Too Close for Comfort

 We had a small storm front come through in early December to give us some much needed rain. The grass responded slowly. Then a few days later the clouds rolled in from the west again at midday. They certainly looked ominous with some green areas in the cloud. We scored quite a lot of wind, no hail or damage thankfully, and 21mls of rain. Up the road at Boondooma Homestead they received 80mls and filled all of their dams. We are still waiting for a large fall of rain to fill our dams. We are thankful for the rain we have received as the pastures are starting to respond. Like everybody in this drought we hope it ends soon.

 

 

Some work on the home front has been happening here at Ivanhoe. I have painted one of the two downstairs bedrooms and will start the next in the New Year after my next lot of night shifts.

The old timber skirts which were only on two sides of the house were starting to fall down. Here they are slowly being dismantled. Minutes after I took this photo, a nail was embedded in his leg causing a slight injury. The very detailed first aid kit ( a Christmas present last year, from the family paramedic) came in use, and he was able to keep working.

I have planted some hedging viburnums along the front and sides so hopefully it will not be this bare for too long.

 

I have included this photo taken by Allan Honor of the ranges around Mt Perry for no reason other than I like it. To me, it represents a typical view of our area.

 In amongst everything , I managed to attend Project Day for Pfaff Owners at the Quilters Rest near Kingaroy. This was the project I finished in a day. There is only one Christmas themed fabric in this. It is a table runner using only 8 fat quarters and a 10 degree wedge ruler. The green fabrics have apples and avocadoes on them. I was so happy to finish something in a day for a change.

 

I have finally finished my Christmas sewing for the grandchildren as Christmas is pretty close now. I have been on a learning Japanese experience as I invested in a Cucito Summer 2014 childrens sewing magazine for babies and toddlers and managed to interpret it to make something for them. My years of using Burda and Neue Mode patterns stood me in good stead to understand the pattern sheets.

Hope you all have a happy and safe Christmas and we look forward to the New Year and hope some good things happen amongst the bad things that we seem to notice more.

November Painting and Patchwork Progress

 Remember the laundry building, well the undercoating ceased due to the heat and a very sore right knee and work commitments. I will get back to it very shortly.

 

 We had a short visit from Belinda who was on some much needed Rec Leave from work and she was inspired by my painting efforts and wanted to join in. I gratefully accepted her painting wishes and she managed to get one top coat on two sides of the downstairs rooms. She was also assisted by Amanda and Emmerson who popped in for a visit. The crooked walls really stand out now, obviously when they closed it in downstairs, they never made sure of their measurements for the cement floor compared to the existing timber floor above.

This is the completed office walls and ceiling. I ran out of paint to finish the doors, but they are still under colour review so they may change colour yet. I am still patiently waiting for the cabinet maker to phone me with our installation day for the cupboards. The 3-4 weeks quoted has now finished, with no verbal update for a new date. It always amazes me how people can run businesses without keeping to their word or communicating to their clients. Maybe they should all work in emergency situations to understand the meaning of the word, Reliability.

 

This is an intriguing photo of our kitchen ceiling. The manhole cover is out, drying after being painted. The round hole is not a 2nd manhole but the broken ceiling rose has been removed and another  albeit solid one will be made to replace it. I think it will be in 2 parts as a certain someone does not wish to climb up through the real manhole to put it in place. The ceiling has been filled, in the grooves and painted. It is the same colour as the office ceiling even though it does look different here.

This is half the kitchen ceiling and the dining area ceiling to show you the difference. The dining area ceiling is in a sad state. It requires scraping, sanding, filling and painting.

 This is not all of it captured in this photo. There are 12 panels each about 8 feet by 2 feet in area. I think it will be prepared 1 area at a time. The kitchen ceiling is 11 feet high, and the dining ceiling slopes from 11feet down to 7 and a half feet high. I find it easier to paint a sloping ceiling than a flat one.

Yay, I have managed a little bit of sewing. This is my basket quilt hanging on my new quilt photography stand. I have another border to attach on this yet. I was placing the applique leaves here at Mt Perry a couple of weeks ago.

Just for something different, I had a visit from this colourful parrot. I usually only see the green lorikeets so found my camera and managed to sneak this photo.

