that is because it is newer!

The ubiquitous white ibis were there. they are such a pest in lots of places, but I must admit that they like to eat baby cane toads, so I am quite glad they are around! Some Pacific black ducks were sunning themselves as well.

This is much better when you click on it to enlarge. The tree in front of the deck is not really dead - trees in the tropics tend to lose all their leaves in the spring, this one will be covered in new leaves and beautiful pink flowers in another month or so.

This egret is stalking its food in a carpet of a terrible weed - water hyacinth. The gardeners fight a continuous battle against this, at the moment the weed seems to be winning, but there are weevils trying to eat their way through the weed.

I really love this desert rose - can't remember its proper name.

Not sure when I shall be back walking again as my right knee has packed it in once again and my left hip has decided to get in on the act as well! Just old age and arthritis I know, but I wish it would go away. We have suddenly got some hot and very sticky weather which I don't think is helping. I shall have to hide in the air conditioning and do some stitching instead.

And still no stitching

2011-10-26T21:31:00.000+10:00

Some day soon I hope I get back into my workroom to do some stitching! The painters have finished, yippee, but there are still heaps and heaps of boxes of china and crystal to wash and put away - after I have taken it out of its paper wrappings.

It is interesting to see some of my collections all together though. Many years ago I bought a beautiful blue glass bowl - which I subsequently shattered, muchto my distress. Since then, my family and friends have continued to give me blue glass.

Bill bought the jar/vase on the front right in Isfahan when he was working in Iran for a short while. It is supposed to be very old, but who really knows - it makes a good story and brings back memories.

I really had to make sure this was all cleaned before it went back on the shelves. Many of these pieces have come from Bangladesh - Bill also worked there - or were given to us by visiting Asian sugar consultants - so they all have a story.

The two large copper plaques came from Bangladesh, the one on the left was supposedly buried during the independence fighting. Bill's first trip to Bangladesh took place just after the assassination of the President at the time - early 70's and I can't remember his name. Martial law was in place, but the aid mission went ahead - the wives were not very happy about it!

This is a different collection - from my mother-in-law. She had so many beautiful lace doilies and runners. I am not sure what I will eventually do with them, probably cut them up and use them in stitching. None of the younger ones are interested in them.

I have tried to show the very pretty blue the living room has been painted, but the colour has not come out properly at all. We are thrilled with the painting - and very thrilled not to be having to get out of the kitchen by 7am in the morning!

New Camera

2011-10-19T17:23:00.002+10:00

I have a new camera as my old Canon would only take photos on very rare occasions and that is worse than useless. I debated between another Canon and a Nikon Coolpix, eventually choosing the Nikon. I am having second thoughts now - too late of course - as the Nikon is noisy. It beeps when it is focussed and ready to shoot, then makes a very loud click as you take the photo! I have discovered on the pet portrait setting it doesn't do that but I haven't experimented with many photos to see how they turn out.
I have just uploaded 4 photos and blogger has put them all above the text - it is being very contrary today, I do wish they wouldn't keep changing the way it works.
I was experimenting with macro and zoom photos - I love both on this camera. The first photo is of the lovely Cape York Lilies in the Botanic Gardens. I was very worried till I came home and checked that mine are still growing. I had dug them up a couple of months ago by mistake as I had completely forgotten they were there. I replanted them immediately, and sure enough, I have spikes appearing. I am sure mine usually flower after Christmas so I have no idea why these ones are in flower now - mine came from the Gardens. The yellow flower is such a glorious yellow and the leaves are a very dense, very dark green to make a huge contrast. It is a Golden Guinea tree.
The next two photos were using the zoom, the first one about half way and the next one almost full. they are incredibly sharp. Now of course I need to study the manual - at least I have a paper one as well as the CD - and take lots and lots of photos to learn how to make the best use of the camera.
Our oldest son turns 42 today - where have the years gone - so I shall take some night shots when we go out there for dinner. We were going to have a BBQ but the weather is horrid, blowing hard with gusts to 35 knots, and the occasional shower, so I suspect Nikki is having a rethink.
I think the painters will be finished in two days, that will be wonderful after three weeks! We have moved the furniture back into the main rooms, but only a few books back onto the shelves so far. All the crystal and china is still in boxes, too hard to get to while we don't have much access to the kitchen. I will get done in time.

UPDATE.....
Thank goodness for Penny's comment on Doreen's blog - I have managed to get rid of that slideshow, much nicer just being able to clidk on the photos and have them enlarge!

UPDATE NUMBER TWO.......
Thank goodness for technologists in the family. Dougal took away the sounds in the camera with no trouble at all. Now I can use it in concerts or wherever without interfering with the programme!

I AM NOT LIMPING!!!

2011-10-10T14:37:00.000+10:00

Whoo hoo, the arthroscopy seems to have been a great success - I can walk without that telltale swinging limp! My other foot has stopped hurting too, I am amazed, especially as the surgeon did not seem to hold out much hope - he was talking in terms of a knee replacement sometime next year. I am being careful not to stretch my luck, just glad to get my life back again.

Look what wonderful goodies arrived in the mail today for me - I was lucky enough to win Dale's giveaway of black and white (and red) threads. What a gorgeous selection, very hard to see all the lovely colours and textures, I can't wait to start using them - just have to get sorted for those pesky painters first!

Again this photo does not do the page sent from Helina justice. All the pages are so different, I will have a wonderful variety by the end of this swap.

Very hot and dry here today with a horrid northerly wind blowing - probably blowing up a storm. We could do with the rain, but I have polished furniture stored on a verandah where the wind could blow in - another couple of days yet before I can move it back inside, then the painters move into the kitchen - and I would love to move out! I hate the thought of being completely out of the kitchen area by 7am - especially having to be dressed ready to go out for the day by then as well, because they are doing the hallway into the bedrooms and bathroom as well. Ugh! I know it will all be worth it in the end, but..................

One thing is certain, this is the last time we will be going through this process, the previous paint has lasted 35 years - I don't think we will still be around in another 35, and certainly would not be worrying about a coat of paint.

Cezanne and some flowers

2011-10-05T21:12:00.000+10:00

This is my October page for Fibre Fever - an interperetation (?) of the Cezanne picture below. Some of the swap partners choose very difficult subjects I must say - however they make me stretch so that is a good thing.

Still no camera, but thank goodness for my mobile phone. The ardisia is flowering magnificently this year, the little begonia beside it looks pretty also. Everything has been shoved together to get out of the way of the painters.

This pandorea was planted after the tree disaster last year - we started off with two of them, but one died - thank goodness - we need to chop back half of this one it is growing so profusely! Won't happen for a few weeks yet as I am not chopping while it is flowering so well.

We have been packing boxes frantically all day. The painters should be spraying the roof tomorrow but the forecast is not looking promising so they will probably be in the living dining room instead - we are just about all clear in there but can hardly move anywhere else!

I am off to day surgery tomorrow morning too for an arthroscopy on my knee to see what is really wrong with it. The doctor is not hopeful of a quick fix, but at least he will have a picture of what the inside of my knee looks like and can see what to do next - I am still hoping for the quick fix! Not sure when I will be back to the computer - it is a desktop and up a lot of stairs.

More Brisbane photos

2011-10-03T21:26:00.000+10:00

One of our visits was to Roma Street Parklands on the site of the old Roma Street railyards in the centre of the city. What used to be an eyesore has been turned into a very beautiful and much used area with lots of water features as well as exhibition lawns. Click on all the photos to get a better view.

I loved these pots of petunias

This water dragon is real - we came across 8 of them basking in the sun together a bit further on. Some of the overseas visitors get very frightened, but they are completely harmless and not a bit frightened of all the foot traffic!

We also visited Mt. Tambourine Botanic Gardens - formed in 1982 and planted and maintained completely by volunteers. they have done a superb job, clearing lantana infested land and deveeloping a blend of sub-tropical rainforest and carefully planned exotic species.

I love camellias, but I have no idea which one this is.

there are many endangered species of palm here.

I have never seen this fringe flower before, the photo doesn't do it justice - too much very bright sunlight. Thebotanical name is awful - loropetalum chinense 'rubrum'.

The contrast with the wisteria, bromeliads and tall gums in the background was wonderful

I had to show you this yellow clivea - another favourite of mine, probably because it is too hot to grow them here!

My camera gave up taking photos after this - maybe just as well or there would have been lots more photos! I am really cross though and haven't solved the problem yet, it may be terminal and I shall have to get a new one. Our washing machine died two days before we went away - that was really devastating, but thank goodness we could get another one and have it delivered that same day so I could wash everything in sight.

I am just wondering what will be the third thing to give up - the bank balance does not like any of this!

Photos at last

2011-10-02T15:45:00.000+10:00

This is ancient history for most of you, I have been absent from posting for so long - and if you don't want to see lots of garden photos, log out now!

We started the conference by visiting the City botanic Gardens - hard to believe they were under nearly two metres of water in the floods in January. they look magnificent again now.

This lovely creek is in the children's garden at Mt Cootha Botanic Gardens - established 40 years ago on much higher ground to ensure they could not be flooded like the City BG.

If you click on this photo (and all the others) you will get a better view of these sculptures of the fruit bats (flying foxes) which inhabit the Gardens - and many people's backyards. There was very bright light behind, so they were hard to photograph.

We visited this lovely 7 acre garden at Mt. Tambourine, south of Brisbane. The owners have only been there for 5 1/2 years - it was a steeply sloping area with cattle and horses and a few mature gum trees! They have done nearly all the work themselves - putting in five levels of terraces and planting up all the areas. The area is a volcanic plug so everything grows while you look at it, but we were all still in awe.

This is looking throug the trees in one of the 'rooms' created.

The bluebells are in full flower, the oak avenue in the background is still to get leaves. Until a couple of months ago, there would have been about 500 lavender bushes visible too, but a severe hailstorm smashed the lot - how sad.

Unfortunately they have had a plague of hares so they decided to make a keepsake statue!

These rose terraces are full of Queen Elizabeth roses, still coming into bud.

I loved this waratah, just so sleek and shiny.

They have no reticulated water, so excavated these ponds and installed a pumping system - money appears to be no object, lucky them. They still did most of the work themselves though, and have wonderful vision for what they will create.

A White magnolia.

I love this sleek and shiny telopia (waratah).

Last look before we left.

Perhaps some more photos tomorrow, now I need to keep one step ahead of the painters - never a dull moment in this house. Cheers.

Home to chaos

2011-09-27T16:58:00.000+10:00

This is just a quick post with no photos as I have not had time to download any yet. I came home late yesterday afternoon to discover that the painters were due at 7am today to start painting the upstairs bathroom, toilet and storeroom! It was amazing how quickly I managed to unpack and store suitcases etc - including what Bill had brought home with him a week ago! Thank goodness I will now have about 10 days (I think) to pack up everything downstairs before they start there.

We had a wonderful time in Brisbane, then I enjoyed my stay in Buderim. My sister came home from hospital a week ago and is progressing very well. She is managing on her own now, the most frustrating part is not being able to drive, but she has wonderful family and friends available for that, and some of the jobs she really can't do on her own.

I had another injection in my eye today and the white background on the computer makes me very uncomfortable at present, so I shall come back in a day or so when I have downloaded photos.

Swamp Orchids and going away

2011-09-10T14:55:00.000+10:00

I had to post photos of these very beautiful swamp orchids (Phauis Tankarvilliae) growing in the shade garden of our Botanic Gardens. The spikes are as tall as I am. Apparently the plant is endangered in the wild, but they are flourishing here.

