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

what to do next?

After finishing my 6 pieces for the Red Poles "put the kettle on" exhibition early last week I turned the sewing room/studio back into a bedroom for Rachel who was home for a few days before heading off overseas yesterday. Now I'm deciding what project to tackle next - the ufo promised to complete this year for Fleurieu Quilters? - something for the Guild Festival of Quilts exhibition in November - one of the many ideas in my head? - create something incorporating the face I painted in a Bonnie McCaffrey workshop recently?

One idea requires some fabric or textiles which read South America - traditional fabric, braid, lace, or fabric with print suggestive of the area. I only need small pieces, and they can be recycled, but I am having a hard time finding anything at all. What we do see associated with South American usually turns out to be Central American. Anyone got any ideas?


While I decide (ie procrastinate) I'll get in a bit more family history research. I have made a few interesting finds on the National Library (of Australia) Trove website recently, and have been contributing corrections while searching the digitised newspapers. A couple of incidents little known (ie read not spoken of) to our generation were written up in the daily papers...


There are some really clever and very imaginative works in the Red Poles exhibition which is by 19 artists. It opened on Saturday and runs until 17 July. Above is my formali-tea, and this is informali-tea

They were fun to do.

Saw the following photos again tonight and was reminded of the lovely, rich colour of aubergines, which we have been seeing in the fruit on our second year bushes. The splendid, treasured specimen below, resting on my machine quilted cushion was snapped by the proud 'father'.

I took this photo in the garden - a wonderful rich and beautiful colour. Eggplants weren't something I grew up with, so didn't really appreciate the colour until recent years. They seem to go darker as they age and are picked

... but they taste good! They usually end up in 'moussagne' - a cross between moussaka and lasagne.