Fuschia gum and me

We went to Adelaide today and had hair cuts and John thought I was worth photographing, I am not sure that I am but here I am with 'done' hair. Some how I dont think I look as old as that, but obviously I do.
I saw my mother and then we had lunch at McLaren Vale and this lovely fuschia gum had flowers on it, actually the tree istelf looked pretty tatty but the flowers are lovely, a Western Australian it grows well on alkaline soils so doesnt like me.
I think I got taken to lunch because this morning John managed to break two of my collection of owls and I was pretty cross, I mean how can you put a towel away about 4 feet from where he managed to break them on a shelf at about 5 feet high. I think he must have swung it around at great speed. I rather like my owl collection as they come from all sorts of people and I know who most of the people who gave them to me are. I know one that was broken I had bought myself and think one of my daughters gave me the other one.

TAST Drizzle stitch

The scan isnt all that good but I had fun with this one, it looked awkward and not useful but it was relatively easy and fun. The smaller is done using perle 8 and the larger ones using 4 ply wool of various descriptions.
We had another foal this morning but its mother wont let me see what it is, but it is a lovely foal whatever, bet its another colt.
I have been inside for most of the day and not doing house work which rather desperately needs doing but as it it Adelaide tomorrow and again on Thursday I dont know when it will be done.
My little angels were painted today and unfortunately one has a purple face so am now trying to paint over the purple!
I am sewing and doing more sewing but nothing much to show.

Interesting colours

I have been playing around with some foiling techniques that Purple Missus has had on her blog, and this is fusible vilene with three colours of foil adhered to it and then some dark acrylic washed on to take away the white of the vilene. It looks better in the flesh than on the scan.
I am going to play with it tomorrow, she has a very good tutorial on how to do it and how to make a heart from it.
I should have done my drizzle stitch but I am afraid that with such a busy week end I havent yet and today was equally as busy, we sold a gelding and Sarah has just put up a web site for Rivington Stud, the web site is
http://www.rivingtonstud.com
and I hope it comes up, it looks pretty good and her photos of the ponies look fabulous. Now I have to try and get it into the links, wish me luck!

Waterhouse Club Picnic

Today was the Museum's fundraising arm, the Waterhouse Club's Picnic, always an event to go to and wait to see what wonderful things will be found for people to buy and speakers to listen to.
the first is my plastic fruit bat that I bought and who was part of our table's center piece and the second photo is of the roof of the marquee we were in and part of the table decoration, minus my bat. They had cleverly put bat outlines all over the roof.
It was a wet and wild and woolly day and we were late getting up there, mostly because John was trying to reorganise water from one tank to another as we had had rain and were expecting more.
Anyway we arrived and the theme was 'A touch of bat black' and the speaker was the museums authority on bats, he had two live ones with him, a fruit bat who we dont exactly have here,yet, although a few have been seen and no doubt more will arrive as Melbourne has a thriving bat colony in their botanical gardens. the other was one of the tiny ones and they are quite rare but have the most extraordinary male appendiges, no idea why but we had sculptures of them. they were to be auctioned but not the live bats.
So that was my day today, I didnt drink the food was good but I drove home through the wind and the rain. the car said the outside temperature was 8 degrees, its cold.

Happy 95th Birthday

Here is my mother at 95 cutting her birthday cake. My niece Amy is to her left and my niece in law Cathy is on her right.
We had a great day, Mummy managed it very well and was thrilled with all her presents and all the attention.
None of my children could make it but they all sent cards and flowers or something.
A long trip to Adelaide for us and home again and we have to do it all again tomorrow. Ghastly weather at the moment, dust, wind and heat but we are supposed to get rain soon. I hope so.

My 500 post, playing with the embellisher

Perhaps I should put up a champagne glass for my 500th post on this blog, instead I have these bits that I have been playing with on the embellisher.
The one I had done before I had bonded the organza to the felt that had put the gilding on but this time I just ran over the organza with the embellisher and got these wonderful rusched bits. I am not sure what I am going to do with them next, the red one has some gold organza embellished from the back but I just love the second one.
Probably do some fme and burn back. I have to make some covers for some books and although these are too small for that I can cut them up and use them as adornments. I really am having fun with all of this.
At the moment I am also painting little faces and stuff for my Christmas gifts.
Warming up today, hotter tomorrow but John has his millet seed to sow so I hope we get the promised rain.

Thinking of Japan

I have been thinking about Japan today and I went through some of our hundreds of photos, and more may appear on this blog. These were taken on about our second trip I think and are on the Island of Shikoku and around the castle at Takamatsu. We had gone over on the train and wandered around there was a lovely garden around the castle and also a garden centre and as was usual when we were in Japan in October a display of chrysanthemums, absolutely huge ones like these pink ones. I quite like the Bonsai but I really got carried away with the little mountain scenes that are portrayed in the first photo. If you click on the photos you will see them larger.
I loved my trips to Japan and really hope to go there one more time.