Another long long weekend

It was the Anzac Day long weekend here so I took an extra day off and had a long long weekend down the coast. Even though Canberra has been a bit cool it was still lovely at the beach, and finally some waves! I had two hour swims each day ... wearing a full length wetsuit admittedly but every time I went to get out a good set would come through and I'd stay and splash a bit more.

Not nearly as crowded as Easter. The family stayed in Canberra and had a very very quiet weekend by all accounts, after the hard work of re-painting the room last weekend. Not that it was the painting itself that was hard - it's the getting stuff out of the room, cleaning stuff (and the room), trying to persuade our little hoarder to throw things away, and getting stuff back into the room. There is still at least one Ikea trip in our immediate future, but otherwise it's looking good. So last weekend was a chance to snooze and catch up on study assignments (children) or the washing (husband) or bob about in the ocean (me, winner!).

I caught up with friends for a drink when I was down there and they said there is a development application in for the patch of grass between the cafe and the real estate where the surf school vans park. Multi-storey apparently!!!! We are torn between wanting whatever is going in there (rumour is micro-brewery, which sounds way too cool for our beach hamlet) and not wanting it ever to be developed ever, because we like the 70s vibe. First world problems.....

This is me trying to take a picture of lots of little fish. I watched them for ages but they don't photograph very well.

Changing colours

A few weeks ago I went to the annual church craft de-stash sale that I've mentioned before ... a very happy hunting ground for bargain-priced fabric. This time I was fully prepared: large amount of cash in small denominations, several shopping bags and ready to rummage. As last time, it was super crowded and awesome. I picked up a heap of quilting fabric and several lengths of dress fabric that people were very happy to get rid of. Win win!

One of them was a reasonably ugly tan coloured linen that I decided to dye. I did the burn test and it definitely had some poly in it, but thought there would be enough linen (or cotton) to make it worth dyeing so I did a deep red in the hope it would come out a sort of chestnut or darker brown. I'm not used to full-immersion dyeing so I put it in a bucket and weighed down another bucket on top.

It didn't work very well - the colour didn't change much and it was badly blotchy. I might have another go using more dye.... or I might just use it for some item of clothing that screams "rustic" or "homespun" and tell everyone it was a design choice.

In other more successful colour-changing news we repainted number one's room. After a gap year spent pretty much within these four walls we were all happy to take the furniture out, scrub and scrub and scrub, then undercoat over the Egyptian Gold (a June 2009 project, so chosen by a six year old, surprisingly  nice) and make it all new and fresh. And buy a new king single because child is LENGTHY, which is very good for painting the tall bits. It was a fair bit of work but satisfying all round, especially coinciding with a 19th birthday :) So grownup.....

High risk, high return

I've been down with a bit of a cold the past few days - nothing major but enough to have me at home sniffling one day and a very quiet weekend. Number two had the same thing but worse so went off to see the doctor and have a COVID test (which hasn't come back yet now I think about it, but it's OK, he's still at home miserably snoozing and drinking orange juice). 

The one thing I did was finish up my return-to-quilting big scrappy  number - the tulip blocks I saw on Keryn's blog a while ago - with a white background. It is called "High risk, high return" and was quilted all over in big fat feathers. Blue sashing, a red border and 50 random fabrics.

The blocks finish at 13.5" which is a nice chunky size, nothing too fiddly. I used mostly scraps from the bucket with some yardage when I couldn't find pretty scraps. 

Wonderful to have a finish finally! Next for binding is the yellow/pink/purple that only needed more borders, and I've started piecing another solids quilt, because I'm enjoying the mosaic effect of lots of solids together. Good fun.

A long walk

Finally the weather has cooled down and I took the opportunity to go for a long walk on Sunday morning. I haven't done it for ages because of the heat (and a little bit of laziness) so off I trotted to do the 15 km loop. Still wearing a t-shirt and hat and sunscreen - it wasn't that cold - but not dying from heat exhaustion by the time I struggled back up the hill to home. Just very sore legs.

I accidentally crossed paths with the Canberra marathon. I knew it was on, but looked up the start time which was 7 am so assumed it would be over by the time I was there (about 11) because how long do marathons take? 2 hours? 3 hours? Well apparently not everyone who decides to do the Canberra marathon (or ultramarathon, or half marathon, or 10 km, or 5 km, or kids dash) is doing it in world-record times because there were a lot of very pained shufflers on the trail as I went past. I am very respectful and admiring of anyone who can do any form of distance running but lordy they did NOT look happy. 

This photo is a very Canberra shot. Little house, lots of trees, autumn colours and a unnecessarily complicated intersection (both the road I'm on and the road in front curve, and don't meet at the cross road at the same place, the whole suburb is a fender-bending nightmare and it was PLANNED THAT WAY because Canberra, let's make it pretty).

At least they have the cute old road signs. The rest of the weekend was very quiet with a bit of quilting and not much else. Lovely.

Silk shirt

In between swimming and eating chips down the beach I made myself a plain, but pretty, silk top. I bought this material at Pasar Mayestik in Jakarta in October 2012 - and it has sat quietly in the drawer ever since. I don't know why I have been reluctant to use it - it was not particularly expensive (about $12 / metre from memory) and is a lovely light weight. Perhaps because I knew it was going to be a nightmare to sew ... floaty and slippery!!! 

I tried to minimise the pain by using the plainest pattern possible; a McCalls shell top that I'd made last year in grey. I made the adjustments from last time - a bit more in the length, changed the alignment of the bust dart and used proper facings instead of just hemming the neck opening.

And it turned out fine. The fabric is really pretty even though these photos are terrible. They sold it to me as Ungaro designed silk and it certainly says Ungaro on the selvedge. But given that Liberty sells Ungaro silk for GPB125 a metre I am HIGHLY sceptical. 

It is definitely silk though, I did the burn test and not a trace of synthetic, so I will take it as a pretty fabric and not worry too much about the authenticity. I wore it to work today and it felt very nice to wear, so I will take that as a win (might re-visit after I've washed and ironed it....)

Astonishing weather

I think this Easter had the best weather of any I remember - perhaps because it's so early in April? Perhaps because it's rained since October and I can hardly remember a sunny day? Perhaps because I was happily at the beach and everything seems so much nicer? Whatever the reason, it was 28 degrees, sunny and clear from Friday to Sunday and I had a lovely couple of days on my own getting some sun and sea.

There were crowds of people - more even than January. Part of the delight of the weather was how still it was; not a breath of wind, even in the afternoon. People were bbqing on the beach and sitting in the shallow water chatting like it was the tropics! Not usually a South Coast thing. But it did mean there was ZERO surf ... and at one point I counted 160 people in the water having surf lessons. Ooops. Good for the surf schools I suppose but the waves were about eight inches high and very infrequent and there were a lot of people just bobbing about.

I took the body board down on day 1 but gave up after that, and just bobbed about myself. The water was cold but it always is! I read books, sewed a couple of tops, ate Easter chocolates and wondered what all these people were doing on MY PERSONAL BEACH. All these photos are on different days. It was just perfect all the time.

I came back Sunday night because friends had invited us over for brunch on Monday which was lovely. The rest of the family had had a very quiet Easter pottering about - still recovering from end of term tests and essays and shows - now two weeks of holidays for them both. But plenty of assignments apparently to keep them occupied. I am back at work but dreaming of the beach, as usual.