A couple of quilt finishes

I have completed a couple of scrappy baby quilts recently. They are both finished at 45 inches square and will be given to the guild's Community Quilt programme which gives quilts to hospitals, nursing homes, hostels and shelters. I hope that the babies who get to snuggle in these find them bright and happy.

Both of them were completed on my Singer 306 machine, a workhorse which is the same age as myself! The top quilt was started on my 401 but the bobbin winding mechanism stopped working after a while so I swapped it over to the older machine. I hope I can get the 401 to work again because it is a lovely machine too.

 Now that I am done with these, I am thinking of 'using the good fabric" for a sampler quilt which I will do as a 'quilt as you go" quilt. Right now I am falling down internet rabbit holes, finding inspiration and ideas about how to make a sampler quilt, which I have never actually done before. 

This was a struggle, but it is done

This was a struggle, but it is done

As a quilt, it is not complicated in its design.  It is built around a panel I had in my stash, and fabrics I already had and it is simple. I thought 'someone will be happy to have this to keep them warm and make their bed look nice, so I will give it to the Community Quilt group at my guild".

Why did it take ssooooooo long?

I got the top done quickly enough, and started to piece together a back from leftovers in my stash- panels and blocks made and rejected from other projects. This was harder, much harder.

But the real problem was that it needed to be precisely centred against the front, and my technology of registering the quilt and pinning it was just not precise enough. I pinned it together twice before I gave up, bought a large piece of neutral fabric and pinned it for the third time!

I quilted it on my vintage Singer 306 in straight-ish lines across the blocks and put the binding on by machine too, as my hands are not happy with hand sewing these days. 
 

Today I am going to tidy up the sewing room and process the leftovers of this quilt before moving on to a new project. The 306 needs a clean and some oil too. 

This will be delivered to the community quilt group this month. They give away over a thousand quilts per year to shelters, rehab centres and hospitals. 

It's a journey-; late summer

"it's a journey"

Thanks to Brenna Quinlan who drew this illustration for download from her webpage. I love the way it sees so many of the habits we build as contributing to our slow living, simple living one-planet way of life. 

We find we have our seasons of activity -right now it is a beginning of harvesting and preserving, as the weather gradually cools and the days get a bit shorter. 

I have been able to do some gardening this week. Most of everything is still alive! I am taking cuttings, planting some seeds, tidying up after the heat. 

School is back and that means our Wednedsay babysitting gig is back too. 

I have been trying to finish this quilt for weeks! I have pinned it to the back twice now, and today I will be unpinning it and putting a plain wide back on it. I am hoping for a smooth run from here on! Talk about SLOW! Well, it is right or it is not and I want it to be right.

We managed to get a few bunches of grapes from the grapevine before the birds got them all. Well, the grapevines out the front are for shade mostly. 

DH helped me to do a summer prune of the lime tree, to reduce its height. In the process we have harvested a basket of small tart limes. I have cut some into quarters and flash frozen some for cold drinks -lime 'ice cubes". DH tried a new recipe for lime pickle, but I don't think he is happy with it. The lime peel stayed quite hard, and he found it very salty. I haven't tried it yet -it does say that it should be allowed to stand for a month before we try to eat it. 

DH also got inspired to make mango chutney again. Hooray! 

And a delicious tomato chutney.

I borrowed this book from the library, and we all loved it so much we have bought a copy for our own. 

Marri blossoms in flower are quite spectacular. These ones are at the play centre, where I volunteer in the garden. I have been looking for the golden yellow flowers of the Illyarrie but so far the blooms have been too high in the canopy for me to get a good picture. There is one around the corner from here, and I am keeping my eye on it. 

Thanks for visiting my blog. Hopefully next time I will have a quilt to show you!

It is hot out here-January 2025. The tough get quilting and tidying

Hello again, from a hot Perth Western Australia in the first month of 2025. We are in full summer mode -but even the beach might be too hot for a walk in the morning these days. If it is too hot for the beach, it is probably too hot to work in the garden too. I keep up the watering, and wait for better days. 

We had a week of cyclone-induced humidity and low cloud last week which was weird. When you are used to very hot but very low humidity days with lots of sunshine, and a sea breeze every afternoon, a week without those things is a shock. 

This was my first attempt at foccacia, using the King Arthur Bread company recipe. It was yummy, and I now have a new cast iron pan to cook it in -thanks to Father Christmas, but the oven has been playing up and won't be fixed until later this week so I haven't tried to do it again. 

