Quilt top finished!

It has been a long time in the making. I think I probably took almost six months on this, but today I completed the borders.

It started as a challenge to use both blue and green in a quilt. I think the black and white helps to tie the colours together, and then I went for a lime green sort of colour for the border, to bring that colour out a bit more.

I am so glad it has got to this stage. I am going to take it to a Long Arm Quilter, as it is too big for my domestic machine.

Now I intend to play with some quick, simple and fun projects!

New water tank

This monster is our first water tank. It holds 3000 litres of water. The white plastic pipe is a clever diverter which allows the first flush of water from the roof to be diverted away from the tank, so that cleaner water goes in.

Yesterday we had a welcome amount of rain, and I witnessed for the first time the lovely sound of water going into the empty tank.

Why install a water tank?

I have written before about the 40% reduction in rainfall that Perth has experienced over the last 40 or so years. Our state government has installed two desalination plants to make us 'climate free' from our reliance on rain water for drinking.

We are a drying city in a dry continent.

I want to grow our own fruit and vegetables, and the water tank is a small part of that. As Perth has a Mediterranean style climate with a dry hot summer and a short wet winter, we could not rely on just 3000 litres of water to get us through the summer. It is however a small contribution to the overall sustainability of our home and garden. Maybe we will eventually install more water tanks.

The tank has another role -this western wall gets extremely hot in summer and so does the room behind it, which is where we have our television. The tank will, at the very least, shade the wall.
It will, when full of water (usually in winter) also provide a thermal mass which should also provide some passive heating to the wall and perhaps to the room.

Anyway, it is nice to hear the sound of the rain hitting the bottom of the tank. Maybe we will have one or two more showers this week, and they too will go into the tank instead of running away. I think I am one of only a few people in Perth who wants it to rain at this time of the year! Nearly everyone else is glad of spring sunshine.

Gratitude-for things that cheer.

I have had a crook shoulder and neck for a few weeks -not enough to seriously debilitate, but I haven't been doing all the usual stuff. The weed onslaught has had to stop and there has been no spreading of mulch.

The garden flowers on, in beautiful profusion.

I can still drop in to the occasional op shop, you understand, in search of a little prettiness. I found this candle holder and candle and I really like it. At Christmas time, with a red or gold candle, it will look great with the rest of my angel collection. I have a collection of angels who play musical instruments -and these each have one.


And I found some chincherinchees in the local shop and I actually bought them for myself and put them in this lovely old depression glass vase. With the morning sun coming in the dining room window, I think they look very pretty.

The "sea lavender" is in flower.

Apart from that, I have been doing some cooking- trying to break out from a self imposed rut and make some new dishes for a new season. I hadn't made lasagne for ages so I made a big dish this week, and I tried out a new pizza stone with my bread-maker pizza dough.

I have been helping out with my little community choir -we are having a concert soon and I am helping with ticket sales. If you are in Perth and you would like to go, just drop me a line...we have two concerts in November -on the 5th and 13th in the afternoons -and one is north of the river and one is south. We will be singing some lovely music -there are quite a few John Rutter pieces.

And there has been some reading -because other things seem to aggravate the shoulder. I am gradually improving, and hope normal service will be resumed shortly!