Just too busy again, what's new???

 

Christmas is nearly here. Our patchwork group had an early start to the silly season. Even Belinda managed to attend, having an event to go to in Gin Gin the next day. This meant I managed to catch up with her 2 weekends in a row.

The following weekend was our Meyer/Meredith Family reunion event at the Mundubbera Bowls Club. Our crew travelled from Mackay, Rockhampton, Monto and Proston to attend. All of our Gayndah cousins had  a short trip up the road to attend.

The Mundubbera Bowling Club's rooftop was the only part visible in the floods in January and the volunteers have done a marvellous job restoring the building.

My grandfather Harry would have been so proud to see his children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren playing bowls or just running amok on the greens.

 

 

Here is Belinda, her Uncle Greg and her father.

 Here is Danielle, Belinda and Parker, looks like Parker wanted to join the other kids.

 Here is me, actually bowling a bowl. The second time ever I have played. Sure did end up with some wonky bowls. The next day, my knee and thigh was a bit sore.

Here are my three girls. I still have not started quilting the baby quilt. I intend to start when I finish the current house goal.

Here is the second of the last three veranda panels to be sanded, primed and filled.

This is the view late Monday 9 December. I discovered it is not a good time to paint after about 9am in December. I started again at 5pm.

 

Tuesday 10th December saw me back out at 6am, to prime the second panel.

This is the next one, then the purchase of some trestles are in order to tackle the outside walls.

 

 

This is the last week I intend to work on the house until after Christmas and the New Year. Somewhere in this  I still have to work.

The baby quilt is beckoning. Will let you know when the baby arrives. Hope it's not too soon for my sake but I think Amanda is hoping sooner rather than later.

November Notes,

I must apologise for the lack of quilting content. I have included a photo of a UFO and was appalled at it's age. I started this in 2009 and it is still waiting for some attention. The only sewing things I have achieved is sandwiching the new baby quilt and cutting out a few Xmas presents.

 

 Needless to say, these two babies have been back in action. Mind you I think they are starting to show some signs of age. The pointy one will soon need it's third base plate change. It was amazing yesterday that both were in action at once. I had a helper, albeit for all of 30 minutes as the showers prevented him from doing some outside work, and I insisted some help would be much appreciated.

 Just to show you, we attended the Queensland Axemen's Association Annual Presentation night and Bryan received three awards over the Standing, Underhand and Treefelling sections of the competitions held during the year of all events across Qld. Considering he only competes when he is not away working he has done very well.

 I would really love to be able to purchase this house for sale at Chelmer in Brisbane. This is what I am trying to get my hedges to do at Ivanhoe. The only problem I have is our house is much higher. Means pruning to the height is much harder. I am happy with mine so far though.

 Another blog I read about renovating old Queenslanders showed this picture of an old queenslander in her neighbourhood. They just need the 'right people " to come along with the patience and drive to restore them. I'm thinking I need a good injection of drive at the moment.

Here is my inspiration for the louvres I am very happy with in our office area. I would really like to knock out more of the wall and install something like this, to bring the outside in. Maybe one day, I would also get new shelves made for all the essential paper work storage.

 

Some progress though. This is the second bedroom which used to be a very dark dusky salmon pink colour. I spent a day filling holes in the walls after Belinda washed them for me. I have finished one top coat of British Paints Touch of Berry colour 1.5 strength. With undercoating and painting it has taken 6 days so far. The Joinery guys ( they are my current favourite tradesmen) came back last week and are due back this week. In their words Murphy's law always prevails for the furtherest job from the workshop. We now have 5 sets of these doors. The fly and mossie populations trapped inside have decreased. It is wonderful leaving the shutter doors ( that is my new name for the timber doors now) open all the time.

 

 The veranda progress has been slow, because of the showers yesterday we started on the wide beam at the top and the decorative parts. This is in the final corner for the railings. I have nearly finished the final front panel, ready for undercoating, then filling , then sanding , then finally undercoating and painting. The timber is that weathered that you have to fill it with something.