I heartily recommend this large book about Robodebt by Rick Morton, called Mean Streak. It goes into detail about who knew what and when about the government disaster which claimed debts based on faulty mathematics from unsuspecting welfare recipients. It is a sad story, but there are heroes who kept their moral compass pointed to courage and compassion and truth, no matter how powerful were the voices telling us that it was otherwise. 

I have spent most of January tidying up my sewing room, with the help of the wonderful Karen Brown of Just Get It Done Quilts and her yearly "Declutter Challenge". It is now clear that my bad habit of taking out fabric to test them in a new quilt scheme, then stuffing them back into a drawer, was a really, really bad idea. I couldn't tell what fabrics I had, and they were crumpled and a mess. Quilting is easier in a organised work place. I have promised myself that I won't do that again! 

Fabrics have been sorted -scraps even thrown out.

In the spirit of 'using it up' I finally unpacked a panel which had been in a bag for far too long, and determined that it was either going to be in a quilt soon, or I would throw it out. This is the result. Some scrappy 9 patches, squares of shell fabric and a top is made. I am now, in my now tidy sewing room, working on a pieced back. This thing needs to be a quilt, not just a top, and off to the WAQA Community Quilts group for donation. 

This is the pieced back of the quilt. More scraps in here, but it would have been a lot quicker to use a whole cloth back! 

Do you ever pick things up from the side of the road? I noticed this shelf one day, and immediately drove back home to get the DH. He also thought it was something with potential, so he cleaned it up and painted it and installed it in my sewing room. I love it! It has cleaned up a lot of equipment that I like to be handy but don't want cluttering up my workspaces. 

Tidying up also has arrived at my computer desk, where I have found that this desk tidy which I made out of a shoe box, has transformed the clutter and takes up very little space. The deep box of the shoe box was cut in half on an angle and a small triangle shape removed, then the two ends were inserted into the lid. I saw the idea on pinterest I think. 

I hope I will be back at my blog more often in 2025. It has been a way I document my life, and its simple joys. Wishing you the same joys for 2025. 

 

New Design Wall- with how to do it yourself

 

Twelve years is a long time for a temporary design wall to work. This  design wall (above) is a piece of batting, sewn to abacking, and hung from curtain rods in my sewing room, just behind the door.

It worked pretty well, but it was small and flimsy. I often had to use pins to keep heavy pieces on to it.

My dream was to one day have one of those design walls I saw on quilter's blogs- made with some kind of insulation foam blocks covered with batting.  The love of my life (apart from my garden and quilts) Mr DH, heard my call, and started to work out how to do it. The design brief included the idea that the boards should be relatively easy to dismantle -ie no sticking the boards to the wall with glue.

He did the research. He made the plan. Five boards. Four stuck together horizontally with gorilla glue and tape. One cut down the middle and stuck vertically. 

He created a solid shelf for the bottom of the design wall to sit into. He created metal brackets for the top, to hold it in place.

We had a bit of a blip when we realised that the piece of batting which I had saved for the project was about 20 cm or 10 inches too short! Quick trip to a shop, and we were here stapling the batting to the back of the boards, and using tape to secure the corners.

Here it is in all its glory! Solid, smooth, not wobbly or flimsy.

I love it

Thank you Mr DH! 💗💗

Some achievements

 Finished and Installed

DH and DS were able to finally install a wonderful bench in DS's Ellenbrook home this weekend. This project included revamping/upcycling an old pine buffet style cabinet to be extra storage space, and a lot of work on a unfinished Marri slab of wood to make it fit and install it into the kitchen to be a 'breakfast bar'. Both DH and DS worked long and hard on this project, and it is lovely to see it come to completion. MY DDIL is thrilled. We are proud of both of them. The quotes they got from tradesmen for a similar job were very expensive, but by doing it themselves they not only saved a lot of money but had the satisfaction of getting a big project done. 

Refinished and Hung

I am always on the lookout for art work for our home, but I have some stipulations:

• It has to be cheap (less than $50 including frame) - I often change the art in my house, as I like variety and I can't imagine being happy looking at the same thing for years. 
• It needs to be something I can connect with -some local connection, or something of our history, or someone I know made it, etc
• It has to fit and look good with my decor at the moment. 

I found this picture in an op shop this week for just $5. It had a horrible purple frame but I noticed the artist had written the description of the scene, which is of a local holiday spot just off our coast. I brought it home and DH sanded the frame back to it's natural wood. We both love it!

Planted and weeded

I have been working in my garden this week, as the feel of spring is definitely in the air. I am out in the garden for a couple of hours every fine day.

