sample book

 Hooray!! With any luck I am back using picasa to load my photos to my blog.
So far so good.
Double click this collage to increase the picture size.
a few months ago Noela Mills of Wabisabiart blog posted about a class she had tought using all those fabric samples and creating a book. I loved one of them using a piece of driftwood and beads to hold it all together, so after months of collecting and stitching here is my book. I think the base is old linen teatowels, and on I stitched and placed a heap of things.
The cover was a piece I made in Dorothy Caldwells class a couple of years ago, there are bits of various classes I have taken with Dale Rolleson, a beetle made in Mary Hepmanspergers class and some sitched stuff just because.
I am so pleased with the result so thank you Noela for such a wonderful idea.
Terribly hot here nearly 40 C and this is the first day of our 5 day heatwave, I think 43 is about 109 F unbelievable. I just hope for no fires and that the power doesnt go off.

See if this works

I think, hope, that by going from a different picture site this may come up. This is the week before this one in stitch, walks, New Years eve, parties, family from Melbourne, so long ago I have forgotten. Any way in case it doesnt publish properly I am making this post brief. I still cant post photos from picasa which is my favorite way to post them. It is taking a while for google to fix it.

Trouble in blogland

At this stage I am unable to load any photos into my blog. Frustration is setting in. It is also getting hotter so one tends to go to ground rather. Family have left to return to Melbourne and I have washed and washed. I will go back to trying to work out what has gone wrong, could be a long business.

Around the garden

I am having trouble finding a time to write my blog, family now in residence, large teenagers! The slow internet and the fact that so far we havent had much of a warm summer, a lot of rain, so much I think we may have to hack our way out of the garden!. Its blowing a gale today and cool and it is all a bit unlike summer, although having said that we are told we had the hottest year on record last year, well it wasnt down here, and we had our above average for rain, so I am not sure how they calculate that, I think it depends on where you live.
Making money for some one I feel on all this climate change stuff, off course the climate is changing but you have to look at at least 100 years of data which they dont, we are an official rainfall station and we have over 100 years of rainfall data, and yes there are trends, both up and down, all I can say is, we have hot years, and we have cool years here, we have plenty of rain and we have droughts, it all goes in cycles and no year is the same as the last.
So in my little corner of the world that is what we base our findings on. Sometimes I think farmers know more than any scientist.
As you can see my garden is lush this year and we have plenty of rain so far to keep it so.
Think we might have a scorcher of a February and March though!
Off to wash more dishes and do more clothes washing. I am not used to a full house any more.

Photos to go with post on 1st Jan 2014

The second day of 2014

Oh dear, I may not have published yesterdays blog and I forgot until I had this one up.So my sequence will be out.
It is school holidays and we are a summer tourist town, so the internet is very very slow and makes us all impatient, I left it yesterday and John turned off the computer before I got back to ti..
I did my daily dairy cover yesterday, amongst all the other things.
Here is my 2013 diary, stuffed full of cuttings and added pages on the left. On the right is the same diary, all new and pristine looking. I used up some rather soft Indian fabric a friend brught back a few years ago and found one of my finished but nothing more done to it little stitcheries which now adorns the front cover, quite appropriate I thought as it had a lot of sari fabric in it.
I am not sure how well it will wear but that is all the fun of using a daily diary, as opposed to an art one.
It rained most of the night and is quite cool, still dripping on and off, all the rain water tanks are full which is good as the family arrives tomorrow from Melbourne. I have spent the mnorning making beds and tidying up.
All yesterdays washing is still on the line, very wet.
This afternoon I will make the last boiled fruit cake as that families present from us.
Then I need to relax, no I dont, everything that got thrown into my work room that doesnt have a bed in it needs to be tidied so I can get at stuff while they are here. I love having them but as I seem to have moved through the spare bedrooms with stuff, it does make it difficult at times.
No painting.
I do hope your year is going well.

The start of 2014

 this morning John and I went for a walk along our favorite cliff walk. Being holidays there are far more people around than we normally would see.
It was also quite warm and muggy and we have had some rain, but it is not exactly cool
Last night we had friends in and as I wasnt sure if we would be inside or out I was ready for either, this is the dining room table taken this morning with a lovely bright new sarong from Thai land on it. I like it and it will stay for a while.
We did eat outside, and I didnt take a photo! It was one of those magic evenings, and only got a bit cool around midnight.
Every one brought a course to eat but as hostess I had the main course, I had decided that after all the house cleaning I had done that something relatively simple, and as it was so warm cold chicken, ham, an impossible smoked salmon pie and a green salad, a potato salad and a watermelon salad was all that was needed. Its amazing how little was left.
dessert was a wonderful pavlova  so we ate and drank for most of the night, almost saw the New Year in, but those travelling through the town left early to beat the rush.
A wonderful night and tonight it is a few left overs for dinner.
I havent done much as everything was sorted and although the washing isnt dry, I really dont mind.
My friend P did a sterling job, cleaning silver, washing the odd window and having an adventure with a cactus, which meant pulling a lot of minute thorns out, doing the dishes etc, while John sorted out the outside.
It was a lot of work, but worth doing.
I hope 2014 is a good year, I dont make resolutions but 2013 was not a year I want to remember fondly, except for a couple of things.
Now for the Melbourne family to arrive in the next day or so, I only have to make beds, I have most of the rest of it under control...I think!
Happy New Year to all my blog readerss.