April and Easter

 April can be a weird month for me, as The Sydney Royal Easter Show is usually on. This means, I hold the fort at home for approx 10 days. Somehow the working dogs go crazy, (Scruff the only female always seems to be on heat for the duration) sending the boys into a barking frenzy.  This year was no different. I usually set myself a sewing project to work on while I can devote most of the spare time to it. This year, a quilted jacket and new applique blocks were on the agenda. I also added in a bit of fabric dyeing when I got the jacket to a certain stage of completion. The photo does not do it justice. The pink is an ombre hot pink. Fully reversible with set in pockets on the pink side. I have to ask the intended wearer if they need pockets on the black/pink side. I will need to probably hand stitch them on.

I have decided to use up my dye powders and try to sell bundles of batik cotton, hand dyed with less mottling to be suitable for modern quilters. I have been using Jane Dunnewold's techniques learnt from her classes, and think I can modify the process to suit. I am aiming for a "solid type hand dye", a mottled type and a paler mottle from the one solution.

My finished bundles so far. Many more to do. I have also been dyeing Pimatex PFD alongside Batik Base and finding no difference at all in the finished cloth.

Block 1 in my new applique series, has been stitched by my wonderful stitcher (my sister, who just loves these) I have finally convinced her to use Glide thread instead of Rasant for the stitch. Even she agrees that the quality of Rasant thread seems to have decreased in our opinions. Seems more lint accumulates in the bobbin. I am hoping to have 16 of these completed soon. They are based on tiles rotating around a central point for the design.

I have also been adding new fabrics to my shop. I have quite a few fabric bolts sitting in our lounge room (the storage area for most things). Who watches the very dismal programs on our Main Stream Media in Australia anymore? We definitely don't and during this current Fuel Crisis caused by world issues but also both our main political parties, who wants to listen to them, so our Lounge Room has been converted to de facto fabric storage so the TV stays OFF.

Family wise, it has been school holidays and they have all been busy so haven't visited us. I did get to Mundubbera to catch up with my siblings as they were tidying up Dad's House. This has been a long project but getting to it's final stages. I am still waiting on legal documents to complete other issues.

I brought home a chiming clock. After working out how to adjust it, it is merrily chiming and telling us the time all through the night and day. Amazing what childhood memories surface when you hear the sounds. Both my sets of grandparents had these. My grandmother also had a digital clock which she would touch in the night and the Siri like voice would tell her the time. She liked both of them. Somehow I think I prefer the chiming. Will be interesting to see what the grandkids think.

It is fascinating to sit and watch the mechanism as it belts out the hour strikes.

Also in the box of memorabilia, I was given more family photographic slides to digitise. I found this little beauty from 1966, sitting on the stairs eating a biscuit. It looks like I had the sleep apnoea eyes back then too.  

One great excitement in the family, I haven't mentioned is Dad was posthumously inducted into the Australia Citrus Growers Hall of Fame as a recognition for his life long work in the Citrus Industry. My siblings went to the conference in Adelaide in March to receive his plaque. He spent most of his life developing the orchard and new markets etc with his OAM rewarding him. This was industry recognition as well for him. 

I found this slide of the wooden boxes label before they changed to Here's the Best brand. The picture is of our house, my grandparent's house and the original packing shed. I can vaguely remember this label which was before my grandparents retired to Mundubbera in 1965. The same house which we have been cleaning up and sorting out 2 lifetimes of possessions. I have already been hearing about what my 2 daughters plan on doing with all of my quilts and stuff. I am not sure if I want to hear more about that.

Will keep you updated with progress on the quilt blocks.

March Madness

March Madness is certainly the phrase. We jetted off to the South Island of New Zealand for a woodchop competition. The over 60's (Veterans) Australian men vs New Zealand veterans. The first race was at the Invercargill Show. This was the playground beside the competition.  They were quite amusing to watch. We won the first race (best of 3)

Having a few days between the shows we drove out to Lake Te Anau on the west coast, where we did a few tourist events. We visited the Glow Worms up from Te Anau. Amazing to think they are merely eating sandflies which cause their glowing. ATP was mentioned, (adenosine tri phosphate) from the Krebs cycle in energy production in their tails. We followed that up by sailing on a 90 yr old boat on the lake. The owners are very passionate about their vessel and also took us for a hike through the fiordland forests.

This is actually a fungus turning the rotting timber the teal colour.

We also went on a helicopter flight up to the top of the mountains above Te Anau and then back to Lake Manapouri.

After the old boat sail, we hopped into a Jet Boat with some other woodchoppers and went down the river from Lake Te Anau. Drinking water straight from the lake is something you can't do here at home.

We hopped on a bus and went out to Milford Sound the next day, stopping at the Mirror Lakes and the Flat where everybody has to have their photo taken. The site was used in some movies. 

Milford Sound is very spectacular and we were lucky a small amount of misty rain fell, making small waterfalls appear.

We ended up at Wanaka where I managed to swim in the Clutha River. A very brief swim but I did submerge myself after taking this photo to show how clear the water is. A very beautiful spot.

Meanwhile back home, we had 350mms rain in a very short while, bringing back the floods like 2013 but not quite as high. Muddy brown water everywhere not like these scenes at all.

These photos are like postcards used to be. I would have liked to be there a few weeks later with the leaves changing colour in the deciduous trees. 

If life allows us, we would like to go back in winter time. As always, wait and see.