 The second panel undergoing its transformation. Had to insert 2 new poles. You can just see my tallest hedge plant at the front .

I went researching the roofing iron. This is the roof in the shed built during the early 1960's using Lysaght Australia iron.

 

This is the Lysaght iron on the Ivanhoe veranda roof. There are 2 different trademarks, the other is Redcliffe Trade Mark. These were imported from England as Lysaght Australia did not start production until 1920's in Australia. Lysaght England bought out the company making Redcliffe brand in the early 1900's so one can date the house from this a bit.

I have discovered that the original owner of Ivanhoe and builder of this house got married in 1916. I am trying to establish about when the house was built. I reckon around 1909- 1916 as it would have been fitting to bring his bride to a house. Some days I just sit on the veranda and marvel at the construction work done without power tools.
I will at some stage probably be heading to the state archives at Runcorn for more research.
A busy month, with even more to come. The new grandchild is due in early January so now doubt life will get even busier.

September Ramblings and a Real Blast from the Past

 I currently have a small project on the go. My family have decided to have a family reunion. Not just my immediate family who are a bit spread out across Qld but the entire family of descendants of my 4 grandparents. I have started converting some old Kodak slides to digital with the aid of a nifty little gadget. I found this one of my sister at 2 weeks of age, she was not a very big baby as you can see by the size of my dad's hands. One of her kids has already commented that she has hardly ever seen any baby photos of her mother. Glad I have had the ability to change that for her.

 We shared the same 4 grandparents with one set of our cousins in that Mum's brother married Dad's sister so we did share quite a close bond with these 4 guys. Amazing that all 4 of them still live in the same town as their father. I am the shorter girl with you guessed it the pig tails. My brother is the smallest one in this photo. Yes, black sausage dogs were in the family then. Danielle now has one called Ebony.

 In August, I won 2 prizes with this quilt at the Bundaberg Competitive Quilt Show. I was quite excited to win the best domestic machine quilting prize. Not sure if my longarming will ever be that good. At this stage I am still too busy trying to get the house in order. I did also get a third place for my Japanese kaleidoscope quilt.

I spent the night during the show on guard duty with Patty. I'm sure we will volunteer to do it again next time.

 Back to the Ivanhoe house. We now have some screen doors, louvres , front gates and I have progressed some more on the sanding. But come to a bit of a halt but started working again on the next set of doors to screen.

 Love this view of the old house.

 Here is the next baby quilt in progress. I have now stitched it together, and pinned the next border on. Baby is due in January, so not much rush yet.

Had our big  Wagner mediation. Needless to say the Wagner family members involved have not endeared themselves to us and I doubt very much if they ever will. I am also certain the mediator probably didn't really like their attitude either. Some people just never learn that bullying will not make people care for them. I bought an orange bouganvillia bush to plant at our front gate. It is our liberation tree. On my drives to work I  drive past a few in old homestead paddocks and they are left after the houses have fallen down. I want it to be the legacy for Ivanhoe now that we are the custodians of this place for a short while. Back to work tomorrow night. Those 4 weeks roll around fast.

July Update One

 I know it is slow progress, been a bit cold to be out working on the veranda but a few mild winter days happened  and I have finished painting the bottom front windows after re puttying the panes 2 weeks ago. The panel under the window is a test area of wall colour.

 I have painted 6 boards on the right hand side. I have finished the top of the stairs area, waiting now for the windows to arrive in 4 days time.

 This is the side door from the veranda and will have a screen door as well. So I decided in my spare time to finish the paint removal before they arrive to install the screens.

 Not sure what colour will be used here.

I found this photo taken of the accident scene in Rocky where Bindy was the treating officer. Three people were involved and thank goodness no one was seriously hurt.

Some progress has been made on my latest quilt. Nearly finished and I am pleased to say I will meet the deadline. Seems like I need more deadlines to crop up. One did the other day and I am pleased to say I have ordered more fabric for another baby quilt. Life is certainly getting exciting.