Isn't this beautiful?

I will be away for a couple of weeks. Bill and I are flying out tomorrow afternoon to attend a conference in Brisbane for Walking guides of Botanic Gardens. There will be delegates from all over Australia and a few from New Zealand - should be lots of fun.

Bill will fly home at the end of the week, but I will go up to Buderim as my sister is in quite a spot of bother. She has badly smashed the head of the radius of her right arm and is currently in hospital. She is not allowed to move her arm above the elbow for at least another 4 weeks, so I will stay for a week or so to sort out what she can and can't do and do what I can to help. Buderim is a beautiful location and Barb has a glorious garden so this will not be hard to take! I may be able to post without photos while I am there but I am not sure. Photos of the gardens we see around Brisbane when I return.

Another page sent

2011-09-06T11:10:00.000+10:00

There is no doubt I am learning a lot from these swaps. This month's theme was 'your own mola'. I had to google that one, turns out to be a special type of reverse applique from Central and South America. This was as close as I could get to my interpretation. I hadn't realised just how difficult I would find it to see properly, but never mind, the intention was good.

Spring has arrived and the garden is blooming. This Anzac grevillea is a hybrid and is looking lovely.

This flower looks great, but the callistemon it is on has been a big disappointment. I bought the wrong plant in the first place but didn't realise till it was a couple of years old. It has always been a bit scraggy, and the flowering is never profuse, but it fills in a corner of the garden where other stuff does not thrive either so I have not bothered to pull it out.

The parrots have arrived in this flowering Schotia. They are so hard to see it is quite incredible. You can always hear their screeching though, not sure if they are squabbling or just greeting each other, we don't always appreciate it at 5.30am however!

Book week parade

2011-08-28T14:41:00.002+10:00

The Mackay Regional Council Libraries organise a wonderful book week parade at Walkerston, the small village where ny granckids attend school. This year's theme was 'One world, many stories'. Unfortunately I do not know much about the current crop of stories so I had great trouble identifying what the costumes were - including Hamish and Alexander. This is Hamish in the above photo - he was the pirate who wouldn't wash! I didn't realise I had managed to take his photo till jus now - not much good as a cheering on Granny am I!

About 200 children marched down the foorpath of the main street around the corner, then down the centre of another road back to the school for celebrations there. The children come from the state and the catholic schools, from prep to grade 7, so a large age range. The teachers are very good at getting involved so lots of them are dressed up as well.

I seem to have lost a couple of photos here but you can get the idea - everyone was having fun.

Then I had to take a photo of the two boys. Poor Alexander, I didn't realise he was 'in costume'. I should have made him turn to the back - He was 'Zac power' and had stuff attached to his back pack. Silly me.

Rain threatened, but held off, then rained overnight and misty rain yesterday morning had us all worried as there was a guided walk and barbecue for the Gardens Friends, with 32 people coming. We had plan B in place for the Barbecue - under cover, so I stayed there to prepare, while everyone else carried umbrellas and found the walk fascinating. I was so tired by the time we came home I had no energy left to post.

More misty rain overnight and then an absolute pea souper of a sea fog this morning - lovely dewdrops on the Russelia, but not very good drying weather for my towels on the line.

This is a closeup of the dianella in my garden, a lovely delicate stem of flowers - didn't see the critter till I was editing the photo! Do click on the photos to see them better.

Hot and humid this afternoon, so we will probably have the sea fog roll back in again soon - to be expected as the mango trees are all in full flower! When the fogs roll in the moisture encourages anthracnose in the flowers and they don't set fruit so we have a very poor mango crop - and I love mangoes!

I haven't been completely idle

2011-08-25T12:20:00.000+10:00

This is a birthday card I made for the Fibre Fever birthday swap. There are serveral birthdays in September so I need to make some more. September is obviously a popular birthing month, we have a few family birthdays next month as well.

I have been making a few more souvenirs as my pigeonholes at the shop in the Gardens are nearly empty - still need lots more of these too.

A few more

and again.

With summer coming on, these bright sunshades should sell I hope.

I seem to be absent from the computer more than I am liking these days - not that I particularly care for the computer, but I do like to catch up with what everybody is doing. My knee, in fact both knees and my feet are not behaving at all and I have lots of trouble climibing stairs - and even more trouble going down. The computer is upstairs - and so is my workroom for that matter - so I am not always a happy vegemite! I am off to the orthopod again on Wednesday for another cortisone injection and to line up an arthroscopy - fingers crossed that will make a big difference.

Melaleucas and microwaves

2011-08-15T17:49:00.000+10:00

A few days ago a friend and I visited one of the local beaches, properly called Illawong Beach, but know by the locals as Far Beach, because when the tide goes out the beach stretches out for nearly a kilometre! These beautiful melaleucas or paperbarki trees have been growing there for a generation or more.

We used to take our children down there to play when they were small, there was a lovely playground as well as the beach.

I have tried to show you how the bark strips off like paper, it is used for all sorts of things, bark pictures used to be very popular in the fifties and sixties, and lining baskets for pot plants is another favoured use. I just love looking at them.

I had a quick go with my macro lens taking the centre of the congea flowers below - not very successful, but the centre is fascinating.

I persuaded Bill to leave the pruning shears in the cupboard and the vine is still holding its flowers, looking magnificent. They are going quite dark now, so it won't be long before they start dropping, then I will be very glad to have it pruned as they make a huge mess.

Look what my clever husband has done for me. When we had our kitchen installed about 18 years ago, I lost the argument with the kitchen designer as to where to place the microwave. I have complained ever since that it was very hard - and getting harder - for me to lift things out of the microwave at the angle I had to with it placed over the kitchen bench in the corner.

Now look what I have got. Bill has spent the last few days constructing a lazy susan on slides so the whole caboodle pulls out and swivels as far as I want it to go! It will pull out even further than I have it, but when I pulled it out to take the photo I kept getting me reflected in the door - not what I wanted at all! I can even clean the inside with ease now - no more excuses are there!

Another page and a correction

2011-08-07T14:41:00.001+10:00

This is just a quick blog showing the latest page I have sent away for the Fibre Fever swap - a game of draughts. I forgot to take a photo before I sent it so this is just a very small one I have lifted from the fibre fever site. I was cross with myself after I had made the page, when I realised I should have moved some of the draughts before I stitched them on - the page would have been much more interesting. I had to make a page showing board games or cards or such like. some of the other pages have been very clever.

In my last post I was bemoaning the fact that the Textile Forum next year has been cancelled, when I really meant the Textile Festival. I have had an email pointing out the difference and how much more doom and gloom there would be if the TAFTA Forum were cancelled. That is quite a different organisation, they do wonderful stuff.

Gorgeous weather here at present, I think Spring is really arriving. There are lots of little honeyeaters singing away in the garden, but they move so fast I have no hope of taking a photo of any of them.

Now I need to go back to finishing sewing a birthday card to send away tomorrow.

Playtime

2011-07-31T14:34:00.000+10:00

We introduced Jock and Sascha to each other today, and about 15 minutes later they stopped long enough for me to take this photo! They had an absolute ball, chasing each other round and round the garden. Sascha always had another dog to play with till she came to live with Dougal and Nikki a few weeks ago, but Jock hasn't had a playmate since he was only a few weeks old. he turned two on 19 July - time is flying!

this is the birthday card I sent to Ati in Norway for herbirthday - part of the Fibre Fever group. The flower heads are made from the lovely Sari silk ribbons from The Thread Studio. I bought a couple of skeins at the Textile Festival in Brisbane, and this is the first time I have used some of them.

Sadly, the Textile Forum is no more. Many of the exhibitors were unhappy this year and the show has been cancelled for next year. It was wonderful for us country plebs to be able to go and see so many exciting things in one place. Hopefully someone else will eventually run with the idea.

I was also glad to see on a recent walk in the Botanic Gardens that there are still a few trees left for the egrets to roost in. I think it will be at least another twelve months before these trees are pulled out.

Now I had better go and dye some lace with some new dyes which I also bought at the Textile Festival. Hopefully photos next time.

felting yet again

2011-07-16T16:53:00.000+10:00

I have made the scarf for my DIL in colours she chose, I am quite pleased with it, but have made a mistake - again! I forgot to add wisps of wool over the top of the heavy silk thread I lay out and it hasn't felted in in some places. But I have discovered my pen style needle felting tool with one needle works a treat. I am on roster on the Gardens desk tomorrow so now I have my task for the day. The weather is supposed to be more of the same as we have had today - and that is horrible - so there are unlikely to be many visitors!

Lorenza from Italy sent me this page for July for the Fibre Fever group. All the pages are so different.

This lovely photo was taken late in the afternoon a few days ago when the weather was much nicer - looking at the old water tower at the Gardens from the other direction to the one on my header. The egrets you can see in the tree if you click, will not be very happy now. The trees have been cut down in the last two days to make way for the development of the next stage of the Gardens. There will only be plants native to our immediate region planted over there. These trees are ones which came up of their own accord many years ago. I hate to see them go, but we do need to promote the local flora so that more are grown in home gardens around Mackay and district.

A scarf, some fibre fever pages...............and life's tough

2011-07-13T17:00:00.001+10:00

blogger has finally decided to load the pictures, even if not in the order I wanted! I have been tryingfor the last two days to show you this page which Maria sent me from Portugal as part of the Fibre Fever swap. My theme is blue/green.

This is the page I sent to Birgit in Germany - her theme is cream/white. We both have very easy themes - my lack of imagination is thereason for the simplicity of mine!!

this is the latest nuno felted scarf I have made, using a fine silk scarf which I dyed green. this was a practice run before I make my Canberra DIL one for her birthday. I am quite pleased with the results, though I would like it to have been a bit longer. I have now worked out that if I position my ironing board right beside the table at the same height I can add another 20 cm so that is what I am doing for the next one - which will be onto silk georgette dyed a deep pinky red.

I had to post this photo of Jock - he has taken overthe chairs upstairs in the office and flakes out completely! He likes his creature comforts. He didn't even move when bill dropped his pet rabbit toy on top of him, and only opened an eye for a second when I took the photo. Oh to be a dog!

Around the garden at home

2011-07-07T16:24:00.001+10:00

I am still getting used to using Picasa, which has grabbed myu photos and I can't seem to upload except through Picasa! This is taking forever, but so far today I have had no issues with Blogger and I haven't yet bothered to change to Wordpress. The first two photos are in the wrong order. I know I showed the Congea last year, but this year I think it is even better and I have to show you again. Bill is threatening to prune it back severely in the next week or so because it has taken over so much of the roof, but it will continue to deepen its colour for another two or three weeks yet - if he leaves it alone!

The Zygocacti are flowering in all their glory at present also. The orangey/pink one below is hard to photograph as I only seem to remember to take my camera downstairs when the sun is shining on it!

This one has a lovely pale pink tinge to it and loves the position in the shade house.

I haven't shown you a photo of Jock for a while. he absolutely insists on having a game of chase the kong in the late afternoons. Bill makes him wait very expectantly for a second or two before throwing it for him. Kongs are toys made especially for dogs to chase, they last much better than tennis balls and they bounce eccentrically - more exciting for everyone!

I have felted another bowl - not aiming for the see through effect this time, just the colour. I took a photo of the last one with a candle in it, I will see if I can find it and get back into this post to add it.

Well, blogger is very well behaved this afternoon! This bowl is not really as yellow as that, but I couldn't make it any whiter with the night light. I doubt if I will bother to empty out the battery operated tealight to turn it on and drop it back inside very often however!

