a visit to The Cedars

I really enjoyed the day of my last post, which I took off from work to go to Yankalilla and join friends listening to Michele Hill talking about William Morris. I really was the the lucky one that day because I returned to work the next morning to help in the clean up after an out of control car had crashed through the windows into the library. Very luckily no-one was hurt, but books and glass chips don't go well together!

 

I have finished quilting the quilt. I decided on outlining, rather than scribbling in the border fabric so of course it took twice as long as I would have liked.

I squeezed in this month's 'simplicity' postcard, and am now considering finishing the 4 or 5 year old Quilt Encounter workshop piece before I head off to 3 days at QE for 2012 at the end of next week. Maybe I will and maybe I won't!

I often think that we go elsewhere to tour and sightsee but forget to look about our own backyard, so it was good to cross off something on the 'to do' list when we visited The Cedars, the family home and of Hans Heysen at Hahndorf on Sunday. The rain held off so that was even better. You see works of both Hans and Nora, Nora's studio and can tour the house (below - well worth it) and Heysen's studio (below right). 

 

We left the signposted walk for another day, but saw a few of the sculptures remaining from The Heysen Sculpture Biennial which had just finished. I noticed this one when we first looked up toward the studio, and thought it looked like a pile of branches. Saw it from a different angle as we were leaving and realised what it was - very clever. Didn't get the name of the artist. 

 I liked this young lady in her beautiful mosaic skirt outside Nora's studio. She is 'Roberta' by Liz Williams

 You can read more about it at http://www.hansheysen.com.au/

my longer weekend

What a great long weekend. It has been cold, but the days have been bright and sunny. Western Australia wasn't so lucky though, with huge winds and storms which we are expecting tomorrow.

There is not much happening in the garden at the moment apart from the very hardy perennials - nasturtiums and alyssum 

 

- and the intruders. I spotted this young hairy caterpillar on the miniature pomegranite - not my favourite insects! Not a favourite of our chooks either. They turned away from the ones I offered them last year - very discerning.

  I have just been reading Michele Hill's latest post from yesterday   williammorrisandmichele.blogspot.com/, and what she forgot to mention was that before going to Sydney later in the week, she had an author talk in Yankalilla today. It was put on by the local 'Books and Words' and 'Threads' groups. Michele gave a most informative presentation explaining her journey since she first saw his works at the V&A, with a look at William Morris and his life and designs, and the wonderful collection of the Art Gallery of South Australia. I had a day off work, and enjoyed it very much along with about 90 others. The talk was followed by sandwiches and coffee - well done to the organisers. Here is Michele chatting with Shirl and a friend in front of one of her amazing quilts.

I came home and started quilting a Japanese style quilt  put together by the Quilter's Dozen group. It includes some sashiko blocks, but I have started with the easy bits - in the ditch in the lattice. Hopefully I'll figure out what to do after that. I thought it was time I tried the timer setting on the camera...

Whales, sales and emails

It has been exciting these last few days...

Firstly, I received a request to include some photos from an earlier post in a uni honors thesis. A bit of a thrill in that, and I am only too happy to say yes.

Yesterday was the opening of Unravelled (2012) in the Gallery at Red Poles.  www.redpoles.com.au/

The theme was 'the textile landscape', and there are some great works on display, from 13 artists in all. I received some very positive and pleasing comments about my 6 little 'carpets', and 2 of them sold.

 

Here is my 'Old Tea Tree' tea cosy, also in the exhibition. It only took about 3 times as long to do as I expected it too, but I was happy with the result.

After the opening and a cup of coffee with family and friends I looked up as we were leaving. The sun was setting, and the clouds were spectacular, all pink and gold, but by the time I took this photo over the gallery, the colours were beginning to fade.

This morning on the radio I heard talk about the whale season beginning at Victor Harbor. A caller rang in to say that he was at Moana, and 2 whales had just been spotted heading up the gulf not too far from the beach. I reluctantly (not!) stopped cleaning grout in the bathroom, grabbed the binoculars and headed out onto our driveway. Looking down our street to the sea (1km+ away) I saw a patch of water that looked disturbed, and then there were black humps flipping and then a tale flashing. A great way to start the day!

I didn't manage a photo of whales, but I got these two 'cousins' when I went for a walk this afternoon. As a rule one can't get close enough to photograph them before they fly off. My new camera has more zoom so I thought I would give it a test.

 

 Peewit (commonly called Murray Magpie) above, and Magpie below