May/June Update

I have ordered windows and screens to add to the house. The guy who came to measure kindly suggested it would be good if the painting was finished around the frames. So out has come the sander and paint brushes from storage. I removed the broken glass window that rattled in the wind from here, at the top of the back stairs. After 4 pots of sample colours, we have decided on a colour that we both like. This shows the previous colour and my undercoating in progress.

The boards at the top of the back stairs. The middle 6 boards were replaced some time ago, we have learnt that there was a small window that opened there. It was used as the money paying window when Ivanhoe was used as a Dance Hall for the people from Ivanhoe, Boondoooma and Old Proston Stations many years ago. If we look closely at the floorboards we can see, many dimples from high heel shoes.

 As well as replacing the window at the stairs, I have decided to replace these old double hung windows with modern louvres. So I have started removing the existing paint ( or what is left of it)

 There are 3 sets of windows to be replaced.

 At the top of the stairs, under the wall and window wall currently are some kind of lino tiles. I went browsing in a flooring shop last week and this is what I discovered. Tiles that look like timber. I have selected the colour of the middle tile with the non slip features of the 2 right hand side tiles. These are 935mm long by 235 mm wide so I need 6 tiles to cover the area. The colour in the tile looks just like red soil scuff marks. I am sure the dog's footprints will blend in well.

 The other big news of the week, the grandbaby arrived , a  not so small boy. Here is a bit blurry photo of grandpa and grandson.

This is Dad and baby not more than 2 hours old. All are doing very well.

 The other news of the week. Aunty Bindy came for a visit and we ended up taking a car for a test drive, and wow she moves fast when she wants to. Bought it and drove back home 2 days later in it. A Ford Kuga Trend 1.6 L turbo petrol for the technocrats.

It was a bit sad to say goodbye to the Xtrail, parked unlovingly in the centre of the street. It's been part of the family for 12 years so I suppose it had to go before it cost us too much more. So been a bit busy this last few weeks, but guess what, I have still managed to do a bit of sewing, but a long way to go on the 2 current projects before they are finished.

April / May Happenings

 

 Back in October 2012, we learned we were going to be grandparents for the first time. A photo was happily taken of the pre baby tummies comparing the two. Move onto April and the baby Shower was held at Monto. These girls certainly know how to entertain.

 Here is Lucy, the amazing flood survivor, it certainly was wonderful just to give her a huge hug, and two new brides who we celebrated with at their weddings at the end of last year. Who knows, we may have lots more baby showers to attend soon.

 An amazing arrangement of food for everybody. The plastic tablecloth would be stunning as a modern quilt.  Speaking of quilts, I have finished my Grandbaby floor quilt in time for the due date.

Unfortuantely not all my girls could be together at the Baby Shower as this new graduate had to work. She is enjoying her new career as a Graduate paramedic at Rockhampton. Sadly she has already been verbally abused by some of her intoxicated patients, but she took it in her stride. It is certainly a sad reflection of today's society that there is a group of people who think they can verbally and physically abuse our emergency workers.

 I managed to attend the Childers Show and Tell day in April. This is the pile of quilts that were brought along and shown for the day.

 We have also had good news on the property front, receiving a grant to repair our flood damage.

 I also went along to the Mundubbera Lemon Jo's retreat dinner, co-ordinated by my sister. Unfortunately one of their member's husband's hand required surgery that evening so my sister had to provide all of the entertainment on  her own. I won one of the Quilters Bingo games, amazing as I never seem to win a thing.

Will keep you informed, 2 weeks to go to the baby's due date. Got to do 2 night shifts, finish the weaning, take someone in for a spot of knee surgery, work on a quilt for the Bundaberg Quilt Show in August, and continue the house renovations all before a baby.Danielle do you think you can stay pregnant a bit longer? Waiting on a quote for some new windows, screens and door screens and that means I have to paint the frames etc. The winter winds have arrived sending me into a SAD state. I seem to notice the winds here more in this draughty old house. Thank goodness I am married to a woodchopper. I did suggest we needed a third woodheater but I did not receive a reasonable response. Roll on spring is all I can say. Catch you next time.