The days are lengthening and getting a bit warmer. I have been watching the sun move higher in the sky, and so the decision I made to move some roses to a tricky spot in the garden is looking less risky. The spot is in deep shade in the winter time, but hot sun in summer. I figured the roses would be dormant in winter so what do they care, but the summer would be in their element. This picture was taken at 11 am about a week ago, and the sun was just at the edge of the garden bed behind the trellis. Today it was almost in front of the trellis. The roses have new leaves on them, so that is evidence that they did not mind being moved, and I have great hopes for flowers later in spring when the sun is actually hitting the leaves. I am growing a new passionfruit on the trellis and if it is anything like one I had there earlier, it will cover a lot of it in no time. I also have a climbing rose which I hope will grow on half of the trellis. 

I am planting late winter and spring seeds -but I feel that it is a bit early for the tomatoes yet. I did find a couple of self sown volunteers which I am encouraging as an early start on the season. I have planted some Diakon Radish in places where the snow peas have finished. The chives and the parsley have come back again after their winter dormancy, and the pomegranate is just putting out new leaves. 

I leave you with some inspiration!

Read this: food plant solutions How to beat malnutrition by knowing what is edible in your area 

Listen to this Pico Iyer on Dumbo Feather

Pico Iyer is regarded as one of the best travel writers of our time, but he’s not just an explorer of the outer worlds, he writes beautifully on the inner journeys available to us, too.

Having written 14 books, travelled frequently by the side of the Dalai Lama, done four TED Talks with over 10 million views and written for Time Magazine, New York Times and many more, he is a wise voice for our times on matters of stillness, transformation and the heart.

We are as busy as!

DGS2 had a sleep-over at Nanna and Pa's place this week. No parents, no older siblings. He was always busy!

He sat at the piano, playing lightly on the keys and singing to himself.
He spent most of his time in the garden, watering the plants, playing on the balance bike, chalk drawing and watching the garbage trucks pick up the rubbish in the street (awe-inspiring!).

We were delighted with how he managed this 24 hours with us, and we missed him when he was gone!

DH has been busy too! He completed a project he has been working on to improve the storage of DS and DDIL's kitchen. They had bought a second hand pine cupboard. DH sanded it back, strengthened all the load bearing surfaces -eg adding a support under the bottom floor in case they were going to store heavy appliances in it- and finished it with an undercoat and a couple of coats of paint. The handles now match the rest of the kitchen.  DS has a plan to use this as part of an extension to their island kitchen bench, with the addition of more bench top space -that is why the top is left unfinished.

I have been busy - I have continued to work on the garden. There has been more work on the flower bed in the front garden, and of course some regular pruning and feeding and tidying up in the veggie patch. The picture above is the first time I have seen a butcher bird actually drink from the bird bath, though we are regularly visited by magpies and wattle birds. I am hoping a denser planting of shrubs and flowers will bring more birds in to the garden. I know that it doesn't look lush and full yet but hopefully things will grow and be wonderful by spring.

There was a big storm here in Perth yesterday.  Just before it happened I harvested lemons, limes and tangelos in order to lighten the load on the branches and save the fruit. These pictured below are the sixth and seventh boxes of Meyer lemons I have given to the neighbourhood this season, and the third box of limes.

Now I am flash freezing slices of limes and zesting and juicing lemons for our household. Maybe DH will make spiced tangelo marmalade later?

DH made me a 'hay box" for slow cooking and proofing bread overnight. He very proudly used mostly scrap wood he already had in the shed, and lined the box with some leftover earth wool insulation. We were thinking that, seeing that we now have an all electric kitchen, with a storm on the way it might be an idea to have alternatives for energy for cooking if the power went out.

The usual back up I think of under a power blackout is the portable gas bottle barbecue on the patio, but I couldn't imagine that being much use in a 130k wind!

The box is quite deep so I will add a woollen blanket to the box, on top of the saucepan,  after I put my food in it. That will ensure that the food stays safely at a good temperature to continue cooking.

I have just checked my bread -and the rise is great, so the box will get good use during winter at least. The view from inside the house, as the sun comes up, is that everything around here has survived the storm well.

Resources for you: 

When life gives you lemons

Listen to this

Resetting the fashion industry's calendar: 

Women, art, struggle and community

On International Women's Day I attended an exhibition of traditional Palestinian embroidery, made by members of the diaspora who are now living in Perth. They had been brought together to learn to do their cultural designs and in the process learn each other's stories and connect with their community.  It was wonderful to see so many people supporting this, and to meet the women involved.  The exhibition was located in a community art centre, with funds and mentoring from a local art group.

