After a lot of effort and indecision I have the Mini Monkey Wrench in one piece. It seemed to take forever. When it came time to choose the borders I kept picking fabrics that I didn't have enough of, which was frustrating. These are quite fine, even if they weren't my first choices, and I'm just glad to get the whole thing finished. I have a huge basket of leftovers, so I may have to make a miniature version, or just sew all the bits into crumb blocks. I'm a bit sick of them by now. It's Patchwork Group tomorrow, so I will need another project now. Goody!

We went off to Adelaide yesterday to pick up a couple of sewing machines to add to the collection. There was this one, in a nice cabinet, a cute 99k that luckily came with a complete manual, and as a bonus we found this Godfrey machine for sale as well. We couldn't leave it behind, just look at those pretty decals, and it's in rather nice condition. Missing it's bobbin case, but we will find one somewhere. It's just a rebadged Singer, shouldn't be too hard to track down spare parts.

During the week we went to a local antique shop and the owner fished this Horn sewing cabinet out of her shed for us. It's in fantastic, mint conditon with a gas lifter and everything, for the price of three or four magazines. Plus the drawers were stuffed full of cottons, pins, zippers and bias tape. We had so much fun sorting it all out. I think my 6500 will live in this, as I'm using the old 201 for most of my piecing. I can leave the 6500 set up with the walking foot for any quilting I want to do, and for binding.
I sorted out some of my stash drawers the other night, as I didn't feel like doing anything requiring effort or brain-power. I've often asked mysef if one can have tooo much material; in the case of cream fabrics, I can definitely say that I have Enough! For now.....

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We went for a drive the other day, on the hunt for a suitable table for my sewing room. At an antique shop in a nearby town we spent a pleasant hour combing through all the knick-knacks, books, china and saucepans, collecting a few things we had to have. When we went to pay for them the owner of the shop remarked how strange it was that everything we had chosen belonged to one woman. A 75 year old spinster is in the process of downsizing, and there were many of her things displayed in the shop, including her entire baby layette and several exquisite little dresses. She came from a family of magnificent seamstresses and knitters, that's for sure.

I found two quilted items that had to come home with me. The tea cosy is hand stitched corded quilting, with a machine quilted lining. It has a few stains, but it's in fine shape so I will carefully wash it next summer when the thick padding will dry quickly. The pattern is formed with two lines of backstitching to form a channel, with pink cord threaded in. The backing is very coarse cream cloth, I can just see a glimpse of it through a small hole. The lining inside is pink cotton quilted in a plain grid.

This baby bib is intruiging, as it's machine quilted in a very dense pattern, with the tiniest of stitches. It's a very early eample of machine quilting, and it's so beautifully and skillfully done that it's obviously not a learning piece; this was made by someone who was an expert at machine quilting. And it was used to bits, as the ragged edges show. I may frame this, it's so unusual.
I did get my table, but we'll have to go back next week to pick it up; I think a few more of that lady's treasures might join our collections; it will be nice to keep them together.

And on a different note, Mereth is wildly amused by the cuteness of the Gammil bobbins wound with variegated thread. The thread colours make an interesting little pattern. Small things......

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We picked this bunch of roses early this morning, the garden at Mereth's place is putting on one last show. I'm enjoying the beginnings of the cool weather and grateful for a gradual transition to winter; it will be interesting to see how I handle my first real cold spell in 22 years.

My Janome 6500 has developed a hacking cough and rattle, and will have to be taken in for a service. In the meantime I trialed every other machine I own, trying to find which one was the best replacement. The Featherweight was nice, but ultimately this 201P of Mum's sews the best 1/4" seam. This is the machine that Mum bought when she found out she was having two babies instead of one. When we were in high school we sewed all our clothes on it, and Mum used it until she was in her seventies. It still runs like a dream.

I remember one December when we were 5, watching Mum sew two sets of summer pajamas, with matching brunch coats on this machine. We hung on the edge of the table, getting in her way and asking dozens of questions about the machine and what she was doing and who were the pajamas for. She told us that they weren't for us, she was sewing them for two lucky little girls for Christmas. We were eaten up with jealousy of those two other girls, and got the surprise of our lives when we unwrapped the pajamas on Christmas day. Mum always maintained that we couldn't have been so naive as to believe her, but we never doubted anything she said. It only occurred to me later that she had LIED to us. That gave me pause for thought......

I'm working on the Churn Dash blocks, but they seem to be going very slowly. I've cut all the triangles for the zigzag setting, which busted 2.25m of stash. My browns are being depleted, but that is good because I have quite a lot of these particular fabrics. It's good to be making a dent in them.

