Solid flying geese on an angle

I'm still enjoying a solids craze, and it's not difficult to keep coming up with ideas. Basically any block - even the simplest - looks interesting in solids. Sometimes I think about co-ordinating the colours but most of the time it just ends up super scrappy with whatever colours fall off the shelf first. At the moment I am making these flying geese on an angle blocks. 

No, I don't know what the blocks are meant to be called. I have no idea where I first saw these blocks. It could be anyone of the random quilt pictures I have stored in my ipad! But I don't think the ones I saw were in solids. 

So if I'm using solids I've got to be making solids and this was the latest dye batch. Because I've got new bookshelves I've freed up space in the cubes in the sewing room which means ... more fabric storage! How wonderful, and I'm doing my best to fill them up by dyeing just slight gradations. I never know what colours I'm going to use, and I have a tub full of half-finished pots of dye powder, so put that together with the $4.95 / metre plain white cotton from Ikea and HAPPINESS ENSUES. 

Speaking of happiness, there was a very jolly crowd on the Parliament House forecourt as I left work last night. I was on until the adjournment at 8 pm and normally when I walk back down to my car it is empty and quiet - except last night there were happy rugged-up people everywhere. Turns out it was for the lunar eclipse! I would not have thought the forecourt was at all suitable for reasons of light pollution but they had set up a telescope and were playing space-themed music through speakers. I took a photo of the moon which is - unsurprisingly - just a small white dot in the middle of blackness so I'm not showing it. I did see the proper eclipse though after I got home and it was really cool. Proper blood coloured, at least from our front steps.

Not quite winter

My weekend walk reminded me that it is still autumn, and not quite winter yet. There are still leaves on the trees, and the sun was shining. 

I did the usual 15 km, and my legs were very tired by the end of it. It took me three hours 10 minutes which - according to Facebook - is the same time as my sister did a 21 km walk on the weekend, which is astonishing. That would be half as fast again as I currently do, and I'm not entirely sure how she does it. I think my legs would fall off, and it's not like I'm stopping for a kebab on the way (although, to be clear, if there were any kebab shops on my route I would seriously consider it). 

Canberra was looking lovely from a distance but the lake is a bit manky up close. I don't know why we are having an algae bloom at this time of year but this is as bad as I've ever seen it. 

I did enjoy the walk though. Saturday I did lots of shopping and errands, mostly to get out of the house because the neighbours are doing major renovations that seem to go six days a week. The house sold to new people and according to the internet photos it needed a lot of work, so I am not unsympathetic, but power tools at 7 am on the weekend is not cool. They are going to arrive at their lovely new house and wonder why everyone on the street hates them.  Here is the entirety of the old backyard - admittedly I would get the backhoe onto that quite quickly. 

Saturday night we went out to drinks for friends who are going off on posting to Wellington, NZ. Very jealous, I would love a good retirement posting somewhere civilised, and Wellington is of course awesome. Sadly both my husband and I are in the wrong parts of the public service for overseas postings. And how would the children cope? At least we don't have any pets to worry about ... we are all still seeing Mishka out of the corner of our eyes, and hearing her little snorts. Her ashes arrived back home this morning in a little wooden box with a plaque on the lid. My husband has put it on the sideboard a respectful distance from the cat's urn (in life, so as in death HAH) but I am not happy with a pet crematorium on the furniture and it might be time to scatter the both of them.

Our dog died

Sadly our fluffy Mishka dog passed away this week - she had recovered from last week's upset tummy but then got worse again on Monday. She was really lethargic and unhappy on Tuesday so we took her to the vet and it turns out she was having a sudden onset diabetic crisis, which we hoped she could recover from, but then the tests showed renal failure so we made the call to let her go on Tuesday afternoon.

Mishie was nearly 14, which is the expected life span of a german spitz, but it's still quite sad, because we didn't think it would happen so soon, given how generally healthy and happy she was. I went and got the kids and we all said goodbye and gave her a cuddle and she died quite calm and happy. 

She certainly had a good life with us - treats, cuddles and a whole family to love ... although let's be clear, there was only one true love in that dog's life. Her entire universe revolved around Brad, also known as the sun, the moon AND the stars. Lucky for her it was reciprocated. 

Weekend in Wollongong

For the first time in a long time we left our twin hubs of Canberra / the beach and ventured to Wollongong ... only about a three hour drive, so not very far. It was the NSW Scale Model Show and my husband entered three of his wee planes so me and him decided to make a weekend of it. Not very exciting but frankly I will take any kind of trip at the moment.

Wollongong is a town of about 300,000 people on the coast south of Sydney - jammed between beautiful surf beaches and the escarpment with a port and some kind of steel refinery (I can't be bothered googling to find any more out). The weather was a bit windy on Saturday but it didn't stop at least four bridal parties trying to take photos on the headland! They must have been freezing.

We stayed in a random air bnb unit in the suburbs, which was fine, ate delicious burgers for dinner at a very hip restaurant and generally enjoyed pottering about. Saturday afternoon  my husband spent a few happy hours at the model show while I poked about the shops, and then on Sunday we went to a dodgy local markets, up the escarpment to the lookout and then explored some of the beaches.

The weather was exquisite, and the surf looked good, but a bit wild for me. There are some offshore reefs that make for interesting swells ... and it was cold. Sunny, but cold.

My husband won his class in the comp, which he was pleased with, and the kiddies had a quiet time without us and didn't cause any damage. Nice to get away for a while!