Now I had better start typing out the minutes of the last committee meeting for the Gardens Friends which is what I should have been doing before I started this!

More felting

2011-06-29T17:30:00.000+10:00

Life seems to have be remarkably hectic since I returned from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago. I found time to practise my felting before I forgot what we did in Brisbane, but I didn't make a very good job. I carefully laid out all the fibres in a lovely thin layer on the silk - all in the one direction - so of course it didn't shrink sideways very much at all! I will learn my lesson well though for next time, and this will become book covers or something else interesting.

I spent last weekend at another felting workshop here in Mackay. It was sponsored by Artspace Mackay and the tutor was Wanda Bennett, al very talented lovely lady with a great sense of humour. There were twelve of us at the course and we all had so much fun we have asked for another workshop later in the year.

This is a photo of some of the things we made. There were some very talented ladies in the group. The first day we made a 3D vessel which was a fascinating process. They all had balloons blown up tightly inside towards the end of the process to give them their shape. Mine is still drying out so I can't pop the balloon, probably tomorrow.

This is a closer photo of the vessels and a few of the bags. We made those on Sunday, also some little nuno felted bags. The flowers had traditional felt for the lower layer and nuno felt for the top layer.

I loved the colours and the texture of this bag. Every workshop I have attended has shown a slightly different method of felting. I think in the end you take what you want from each tutor and make up your own method. I will definitely be making another vessel soon so I can hope I can remember the instructions I wrote down and follow the photos I took! Wanda had a series of different sized vessels with tea lights inside them. they give a lovely soft glow in the evening.

Just for a change of topic there is a new dog in the family. A gorgeous young kelpie labrador cross has come to live with our son and his family. Her name is Sascha, she is twelve months old, partly trained to lead and sit and come when called and Alexander is totally besotted with her already. He was in trouble for letting her jump up, but he plays with her every minute he can.

Now I need to clean up my workroom so hopefull I can soon start on the Hot Needles, Cool Stitches online course I signed up to do and haven't even looked at the embellisher yet!

Qld Quilters Association quilts

2011-06-19T16:35:00.001+10:00

This is the last collage, I hope I haven't bored you too much - you don't have to read it of course if you don't wish to. The yellow quilt at the top centre is by Linda Robertus who is featured in the latest Quilting Arts magazine. There were a lot more quilts than shown here and they were wonderful to look at - but I still don't want to be a quilter!
I read on Dale's blog that she didn't feel the show had the excitement it should have. I am sad that I am never likely to have the opportunity to attend Ally Pally to see the zing she was talking about, but for someone who is only able to go as far as Brisbane for a show, I found this year's event to be inspiring. I am so glad they have started feeaturing classes again - last year they had none, and I found lots of stalls selling stuff I had never before seen. I know the show could be improved but I am so glad it happened again this year, and I certainly hope it continues again next year. Of course, one of the highlights for me was meeting up with Dale again and watching Jacinta and Dale having fun playing in the Artists' working area.
I need to get back to the nuno felted scarf I have been making today - I have made it too wide, but I have learnt a lot - and I think I can remember most of what we were taught in Wendy Bailye's class!

Circus Berseckus continued

2011-06-19T16:34:00.001+10:00

I really hope these photos enlarge for you - there are two views of Kirry Toose's winning entry as well as one of the runner up - the pom pom dress. She was only 14, and held a pizza party to persuade some of her friends to help make the pom poms! Sorry I have to put all of these in different posts - that is something elsd I need to learn about Picase, how to post more than one collage per blog.

Circus Berseckus

2011-06-19T16:32:00.001+10:00

Well, I have admitted defeat in uploading a slide show so here is a kaleidoscope of some of the entries - they were all very good. The lighting was pretty horrendous though so the photos are a bit funny in places. there were extremely bright overhead lights in lots of wrong places - lots of others were complaining too, but never mind.

Vivid Challenge

2011-06-18T17:06:00.001+10:00

I will eventually learn my way around Picasa - I would like to have had all these in one post, but so be it!
I won't bor you with too many more photos, but there were some wonderful quilts on display from the Queensland Quilters Association, including one from a Brisbane artist featured in the latest edition of Quilting Arts magazine. We have some very talented people in Australia. Scroll down to see what I was saying about this collage before I realised I could only put it up as a new post.

Tattoos

2011-06-18T16:51:00.007+10:00

I do hope this will enlarge. Bernina invited several artists to make an art quilt each, then the image of the quilt was tattood onto the front of a Bernina sewing machine. The artists were (from left of top row) - Cindy Jackson, Caroline Sarkey, Kim Bradley, Ruth Osborn, then on the bottom, Cindy Jackson' quilt, Stephanie Newman, Cheryl Bridgart and Val Moore. They looked really superb, I am not sure what is happening with the machines now.
I still haven't had time to work out how to upload the video but I have another collage of small quilts from ATASDA for a VIVID challenge - this is only a small selection of all the quilts which were entered, they were mindblowing in their diversity.

Quilts at show

2011-06-17T17:10:00.001+10:00

Grrrrr, I am frustrated, I want to show you the Circus Berserkus which I have made into a slide show, but I can't manage to upload it in a working order!

My sister and I did a nuno felting class with Wendy Bailye which was fantastic. Here are a couple of photos of the scarves which were produced in the three hour course. I want ot have a go at another one tomorrow - hopefully pictures later

Here is a collage of art quilts made by Julie Haddrick, a South Australian textile artist. Her work is lovely.
Time to go and get clothes off the line and do some watering, but I was determined to master at least some of the photos in Picasa. Tomorrow I will have another go at uploading the slide show. Hopefully these photos will enlarge if you click.

Textile Art Festival

2011-06-16T21:05:00.001+10:00

Here is a collage of a small selection of the altered cloth swap. I will post more photos tomorrow, but I am trying to learn Picasa so that I can make a slide show or video clip or more collages to show you more of the many many photos I took. I am not very good at any of it yet.
We had an absolutely fabulous weekend, the weather was quite okay for what we were doing - I missed the really miserable weather in Brisbane and left it behind in Mackay - how good was that.
There was so much to see and do, we ran out of time through sheer exhaustion, my credit card took a beating - Dale will be happy! The Thread Studio saw quite a bit of my money.

We had fun watching Dale and Jacinta at play in the Artists at work area, found many stalls with products we had never seen or heard of before, met up with Shirley and her friend Dianne, which was great fun, attended a couple of classes, and even ventured into the scrapbooking hall next door - too many people and too hard to find anything which interested us - the textile hall was much more fun.

I am going back to learn more about Picasa so I can post some photos of the wonderful Circus Berserkus Art U Wear competition. Kirry Toose won with a very bright exciting costume, but the lass who came second was only 14 when she made her entry. She is very talented and will go far I suspect. More tomorrow (I hope).

More swaps

2011-06-08T21:08:00.000+10:00

Only a very quick and short post tonight. This is the page I have sent Ati for the Fibre Fever swap for June. Her theme was an impression of our favourite painter. I am not sure that Sir Sydney Nolan is necessarily my favourite painter, though I do like many of his works, other than the Ned Kelly series which don't inspire me at all.

This is the painting I was using as my page.

This is a birthday card I have sent to Helina, which she has now received and likes. I am using up some of my old samples and adding a bit extra to them - much better than letting them languish in a drawer.

Not much time for blogging just now, I need to write up some minutes of a meeting to send out tomorrow, then a book delivery for the library and then pack!

I am off to Brisbane on Friday, yippee. Should have lots of pictures to show you next week of lots of goodies at the Textile Fair. Some of the pictures I have seen of the Art U Wear competition for this year look spectacular, can't wait to see them.

Good news, and maybe!

2011-05-24T21:07:00.000+10:00

At long last my opthalmologist can see a bit of improvement in my left eye - after 22 injections!! I shall continue to have them in the hope there will be much more improvement. Meanwhile I have bought a new daylight magnifyinf light for using with my machine, as well as a magnifier to attach to it. Brilliant. I can see to thread the needle and I have also realised I can now see the computer screen on my other machine with the light!! there will be no stopping me soon - I shall have to get the manual out to learn how to program the stitches a bit better.

All of that will have to wait till after the long weekend in June. I am going to the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane and the program looks very exciting. I just hope I can walk and stand. My knee is still a bother, and the jury is out on what is the cause, apart from the sever osteo-arthritis. My orthapod ordered blood tests to rule out gout, but my chiropractor doesn't think gout is the answer as I didn't yell when he touched my knee the day it happened. Apparently with gout you can't bear even the slightest touch. Oh well, the blood tests may come back negative. I have had a cortisone injection which is supposed to have miraculous effects till after the Festival. The jury is still out on that too, it is good sometimes and horrible others!

Meantime I have managed to make another couple of glasses cases using slightly different techniques this time, and using up samples I have made for other things. This is silk paper from silk hankies in the top one.

This one has a base of painted brown paper with some Nepalese silk threads tesed out on top, then a maroon piece of net applied over the top and stitching. I think this may be a bit more durable for all the handling a glasses case gets.

I have made a couple of other things yet, but can't show them till the recipients tell me they have received them.

Busy, busy, busy

2011-05-15T14:40:00.000+10:00

What a week this has been - after a busy week last week as well! I have been sewing madly as nearly all my souvenirs sold at the Botanic Gardens last weekend and we needed more for a stall at the Palm & Cycad Fete today! Then I managed to do something to my knee on Tuesday so that I not only could not walk, it was agonising even to move my leg in any direction - and this was less than an hour before I was due for another injection in my eye! Thank goodness for my mother's walking stick to use as a crutch with Bill on the other side. We made it for the injection, then off to the chiropractor, three times in 24 hours and he had me walking again. I hope it never returns.

I had fun making the handmade felt brooches, not sure if they will sell or not, but worth a try for something different.

Glasses cases are always popular and I love the way you can make the finished article look completely different even when you start with exactly the same base. The top one has a green chiffon scarf over it, the bottom one a red.

I am trying out some sunshade too, which people seemed to like this morning.

And this is what we were setting up for this morning - I was out there by 5.45am, in the dark and very cold! Winter has come in with a bang here, I realise it is not cold to the southerners, but 8 degrees is definitely cold to us in the tropics - especially when coupled with a very sneaky breeze.

This is a huge affair and several thousand people come to purchas all the goodies on offer - especially some beautiful bromeliads. My knee was still too sore to go walking far, but the stall next to us had some lovely lemons and limes so I have a supply to make some marmalade - more busy times ahead!

Birthday cards and fabric pages

2011-05-11T20:40:00.000+10:00

I belong to a birthday card swap within the Fibre-fever group and these cards were sent off to Ulla and Angelique a couple of weeks ago.

And this one went to Janny. I have been using up bits of old samples and I am having trouble remembering just what I initially did with some of them - that will teach me to take better notes and keep them all together!

Blogger is not co-operating again tonight, but at least I have finally managed to upload the photos, I couldn't get anything to load yesterday.

The fabric page above I sent to Anne, whose theme is Oriental - Persian of Indian. I was casting around for an idea when I saw an Indian cushion looking very similar to this page.

My page from Peggy is another good one to add to my collection with the theme of blue/green. I chose a very easy theme, but this month I have to make one linking to my favourite painter! I am not quite sure who that is yet, I change my mind depending on how I feel - and I think for this exercise my favourite painter will be someone whose work I can depict reasonably easily!

