A special book and some I made

 I bought this lovely book from the very clever Jen Crossley, and it is filled with names and messages from all my frineds at Fibre arts. The cover is distressed and stamped metal with lots of lovely bits and pieces on the spine and inside there are all sorts of pages made from different papers. Such a lovely momento.
In Dorothy Caldwells class we made books, this was a little one to practice on making our signatures and then weaving a nice sort of pattern on the back to hold them all together.
It would have been better if I had got my knots in the right places! Never mind the beads covered up most of my mistakes.
We also made a larger book, which I will perhaps put up tomorrow and another that I will put on my other blog.
This was the two sides of the stitched wrap I made for the larger book and took quite a long time to stitch. I made it a bit short so had to add a bit on the ends.
I loved doing this class, we did so many things and all the sort of stuff I like to do.
I have decided to turn the old laundry , well seperated from the house where junk has been stored, into a work room, for metal and hammering and wire and stuff.
Today I began cleaning it out.
There is a large amount of 'stuff' that now needs a new home!
It will be good if I can get all of that together in one place. At least the floor is level and it is quite light and has several power points.

Part of my day

I walked over to see how much water was in the dam this morning, it was cool and a bit misty. We are getting very dry again, I do get a bit sick of waiting for the break in the season at this time of the year.
Max found a delicious cow pat to eat.
We have been having interesting clouds and this is the valley from a different direction.
Our big Welsh Cob stallion has been moved into a paddock from his summer yard, all very well but there are two delicious looking fillies over the double electric fence!
I had to go in to do some shopping so we decided to walk around the bottom of the Bluff, forgetting it was school holidays, but you can see how misty it was this morning, and at the end of the road, where there was quite a bit of confusion as a car and campervan came along and there was no room to turn around. There is a sign saying not to but there is always some one!
Any way there I found this young tern who wasnt terribly afraid of all the children who were fishing there.
I have been busy but still having a few down moments, which is understandable.
Again thank you to all those who have sent lovely comments and encouraging words. I think it is times like this that you actually realise there are people out there who read my blog and who care.
(dont forget to click to enlarge any of the photos.)

I have been away, now I am back, sort of.

 Thank you to every one who sent such lovely thoughts our way. I have appreciated it.
Stewies body was recovered on Easter Sunday so at least we had closure, his parents had been out of communication for a week but are home now.
I was already organised to go to Ballarat Fibre art week, and in the end the decision was to go, we knew that even if he was found there would be a coronial enquiry and that a funeral as such would not be happening in a hurry. His parents needed time to recover where it happened on their own.
We are all now home but still not sure what will happen.
I think I would have gone mad wandering around the house in limbo. As it was I had the most supportive community of fibre friends that apart from a few, I see once a year, they kept me busy and I was so tired at night I only had a few bad moments.
The friend I went over with was worried that on her own she wouldnt go, but it was nice to chat about our art and other much more mundane things on the 8 hour drive over and then back again.
My class with the wonderful Dorothy Caldwell couldnt have been better, we stitched and made marks and told silly jokes and kept ourselves very busy.
I think the support of those friends was a great eye opener that will stay with me forever and I had bought a book that the lovely Jen Crosslety had made and every one wrote in it, a treasured momento of those few days.
the collage above is made up of part of the journey we made,the first two and the last one which is a double of the first, were of the the morning after we had heard of the accident and John and I walked the cliffs here. Then on Easter Sunday in one of the small towns we passed through there was this wonderful display of rabbits. From there to the Ballarat Grammar school, some of the lovely little things we would find around the school in the mornings, the sheep at Kaniva and the broad plains on our way home.
Again, thank you to all who posted, I know that this week I have to come down to earth and face reality.
This was the grandson I really didnt know, a bit of a bad boy, but to go at 17 is far too young, when I think of the risks we took and managed to get through them, the only way I can think of this is, and it is something I have always thought, if your time is up, then so be it.
As a grandparent I can say it, as a parent, it is far harder to come to terms with.

dreadful day

To all my blog friends. I wont be posting for a while. One of our grandsons is missing presumed drowned in a boating accident.
To say we are devastated is an understatement.

This mornings clouds

 I was up early this morning as I had to go and do my morning 'sitting' at our exhibition over at Yankalilla.
So Max was walked early and the clouds were quite interesting. We made it to the top of the hill this morning too.
The weather now is horrendous, I went over the back way with a slight breeze, and came home on the bitumen in gale force horror. Trees down, luckily not badly over the road and branches and leaves every where. It is still blowing, no rain and dust every where.
I forgot to take photos of ourt exhibition, but we had over 100 people through for the morning which was very good considering the conditions, and had lots of sales, not much of mine but that was to be expected and it was the first morning of a 4 day show.
I am now home feeling decidedly battered and I wish this wind would drop, the shade house we had moved onto the orchard lawn and which is huge, but we hadnt dug it into the ground has blown over, I couldnt believe it. Not sure what other damage but dry and dusty paddocks are losing topsoil. Please send us a long gentle rain soon.

My new (to me) toy.

 We were in Adelaide yesterday for haircuts and a few other things and to go and look at this sewing machine. My old Bernina was a very basic 1006 heavy as lead and I was having a few problems with it. This one probably scares me as it is a computerised and much more modern one, but also rather exciting.
I just hope it does what I want and is as easy to use as they assured me. No time to play at the moment which is annoying but who hoo a new machine to play with! Cant wait, perhaps this afternoon but things are pretty chaotic here at the moment.
Any one else use this machine?

This mornings clouds from the back gate.

 I do like getting up when I want to and not when the govt seems to think I should.
J had a meeting in Adelaide today so we were both up when we would have been last week.
The dogs are still confused though, the old pug gets earlier and earlier with his demands for food.
I have fought, first with the hoses that my lawnmowing fellow tangled terribly, not what I needed, ( still hot, blowing and the garden needed watering).
Then with the vacuum cleaner. I swear the thing hates me. I take ages as I get such a back ache doing it but it wasnt helped by something blocking the hose. I put the water hose down, wouldnt budge it, found some wire and something moved, but it is still making a noise so I think something is still in there, just waiting for next time!
The clouds were lovely.