Sunday, July 10, 2011

it's cold and wet and winter

Time for a post. I am on leave at the moment and it is a good job that I only planned to go away for a few days, because I seem to have lots to catch up on. It is a while since I posted and I have just realised that I didn't put up the other 'tea time' quilts or my tea cosy 'for the Mad Hatter's tea party'. The exhibition still runs for another week. I have had to go a couple of times to check it out with friends, and try the lovely Red Poles food! Here are the 6 small quilts (top l-r) Regulari-tea, Chari-tea, Special-tea and (bottom l-r) Formali-tea, Festivi-tea, Informali-tea.  Below is "Cupcake", my tea cosy.


 
This last week has been quite cold and wet for Adelaide. I am trying to fit in some of those long put off appoinments and outstanding jobs (like the dentist and cleaning) and to work on something for the SA Festival of Quilts in November. As usual I have had bright ideas, but sourcing the fabrics/textiles is not proving easy. Why do we never see any textiles from South America? Mostly what we see is from Central America - Ecuador and Guatemala. Went up to Hahndorf one day to checkout the Alpaca shop. They sell wonderful alpaca and wool hats, scarves and jumpers etc made in Peru (from Aussie wool). Thought they may have some clues on where I might find something. Of course I am only wanting a few scraps. I bought a small wallet made in Bolivia to use - when I have cut it up!
It was cold and we were dodging the rain showers, but Hahndorf is always a lovely place to visit, with great  craft shops and galleries. Found a cafe with an open fire to warm us over a tasty and generous lunch including German sausage. Here is the  lichen covered old waggon in the main street. 


 Although it has been cold and wet and generally fairly bleak, I found a few delights to photograph while visiting Myponga yesterday. There are always kangaroos around the Reservoir, and there were a few behind our friend's house. There are 3 in this picture but I don't have much zoom on my camera...


 After an early fall the rain held off, but everything I took had rain drops on it. This is a spider's web on a gate latch.
This is 'training the cherry tree'. If you live in a farming area bale twine (from hay bales) is re-used everywhere.When we were farming bale twine was all black. Now it seems to come in all colours. There was pink, orange, yellow, blue and green on these trees.
 Next season's gladiolus bulbs
There was more colour too - yellow lichen, purple hardenbergia, orange red Chinese lanterns, pink daisies and these...
 Camelia
 Arum lily