A hard life to take to take

2011-05-07T14:55:00.000+10:00

blogger is not co-operating very well this afternoon, perhaps not wanting to show what a perfect day the partners had on Thursday. The annual Sugar Cane Technologists conference has just finished and the partners enjoyed a wonderful day having lunch at Coral Sea Resort at Airlie Beach. We had a barbecue on the jetty and just look at the wonderful weather and the view!!!!!

There were tables set up under a canopy on the jetty, I forgot to take any photos of the chefs barbecuing steak and fish etc for us.

The sea really is that colour.

Here are some of the desserts on offer - dieting is starting today.

I tried to make a slide show to let you see some more of what happened, but I am not very successful at that either, I think I need another couple of hours which I don't have to spare, to maybe manage to learn the technique - another time perhaps.

We son't do the 'tourist things' in our local area unless we have visitors with us, I really enjoyed visiting some of the local attractions and all the visiting partners had a fantastic time - that is the best advertising the tourist industry could possible have. So many people still think the whole of Queensland has been destroyed by the floods or cyclone, they simply are not visiting. Our highly valued dollar is sending them all oveerseas instead. Look what they are missing. I will show a bit more tomorrow maybe.

That weddding and another

2011-05-03T12:54:00.001+10:00

My sisiter and I were talking about that wedding last night, which prompted Barb to mention our mother's lovely lace wedding dress, and she reminded me that I have the top which was made up from the lace after the wedding. I wish I knew what happened to the rest of the lace. This top looks pretty special, I would never have fitted into it unfortunately. The lace is still in pretty good condition ( the wedding was 1936), but has yellowed a bit over time. I shall take a bit more care with this lace now I have remembered I have it. I didn't even have it wrapped in tissue, just shoved in a storage box - how bad is that!

Photo does not do this justice, but was the best I could get.

Busy times

2011-04-30T17:41:00.000+10:00

Not a lot I can show you today. I have been doing a few other things, but they are winging their way overseas at present, so later.....This is a scarf I felted for my grand daughter in Canberra - her choice of colours. I am still a novice at getting the measurements right, but practice makes perfect they say!

We had a very pleasant Easter - seems a long time ago now. The weather was simply magic. After all the rain we have had over the past few months, this was the first Easter I can remember when there was NO RAIN during the four days! The fifth day (a holiday here in Oz) spoilt the spell a bit, but mostly at night so didn't worry us.

Our son Stuart from Canberra has been visiting his daughter so they were both staying here, keeping us on our toes. Hannah is learning the flute at school and I really wanted a photo of her playing - she is not very good yet, but at least the noises are pleasant to listen to, not like a violin. HOwever the only photo I managed to get was the one below, just before we left for the airport for Stuart to fly home - to weather very different from ours.

Next week will be busy as well because the annual Sugar technologists' conference will be in town. Jock will have a holiday at the dog kennels so bill can concentrate on running the conference - for the very last time. That is cause for real celebration. He has finally found someone else to take over the role of secretary, so he will be able to sit back and enjoy the conference next year with no responsibility - and he will have a lot more spare time for his other work during the year.

Hannah and I watched the wedding last night, while Bill and Stuart were cross the football telecast was delayed! The dress was so beautifully elegant, and she looked simply stunning.

Another walk in the Gardens

2011-04-23T20:13:00.000+10:00

Late yesterday afternoon Jock and I went walking in the Botanic Gardens. the reflections were lovely.

This is a photo of what the drain now called the Brigalow belt garden looked like just after planting seven years ago. The plants all came from the dry hinterland behind the coastal ranges just west of Mackay. Their natural habitat is in and around creek beds which are dry for most of the time, but have raging torrents rushing down after heavy rain. the annual average rainfall in that area is about 23 inches as compared with our average of about 65 inches.

Amazingly, the area has thrived as you can see from this photo taken yesterday. So far no brigalow trees have been planted, I personally doubt that they would survive the wet, but perhaps we should experiment - hat is what Botanic Gardens are for after all. Brigalow trees are an Australian native which grows in huge tracts (or used to) in Eastern Australia, particularly in Queensland. When the trees are felled, the land becomes very good grazing and cropping land, so is highly prized. So many areas have been cleared that there are now tight restrictions on clearing any trees at all.

I am off my soap box and had to show this serene picture of the Eulamer lagoon at sunset - so peaceful

This is looking the other way, and showing the old water tower from the other side than is shown on my header. There must have been a couple of hundred people walking in the Gardens late yesterday as the weather was so good. Fingers crossed it holds till Tuesday. Anzac Day on Monday is likely to be either wet or very hot!

A bit of gardening

2011-04-16T17:35:00.000+10:00

Everyone very busy planting at the Botanic Gardens this morning - at last it is dry enough to get into garden beds! I think everyone was so thrilled to have some fine weather we had a wonderful rollup to help put about 800 small plants in the ground! As usual I provided smoko - and as usual - I was welcomed warmly when I arrived with the trolleys!

This will look better if you enlarge it - I have finally got the native violets again after losing my clump a couple of years ago. They are such pretty little flowers aand make a wonderful ground cover in semi-shady areas. I am not sure how long I will be able to keep them in a hanging basket though.

For some reason this plant is known as Swedish Ivy, but it is really plectranthus Australis - so no connection with Sweden and it is not an ivy. It is so hardy, I have had this for about 30 years at least now, it gets almost no attention and has only been repotted a couple of times - I don't know why it keeps rewarding me with lovely glossy green foliage and occasional bursts of flowers!

This is the April page I made for Angela in England, but it had to travek by a very roundabout route as I stupidly sent it to the wrong person by mistake!. Angela at last received it this week. Her theme is flowers.

We apparently had an earth tremor measuring 5.4 on the Richter scale about 3.30 pm, with the epicentre only a couple of hundred kilometres north of here - I didn't feel anything and Bill was just waking up after a nap (he needed it after working hard this morning). Nikki said the cupboards all shook at their house in Walkerston. I think I was burrowing into the bottom of our chest freezer looking for a particular bundle of meat about then so I probably thought any shaking was just to do with that! However I see that Christchurch has had another aftershock - they don't need that at all.

Time to get ready for our barbecue dinner - have to make the most of the fine weather, we are sure to get some more rain soon.

And the sun shall shine!

2011-04-12T20:55:00.000+10:00

This picture is of the second postcard I received for the Age of Enlightenment swap - it is from Vicki Welsh, celebrating the first Transcontinental Railroad - surely a major achievement back then.

The rain has stopped and the sun has shone for three whole days now - gorgeous Autumn weather, still hot in the middle of the day, but you can feel the nights getting much cooler - yippee. I have even had to water some of my pot plants! We really shouldn't be complaining aboutthe amount of rainfall we had here in the city - just on 900 mm for March. Some of the places about 20km north of town had 1600mm - that is 64 inches in the old scale - and that was just in one month, after they have been having heavy rain for months!!!

Alexander turned 8 yesterday, but he had his party on Saturday. The rain held off all day, Dougal was able to mow the lawn for the kids to run around, then he cooked a BBQ for the family afterwards, and the rain started just as we sat down to eat - brilliant.

Present opening is very important!

Nothing much creative has been happening here. We now have a new cordless phone after plenty of drama, but the store was very helpful. We bought a panasonic model a bit over two years ago, thankfully taking out an extended warranty. One year and one month later it gave up the ghost. That time the store simply replaced it - we took out an extended warranty again. Guess what - one year and one month later this one stopped working also - we couldn't believe it. Back to the store to find the policy had changed - it had to be sent away to repair. However today we had a call to say we were being issued with a store credit as the phone could not be repaired and that model was no longer available - thank goodness, I didn't want another one like that anyway. This one, a Telstra phone, is silver so I should be able to see the numerals much more easily. I detest the way everything is black on black these days, almost impossible for older people to see, even without my handicap. Tomorrow will be the test, the two phones are charging now. I missed my cordless phone so much for the week without it, I could cart it outside while gardening, or continue cooking, or all sorts of other things you can't do while attached to the wall! Cheers.

Botanic Gardens flowering

2011-04-04T08:03:00.000+10:00

The rain continues, but there are some beautiful flowering gingers in the Gardens. This native Crepe Ginger is very unco-operative, the white flower is facing the wrong way and I couldn't get a better photo.

This is another native with a very complicated Latin name, but commonly called Back Scratcher ginger.

This orange Beehive Ginger is exotic, but gorgeous.

I love the way the flowers of this native Daphne grow straight out of the trunk of the tree - they smell beautiful too.

The wet weather has brought out all the fungi, including this lace fungi with its pretty skirt.

The fernery is looking very lush - at least the weather is good for some things.

It seems awful to be complaining about rain after all the droughts, but sometimes there is too much of a good thing!

April fabric page, colour challenge and RAIN

2011-03-31T17:51:00.000+10:00

This lovely page arrived in the mail today from Ritva in Finland. My chosen theme this year is blue/green, leaving lots of scope to be as simple or as complicated as yu wish.

I have loaded these photos in the wrong order - the colour palette is at the bottom. Once again this took me a long way out of my comfort zone, but that is probably a very good thing.

I have a couple of lovely new stamps from Dale which I used on the insides of these padfolios.

I wonder what the next colour way will be.

I haven't shown anything from my garden for ages, but this Whitfieldia longifolia has just started flowering, a new plant for me, comes from South Africa I think, and looks really nice. It is also supposed to be very hardy.

We are just getting rain, rain, and more rain here - 900 mm so far for March, and still a few hours of rain to go yet! I took my camera outside to see what I could find - only stepping on hard surfaces, you sink if you step off onto the grass. The rain drops are just sitting on the ixora leaves.

And this is where our pavers abut the lawn - which was only mown 5 days ago and desperately needs doing again - no floats on our lawn mower though!

I hope blogger puts these photos up today.

Postcards and a heart

2011-03-27T15:05:00.001+10:00

I have recently participated in a postcard swap organised by Vicki Welsh of 3 Creative Studios The theme was 'The gilded Age' which I had to google as I had never heard of it. It is the period in American history from the end of the civil war to about the turn of the century, spanning many new freedoms but also lots of excesses. The card above came from Viv Manning in the UK. She says on the back of the card that according to the Wiki site, the sewing machine 'did more than any other single development (until women's suffrage) to change the daily life of the average American woman'

I took as my theme the lavish interiors of the mansions of the tycoons. I still have yet to receive a second postcard, will post a photo when it comes. This was an interesting learning experience.

I forgot to show a photo of the lovely heart which Doreen gave me recently in Canberra. The hand embroidery is really lovely.

The weather is VERY wet and miserable here with rain predicted to continue for hours yet. Thank goodness Bill finally managed to mow the lawn yesterday, took about four hours of hard slog, the grass was so long and thick after over three weeks of wet weather. You need floats on to go out there now. This wet season has to end soon.

I don't know why blogger is not showing the photos when you log on, but if you click on the squares the enlarged photo shows up - I must have done something wrong, but I can't be bothered starting all over again.

More from Canberra

2011-03-21T20:51:00.000+10:00

Blogger is doing silly things tonight, but at least I can finally see the photos and not a whole lot of gobbledgook which is what happened when I first uploaded. I hope the photo of the Wollemi Pine in the Australian National botanic Gardens starts the blog, with the close up of the cones starting to form next. It is looking beautifully healthy now, but was pretty sick last time we were there.

I loved the play of light and shade as we walked through the Fern Walk

This wattle tree was in full flower - very early I suspect

This photo of Parliament House was taken from the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain, you really get the most magnificent views all round Canberra from there. The huge areas of green wooded country extendin right into the city are very apparent from there.