My DS has had an exciting week. He is studying at the Mackay Conservatorium of Music; he is part of a jazz band and they had a gig on Hamilton Island. The pictures he sent are fantastic, what a beautiful setting.
He's playing at the Entertainment Centre tonight, and at the Mayor's Ball next week. I'm rather proud of him, and he even remembered to send me a message for Mothers Day!

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There has been welcome rain in the last few days, and nice cool autumn weather. The plants are having a last fling of flowers before the winter arrives, and the garden at Mereth's is full of roses and gerberas. It's a lovely time of year. My Hebe is flowering again, I love that little heart shape in the centre, and the rain drops on the petals.The next two photos are raindrops caught and held by the furry leaves of Wormwood; the plant looked like a little Christmas tree decked with diamonds in the early morning sun.


Our brother and sister-in-law are going home in a few days time, so we are spending a lot of time together. On the weekend we went to visit our other brother and family, for a barbecue lunch. I got to eat kangaroo steaks for the first time, which was.....interesting; I'd definitely have it again. It has to be eaten quite rare, which suits me down to the ground, but I felt a bit guilty eating our national icon. I got over it tho.

Isn't this fruit absolutely gorgeous?
They are persimmon, and they look and feel as if they are made out of porcelain. There's something unreal about them. The flavour is amazing, like melon and apple and apricot all rolled into one, absolutely delicious. I must try and get a tree next time we go to a plant nursery, I'd love to be able to pick them from my own backyard. These came from my SIL's father, who has a loaded tree, lucky man.

We worked hard on a customer quilt this week, it's a present for the customer's soon-to-be 80 year old Mum. There are comments embroidered all over the quilt, and we got such a laugh reading some of them. I can really identify with this one!
When they present this quilt at the birthday lunch I hope they have the tissues ready, the birthday girl is sure to cry when she reads all the messages of love. There are times when it's great to be a quilter.

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There has been sewing in the workroom just lately. I'm still working on my current projects, but I won't see a finish on any of them soon, so I selected a UFO and concentrated on it until it was finished. I finished piecing these True Lovers Knot blocks early this year, but ran out of the shirting for the sashings. I did find some more, but not enough for my original plan; so I made an executive decsion and made the sashings smaller, and substituted another fabric in some of the borders. It made good stashbusting sense to use what I had rather than buy a whole heap more. I used nearly 3 metres for the sashing and triple border, so I'm pleased about that. Another project basket emptied!


We've been busy with business stuff lately, so there's not much else to tell. These are a few photos from the Pirie cemetery, just after sunrise on Anzac day. At that hour of the day it is a beautiful place, with it's avenues of pepper trees, melaleucas and bottlebrush trees. It was one of my favourite places as a child, which sounds odd, but it was never a morbid place to be. Mum took us and showed us the family plots, and then while she tidied them up we would wander through the rest of the place, reading the old, out of fashion names on the headstones and admiring the carvings.We always ended up in the Italian section, where the graves were smothered in brightly coloured plastic flowers and silk flowers in glass domes, along with statues of saints and china wreaths. It was such an extravagant display of grief, compared to the quiet, faded beauty of the rest of the place. This Pietà is relatively recent, and is about 10' high; it's quite compelling. The little rainbow appeared just as I took the photo, and vanished minutes later. What good luck that I had the camera ready.

I do love her face; she is beautiful from any angle. One day I'll be brave enough to try and make a portrait of her in fabric. Pam Holland is showing a portrait step by step on her web site, and I'd love to do something like that. One day.....

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It was patchwork group yesterday, and we spent the day busily making blocks for our current projects. At one stage I wandered around taking photos of what people were working on; Pauline, in the orange shirt, was very gad I did, as her blocks got mixed up and she had to borrow the camera to see what order they were supposed to be in.

I'm working on my blue and green blocks again, I have all the pieced nine-patches made, 81 in fact, and now I'm adding the triangles to each block. The colours are looking wonderful together, but I'm quite worried at how much fabric I've used already. I have hardly any intense, deep blue left and I can't find any more to replace it either. I'm on a mission from now on.

I've started setting together the mini Monkey Wrench blocks, and they are looking good too. Each of those zigzag setting strips takes a quarter metre of fabric, so the setting alone will bust 2.25m. That's good news, as the fabric seems to be coming in faster than it's being used up.

I've had some queries about the recipe for Anzac buiscuits. I don't know the exact replacement for Golden Syrup; it's like a very light treacle, and treacle is similar to molasses. Also our dessicated coconut is similar to shredded coconut, but very dry. It's so hard substituting ingredients; I still don't know what to use instead of graham crackers. We don't have them over here.