No further rain to report but am seriously hoping the BOM's predictions are true for a change. They are saying storms in the next 2 days so here's hoping. We have had quite a few of the old cows die from mud bogging, general weakness and not being able to get up. The dams that are nearly dry have been desilted, and our emergency water system through the drought funding has now been installed and is working well at Brigooda so hopefully we can get through this drought and that it ends soon.

Seize the Days

Seize the Days certainly seemed to fit the end of September/beginning of October for me. I attended the Australian Machine Quilting Festival in Adelaide. Quite an experience. The flight was no problem even though Lisa needed her hand held a few times on the way there. Patty used her first 2 days to sightsee while I filled my days with classes. I attended 4 workshops with Cathy Wiggins. She is on Facebook using her full name so check out her page. She makes whimsical art quilts from a wholecloth and has recently moved away from this to quilting on leather.
I attended 3 workshops in total with Jamie Wallen. I have certainly got better at drawing as a result.

 

One of the best workshops I attended by a local tutor was by Emma from Bell Photography and Design. She has this wonderful resource available from her website www.bellphotographydesign.com.au it gives you all the information you require for taking, editing good photos of your quilts. Of course the basic photography lesson can be used for other photos as well. I have since purchased a stand which I think just might become a temporary design wall as well.

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The most challenging class was Tablet Design for Quilters with Carla Barrett, but Oh so worth it. She runs an online class for this topic and we have since been enrolled in that also. It teaches you how to use Photoshop Elements and a tablet to draw quilts, quilting designs. I am still progressing slowly through the online classes which is helping to reinforce what we did in a packed 4 hours on a Sunday in Day 1 of Daylight Saving. I sure did miss that extra hour of sleep on Saturday night, especially as Queensland does not impose daylight saving on us.

 

It takes a bit to get familiar with connecting all the leads. One of the class members had a small portable tablet device which you draw on the upright screen. Others had a tablet device  that sits off to the side and you draw on it and watch the screen at the same time. Mine is one where you can draw directly on the screen. It becomes a second screen of the laptop. A bit bulkier but for me it works. Carla covers all the types of tablet devices in her blog at www.featheredfibers.wordpress.com.

 

On the Friday night the AMQA quilt show opened, it is run alongside the Festival. I was relieved to see both my quilts hanging and both were hanging straight, amazing after being folded up for postage.
 I did a workshop with Cathy Wiggins on quilting styles etc, and we had a preview of the show for that class. She stopped at my quilt and went " WOW, look at all those points" as she never matches points at all as she paints most of her quilts. I did not receive a judged prize but the winners were amazing to view. Best of Show went to a wholecloth quilt whose owner was also in Cathy's class.
I helped on the last day to take quilts down and pack them up and that is when somebody informed me that my quilt had won Viewer's Choice. Apparently I was still in a class when they announced it.

My prize is supposed to be a roll of Batting to arrive in the mail from a supplier. I was a bit amazed but happy to have received it for my first time entry in a show of that size.

 

Back home, my feet had to hit the ground running. It was mustering time and an earlier weaning due  to the drought conditions. We now have to find some room for these. We culled a truck load of old cows last week. This should have been done regularly over the last 6 years but due to the spiteful actions of certain older family members we were prevented from doing that until recently. Thank goodness we are now allowed to run this place as we wish to, without any further interference from them. Just hope that the weather improves so that we can keep improving the herd and the paddocks.

 

When the mustering was finished, a local cabinet maker decided he could now fit in a job for me. Our side veranda office has a few shelves along one wall. I want to replace this with drawers and cupboards. You guessed it, back to the necessary painting. The wall is 11 foot high on one side of the room and about 8 foot on the window side. I have washed, sanded, filled, re sanded where necessary and painted. First above and to the sides where the cupboards will go. The colour is Dulux Half Hogs Bristle ( that is the current ceiling colour) so how trendy is this old house? That seems to be a very popular modern colour. The walls Dulux White on White. In this photo the ceiling is finished. I have had to purchase more filling stuff so hope to have that job completed next week. I have decided to complete the whole room. The cabinet maker I think won't be back for at least 4 weeks.