Hamish and Alexander came to stay for the weekend while their parents went to a wedding in Brisbane. We visited lots of playgrounds around Mackay, this water feature in the Botanic Gardens playgarden is very popular with all small children - and some not so small ones too. We had a lot of fun and they were very good, but I must admit to being quite happy to see them go home again too. Now I might be able to start on catching up on stuff in my workroom - haven't done more than dump stuff on the table in there since we came home.

Home again

2011-03-17T06:26:00.001+10:00

We are back home again after a very enjoyable visit to Canberra, pity that we took the hot weather with us though. At least we missed the torrential downpours here while we were away. We spent a lovely day with Doreen and her husband Stephen - talked non stop for hours! We could have gone on for a lot longer too. I had a great time seeing lots of the beautiful creations Doreen makes.

Bill and I went up the Telstra tower on Black Mountain, the view was super, though a little hazy.

These photos have got a bit muddled up, this is the view looking out the windows in Stuart and Nat's house. They are quite high up.

We spent a lot of time wandering around the Australian National Botanic Gardens. This wonderful old eucalypt has been there since before the land was a botanic garden. It looks so stately.

There are always dragon lizards around, they are not the least bit worried by humans. This fellow was a couple of feet long all stretched out, he was fascinating.

I visited the Ballet Russes exhibition at the National Gallery and was completely overawed by what I saw. The costumes were superb and the conservators have been quite incredible in their dedication in restoring the costumes to their former glory. Some of them had not been cleaned since they had last been worn, probable before the second world war.

More photos another day, now I need to do some paper work - that never goes away!

Thursday morning - I thought I had lost all this last night as Google told me it had vanished when I went to load. I was so tired and cross I just went off to bed - leaving the paperwork - but this morning found it as a saved draft - hooray! Sometimes the internet is just tooo clever.

More goodies

2011-03-09T16:26:00.000+10:00

Today I received a packet in a tyvek envelope containing these pretty hand dyed fat quarters from Vicki Welsh of 3Creative Studios This was also part of the prize draw for last month's TOM. She is such a generous lady.

Vicki also wrote a note on this gorgeous card she has made.

This month the colour palette challenge tested me a bit. I love the colours shown in the picture below, but keeping strictly to them took a bit of discipline - I don't often end up with the same colours I was planning at the beginning of the project!

I made another little trinket box and lined it with taffeta in one of the colours of the palette.

This will be my last post for a week as we are off to Canberra tomorrow morning. Of course the forecast for Friday is some rain - Murphy's Law at work again! Hopefully there will be some fine days before we come home, we will still manage to enjoy ourselves whatever.

Felting workshop

2011-03-06T12:11:00.000+10:00

I canh hardly move today I am so tired, but we had a wonderful day felting yesterday with Katelyn Aslett, a very talented felting artist from Townsville. There were just eight of us, enough to feed off each other's inspiration but not too many for Kate to get around to help.

The bag above and below were made in one piece with a piece of synthetic fabric inside to make the pocket in the felting process. The pictures have got out of order, mine is a couple of photos down.

This will be cut up and felted a bit more before being added to a cape as decoration - I wish I had managed to take a photo of the cape, the lady making it was very talented too.

these are flower brooches made by Katelyn - I think I may try my hand at making some a bit smaller than these - they are about 10 cm across. I love them, but they seem a bit big to me for brooches.

This lovely scarf is my creation - with plenty of help from Katelyn. The pink is a very vibrant colour which does not like my camera, I have taken about 6 photos in different positions and backgrounds and this is the best I can come up with. I hope I can wear it later this week when we head off to Canberra for a few days. I see the overnight temperatures have been down to 6 or 7 degrees. Knowing my luck, the next heat wave will strike while we are down there! I am sure I shall enjoy the drier atmosphere anyway - and I am looking forward to catching up with Doreen while we are there.

A lovely gift

2011-03-03T17:09:00.000+10:00

I have been taking part in Technique of the Month from Three Creative Studios. The guest artist showing the technique of disperse dyeing in February was Shelagh Folgate and I have been lucky enough to win this lovely small journal she made. I have to keep picking it up to feel and look - the cover base is pelmet vilene I think.

If you click on the photos to enlarge you will see more of the very fine detail, even to the seed beads sewn on the inside cover and the lovely cover papers. Shelagh is very talented.

We have been watching the flower on this large bromeliad for at least the last four weeks, I am not sure if it comes out much more than this - probably not as the little sunbirds and honeyeaters are into it all the time - I can watch them through my bedroom window, but of course I never have my camera with me at the right time!

Here is a closeup photo - it is quite spectacular.

I am doing a oneday workshop on felting on Saturday with Katelyn Aslett, an artist from Townsville who is visiting Mackay. Her work looks lovely, but I am not sure how energetic her felt making method will be - I may be stiff and sore on Sunday!

A proud grandson, a book sample and are they still there?

2011-02-26T12:28:00.000+10:00

I have to share a few of the photos I took at Alexander's going up to Cubs ceremony - he was so proud. He had to be blindfolded and led through an obstacle course to show trust in his fellow cubs - I don't think they had much faith in the plank staying where it was meant to be somehow!

How he is a Cub, no longer a Joey

These are a couple of photos of the samples I have been working on from the free online workshops from Isobell Hall and Maggie Grey's new book. They are lots of fun, but I don't seem to be able to settle to anything properly just at present..............

Perhaps because of the events over the ditch - I had an email on Thursday saying that Christchurch Botanic Gardens had sustained a huge amount of damage this time, losing lots of its very large trees because of liquefaction causing them to pop out of the ground, taking lots more trees, sculptures and structures with them as they fell

Not sure if these are still there - they were magnificent in November

Amazingly this old conservatory survived unharmed!

The whole tragedy is so awful it does not bear thinking about - we can only hope that somehow they can rebuild their shattered lives. I would much rather face a category 5 cyclone than an earthquake - at least you have some warning, and when it is gone it is over, not repeating like all the aftershocks.

Final two fabric book pages

2011-02-19T16:43:00.000+10:00

Ritva in finland made this lovely page for me with their national bird emblem, the swan on it.

This was my February page for Margreet in Holland. Now I need to think about how I shall make them all into a book. The next round of swaps won'tstart for another month or so yet - probably just as well, I am trying to do too many other bits and pieces.

I have joined the online classes for the Mixed media book which Isobel Hall and Maggie Grey wrote. So far I have had more failures than successes with what I have been trying to do, but I am qwuite happy with this piece of silk paper made from silk hankies and with fragments applied to it. Not sure wht I am going to do next with it yet..............I seem to have a lot of pieces like that at present, this year is flying past and I am just dithering and muddling and losing my way with what I am attempting! I suppose it can only get better!

Our insurance is due for renewal in a few weeks and with all the disasters which have been occurring recently and with all the talk of what is and what is not covered by insurance I have been taking a much keener interest in the fine print of the policy. I have also taken about 200 photos around the house to try to have pictures of everything we have. Many years ago a friend of mine had the inside of her house gutted by fire. To make a contents claim on her insurance she had to itemise all the contents and put a value on the individual items as well as say when it was bought!!! Try doing that for everything in your house when it is no longer there and you can't look at it. We couldn't even remember some of the stuff which is only used once or twice a year. I suppose that is what all the poor souls who were flooded or lost their houses in the cyclone have been doing. We will put the photos and a list of contents in the bank deposit box and hope we never need to use it.

Time to get organised for the family to come fora BBQ in a couple of hours. Cheers

How young we were

2011-02-09T09:20:00.000+10:00

Today is our 43rd wedding anniversary - a lot of water under the bridge since that day, hopefully lots more waterto come yet - but not in the form of floods or cyclones! We are going out to dinnertonight to celebrate - that is a rare occurrence for us, we usually eat at home.

I seem to have been dithering for the last couple of months, doing a bit of this and a bit of that but never really finishing anything - my creativity seems to be in limbo just at present. I have played with felt making again and I am very happy with this piece. I think I like making felt with bubble wrap, it is so quick.

I have joined the group doing online lessons from the latest book by Maggie Grey and Isobel Hall - haven't got far with that either, but should be able to show something in a couple of days, it is fun.

Cyclone update

2011-02-03T15:48:00.000+10:00

We have come through completely unscathed here in Mackay - it was really a non-event for us. Cairns has been relatively unscathed as well, but spare a thought for the people in Innisfail, Mission Beach, Tully and surrounding districts - they have had a terrible battering. I have added a link to see some photos, but if you google cyclone Yasi photos you will come up with lots of sites.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/cyclone-yasi-pictures/

Many Innisfail and Mission Beach residents have only just recovered from cyclone Larry 5 years ago. The cassowary feeding stations will need to be set up again for months as the big birds will starve to death otherwise. Last time many wonderful volunteers cut up fruit and took it to feeding stations in the forest (sans leaves) to keep life as natural as possible for these gorgeous birds.

The cyclone season does not finish for another two months, let's hope there are no more.

Crafty stuff and cyclones

2011-02-01T21:37:00.000+10:00

This year the clever ladies from Three Creative Studios have a new challenge going - a creative colour palette. Each month they will publish a picture with a palette of colours and our challenge is to make something using some or all of those colours. Most ofthe participants are quilters so some interesting quilt pictures are emerging, but I am most definitely NOT a quilter.

This is my contribution - a notebook cover - I was quite pleased with it.

The technique of the month this time is disperse dyeing. Their site has an excellent tutorial by Shiela Folgate. I will try her techniques sometime soon, but I already had some painted papers (painted at least six months ago with Kraftcolour liquid dye) and this is the result ironed onto cheap panne velvet. I love that stuff as a background.

I also love the way you can completely change the look of the fabric with different treatment on top. The top case had a yellow chiffon overlay and the bottom one had a red chiffon overlay.

Thee back of the cases show the contrast even better.

I think we are getting our second miracle - the cyclone Yasi is going to miss us almost completely. But I am very concerned for all our friends in its path further north. This one is a monster, stretchinf across over 1,000 kilometres and with wind speed of about 280 km hour near the centre - and it is still deepening. We certainly live in a country of extremes. We got alll our window shutters out ready last night, but decided today to hold fire as we only look like having winds of about 60 - 70 km hour. Our biggest worry is losing power. All our power comes from further north and in all likelihood a feeder will be damaged, leaving us powerless for however many days it takes Ergon to find the fault and fix it. I guess we shouldn't complain, we will at least still have a house - and we do have a small generator. On that cheery note I am going off to read some other blogs.

Final two birthday cards and a small miracle

2011-01-28T14:02:00.000+10:00

Angelique made this card for me and was getting quite worried as it took a long time to arrive from France. It was worth the wait though.

Helga B sent me this interesting card.

I sent this card to Helga F

and this one to Peggy in USA

This one shuld have gone to Helga F, but I mistakenly sent it to Hanna in Austria, having misread the list - silly of me. However Hanna likes it so that is okay.

I have received 15 lovely cards and they are all so different. Next I shall make a box to contain them all, so they can be on display.

We have had a small, or maybe large miracle happen here. I spent ages cleaning my oven - a job I absolutely detest. Then I cooked a roast in it and found the oven was smoking badly and everything was overcooked, and I needed to clean the oven again the next morning - I said a few unprintable words about that! Turned out the thermostat had given up. The oven is 19 years old and in this throwaway society I thought there would be no hope of buying a replacement. Imagine our amazement when bill went to the appliance spares shop to discover that not only was the part available, but there was one in stock!!!!

