daisy chain

Gone Fishing!

We are going on holidays for nearly two weeks and staying in a lovely old cottage by the sea here. I've packed lots of books,crocheting and hand sewing-now where was that fishing rod?!! Take Care:)

This is.......

My most favourite outfit that expresses my individual style.......Well I am not really very stylish and I don't have a most favourite outfit but I am quite partial to purple!!!

But at the moment I am loving my new red wellies!!

Thanks again to Angela. And thanks to Kitty's Kaboodle for this week's suggestion.

A Lovely Week...

My week has been full and so enjoyable-teaching and work is already a dim, faraway memory-it doesn't take me long to turn off these days!

I've been fiddling with.....

Dyeing again-I bought an old blanket for $5.50, cut it up and now I have a rainbow of woolly goodness.

Making things out of felted jumpers...

Practising crocheting flowers...

A lovely fabric package in the mail..

Enjoying long winter walks as the sun comes up...

Unlike this feathery chap, not much cleaning going on around here...

But plenty of relaxing...

Hanging around...

But never idle...

My mum and I had a lovely couple of hours at the zoo yesterday in the peace and quiet without 50 school children in tow!!! We went at 2:30-just as the last of all the buses were on their way safely back to all the schools around the land. Mum and I quietly pottered around the almost deserted grounds and just about had it all to ourselves!!! Luxury!!

Wherever you are I hope you are warm and cozy tonight....

This is...the Space in Which I Create

My space isn't usually quite this tidy-especially when I am half way through something (I often spread out all around the house!) But because I am now officially on holidays for five weeks-yes five weeks!!!How lucky am I?-I decided to have a bit of a tidy up and make some plans for some serious crafting. The last few weeks have been somewhat hectic to say the least but that is about to change. Here is the study where I create...

It is pretty organised and when it gets in a bit of a mess is easy to tidy as most things have a "home".Thank you Michelle for this week's suggestion.   

Last weekend I went to a wonderful workshop on how to dye and print your own fabric. The artist Dijanne Cevaal was oh so talented, generous and amazing. We learnt how to make interesting effects on fabric including scrunching, tying and folding and used natural foliage, stamps and lino cuts to make one of a kind designs.

The fabric sat in the assortment of dyes for an hour.

The best part was rinsing them and seeing how they turned out.

Another highlight was seeing  Dijanne's amazing quilts  and listening to all the stories that go with each quilt. Her designs are stunning and her machine quilting is just extraordinary. Here are a few samples....

Some close ups..

She has a book called, "Seventy Two Ways not to Stipple or Meander(Ideas for Free Machine Quilting)." Here is the sampler that demonstrates the designs...

One of my favourites was this one...

Close up sections...

She has a blog-well worth a visit or two.There are so many clever people out there!

This is......A Day Late!

Because of the two day fabric dyeing workshop I am a bit late for my travel memory post. Thank goodness for long weekends! My workshop was wonderful, inspiring and fun-I'll post about it later.

Thanks to Hila for this week's great suggestion and of course to Angela who thought up the whole This is...idea in the first place.

One of my favourite travel memories is when I went to Borneo in 1993.I was single then and went by myself but joined a small group of other travellers from around the world to experience an amazing cultural bombardment of the senses. We had a guide with us who was Australian but had married a Malaysian woman and could speak the language fluently.

Climbing Mt Kinabalu was one of the many highlights.

You start at the park headquarters...

And spend the whole day climbing...

And climbing...

And climbing...

Surrounded by the most amazing rainforest terrain that changes the higher you climb.

We stayed the night here...

And got up in the early morning darkness to get to the summit by sunrise...

It was like another planet...

And here I am climbing all the way down again! It poured and poured for most of the day!

You feel quite shattered but exhilerated at the end. To this day I have never had the same kind of leg ache that I  experienced after that climb (and lasted for quite a few days)

Another highlight for me was the Orang utan sanctuary...

And I could go on and on....

In our group of ten I got friendly with a fellow traveller called Tom, from England. He was an amazingly fit, funny and cheeky 73 year old with so many interesting stories to tell about his life and his many, many travelling adventures-hiking and climbing all around the world. We kept in contact and I'd regularly receive his postcards from various exotic locations. We always sent each other Christmas cards without fail. Sadly, the last two Christmases I have sent mine but haven't received one from him. If he is still alive he would be 91 and probably still tying up his laces of his trusty old hiking boots ready for another adventure!

Friday doesn't take long to come around again!

Happy Long Weekend everyone-I hope you have a good one-that extra day makes all the difference! I have been looking forward to doing a two day workshop called Dye and Print Your Own Fabric run by The Quilters'Guild of SA.The visiting artist from Melbourne is Dijanne Cevaal and it is well worth a look at her blog. I can't wait to turn this....

...into colourful fat quarters (thank you to my trusty assistant in the right hand corner!) A couple of years ago I did a similar course and still have some of the results of that workshop in my stash.

I have been oggling my new Japanese Crochet book and have been delighted with what is inside. Even though the patterns are in Japanese there are many pictorial representations that I might be able to work out. I love the designs and simple photography.

OOOO!!! Ahhhh!!!

I continue to be amazed by our Hakea and have enjoyed watching the stages of the pincushion's development. It is such a lovely tree.

The bees think so too!

This is.....My Pet

Six years ago we bought this little energetic bundle of cuteness and called him Kobi...

He is a Hungarian Vizsla and didn't take long to fill his baggy skin.

His favourite things are exploring the beach(which I'm sure he thinks is his!)

And of course sleeping in front of the window in the sun!

One of my favourite quotes is,"My goal in life is to become as wonderful as my dog thinks I am!" And we all  think he is pretty wonderful. Thanks again to Angela and Kyla-another great choice this week.

I really enjoyed making a couple of Softies this weekend....

We had a lovely clear blue sky and warm sunshine for our first day of winter here in Adelaide. I hope your first day of winter(or summer) was a good one!