It followed a Unionist rally on the Friday evening before, to speak powerfully about the struggle for women which is still going on. A young female 'sparkie" (electrician) spoke about her insurance for wage support during periods of sick leave, being set up in such a way that a woman with long term problems during pregnancy would not be eligible. Women unionists intervened for her and secured a win for her and for all other women. The wage gap between average weekly earnings for women and men in this part of Australia is a whopping 22% -mainly due to the difference that traditional women's work (child care for example) is paid compared to that of traditional male roles. We all agreed "a woman's place is in the struggle!"

This is important, because the COVID19 pandemic will hurt many people hard -and women are often in very vulnerable positions -they work in the 'gig' economy, they are employed as casuals, they have part time work due to family responsibilities. Many young people too are going to find this hard -people at the start of their mortgages, people who are still trying to get into the housing market, people who are unemployed and other groups like disabled workers.

This weekend we were to go to a lovely concert of orchestral music, which was cancelled. What will happen to the wages of the musicians, the hall cleaners, the ushers, the cafe and bar staff?  Our community choir decided very reluctantly to cancel our rehearsals until further notice -and thus our choir director, whose income comes from groups like ours -suffers a hit. Our quilting guild has suspended meetings -and so the Local Quilt Shops which have displays at our big meetings, will suffer a hit.

DH and I took a 'day off' this week from all the worries and travelled about 90 minutes south to a charming country town to visit the Harvey Art Centre Quilt and Craft show. The picture above is a quilt by Jenny Deering, who said that it was only when she joined the group that she had the impetus to finish a project which began 15 years ago! There were many lovely quilts on show, along with other craft work. We had lunch in a local cafe and then, on the recommendation of a local, found a wonderful garden to explore.

All of this has me thinking about the power of art and community and how they go together.  Art and beauty are part of our soul food - I know they are very important to my well being and my mental health.  Not more than food or shelter or water, of course, but quite close to the top of human needs. You might have seen some heartwarming clips from Italy, where people have been singing from their balconies during their lockdown -an expression of community and art, if ever I saw one! Artists of all kinds do wonderful things for us and deserve our support, especially now when their work is drying up rapidly.

Just as we must try to support our neighbours and check up on them, just as we are supporting local businesses, so we need to offer support to the arts community. If you have any opportunity to do so, maybe buy a piece of art (doesn't have to be expensive) or a music recording, become a patron of a creative person (patreon is often used for this purpose). 

Meanwhile, I will be here while DH travels interstate, in the process of helping our son, daughter in law and grandchildren to move back to Perth. This is hardly a great time for it, but it is what it is. I have my quilting and my garden, both offering creative outlets for when my anxiety levels begin to climb. I have been exploring water colours and I think it is high time I got back to having another go. I have a wonderful collection of music, and always find that music lifts the spirits.

I hope we can all find a sense of community and a lifting of the spirits.

Thank you for reading, and for the comments on last week's post.

November already!

We made it to our favourite Mullaloo beach this week, for the first walk on the beach of summer. I get such joy from walking right down near the water's edge on the wet sand in bare feet. There is something so relaxing about it! We always smile at the young families bringing their babies down for their first beach experience- the babies are often quite overwhelmed. When they come back as toddlers they run straight towards the water!

We are so lucky to live close to the beach! The weather is certainly heating up here -we had 40C the other day.

There is a eucalypt in flower on the way to the shops. Look at how pretty the pink gum caps are -and that flower with the deep green centre is a stunner. The flowers are low enough for me to see as I walk. I would like to use this colour palette some time for a quilt - I think it could be spectacular with the right pattern.

I have got the top of my quilt sewn up this week. Yesterday I took it outside so that I could pin it together. It fitted the table, and was such an enjoyable experience -so much easier than doing it on the floor. I am going to start the quilting this week coming. This will be a wall hanging. 

We are picking blueberries and watching the tomatoes ripen. 

My current Nanowrimo word count: 18000. On track at this stage to finish the goal of 50,000 words by November 29.  

DH and I have sorted our clothes and discarded a huge pile. The good ones we have sent to an op shop  (charity shop) nearby. We had this sudden realisation that if we had less clothes, we could get away with fewer chests of drawers when we get around to re-modelling our bedroom. Up till now we have been stuck with wanting to have lovely wooden chests of drawers -part of our commitment to buy second hand and good quality -but they all seemed small.  Well, maybe we just had too much stuff! I am now more confident we can get what we need this way.  

DH finished blow-torching the weeds in the paving -was it last Christmas or the one before I bought him a special gardening tool which uses a flame to burn weeds? Anyway, it is, while quite slow and a bit stinky (just the smell of burning leaves) it does work very well and gradually the weeds are becoming less and less out there. 

That is my week. How is yours going? 

What gets done when it rains? A Flimsy!