We are having the roast pork tonight that we planned to have on Australia Day and I can breathe easily about what I shall cook for my DIL's birthday dinner next week.

Fibre Fever January page and some pigeons

2011-01-21T15:50:00.001+10:00

This is my January page from Yoke in The Netherlands for the Fibre Fever swap. She has hand and machine felted a snow bell hoping to persuade Spring to arrive at her cold home. It is beautiful.

This birthday card for me from Peggy in USA had a sojurn in the Customs Department before arriving here - Peggy was getting quite worried that it had been lost. The Customs officer added a pamphlet telling me what could and could not be imported into Australia. I hope he enjoyed looking at the harmless fabric card!

Bill had been pruning the Congea vine, but had to be very patient and careful at this end - a pigeon had a nest with two babies in it. We could see them from the kitchen window, especially as they grew big and were almost ready to fly.

This one is still in the nest - but flew away a few hours later.

The second one made it to the trestle at the other end of the creeper, but was not anxious to move from there. Several hours later Bill decided he really had to move the trestle so gave it a good shake, then started to lower it. that moved the pigeon, who could fly quite well after all and disappeared over the back fence and far away. As always, click on the photos for a better look.

Time for a walk with Jock. We are having some very hot sticky weather, but at least there is a strong breeze this afternoon so that should make walking a little more pleasant. Cheers.

More birthday cards

2011-01-18T20:44:00.000+10:00

Today I received some more cards from the Fibre Fever ladies all of them lovely. The top one is from Anne in Germany

This fascinating card and the bird are from Marja in The Netherlands. The houses look very like the row where Marja lives.

I can't tell you who made the top one - I have thrown out the envelope and I can't read the pale yellow writing on the back of it - very frustrating! The lower one is made by Monika in Bavaria. All the cards are so different.

Birthday cards and food

2011-01-16T20:05:00.000+10:00

I have had a birthday and look what I received from the Fibre fever swap group: the first three are from Maureen in Australia, Helina in Finland and Janny in The Netherlands.

This group are from Ati in Norway, Birgit in Germany and Ritva in Finland. they are all so lovely - thank you so much.

My grandson Christopher shares my birthday so we celebrated together on Friday night. He wanted achicken dish but chicken is completely sold out in Mackay till the shelves are restocked now that the roads have finally opened again. We had a very nice chocolate cake though. On Saturday night Bill and I feasted on

this mud crab

and these (he does not like them so more for me!

and these. There was even enough left over for prawn sandwiches for lunch today.

What more could I ask for?

Queensland floods

2011-01-11T13:38:00.001+10:00

This is just a quick post to ask everyone to say a prayer for all the poor souls in Southern Queensland where the flood crisis is getting completely desperate. There was a wall of water came through the main street of Toowoomba yesterday afternoon, then down the range and through the Lockyer Valley below. There are at least 8 people dead and another 72 missing. the rain continues to pour down, with major flloding expected throughout the south east of the state. The Brisbane river has already broken its banks and parts of the CBD of the State capital are being evacuated. The worst of the flooding is not due for at least another 24 hours so this is not good.

For us here in Mackay it is very hard to imagine as we have warm, sunny weather and no sign of any storms yet. Our supermarket shelves will be even emptier, but that is nothing, we can live through that.

Doreen's blog has a link http://www.gumtree-designers.com/2011/01/we-need-your-help.html to Gumtree designers who are oranising an appeal for all of us to help provide kits for the flood victims after the floods have subsided. These would be sewing kits and I think it is a wonderful idea. If you can help, please follow the link.

What's flowering in our garden

2011-01-05T21:28:00.000+10:00

Our Euodia tree is flowering now and is full of shrieking lorikeets, which are amazingly hard to see, even with their bright colour!

I managed to get a snap of this one. The flowers are very pretty and they are followed by clusters of black seed pods which the birds and the possums like too.. I hope the vitamin content of the flowers has recovered. We had a lorikeet fall out of the tree about a week ago, unable to fly. The wildlife carer who collected the bird said lots of the birds were falling out of the trees as the nutrition in the flowers was inadequate from all the rain we have had. I wonder how all the wildlife is faring in the flood zones all round Queensland and New South Wales.

I must have taken about 20 photos trying to get a picture of this Ulysses butterfly which feeds on the flowers of the Euodia. It is a large butterfly with a wingspan of about 5 1/2 inches and flies very fast. When it does land and closes its wings you can't see it as the underside of the wings is black and dark brown. The upper side of the wings is the most magnificent electric blue and sometimes there are several flying around. This picture is an image from wickipedia, I never did manage to get a photo

We planted two Pandorea jasminoides creepers on a trellis in the back garden to replace the things which were destroyed last year. Look at it now, flowering beautifully, and even the lovely glossy green leaves look attractive.

This is not a very good shot of the allamander vine and the thunbergia mysorensis vine, both putting on a very colourful show.

The honey eaters love this creeper, which keeps putting out new buds on the end of the stem, so that eventually it hangs almost two feet from the first flower.

The rain has stopped for the time being. We didn't quite make it to twice our annual average last year - we had 2975 mm - more than enough for any of us. Of course, the wet season is only just starting so there will be lots more rain yet before the end of the summer.......uggggh!

Fibre Fever page for Marja

2010-12-29T16:48:00.000+10:00

This is the page I made for Marja in Holland for December - her theme is birds. I was going very cross eyed trying to sew this, so stopped with the simple image I have there. I think I can see better now I have a prism in my graduated lenses, but I am waiting for my reading glasses to arrive. Then I expect a miracle!!!!

The flame trees are all coming into bloom at the Gardens and they look at their best with grey skies - just as well with the weather we have been having.

These seeds from the foxtail palms are making a stectacular show right beside the deck where people go to the cafe.

We actually have a bit of a break in the rain, so Bill is out mowing everything he can get too without needing floats on the mower. We shouln't complain, we have no flooding as such, not like the poor souls further south. Everyone from Theodore has been evacuated now. Pets were originally not being allowed to go, but thankfully that rule was changed. Some of the old people were very distressed at leaving their pets behind. I imagine Bill would flatly refuse to go anywhere if we had to leave Jock behind to fend for himself!

Our Gardens curator is in Bundaberg, not going anywhere in a hurry. I think his family is on high ground, but there is a lot of flooding there too. This reminds me very much of the 1950s, major flooding was a summer occurrence every year. Graziers had to paint the names of their properties on the rooves of their woolsheds or similar so the army/air force could see where they were to drop food parcels - for stock as well as people. There were no deep freezes etc then to store food for long periods. Times have changed for the better.

We are off to celebrate with our 15 year old grandson tonight for his birthday. The water table is level with the surface of the land out there so I will need my wellies to walk in to the house. The land is dead flat so there is nowhere for the water to run away. We will all still enjoy ourselves.

Wet, wet, wet

2010-12-26T21:00:00.000+10:00

I hope you all enjoyed Christmas Day, wherever you were. Our family came to us about 7am to open presents before the rest of the day's festivities, a lovely day made special by the excitement of the small children. The rain did not dampen our spirits one little bit - we were safely inside. The day was very wet and it continued today. We went for a bit of a walk at the Botanic Gardens. The lagoons are well up, covering the causeway, but not as high as yesterday afternoon.

The revolting water weeds have been washed down quite a way, but we need a much bigger flood to get them over the road and out to the mouth of the river.

This is looking in the other direction

I love the waterfall, really rushing in this weather

A misty view of the Gardens - the rain was getting quite heavy when I took this.

This Mackinlaya flower head is poking out of the Eungella Cloud Garden. It will turn into beautiful deep blue berries in another month or so.

There are roads flooded all round us, some of the inland places will be cut off for several weeks yet, then there is 40 degree heat and bushfire warnings in Western Australia , as well as snow warnings in Tasmania. We do live in a large country!!

Fabric page from Lise

2010-12-23T17:32:00.000+10:00

This is my December page from Lise in Norway - her explanation of how she did it is shown below. Click on the phots to enlarge for the detail. they are lovely.

She added this postcard as well, with the explanation written on the back.

I alway thought Willy Wagtails only ate small insects, but this one was having a lovely time with a small skink, eventually ate the lot I think. Jock and I were standing very still, but a walker came from the other direction so the bird flew away, still with the skink in its beak. I was amazed how still Jock stayed.

This photo is a close up of the pink cassia - Cassia Javanica - Blogger won't load the other photos of the tree at present - perhaps later. The tree makes a beautiful show at this time of the year.

Now I need to run away and make a few more preparations for Christmas, which has now been moved to our house - too wet at our son's place. The forecast is for somewhere between 200 and 500 mls rain over the next three days - I hope they are wrong! We will have fun anyway and this may be better than the white stuff in the northern hemishpere. Have a wonderful Christmas wherever you are.

Yeeaaah - my camera is working!

2010-12-20T16:11:00.001+10:00

My grand daughter Hannah came to visit yesterday and I was able to take photos again!!! The problem turned out to be a flat battery - not the AA batteries which I periodically replace, but a tiny disc controlling the date/time stamp! Bill finally found it, thank goodness. I had been backwards and forwards through the manual umpteen times and had never found anything about this one............grrrr. Now I guess I can take another 1000 orso photos before it has to be replaced again.

Hannah decided the tree needed even more stuff on it - I think it is grossly overdecorated, but the kids love it - that is wht matters.

Then it was on to icing the cake. Hannah had lots of fun rolling out the marzipan and then the icing and measuring and helping me to put it all on the cake. She doesn't like fruit cake, but she was happy to sample some of the left over icing. She loves helping me in the kitchen, hope she continues to think cooking and cleaning up is good as she gets older.

After that, she wanted to have another go at the sampler she is making of the stitch variations on my Bernina. She is getting more proficient with the foot pedal, so maybe she will be a bit more creative later.

These are a few Christmas decorations I have made - and I will have to come back to tell you the link to follow to make the birds. I forgot to write it down and I can't look stuff up on the web while I am in the middle of a post - I know, I should learn, but somehow I haven't!

Aha, I have checked out Geninne's Art blog: When you get there, scroll down to Tuesday 14 December for a wonderful tutorial on how to make them - much better than mine are. The fabric stars are much paler than the picture makes them look. I am not doing any more till I get some new glasse. Hopefully that will solve lots of problems. I really can't see to sew closeup stuff at present - my optometrist says my eyes are fighting each other when I try to look closely at things because I have an astigmatism in my right eye and need a prism in my lens. I think in a roundabout way this is good news - he hadn't bothered with the prism for the last script as my left eye wasn't doing anything. I suspect the lucentis injections are finally making some improvement in the vision of my left eye - isn't that a wonderful Christmas present! Now I just need to get my new glasses back before Christmas, that will be even better.

A post withut photos

2010-12-16T21:32:00.000+10:00

My camera is not talking to me at present and I can't work out what is wrong, but I suspect I will need to take it to a technician to have it looked at. This is NOT a good time of year for anything like that, they are all in holiday mode and probably shutting down completely for at leat two weeks after Christmas. You don't realise how much you use it till it is not there.

Our grandson Hamish turned five today - a very big day in his life as he was then old enough to be able to go to the children's workshop at the Botanic Gardens! he and his older brother Alexander made some lovely christmas decorations, now hanging near their tree at home. We have just returned from having dinner with them, we had to admire the Christmas lights they have strung on their windmill - they look lovely, a windmill makes a wonderful shape and looks like a tree at night. Of course I can't show you what it looks like ........grrrrr....

