Tag Archives: Christmas

Unseasonal weather

06 Sunday Jan 2013

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Well, Christmas and New Year holiday over and done, and already a week into 2013. We’ve had very hot weather here in Australia, in WA we had ours over the Christmas and New Year period, but now it’s in the Eastern States, where they also have bushfires to contend with. Sympathy and commiserations to people who have already lost homes and businesses, and fingers crossed that those who are missing will turn up safely. The threat of bushfire is something we live with every summer in this area, and much as I love living here, and have no intention of moving, I have to admit to breathing a sigh of relief at the end of each summer that we have survived.

As I write this it is actually raining, quite steadily, and although I haven’t been outside for an hour or two I would guess that the temperature has dropped a bit from the 38 degrees it was yesterday. That’s 38 degrees centigrade, so around 100 degrees for anybody who thinks in Farenheit. Even at 6 this morning it was still in the high twenties I think, overcast and very humid. Not quite what we would normally expect for January, but weather everywhere these days just seems to be unexpected.

ImageI finished the Christmas tree table decoration I was making, here is the picture. I was quite pleased with it. I had been going to put some decorations on it, but I couldn’t find the gold sequins I know I have somewhere, so yet another reason to get my craft space organised! I’m sure that when I start I shall find all sorts of things I’ve forgotten I’ve got, and probably two or three of some of them. It would be so goof to be able to find things just when I want to use them.

 

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Christmas trees and Christmas lilies

27 Thursday Dec 2012

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Well, Christmas half over. We had celebrations with part of the family on the day itself, and will get together with other family on Saturday. Nothing like spreading the holiday out for as long as possible! Plus, since we haven’t had either gathering at my house I haven’t had to do very much apart from make food to take.
I’ve been making a Christmas tree table decoration out of quilt fabric to take on Saturday, from a picture sent to me by my aunt in England. She’s been making them to sell at a charity bazaar to raise funds for the local hospice. Mine isn’t quite finished yet, I’ll post a photo when it is, but I found a few examples of similar ones on the web.
One being sold on Etsy, here,
and a tutorial to make something similar here.
Since I don’t know where my aunt got the idea from I can’t credit the original designer, but they seem to be fairly common so perhaps lots of people had the same idea. My Google search also turned up some other interesting ideas, which I should put to one side and think about before next Christmas – how likely is that to actually happen!
A photo for now, the lily bulbs I planted in the spring are now flowering beautifully. They are Lilium longiflorum I think, known in Australia and possibly other places as Christmas lilies for fairly obvious reasons. I am really impressed with these, the bulbs I bought were a really good size, so I had high hopes, and they are certainly living up to it. The bulbs came from a place called Tulips with a Difference, in South West WA, and here is one of the flowers.

lily

Winter weather and it’s almost summer

02 Sunday Dec 2012

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I can’t believe it’s been about three weeks since my last post, where did that time go? In my defence, work has been busy, and I’ve been busy at home. Getting the garden and property in general ready for summer, cutting grass, clearing bits of dead bushes, pruning etc, in readiness for the risk of a bushfire. I added some more sprinklers to the rooftop sprinkler system, which is designed to protect the house in the event of a fire nearby, and which of course I hope I never have to use.
During last week we had two or three days of weather which was more like winter than almost summer, very strong winds, rain, and cold. Fortunately there was not much damage to my property, a couple of branches down out in the paddocks is about all. Sadly though a large dead tree which has been standing, dead, in the paddock since I moved here almost 10 years ago did fall over. By the look of it I reckon it could have been dead for 5 years easily before I moved here, so I guess it had to fall over at some point. I had planted some new replacement trees around it, and fortunately it didn’t fall on any of them, so that was lucky. They are only about 2 or 3 feet high yet though, since they only went in last winter, so they have some growing to do.
I’ve also been doing some craft stuff. I bought my new overlocker last week, but haven’t really had much chance to play with it yet. It’s a Husqvarna, here. My only reservation about it so far is that it doesn’t have a free arm, but I do still have my old Singer machine, which I think I can get serviced, and use the free arm on that. The reason for picking the Husqvarna was that the front part opens up so that you can see more easily to thread, and it also has more room to the right of the needle. Also the cutting blade is underneath, which means more space around the needle, and it comes with a five year warranty, against only one year on the Singer I was considering. I’ll write a more complete review of it when I’ve had time to play with it a bit.
Yesterday was ATASDA branch meeting, for which we were supposed to make a Christmas card to exchange. It’s been years since I did any card making, but I burrowed through my box full of bits, and found some blank cards, which was a good start. Also some tissue paper with a gold pattern on it, and some brown card. I tore the tissue to a Christmas tree shape, cut a pot shape out of the brown card, and stuck both onto a card. A few weeks ago I had picked up some flowers which had fallen from my olive trees and pressed them, so they came handyfor little stars. A gold sequin glued at the top, and a line of stitching round the edge of the tree in gold thread, and voila! I was quite pleased with the result.

Christmas cardChristmas card detail
Now I have to find something to take as a gift to Red Hats next Saturday, and I still intend to make zines to taking to writing group on Sunday, but for now, back to the garden. The storm has left more leaves and rubbish lying around, and since the forecast is for 37 degrees on Tuesday I want to get some more done before it gets too hot.

Still here!

13 Tuesday Nov 2012

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Still here, but not posting much. No particular reason, except that the spring weather has me outside and working in the garden rather than indoors on the computer. This time of year is a busy time in the garden here in Western Australia, with grass to cut, and other general tidying up before the hot weather really hits. Summer is the time when the garden is really almost dormant, as it is in the winter in cold climates, with most plants just surviving the heat and the dry. Some are exceptions, and flourish, but apart from watering and the occasional dead heading I usually leave the garden to its own devices during summer. Watering gets done early in the morning or in the evening, and I go indoors during the heat of the day and sew or write or whatever else takes my fancy. On days when I am not at work that is.

My busy weekend was just that, and I will take photos of the kanzashi I made and post. Since then I’ve also found another tutorial, which I will try (if I can just remember where I found it!), and have said that I will show how to do them at one of our Red Hat meetings next year. Must practice a bit in the meantime.

Last weekend went with the other Red Hatters to the garden of one our our members, which she had opened as a fund raiser. Lovely garden, we’ve been there before, and lovely morning tea too. As usual came home and compared my garden unfavourably, but I will get there one of these days! I bought a couple of plants, one of which I don’t know the name of, and nor did anybody else. Also bought a bag from another Red Hatter which she had made. She had used as fabric all the selvedges cut from her quilting fabric, and it was very effective. Will get the camera out later this week and take pictures of that too.

At writing group one of the members had been to a workshop on ‘zines’ and showed us the results. I had no idea what they were, and Googled a bit, and here they are, the Perth Zine Collective.  I liked the way the paper was folded to make a tiny book out of one page, but whether all zines are like that or not I have no idea, I suspect not. Anyway, I had the idea of making a few to give to other members of the group instead of Christmas cards at our next meeitng, which will be at the beginning of December. I need to dig through my card making supplies to come up with some paper and other suitable decorations.

I also need to make a card to take for ATASDA meeting, and a gift for Red Hat Christmas function, so along with the skirts I still intend to do I shan’t have to look far for something to keep me busy.