If you noticed the title of last week's blog post, you will understand that  the arrival of a couple of big cold fronts was greeted with acclaim around here. Lots of good rains for the farmers, lots of good rains for our gardens. My 3000 litre water tank was getting quite low,  but now is almost half full. There is more rain to come. The mulch DH and I have spread on our garden over the years soaked the rain like a giant sponge: no rain washed off, no soil washed off- everything was directed towards the root zone and beyond.  It is very heartening to see our hard work over the years now paying off.

So how to keep myself amused when the rain is pouring down? Well, whenever there was a break I did scoot out to do some weeding or snip back something which was getting a bit out of hand, but largely there were other things to do.

The biggest achievement is that my "Scrappy Mountain Majesties quilt top is finished! 

The quilt top is done! While listening to the ABC Classic's #classic100 I put the borders on and also got the wadding and backing organised. This will be quilted at a long armer: too big for me. The fabric was purchased during our Blue Mountains holiday last year. To be honest I am relieved I made it this far! Big project blues slowed me down for a time. #quiltersofinstagram#bonniehunterfreepattern

LOW Carbon Living inspirational seminar

I attended a great seminar in Fremantle, highlighting the work at CUSP-Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute. and their Low Carbon Living  CRC. I really recommend you browse the link here -fabulous ideas, lots of tools and tips too.  The institute was established in January 2008, headed by Professor Peter Newman

The seminar showcased seven years of leading research to support the transition towards sustainable cities and communities, including Josh’s Byrne's work on high performance housing and residential precincts.It was really an impressive day full of smart people making clever ways to cut carbon emissions from cities. It was encouraging to be there, especially given this graph of Australia's current dismal performance in curbing greenhouse gas emissions. My own state of Western Australia exports large volumes of LPG which is just adding to the problem.

So inspiration is badly needed, and I found it in bucketfulls during the day's many presentations.

Read more here 

In line with our thinking about living a low carbon lifestyle, we have decided that on September 15 2019 we will be opening our house for Sustainable House Day!

Last time we did this, I abandoned my family to their fate because I was working at Synod, and they had ALL the fun! This year we will, hopefully, meet lots of wonderful neighbours and have a great time.

Finally, thank you for reading this far and I leave you with these inspirational ideas I found in my internet browsing this week:

Inspiration
A new way to subdivide and leave all the trees!


Forest bathing: get out among the trees

A Kalgoorlie based sandalwood oil producer has become the first Australian organisation to receive the prestigious United Nations Equator Prize.

Inspirational videos from The Mumbai gardener

Community and many other wonderful things

A group of local people have started a Street Pantry in our suburb. The local Anglican church has allowed us to set it up on the verandah of their church, and the local MP gave us the cupboard. I am helping the group.

We have a closed FaceBook group with lovely generous members, who have provided enough food to fill this cupboard -more than 140 people are members of the group. We have non-perishables including toiletries. 

This week we are going to tell some of the agencies and professionals who may come in contact with people who are struggling, as we hope that they will come and help themselves when in need.

In way this should not be necessary, but with welfare payments so low, and people having payments cut off for no reason, we do need it. 

In fact, it has been quite a week for community serendipity. We were given two of these books at Christmas, so I offered on on the local Buy Nothing group.

A neighbour found out I collected cornucopia vases, and gave me this lovely glass one in a pretty pink. Just great for a few roses, which is all I have in the garden at the moment. 

 We finally sold the park home in Northam that DH has had responsibility for, for four years as Executor of his brother's estate. It is a great relief to see this gone. DH and I went up to clear it out this week -last time! Good thing we always have "emergency champagne" for such occasions.

The park home had some pieces of furniture in it, which we don't need, so we have been offering them on the Buy Nothing group. It is so nice to meet the neighbours this way. 

I did save one piece of furniture -  a chair which I have placed in the sewing room. Dora thinks it is hers! I got quite active about tidying up in there, and have made more room for useful things. I want to keep this room actively useful, not just for storing things 'in case'. I want it to be nice to work in, a pleasant place. This chair is for the times when DH comes over from his study and we chat together! 

 All of these things have meant that we have had a wonderful week. We did the usual things - I got a couple of walks in -one around a lake near us. I did some gardening-there is more to do, as always.

I made some beetroot relish, and also some lemon and passionfruit cordial. I harvested a few grapes from one of the vines, but the grapes haven't been great this year. We think we will need to do some work on the reticulation in autumn -there doesn't seem to have been enough water for the fruit as they are splitting before they are ripe. 

I have been working in a patchy fashion (hah!) on my quilt. I spread the blocks on the bed and realised that I was going to need to have a border on this one. That will keep me busy for a while!