I have been making a few Christmas decorations myself, and at last I have made two cakes. I have cut up fruit for the first boiled plum pudding, so I am starting to get my act together for Christmas. The grandchildren have overloaded the tree with every piece of tinsel and bauble they could find, but they had heaps of fun doing it and they think it looks lovely so that is all that matters.

The rain has gone away for the moment and the heat has arrived in a big way. We had to cancel the Carols in the Gardens, the ground is so soaked that people could not possibly sit on it. Of course, the sun has been drying it out so Dale, our curator, is most upset, but the storms are getting closer to us all the time and we would only need a couple of millimetres to have a lake instead of a lawn! There have been massive hailstorms in south east Queensland, with over 70,000 homes blacked out early tonight. I am glad that is not us.
I will try to take some photos tomorrow with Bill's camera, this is frustrating.

Christmas postcard and some ornaments

2010-12-09T17:04:00.000+10:00

This lovely fabric Christmas postcard arrived today from Ritva in Finland. I have included a photo of the stamps on the envelope as I think they are fascinating.

The Three Creative Studios Cue for this week was ornament. I suppose these are not quite ornaments, but they come out every Christmas. They are nearly 70 years old, and are very special to our family. A couple of the bells are a bit broken, but they still work.

Hopefully this photo will enlarge to let you see the nursery rhymes on them. I love the fact that we still have the original box too.

This beeswax ginger is flowering well at the Gardens at present. You will need to enlarge to see the actual flowers. I had to get down on my hands and knees to take this photo as they hide in under the foliage.

I am off to go for a walk with Jock while the sun is shining - we are expecting heaps more rain in the next couple of days - grrrrr. There is massive flooding in other southern parts of Eastern Australia - and drought in the West. We re a large country after all.

A busy week and a fabric page

2010-12-08T06:29:00.000+10:00

Blogger would not let me in yesterday fo some reason and these photos have loaded in the wrong order today! This is the time of the year for all the Christmas breakup parties. Hamish's Kindy teachers did a fabulous job organising a concert, and having to move to a hall in another location as the continuing rain made it impossible to have an outside concert at Kindy.

Santa brought every child a book, Hamish loves his.

Hannah won an award at her school awards night. This was a lovely night of celebration, now soured because some awful arsonists lit a fire which burnt down a wing of the school two nights ago - containing classrooms, computer room, storage rooms for sporting equipment. It is hard to understand the mentality of some people.

This is not a very good photo as I hadn't thought to take my camera so used my phone instead. Last Friday, in the middle of the pouring rain - we had something like 200mm during the morning, the library hosted a party for the housebound clients. I was saturated collecting my passenger, but we got her and all the others, several in wheelchairs, into the library keeping them pretty dry. The librarians go to so much trouble, puting on a wonderful spread - nobody eats lunch after this, and the council staff come along to sing carols. This year they had a choir of children from a multicultural playgroup as well. The children were gorgeous, having heaps of fun themselves. This is one of my favourite Christmas parties every year, and in over 18 years, this is the first one which has been on such an awfully wet day - our luck had to run out some time!

This photo was supposed to be at the top of the list, my fabric page for December from Wendy. I will have a lovely collection of such varied pieces at the end.

Rain, rain, go away - and more about New Zealand

2010-12-02T22:07:00.000+10:00

I really wish it would, but I doubt my pleas will help. We had over 500 mm in November and in the last two days we have had 120mm - and it is still pouring. The forecast is for a very wet summer with several cyclones - I don't want to know about any of that. Ten minutes later we have had another 15 mm.

I will tell you more about our trip, that is a much happier subject. We really did have the most wonderful luck with the weather. This is Mt. Egmont, or now called Mt. Teranaki, near new Plymouth. We were on our way to it and stopped to take a photo with the cattle being very interested in the proceedings! The sun was shining and we had wonderful views when we got to the visitors centre.

Later that day we visited Pukeiti Gardens, named as one of the significant gardens of the world. The sky was very overcast, but that did not matter. The rhododendrons were all gorgeous and there were so many other interesting things to see. The sun came out later on in the afternoon and we found the bridge which I relocated in my previous post - not just to anothe city, but to another Island! My apologies to new Plymouth.

In Wellington, we went for a trip on the cable car in the sunshine also. Then we walked through the Botanic Gardens, but gammy knees and those steep hills don't go very well together. We even became quite hot while walking!
The ferry trip across Cook Strait was in very good weather - unlike the next day which turned quite nasty we heard. Queen Charlotte Sound is very beautiful, unloading the car was interesting, but didn't take very long.

I think Kaikoura was one of my favourite places to visit. Coming from the tropics, I was fascinated by the snow and the sea and what they called beach all together. This is most definitely not my idea of beach! We saw the seals and visited some gorgeous galleries and craft shops (Bill was bored!)

The South Island of New Zealand have these wonderful beaten up caravans on the side of the road which set up as cafes. We sat at tables and ate a whitebait sandwich for lunch! The couple alongside us was tucking into crayfish, which we had had the night before, buying it from another beaten up caravan! What fun.

We took the train trip to Greymouth and back the day before the mine explosion - such a tragedy.

The scenery is truly magnificent, again we were blessed with a hot sunny day.

We couldn't have the sun all the time, and some rain came to Dunedin, but not too much. We visited the Botanic Gardens - even steeper than Wellington, and Barb's knee was definitely protesting by this time. They are beautiful gardens but the rain chased us home.

I am always fascinated by what houses and motels etc look like in other countries, there are always some quirky bits. This is the shower which was in a motel we stayed at for just one night thankfully. Bill thinks it may have been retrofitted, with all the fittings underneath it. You had to step up nearly a foot to get into it - no grab bars - then you had to step DOWN the same distance to get out. Apparently they are quite common over there.

We didn't see nearly enough of course, so of course we would love to go back, just over the ditch isn't really very far!

This year has passed in a blur, I can't believe Christmas is only three weeks away, I haven't started on anything yet, but at least today I bought the last of the fruit to chop up for my Christmas cakes. Nothing to show you on the creative front, I haven't done anything. That has to change soon.

More from New Zealand

2010-11-25T21:46:00.000+10:00

This incredible bridge is outside Kaikoura on the east coast of the South Island, it was only opened in June this year.

I must have about 20 photos taken from every different angle imaginable - my engineering husband wanted to record every detail! It forms part of a long walking track around the Kaikoura township, just stunning.

This blue penguin and the yellow eyed penguin below are on their nests. I was over 20 metres away from them, although they look so close. Do click on the photos to enlarge them.

The yellow flowers around this nest look so pretty and are the most appalling pest - broom introduced by the British to make hedge fences in the early days. The Scots brought out gorze and the two plants have covered miles of hillside - anywhere where the soil has been disturbed has been taken over. While it is flowering the yellow landscape is very pretty, but devastating to the local wildlife.

This looks much better enlarged - a Spalvin's albatross, which our guide said is very rare in the waters around Dunedin, so we were priveleged, even more so when it took off a few minutes later.

I am so tired, I still haven't caught up with all the paperwork, though it has diminished. I have another eye injection tomorrow morning, then I hope to be able to do some sewing tomorrow afternoon. Time is passing and I have commitments which I don't want to be late with. I have various ideas in my head, just have to make them work.

November fabric pages

2010-11-23T21:38:00.000+10:00

These are two views of the fabric page I sent to Barbara in Germany for November. Her chosen theme is 'view through an open window'. The picture is a TAP image of a photo of a lovely garden we saw in Richmond in Tasmania last year.

Claudia sent me this love.y, delicate page in my theme of nature. That can lead to so many variations, I didn't know much about what I was supposed to be choosing when I selected that theme at the beginning of the year, but I am so glad I chose it.

Here is a picture of the United nations family of ours in Auckland! My brother's widow is on the bottom left. We had so much fun meeting everyone. They are still allowed to have fireworks for Guy Fawkes night there and Peter (top left) had bought a huge arsenal to let off in the back garden after this photo was taken. We haven't been allowed to set of fireworks ourselves in Queensland for decades, so this was a novel experience.

I was trying to load some photos of the penguins we saw nesting and two photos of a Spalvin's albatross, one on the water and then it taking off - they are so majestic. Blogger rejected the lot tonight so I shall try again tomorrow. Dale from The Thread Studio gave me a link to a site where I can upload a video effect, but I haven't even edited many photos yet. Maybe tomorrow!

Home at last

2010-11-22T21:39:00.000+10:00

We are home again after a fabulous holiday in new Zealand. It was very exciting to meet all the relatives in Auckland, then we took the sun with us everywhere we went. The bad weather was ahead or behind us all the way - just a little rain the last afternoon in Dunedin and also in Christchurch as we were leaving. How lucky can you be.

I will post more photos overthe next few days, but this photo above is the view of Mt. Egmont (now Mt. Taranaki) which we saw from the front door of the cottage where we stayed in Kaikoura.

This baby seal really knew how to play to an audience. There were two small boys on the rocks nearby and he came right up to the edge and posed for photos!!

This is where we had morning smoko at Lake Pukaki, with Mt. Cook in the background. All the photos will enlarge if you click on them.

These seals were having a wonderful time on some rocks just north of Dunedin. We were fascinated by the fur seals all along the coast. We saw some penguins nexting and some albatross on the wing, as well as taking off from the water. I just have to edit more photos - I took over 700, but I have deleted quite a lot!!

Back to a very soggy Mackay - over 400mm rain has fallen here while we have been away, and the wet season is not supposed to have even started yet. Bill and I both came home with severe hay fever, not something I normally suffer from. I also lost a very large filling from a tooth while I was away, so I spent an hour or so at the dentist today, with forecast of much money changing hands in the next couple of months! It all has to be fitted in around the injections for my eyes, I seem to be constantly sorting appointments.

I haven't made it into the workroom yet, other than to dump some purchases on the table, but I have received another lovely fabric page. I will take a photo tomorrow and post it then. Now it is time to go to bed, I need a good sleep to tackle some of the paper work tomorrow. Somehow that seems to multiply exponentially when you go away! I threatened Bill with death if he dared to instal the updated version of Quicken, our accounting software, before I have finished the current account keeping. There is always a very steep learning curve when a new version of that comes along, and sometimes I don't like the changes one little bit.

The Cup is over

2010-11-02T16:35:00.000+10:00

Today is a very important day for most Australians - Melbourne Cup Day - a public holiday in Melbourne and not much work is done in the rest of the country anyway - luncheons and sweeps and all sorts of shenanigans go on. Even those who have to work get dressed up. I had to go to the eye doctor this morning for a checkup after my latest injection - here are the girls in the front office all dolled up with their fascinators etc. Later when I was in the local pharmacy mearly all the staff there were in very dressy clothes with their fascinators as well! Somebody is making a mint from selling fascinators.

Bill and I treat ourselves to prawns for lunch and a glass or two of wine to go with them, while we watch the race on TV. Jock was just as fascinated and I actually had the camera within reach. He is really funny when the football is on, had his front feet right up on the stand trying to work it all out - but of course I never have the camera at the ready!

This chest came back to us yesterday after being restored. I forgot to take a photo before it went away, but it was stained a very dark colour and had a very shiny finish. I love the patina of this finish and the colours and grain of the cedar really show up. It is not an antique - well, not in the true sense of the

word - our grandkids probably think it is, as Bill's mother bought it in the late 1950s and that is forever ago as far as they are concerned!

