I love a sun burnt country....

I've been sitting at my desk engrossed in system testing, and looked up to see the fire in the Mt Hotham area had taken off. (Have a look at the "Mountain Cams" in the link). We really are a land of contrasts - floods in Queensland - fires in Victoria. A very trying time for those effected, and it really puts my daily issues into perspective for me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer colour in the garden

The garden has been suffering with the heat (and so has the gardener). The water bill was a bit of a shock, but when I've put so much effort into the garden I can't just see it curl up and die as soon as the weather heats up.

Even with the heat, there is still colour to be found.

Guess what I found in the garden......

I was on my way to hang out a load of washing today, and look what I found. He (I'm assuming the Echidna is a he), was looking for ants under every rock around the garden edge. He was quite happy for me to follow him around the garden, before he headed of to the neighbours back yard.

Fire ready......

Is it hot where you are? Do you have a "fire plan"?

 

We are about to have our 3rd day in a row over 42C, and the Victorian  CFA warnings page is constantly open on the computer. We've also down loaded this fantastic app to our phones, called "CFA Fire Ready". Very impressed. It uses GPS to locate you, and links back to the CFA warnings to show any fires in your area. It gives you the distance the fire is from you, so when I read that 22 CFA trucks attending an out of control grass fire 12km away, I couldn't help but feel a bit anxious. Thankfully the CFA had it under control very quickly. Those caught up Tasmania fires haven't been so lucky. 

 

 

In the clouds.....

Can you see "her"? There she is in the upper right.

 

Some times my imagination runs away with me, and I can see all sorts of shapes in the clouds. This time I didn't notice the profile of a woman, until I looked at the image. I can see her upturned nose, her delicate ear, her hair line and big grin as she looks towards the sunset. What do you see when you look at the clouds?

A "design wall" at last....

 

We've recently done a small renovation to have full length mirrored robes added to the spare bedroom. This meant having to have the wall ripped out and rebuilt. Lucky for me, the added bonus was that I now have a large flat wall in my work room just crying out for a "design wall".

 

My approach to patchwork is a bit like my approach to crochet. I don't plan, but rather let the design evolve as I go along. So without a design wall to put the work on and stand back to ponder the next step, I've been a bit restricted with what I can do. Not any more.

 

We had some polystyrene insulation panels left over from Mr's underfloor insulation installation, and they looked like the perfect thing to make the design wall from. So armed with a can of spray adhesive, I joined 4 panels together and lay them on a piece of cotton wadding. I've also attached a layer of cardboard just to give the joins on the panels a little more strength. It was a bit tricky to get just the right amount of spray adhesive to form a bond rather than dissolve the polystyrene, but with a little trial and error I was able to wrap the edges of the wadding over the sides of the panels to give a crisp edge.

 

I've used "Command Strips" to attach it to the wall, and probably over engineered things, but they were really easy to use and haven't failed yet.

 

Without Mr home to lend a hand, it was a bit of a fiddle to get it on the wall. (Could I wait until he got home from work? Yes, but once I was on a roll it just had to be done NOW!)  But with the help of the ironing board as a "level", I'm pretty happy with how it has worked out. The fabric pieces attached to the wadding nicely or I can pin into the polystyrene for a little more permanency.



 

No excuses now not to get back into patchwork!

 

 

 

A new morning for a new year...

I haven't been able to focus on blogging in recent months. There's just been so much else going on, that something had to give. So why come back now? Well, I put together a calender as a gift this Christmas, that was made up of some of my blog photos. It reminded me of how much I enjoyed photography and sharing the images with you. So I'm making a new start with this shot I took this morning, when the house (and tent) full of visitors were still sleeping.

Happy New Year to you, and may the new year bring you love, joy, and peace.