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Yesterday was ANZAC day,when Australia and New Zealand commemorate the men and women who have served in ther armed forces. We planned our own dawn service out at the aerodrome. In the war years it was an airforce training base, and our father was stationed there. He met our mum at a local dance, and the rest is history. We feel a great connection with the place, even though now it's just a small collection of modern buildings and runways that the public aren't allowed access to. We all have memories of being out there with Dad for airshows, and feeling his excitement. Our brother Doug is an army Vietnam Vet, and I was in the RAAF like Dad.We arrived in darkness and waited for the dawn. At first light we played a recording of The Last Post, spent a few minutes with our thoughts and memories, recited the Ode of Remembrance and played Reveille. A simple little ritual, but meaningful. The bugle recordings were heart-breakingly beautiful in the still air, the only other sound some plovers crying out on the airstrip.I'd cooked ANZAC buiscuits so we had tea and biscuits for breakfast and talked some more about our family history. Dad almost never mentioned his war years, so we had better record what we can remember of his recollections before we forget as well. None of us are young anymore.....

Most Australians have an opinion whether Anzac biscuits should be hard and crunchy, or crisp and chewy, or cakey. The original biscuits were baked hard and crunchy so that they would keep on the slow sea voyage to the troops overseas. I personally will only eat them if they are crisp and chewy, and these were just right. They MUST contain rolled oats and golden syrup or treacle to be authentic; I have noticed trendy versions with dried fruit, but that's not part of the original recipe.

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It was nephew Rob's graduation ceremony Friday morning, at Adelaide's Flinders University. We knew it would be a struggle to get there in time if we left on Friday, so we booked a motel room and drove down early Thursday morning. We had a leisurely visit to a Spotlight store, and bought a few bits and pieces; I'm on the hunt for vibrant dark blues, but I'm not having any luck. I will have to search further afield.

From there we went to Ikea, and came away deeply disatisfied that we don't own a ute or van so that we can stock up on their modular furniture. We could have such fun there, if only we didn't have to get it home somehow.

Rob's graduation was lovely, he looked so good; sort of Matrix meets Academia. His grandmother would have been very proud of him, getting his degree. I love the atmosphere at Uni; I always think I'd like to go back to school and study something once again, but I never go any further with it. Maye when there aren't so many other things to be doing.....

We went to Central Market, right in the middle of Adelaide; it's a fascinating place, full of fresh food, gourmet and organic produce. We didn't have time to do more than rush in to the organic wholefood place and grab some soy flour and snowpea seeds for me, and gluten free flours for Mereth, and then we had to get going. I also detoured to the Adelaide Nut, and picked up some of my favourite mustard broad beans; they bring tears to the eyes, but I love them anyway.

On the way home we decided NOT to get lost, and stayed on the highway, which was boring but more direct. We did take a quick trip down a side road to have a closer look at a windfarm that is being built. There are several in South Australia, and yes they probably are a bit of an eyesore, but we can't ignore the good they do.
It will be an amazing sight when the whole line of them is up and running.

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I spent several hours cutting up scrap fabric for the strip drawers, and 10.5" backing squares. I cleared out a whole drawer of bits and pieces, 7m in all. That made me feel very virtuous. I still have nothing in my 1.5" strip drawer, and I'm making 4 projects that neeed them, so I have to get busy on that. I haven't added up the yardage that I've cut for the projects, but it's a lot. Pity I've bought so much lately, because I have a long way to go before I can say the stash is dwindling again.
It doesn't help when we buy rolls of wide backings, with 12m in each roll. But that's for customer quilts as well, so I can't really fell guilty about that. The main thing is to keep using what we have, and keep the quilts coming.

Last night I went round to Mereth's place, to watch TV with her and the SIL. I took my knitting, another sock that I am making for a friend, and managed to get the heel turned before it was time to call it a night. Mereth offered to drive me home, as it was rather too cold to walk. When we got to the first corner I realised that not only had I dropped the ball of wool, I had dropped it before I got in the car. We stopped and I had to walk back down the road, reeling in my wool as I went. It was so funny, especially as we could have driven all the way home without realising! As it was I just have a tangled skein to sort out.I think in future I'd better get me a knitting bag when I go visiting.

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My new sewing machines are a Victor DeLuxe, and another Peerless treadle. The Peerless is in beautiful condition, apart from a badly mended belt, but the Victor needs help. The machine itself is pretty well spotless, but the wooden base and case are water damaged. I will keep a lookout for a ruined machine on a good base, and swap them over. I love the green paint, gold decals and silver trims; very stylish.
The Peerless is just as pretty as my other one, and moves so smoothly I can treadle with one foot. If we have another power failure Mereth and I can keep on sewing now, as we have a treadle each.