 

I have also been back outside working on the laundry building. It is getting a bit warm outside so I spend the first few hours each day working on it. In this photo I have 6 bottom boards to the right of the windows to sand. I broke the louvre in the shower window but removed the bottom one so I did not do that again. Now I have to fix the louvre. Stocked up on more undercoat, so there should be no delays in painting when it is ready.

My recreation leave finished last Friday, so have been back at work for a few days. Amazing how fast those weeks go by. I have been working on some new sewing projects to continue with while I am away from home. Lynda and Patty took me shopping in Brisbane, we visited 2 fabric shops and  we visited IKEA for the first time. I came away rather overwhelmed with that experience. Somehow Lynda's fabric for a quilt found it's way into my car, waiting for me to design a quilt using it. Hopefully we can get together for a few days and sew it up. Will keep you posted on the progress.

Welcome to Spring Painting

Spring is certainly the time for painting, no westerly winds to blow you off a ladder.

 I mentioned that I was considering painting under the window hood the dark grey colour. I had second thoughts after looking from the inside out and painted them white instead.

 

A view of both window hoods and sills finished. There are no fascia boards below the guttering here so a decision will be made one day to decide if painting the guttering is a good or bad idea.

 The next project in line is to finish paint removal on the laundry building. I have to wait for the purchase of very high trestles  for the rest of the house. It is 16 feet to the height of the guttering on this side of the house but I can manage the laundry building. That window hood will eventually look like the others.

This was one mornings work a few weeks ago, now that my ladders have been returned I can get to work.

A very sad state awaits on the western wall, I have decided to replace these boards and door with all weather boards as that door never gets used.

 

 In the last few days I have finished paint removal, sanded, undercoated and one top coat. This will be finished today.
In other news, my quilts made it safely to Adelaide for the Quilt Show. Thank you Australia Post.
Not long to go before Patty, Lisa, Liz and I fly out to attend the AMQF and Show.
The special shopping trip to Rocky, resulted in success, so all is nearly ready for the big occasion on September 20th. Will be good to catch up with the family. We will be missing Bryan however as his job prevents him from attending but he did have fun at the Boys Night Out 2 weekends ago.

August Update

 August certainly sped by, but sometimes I wish it went faster just to be finished with the cold weather. I decided to enter my Sunshine Rose Garden quilt in the AMQF Quilt Show, mainly because they extended the entry deadline and I could enter it. I also can collect it so do not have to worry about the return postage. This needed a photo of it finished, so once again I hung it over the veranda rail and clicked away. It now has an Australia Post tracking number and is in transit. Hope it gets there, I will know in a few days.

 I started the last few blocks in my next project. I have always wanted to make a basket quilt. Sometimes I think I will be a basket case myself but I am still here. This is a series quilt from QNM with some modern flowers. My new ( 1yr old now) sewing machine is doing a good job with a few different blanket stitches.

 The good news came in mid August with some much welcomed rain.

August is also birthday month for my 2 of my girls. So off I went on a road trip. Actually went to Rockhampton twice. Once for some shopping for a very special occasion coming up soon. Then off to Monto for 2 nights to help take care of Parker and also see the eldest birthday girl. She was busy as usual but her garden is coming along fine.  The start of most trips see the car and I visit the nearest rubbish dump to offload the household rubbish, funny how we clean the house before we leave. Here we are at the Brigooda Dump.

I moved from Monto to Rockhampton for 2 more nights, and caught up with the shift workers there. Spent a day down at Yeppoon, watching the waves come ashore.

 Then I headed south west, past Moura, met my new grand niece at Paranui, then onto Theodore, past this dragline doing some work.

 Went to Taroom, where I had never been before and then swung further south west heading for Roma. Found this huge patch of pasture out that way. They still need more rain but are grateful for what has fallen. This is the view on the other side of the road. Craig wanted to know why didn't I bring that paddock home for him.

 Joined the Warrego Highway at Roma, and continued further west to Amby.  Spring Hill at Amby is in the distance in this photo. 3 k's of gravel road was all I had to encounter in the 520k from Rockhampton.

 The bottle trees certainly are impressive. I brought 2 home as they are different leaves to the ones here.

