Soggy Saturday

It is bucketing down here today - like half the world it seems - with quite severe rain predicted for the rest of today and tomorrow. Normally I like rain, given how dry Canberra is and how much rain I grew up with NZ, but heavy rain makes me nervous. Our house in Canberra has been known to leak through the roof, and up through the ground, and even down the steps and in the front door on one occasion. We think we've fixed all those problems in various ways, but there's always that slight worry that a freak downpour will have us underwater again. Our house at the beach is much more solidly (and sensibly) built, but it's in a low-ish area that could flood with this weekend's combination of very heavy rain and king tides. Nothing we can do about it of course, except worry.



I finished this quilt a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to show you ever since - but I keep forgetting to take photos outside until it's dark. Or the line is full of washing. Or it's pouring down rain. So I've done the indoor shot again - not quite so good with very little light but you get the idea.

It's called "Hermit" because when I was making it I was thinking how nice it would be to be a hermit and live on the side of a mountain completely on your own. In the last few days though I've been reading "Loneliness" which is not only extremely interesting, but details all the physiological and psychological ways that a lack of social contact impairs your mental and physical health. It is not the sort of thing I normally read, but I follow Gretchen Rubin's blog (slightly mad but quite interesting) and she recommended a few books, and the Parliamentary Library had some of them, so I thought what-the-hell and borrowed whatever I could find. I am mostly reading on recommendation at the moment as a way of trying out different kinds of books. Otherwise I can easily get stuck in a particular reading rut.



This quilt was made quickly because I had an urge to do scraps (surprise!) and wanted to do Bonnie Hunter's Pineapple Blossom again. I made one ages ago, in yellow, but thought the blue would be quite nice. It is quite nice, but not particularly exciting. I didn't put any effort into the quilting - just straight lines through the blocks and quite far apart. It will be a utility quilt for a bed somewhere ... but it did make a nice dent in my 2 1/2" strip bag.

Speaking of dents in scraps, that pile of blocks that I thought was about a hundred or so turned out to be 181 when I counted them, and since then I have done almost as many again! Fun and addictive, and the scrap bin is down to about half full, which I haven't seen since forever. Not sick of them yet, so will keep going, especially if the weather keeps on with the rain. We are having friends over for curry tonight - it's in the slow cooker at the moment - which I think is very suitable.