I came very close to having a migraine on Sunday, had to lie around with my eyes shut until 3 in the afternoon. What a wicked waste of a day! All that good sewing time wasted. I recovered enough to knit on my current sock after tea; this is beautiful Welsh wool called Jitterbug, and it's making a delicious sock. I'm enjoying every stitch.
We went to the patchwork group today, and I made another 15 of my Monkey Wrench blocks. I have 50 as of tonight, 31 to go. I'm getting enthusiastic about this project now, so I will probably keep working on it until it's done, ignoring my rule about only doing it at Patchwork Group. That means I need another easy project to take along with me; I just love having permission to start something new.

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We have been a bit distracted over the last few days, so no quilting to blog about. We had out-of-town friends drop in, and our oldest brother and his wife are staying with Mereth, and there has been a lot of socialising going on. All good stuff, but nothing for the blog.

On Saturday we went to a local folk fair, and had a scout around for wooly, quilty stuff, but there was nothing that caught my eye. I did admire these camels (they were wooly), who looked superbly disdainful. I guess when you're so tall you have to look down your nose at everything.I bought this agave from a local craftsman; the pot is made from recycled corrugated iron. The pot and the cactus managed to bite me several times, you'd think the ensemble would be glad to go to a good home. Being drought tolerant should help them survive in my backyard.

Then on Sunday it was off to Adelaide to pick up a couple of Ebay finds; more sewing machines. I will put photos up once I have cleaned them up a bit. I like this collecting thing, and I like rescuing old machines that are in danger of being tossed on the scrapheap.

We stayed with Mereth's Firstborn Son, and watched Sweeney Todd that night. Hmmmmm. I can safely say I will never see it again; it was sort of Edward Scissorhands meets Jack the Ripper, with songs from Aladdin. I have no idea what was going through their heads when they decided to make it.

Next morning we ran errands and then took off for home. Now I don't ascribe to that whole 'women can't read maps' rubbish, because both Mereth and I can navigate perfectly well. However, South Australia has the worst road signs of any place I've ever travelled. There just aren't any, most of the time. We have dubbed the area around Gawler 'The Barossa Spiral'; it's like the Bemuda Triangle, but not terminal. If we try to bypass Gawler we get lost, every single time. Not lost in the true sense, because we just keep heading north and we know we'll get home eventually, but we have no idea where where we are in the meantime.

But the scenery is fine, so we don't really mind. We found some lovely little backroads, with fantastic country views, and agreed that we would get 'lost' in that area again. But on purpose this time.There was a fire somewhere, and the drifting smoke made the sunset very atmospheric. It's still rather hot and dry here, we haven't had a lot of rain, so there's no new grass to smother the dust. And we had such a dust storm during the week; this is what my laundry is covered with. It's like someone threw a bucket of dirt over everything. Guess I'll be cleaning up before I get back to sewing...

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On Sunday I updated my spreadsheet of UFOs, and decided to rearrange it all. It's toooo depressing to look at it and see 76 projects, waiting to be worked on. I decided that I had no problem at all with my tops, I would happily have drawer fulls awaiting their turn on the machine. So I took all the tops off the list and put them into their own spreadsheet. That immediately took the number of UFOs down to 42. I KNOW! How can I have 34 tops? Don't ask.

Then I went through and colour coded a heap of items; ones very close to completion, ones that could be abandoned, merged or just finished at the size they are, current projects and ultra-long-term hand projects.The current projects don't worry me; I am making steady progress on them. The ultra-long-term projects are all hand piecing that I am content to work on over several years. There are 7 things very close to completion, and 5 that couold be abandoned. So with a couple of weeks effort I could knock 12 UFOs off this list and have only 30 left. That means I would have cut the list in half after only a few months work.

I know a lot of people would say my time would be better spent actually sewing, rather than mucking about with spreadsheets and highlighter pens. But it did have very concrete results. I picked out an easy project, only needing to be set together and borders attached, and 4 hours later I had this Rose Dream top in one piece. I wouldn't have touched it if the spreadsheet hadn't inspired me to make some progress on it. I probably would have cut some more fabric up, read some blogs and nothing would have changed.

Like all my tops there is a story attached. In 1994 I had a tantrum and refused to buy any more patchwork fabric. I didn't like what was in the few shops we had, it was over-priced and I thought it was contrary to the spirit of patchwork. I went through a period of only making patchwork from the remnants of the dressmaking I did for my family. And I sewed all our clothes, so it wasn't that much of a hardship. This was made from scraps of my dresses and my DD's playclothes, and every block brings back a bunch of memories. Even ironing it made me remember the laundry detergent I used then! I had a lovely time piecing it together, by machine because I was too lazy to complete it by hand, and I'm thrilled that it's finished at last. I will ditch-stich this on the Statler and quilt the blocks and border by hand, so I can relive lots more memories of those days.

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