Five!

From before sunrise until after sunset, 

Miss E's 5th birthday was a day of celebration for all!

Nearly Most Five!

"Mummy will you do something with me?" Miss E asked yesterday.
"How about some sewing?' I suggested.
"That'll be good. I'll make a quilt like you."
"Well let's start with some stitching."

I was very impressed with her first attempt at hand sewing on fabric.

Miss E is "nearly most five", she has been counting down the days for weeks. Today she added the finishing touches to the piñata she has made with Miss N.

The basting is finished on my quilt and I have begun the hand quilting. I've chosen Bright White in Sulky 12wt mercerised cotton, the perfect weight for this job. This is the same weight Sulky cotton I used in my Nature Play quilt, only then I used two different variegated thread colours, the same ones Miss E used above.

Not wanting to highlight the actual zigzags, nor wanting to quilt over the coloured pieces, I have chosen to hand quilt a little star/cross on each white based print piece, reminiscent of tie quilting. This is producing a lightly quilted, smooth effect which I was looking for.

At last I have chosen a name for this quilt - "Sunlit Treasure" as to me it has the look of a treasure chest of jewels, tipped out and twinkling in the sunlight.




NB This quilt design is called "North By North East" as found in the book "Quilting From Little Things" by Sarah Fielke. Sarah is an Australian quilt designer, quilt maker, hand quilter and author. You can see some of her book in my original post about this quilt here.
Sarah's website.

Sharing at WIP Wednesday, Sneak Peek Friday, I Heart Macro.

Whatever the Weather

A little higher and later than expected, our river peaked, safely within it's walls early this morning. The partially submerged building is the sailing club, built to withstand the flood waters. The water is very smooth and relatively slow compared to the last few floods we've seen.

The finial of the sailing club is wearing a wreath of debris from the January 29th record flood which totally covered it.

Master J about to catch his remote control glider before church

From church this morning the grazing grounds below appear to have turned into a lake, with ponded water from Friday's downpour.

Wild kangaroos, the regular inhabitants of the church grounds, seem happy whatever the weather. Summer showers and thunderstorms are forecast for the week, but nothing of major concern - except for those wanting to mow the grass!


Sharing at Our World Tuesday.

Safe and Sound

7:30 pm Tonight - you can just see the homeowners surveying their disappearing"front yard"

29th January

31st January

7:30 pm Tonight - the water rising on the right 

29th January

29th January

7:30 pm Tonight - local government have made attempts to strengthen this section of levee wall

7:45 pm Tonight - the river flows swiftly but is not the raging torrent of January 29th

A late walk reveals the sure and steady rise of our big river. Thankfully we've had no further rain today. The waters from yesterday's downpour and earlier rains have swollen the river, it is predicted to peak through the middle of the night about another metre higher than this - still well below our levee height.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We can rest easy again, although some other places are facing their own flood threats. We have much to be grateful for  - again.

Rainy Days

The Circus has been in town this week! One evening I took 7 of our children who were keen to go, we even had a few minutes of sunshine while we waiting before more showers came through.

Inside the Big Top before the show began

I was hoping to be able to share some photos of the circus but no photography of performances was allowed, due to copyright reasons. We all enjoyed our evening, although I think I would have enjoyed it more without so many animal acts.....however the children loved seeing the animals. The lions were Miss E's favourites! (I'd rather see the animals free to roam in the wild or a very large zoo)

Today is the wettest, windiest day of a wet week. Thankfully we've not had severe winds or prolonged heavy rains so far, although I hear thunder rumbling in the background as I type. At this stage there are no major flood concerns, just watchful eyes as the rain continues steadily over the catchment areas.

Too cold and windy for swimming today.

Definitely too wet to hang washing on our lines, instead it is hung on several drying racks under the house.

But not too wet to prevent beauty from being seen around us.


Update: After a rather wild afternoon with strong winds, thunder and hours of heavy rain bringing some flash flooding/ponding, the weather has mostly settled. All of our large catchment area also received considerable rain. We will have to wait and watch the river and flood warnings carefully over the next two days as the water makes its way towards us and lighter showers continue on.

Ground Level

Our recent showers of rain have resulted in these little wonders popping up all over our lawn. There is  a large variety of shapes yet all are rather small. It's been quite pleasant to observe them, unlike the weather forecast for  next few days which includes words like heavy rain, damaging winds and flood watch. I'm certainly hoping and praying we won't be in for a repeat of last month's far-too-close floods (or worse). Other areas of our country are battling bush fires even today.


*Photographic note: My Raynox macro conversion lens was used for each of these. Photos #3 and #6 were taken with my DSLR+50mm+Raynox. All the others were taken with my fixed lens Lumix + Raynox.
 (I took some of these late yesterday and the rest this morning. I was enjoying photographing these fungi while some of our children were playing cricket with a tennis ball nearby. One stray shot hit the Raynox, snapping the lug which broke recently. That was the end of yesterday's macros! Superglue to the rescue again and I was able to use the Raynox again this morning.)


Sharing at Weekly Top Shot, I Heart Macro, Macro Monday.

Looking Beautiful

As soon as I laid the quilt top out to complete my quilt sandwich, I stood back in admiration. Yes, I DO love it! It was well worth unpicking the not-quite-white-enough white triangles, replacing them with a just-right-white! Now I love the whole quilt!

Saturday afternoon I sewed the back of the quilt together, cleared our lounge/sitting room floor and secured the quilt back, face side down. After spreading out the batting (middle layer) of thick cotton I them added the quilt top. I've been busy since hand basting with needle and thread to hold the three layers together, ready for quilting.

I love the mix of white, cherry and flying geese blocks, the bright cheery colours and the balance of shapes in the overall design of this "North by North East" quilt design by Sarah Fielke as found in her book Quilting From The Little Things. I made a couple of minor modifications, bringing the measurements of the quilt top to 88" or 225cm square.

I also love that it contains fabrics (and memories) from nearly every quilt and sewing project from the last three years, even the dress I made Miss V which she never wore......

Three quarters of the basting is completed, I hope to finish the rest today so we can use our floor again and I can begin the slow job of quilting. At this stage I plan to hand quilt the middle panel as it's too large to fit into my old faithful Janome sewing machine. I might machine quilt the corners, we'll see how things go. But for now I'm just enjoying seeing it in all it's glory - it looks even better than the photos show.


If you wish you can follow the rather slow ongoing story of this quilt here.


Sharing at WIP Wednesday, Sneak Peek Friday.

Shades of Pink and Green

Geraldton Wax, native to Western Australia (the other side of our country)

Some happy colours from our spring and summer garden.....

Shirley Double Poppy - grown from seed

Rain drops on Canna Lilly leaf this morning

Pelagonia - very bright

Livingston Daisies

Bird's Nest fern frond unfurling - this morning

Paper/Everlasting Daisy - Australian native

Petunia with rain drops - this morning

And last but not least, a heart of colour found yesterday amongst the weeds.....

Sharing at I Heart Macro, Macro Monday.

A Little Colour

Westringia Wynyabbie - a hardy fast growing Australian native

 A Lady Beetle amongst the spinach/silverbeet

Osteospernum/African Daisy in a beautiful orange pink

A little colour to brighten your day from my garden in recent times.....
Flowers and colours make my heart sing - praises to God and happiness for the day.