Made it in time.

I made it in time, finishing my Christmas sewing the day before Christmas. I made a few soft toys, clothes and coloured cubes for the grandchildren and great niece. This is Rocky the rock lobster. He was actually quite fun to make. The coloured cube was very easy and a good way to use up some scraps. Mind you, the scrap pile is still very huge. My sister thinks I should have put a bell in the cube. I ran out of time to do that. Maybe next time.
I worked 4 shifts straight after Christmas and arrived home on New Years Eve. They talk about Emergency Departments can get busy at Christmas time. Tuesday night certainly showed that. I'm just pleased I was not there for New Years Eve. Hope it wasn't too bad for my work colleagues.

They made it in time, to get off the veranda before they wrecked it completely. The bearers have slipped away from the support beam in this section. It has been starting to sag at the top of the stairs for a while and I think they were all about to sit at the table when they heard a cracking noise. They were all up for the summer muster. Hope they want to come back again.

 Now it is time for some temporary repairs as our budget for this year  has gone on water infrastructure instead. The solar pumps are working wonderfully.
I drove in the gate to be greeted with this lovely view of the crepe myrtles. The rain came in time for them and they have responded in the only way they know how at this time of year. At least our garden has some mature trees after we lost one in the storm during the floods 2 years ago.

 I think they are just wonderful to look at from up on our veranda. (The safe parts to stand on.)

This is the view of the front trees. The bottle tree in the corner is really going ahead since we have lived here. Maybe it is getting more water now.

 

This is the view of the weaner paddock. 4 weeks ago this was quite close to bare dirt. The green panic grass is getting rather tall. We now have more weaners so just as well it rained for us. That was not quite "just in time" as I think about 25 old breeders left over, from the cattle numbers dispute, have perished during the drought. What is more work for us , of  the ones that are still alive, about 50% have lost their NLIS ear tags. Maybe the ear loses weight as well, or maybe they are foraging more in the trees and the tags  get knocked out. Will make it difficult doing a PIC reconciliation this year.

 

Today is New Years Day and I read somewhere that the activities that you do on that day, one should aim to do all year. Right, so I have been getting the existing sewing room ready for painting, This is the room underneath the house where the lady fell through the  floor above and wrecked the ceiling below. I have to undercoat the replacement ceiling, and obviously the previous owner replaced a wall panel as well.

At the same time I am also culling some stuff. I found a few storage bins with my hand dyed scraps and fabric in. After washing them I may get around to using them. I do intend to do some more fabric dyeing this year. So I think I have done fairly well today, had a much needed sleep, played around with fabric, did a bit of house reno work and the usual computer tasks. The cattle work is being done. So roll on 2015.
 We have only a short wait for the next grandchild now. Should be here by January's end. The first birthday party for the second one is next weekend, the grass is green again, so at this stage not looking too bad. Hope your New Year is off to a good start also.

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.