Blogger is doing funny things and moving me to places where I didn't really want to be, but I think I have managed to get the printing in between the right photos now. This delicate white orchid is a Christmas Orchid (Calanthe triplicate) flowering in the Shade Garden at the Botanic Gardens. It is a native of Central Queensland, but I must confess I have never seen it in the wild. I love the fact that we can see so many native flowers here which we would never normally see.

Two more sleeps and we will be off to catch up with all the New Zealand family. Thw weather Melbourne is having now - cold and wet - will unfortunately be following us over the ditch, but we have pulled out all our winter woollies so hopefully we won't freeze.

The draw

2010-10-30T21:09:00.000+10:00

This is just a very quick post showing you two of my grandchildren, Alexander and his cousin Hannah, conduction the draw for my giveaway. I am delighted to say Shirley has won. Shirley has been going through a very rough patch lately so she is a very deserving winner. thank you all for participating. I found some lovely new blogs to follow and I didn't realise how many people looked at mine.

Now I need to do the washing up after dinner for eight. We won't see them for a few weeks now as we go away on Thursday morning. I am gradually getting through all the tasks I need to do before we go away. I will post again before we go. Cheers

Ta Daa! This is blog 200

2010-10-28T20:37:00.000+10:00

This is the October page I made for Wilma - her theme is dragonflies. this was fun to do. The background is panne velvet coloured with disperse dyes, then vliesofix, then some mica flakes sprinkled over and a lilac chiffon scarf fused to it. The dragonfly wings were stitched on Romeo with cheer organza behind. I wrapped some cords to make the body, then emobssed the head with jade and silver for the eye, adding gel and stitchless beads to finish it off.

Here are some caladiums growing in pots in my back garden. I thought I had lost the white ones after the tree fell over, but here they are back again better than ever.

The back garden bed is getting more colourful and the creepers are taking off nicely. By the end of the summer, the trellis should be completely covered, hopefully there may even be some flowers on it. These creepers should have at least a few flowers most of the year. The birds love them, and I have missed my birds in the back garden. This is what I see when I look out my kitchen window.

I couldn't resist taking this photo of the Cape Yok lily leaf which has just erupted. The texture is superb. There is a flower hiding under it, but it is not out properly yet.

Jock has a new toy. We have new neighbours who have a 19 month boy called Charlie. He and Jock just love each other, but they never stay still long enough for me to take a photo of them together. The neighbours threw this football over the fence for Jock, it won't inflate proerly any more, that just makes it better from Jock's point of view. He chases it all round the garden, always bringing it up for one of us to kick it for him. I have given up on that - does no good for my feet at all. I have to pick it up and throw it!

As I said in the heading this is post 200. I will wait till Saturday night when my grandchildren come to visit, then we will put all the names in the hat and draw one out. So..........leave a comment before then to be in the draw.

Look what came to visit

2010-10-25T21:19:00.000+10:00

The Garden Friends had a guided walk followed by a barbecue on the deck overlooking the lagoons last Saturday - I completely forgot to take a photo of the lovely scene, but I found my camera when this lady came to visit. One minute she was in the palm tree beside the deck, then she came down onto the deck

and up onto the table where someone was very naughty and fed her some chocolate cake. Thankfully they took it away as soon as this photo was taken.

I was then able to take this photo before she squeezed herself through the wire mesh and disappeared into the cloud garden. there are several possums living in the area, but also a couple of carpet snakes - they are often seen in the rafters near the cafe, which freaks some of the patrons more than somewhat!

Jock and I went for a walk in the Gardens today. This teak tree is in full bloom, but I couldn't get far enough away to take a decent photo because there are construction fences all round it for a new waterworks facility being built there. The noise was deafening, the tree was full of rainbow lorikeets, which again I couldn't capture on film - the light was wrong and I only had shadows.

Here is acloweup of the blossom - it is so pretty, but doesn't have much perfume.

Then we came across this giant heleconia (about 3 metres tall) with its lovely red flower spikes.

My apologies for the photo - I was standing on Jock's lead while I was taking the photo, but another dog appeared - that caused a bit of excitement.

We pass this acalypha on the way home. People up here think they are pretty boring - you see them everywhere in a variety of colours, but southerners fine them quite spectacular.

This post 199 so the next post will be the last before I draw the names out of the hat. Don't forget to leave a comment to be in the draw.

Another page has arrived

2010-10-20T20:38:00.000+10:00

blogger has loaded these photos in a strange order, not sure why. This is a photo of one of the Flindersias in the botanic Gardens - taken when Jock and I went walking a couple of days ago. I had forgotten to take my camera, so the photos are from my mobile phone, the closeups are not as good.

This is a closer vision of the lovely creamy flowers which cover it.

Isn't this fabric page lovely? Maureen from Victoria made it for me and I just love it. She had had the pattern for a very long time, so could not buy the correct threads, but nobody could possibly tell. The post came faster from her house to my house than mine went to her - but that is Australia Post for you.

My neighbour's orchids are blooming again, nearly a month early this year. I don't know the name of them, but they came from her son-in-law's rainforest property just south of Cairns in far north Queensland. They make a really brilliant show, even when taken with my phone. Who would have thought a few years ago that we would be taking photos with a phone!!

My new book has finally dried out so now I am drooling and wishing I could stop everything else just to try out all the luscious techniques so beautifully illustrated in it.

I have been playing with my versa-tool, I don't think I would bother trying to transfer images with it, but it cuts through very heavy pellon just like butter. I can't show you what I have done though as it is the next fabric page I am doing for fibre-fever - later, when she has received it. Now I am going back to keep working on it.

At a standstill

2010-10-16T14:58:00.000+10:00

I seem to have fallen into a deep hole lately. I finished these souvenirs - going back to some of my old techniques. I do like the effect of colouring cheap panne velvet with disperse dyes and working over that. There is a subtle sheen behind the work which I find very lush.

Somehow since then I have been bogged down with other stuff, appointments, meetings, housework etc. I have also spent hours at the computer booking accommodation for our trip the New Zealand in November - that is all done now, thank goodness.

I have found time to take Jock for a walk in the Botanic Gardens occasionally. The lomandras are in full flower at present. They are good for cut flowers and they last forever as dried flowers. There are huge clumps of them planted along the edges of the lagoons to give the water birds hidey holes for their nests. The snakes like them too so I don't let Jock anywhere near them if possible.

The cycads are shooting out with all their new season's growth. I love the different shapes, some short,

and some very tall.

I am hopeless at linking to a previous post, but the post where I announced the giveaway for my 200th post had a photo of Syzygium Australe in flower. Well, most of the flowers have gone, leaving these lovely pinky red bases (calyx's?) My botany is non-existent, I don't know the proper term, but they are very pretty anyway, whatever they are.

I have received my copy of the new book by Maggie Grey and Isobel Hall, I was so looking forward to it, now I am very frustrated - the book was very wet when it arrived here. I have it on a table in the air conditioned office and I am turning (very carefully) a page every so often to try to dry it out so I can read it. I have complained to Australia Post to no avail, I have no idea what they managed to do to it, but I am NOT happy.

At least I shall be able to play with the versa-tool which I ordered from Dale just as she was leaving for London. I really want to see if I can transfer an image to cloth with it as the instructions say. Watch this space - I will sho you if I am successful. Only three more post to go after this before the giveaway so don't forget to leave a comment.

Planting bee and other things

2010-10-09T16:46:00.000+10:00

Today we had the last planting bee for the year at the Botanic Gardens - it is too hot after October. We had about 15 Friends planting - and watering - and about 200 small plants and trees were placed in the ground - not a bad effort for a morning's work. Most of these were replacing plants which were lost either in the floods at the beginning of last year or the cyclone earlier this year. Fortunately plants grow really quickly up here. This area was completely bare three and a half years ago, so provided we don't have more cyclone damage, there should be a lovely display of plants in another few years.

I don't do any of the actual gardening - most of it is on slopes and my knees and feet will not cope with that, but I get the smoko (morning tea to those of you who are not Aussies). I am told that that is the most important part of the morning anyway! Today everything had to be carted quite some distance from the Admin building so I took my camera with me. This case moth was on one of the shrubs - I assume they exist around the world, not just in Australia - I hadn't thought of that till now. This one is not very big yet.

Then I saw this caterpillar of the monarch butterfly on the desert rose bush

Here is the chrysalis - we used to collect these as young children, the silver colours were the big drawcard. They loved the oleanders we had growing in our garden. These days we are told not to plant them in home gardens as they are so poisonous, but we grew up with about 8 of them and no ill effects. We would have been devastated if Mum had got rid of them and we lost our annual supply of chrysalises. they also made wonderful shangais (slingshots), completely illegal these days. I don't recall that we ever hit anything much with them - we were on the edge of town with lots of open paddocks around us, so there was lots of scope for us.

Here is the beautiful desert rose flower, definitely not a native, but it is growing in the Malta garden, in honour of the Maltese community.

Time to take Jock for a walk. He thinks it is past time and has been trying to persuade me to go for a while now.

2010-10-03T16:16:00.000+10:00

Today was my turn to do a shift at the Visitors Desk in the Botanic Gardens. This is part of the display which our Visitors Services Officer has set up from seeds and nests etc collected in the Gardens.

I love the textures of these fungi - better seen when you click to enlarge

I went for a walk in the shade garden and found these gorgeous flowers of the Back Scratcher ginger had come out. I had to kneel in the garden bed to take this photo - fortunately nobody else was nearby.

here is the flower in closeup - a satin shiny surface.

I love the new pink leaves of the syzygiums - this is Wilsonii and has a lovely red pom pom flower, but the wind was blowing too hard, I couldn't get a photo in focus.

I should have taken this photo when I opened up this morning. It is a vanilla bean orchid, with creamy green flowers - they were open this morning but closed 5 hours later, not sure if it was because of the cloud cover or not, but the creeper is fascinating and looks great against the wormeaten wood of the old wharf logs.

Lastly here is a photo of my giveaway - a glasses case, a bookmark, a fridge magnet and some paper napkins. This is blog no 195 so five more to go and I will draw.

Now I had better take the dog for a walk. Bill has gone away for a few days for work and Jock has been caged up for several hours so he needs the exercise.

Time for a giveaway

2010-09-25T16:42:00.000+10:00

Well, I have just realised that I am getting close to 200 posts so I think I should have a giveaway. This will be post 193 and all comments from now till I reach 200 will go into the hat, probably for a glasses case and some other goodies - I haven't really decided yet.

Blogger has changed the way we load photos again, I suppose it is an improvement - but it has taken me ages to get these photos up as I was not sure what I was trying to do..........grrrrrr. I am not sure I like change much any more, takes too long to work it out.

These yellow everlasting daisies are making a lovely show at the front entrance of the Botanic Gardens just now. When we were first married we used to see them along the sides of the roads all round the district, but I haven't seen them growing wild for years now. I think the sides of the roads have been poisoned to keep the grass down, but of course, everything else is poisoned too.

This is syzygium australe with a lovely show of fluffy white flowers. Later it should be covered in red berries and one of our volunteers with be busy making jam, well she will if she can beat the birds. they love the berries too.

These next photos are of some more padfolios I have made lately. Two of them are from paper napkins and make such a lovely bright show.

I had hoped to spend the weekend in the garden, but the rain has put a stop to that. September is supposed to be the driest month of the year up here, but definitely not this year. We had a deluge of 200 mm on Monday, then drizzle for most of the rest of the week, before the rain really set in again today, 80 mm so far and it is only 4.30 pm. I think I can hear the weeds growing. I have a huge crop of oxalis which has sprung up, it has a very pretty pink flower, but I would much rather be rid of the wretched stuff.