The desk drawers

I cleaned out the drawers of the Indian desk before moving it out - they were useless tiny little drawers so I used them for poking small random things into. There were lots and lots of business cards for jobs I no longer have, and nearly a dozen two-dollar watches from street markets in Asia ... back when watches were expensive and I used to travel. All of those got binned. 

There were lots of strange bits of jewellery, including this brooch / pin. I thought "that is ugly! not keeping that" then turned it over and saw my Nana Joan's  handwriting, so it stays. And it isn't that ugly either, it's actually kind of interesting, although not the sort of thing I would wear. 

This watch doesn't work but it was a present from my mother for my 30th birthday - it's not a fancy one but I picked it out and loved it and wore it for years. My mother died a few months later so I'm not throwing that one out either. 

It was fun opening up the jewellery boxes to see what's inside. Look at this cute little locket! My uncle was a jeweller - that's his name on the box - and I'm guessing this was a present, perhaps early teens? I would have thought this was the best present ever, in its own super glamorous box, which is why it survived so long. I should put photos of my children in and start wearing it around.

So I was excited to open the next jewellery box. What could it be? Turned out to be BABY TEETH that the tooth fairy delivered here from underneath the kiddies' pillow. That is actually quite disgusting, but I didn't throw them out. I put them back, in another drawer, to worry about another day. 

The Crisp Crack

I finally finished this solids quilt that I started last July - it got overtaken by weaving then sat in the queue while I got distracted with new things and has now been finally bordered, quilted, bound, photographed (and carefully folded up and put in the cupboard with 400 of its brothers and sisters). This was inspired by Bonnie Hunter's unity quilt along - I didn't follow the quilt along or do the really complex piecing of her beautiful quilt - but I just liked the vibe. Limited colours, stars, triangles... what's not to love.

It is called "The Crisp Crack" because I was watching the latest season of the Great British Bake Off. I can't even remember what had to have it, some kind of biscuit? I have gone and googled it now, which took half an hour because I got distracted into episode by episode reviews and twitter reactions, god people are funny, and I think the florentines required a crisp crack.

It is quilted with an all-over swirl meander because I Couldn't Be Bothered with anything else and I'm still using the $10 IKEA doona covers for the backings...

More autumn leaves

There aren't many political traditions in Australia - other than a democracy sausage, and of course ousting sitting prime ministers in internal coups - but we do have a budget tree. It's a maple, and when the budget is handed down in the early May it is generally in full glory, and ministers like to do press reviews in front of it. Because it's pretty. 

No filter - true colours - against a grey rainy sky and it is just amazing. Photos can't really do them justice - there are two maples and that yellow one, whatever it is - and it's only one of the many courtyards with beautiful trees in them. Spring is delightful because they've gone heavy on the cherries/prunus/azaleas but I think autumn is my favourite. There's one outside my window that's going a glorious orange but I think photos of that one would breach the media rules... 

I'm posting shots of trees because it's been a quiet week here and I've had the vaccine yucks after the shot on Thursday ... much worse than the flu shot, fevers and chills and tiredness. Better now, and they say the first one is worst with the astra zeneca, which is what I got - so hopefully when I get the second one in July I'll be fine! I just went to a government vaccine hub and they were super organised and efficient,  no waiting, needle in the arm, then cup of tea and a biscuit for fifteen minutes to see if I dropped dead immediately... However I doubt the wisdom of giving someone like me three pages of possible side effects, especially one full page of "Very Common Side Effects". If you tell me I'm going to get something I WILL GET IT, and I did. Yucky.

Stay at home weekend

This weekend was all about the home life ... enjoying the last of the sunshine (it's started raining today, finally) and slowly helping number one get the beautifully re-painted room back to rights. It's a slow process: small room + plenty of stuff = much head-scratching. On Saturday afternoon the two of us spent THREE HOURS in Ikea making decisions. That is way too long for sensible decision making, and items were purchased that may have been quite unnecessary. Of course we didn't get the one completely necessary thing - king single sheets - because Ikea doesn't make them. 

I also got some new bookshelves. I have been resisting this on the basis of "books in piles means too many books, not too few shelves" but the reality is I have a huge "to read" pile that lives in the bedroom because that's where I do most of my reading, so I may as well bow to the inevitable and get some proper shelves. Instead of piling them all on the Indian desk.

I like this desk very much. We bought it to go in the entry hall of our first house. It was a tiny little cottage and pretty much every room came off the entry hall, which was relatively big and square. When we re-painted the bedroom (Easter 2000, with gloss paint! so young, so keen) we dragged the mattress into the hallway and slept there, and it was a queen-size, so there you go. We call it the Indian desk because it is very like furniture that we saw on our honeymoon in India, but actually we bought it from Target.  It's gone from the hallway, to the dining room in our next house, to the bedroom in this house, and now off to the beach house to replace the plastic fold up table we're using as for jigsaws / general junk (if we can get it in the back of the car. This has yet to be tested).

I replaced them with the good old Billy book case - or rather two of them. I've moved in some of my quilting books so I can have more room for fabric in the sewing room. That narrow top shelf is for library books and if I can't fit in any more than I have to stop borrowing, or take some back. And there are still some empty shelves! I will take that as a personal challenge.

It's not elegant but it makes me happy, and I put it together in an unusually zen-like state on Sunday. Number one also had some fun putting things together - not entirely done yet but we're getting there. Perhaps installing the changing-colour LED light strips under the window wasn't the highest priority (but they do look cool).