Finally arrived at the Spring Hill Country Craft Retreat place.

I helped Gay out for her Open Day on Sunday 31 August. She has converted the spare house on her property to be a working craft retreat complete with craft shop. I am not sure of the numbers that attended but the ladies travelled from Injune, Mitchell, Roma, Wallumbilla and Dunkeld and lots of places I had never heard of. One lady drove 99.9 kms over  rough roads to attend. Their nearest dedicated patchwork shop is Dalby, and the most important thing of all, it is intended to be a sanctuary away from the ever pervasive drought and land conditions. The lady who won a shopping voucher has only just moved into a new home after spending all of this time living in a flood condemned house.

 

Back home, I have painted the 2 window hoods this morning with the metal primer. Has been too windy the last few days. Still deciding what colour to paint underneath it. The top is dark grey. I was going to paint underneath white, but after looking at it from the inside, I might try the dark grey, hoping it will hide the spider webs better. Will decide by trial and error.

In preparation for my classes at AMQF in October , I have finally hooked up my drawing tablet to my laptop. It basically becomes another monitor. It enables me to draw actually on the screen. What a steep learning curve. I am off to work for 5 days and nights so had better get packing but am taking this with me.

What happened to July?

 In my last post I mentioned quilting my Sunshine Rose Garden quilt for the deadline of August 6th. I made it with a week to spare. I had a few setbacks with the washing and blocking. The drought meant we ran out of tank water, you guessed it the day I wanted to wash it.Our spring water and a white quilt do not mix. We do however have a small tank behind the shed, so I was able to carry water to the laundry. After a slight mishap with a 50% bleach dab on a small stain, I had to wash/rinse again, I hung it on the wobbly Hills Hoist ( lucky it didn't break from the weight of it) overnight and in the morning light took this photo of the back. We have had a plague of wallabies on our lawn every night so I was expecting to find grey fur as well meaning another wash cycle but that didn't happen. After the bleach mishap, I had to re quilt a small area as the silk thread either dissolved or yellowed. Lessons are learnt along the way. I successfully blocked it and rolled it up to drive it to Bundaberg on August 6th.

 2 close up views of the quilting. I ended up going with my friend Kerry's suggestion of just echoing around the applique as the sashings were just too narrow for a filler that I contemplated. The day I delivered it to the Bundaberg Quilters Exhibition I helped with the setting up for the show. There were quite a few wooden stands to be organised.

 My quilt hung alongside quilts from a prize winning quilter. I was quite happy to be considered worthy of that privilege. My very first formal patchwork teacher Margaret, from 1987, found me wandering the aisles on Saturday August 9, and was suitably impressed. She taught me the basics and also a lot more about advanced quilting of quilts and understanding quilting designs. I really wish she had the opportunity to continue teaching me but life gets in the way sometimes. I really hope her creative muse is allowed to return soon. I have come to the conclusion that having a very large project on the go for a long time is also a destroyer of the creative muse. My mind certainly has been wandering about  future projects ahead now that this one is finished. At the show, the most often asked question was " if this quilt is for the spare bed in your house, what quilt have you got on your bed" They were most amused with my answer of " a Spotlight bedspread about 8 years old" Whenever I have made one for our bed , I am always told it is too good to sleep under.

 The house has not been forgotten in my quilting marathon. This is the downstairs room where I hope to move most of my sewing stuff into. The walls are currently a yellow colour and I chose a test pot of paint simply on its name. Taubmans February Frost, our birthdays are both in that month and when I saw it in the colour area I was looking at, I had to try it. I have not been back to buy more paint yet, as the outside window hoods are next in line for painting. I have had the timber venetians installed though after the window frames were painted.

 At the AMQF in October I am doing 2 classes with Carla Barrett the quilt whisperer from the USA and one of those  is where we send her a photo of some quilt tops so she can design potential quilting patterns for them. I have sent her these as I want to emphasise the cube shapes with the quilting.

With this one I want to create movement across the quilt.
On the family front, the annual trip to the Ekka is happening, Grandbaby number three is set to arrive early next year, and we along with most of Queensland are still in the grip of a severe drought. Today there are some predictions of potential rainfall shortly so lets hope it happens.