Monday 31 October 2016

In my garden

Just a few photos taken this week in my garden. The weather has been so changeable, as winter has dragged on longer than usual. We have the occasional sunny day, and even temperatures up to high 20s a couple of days, and then back comes the cold and rain again. I can't say I am sorry, because I don't do heat very well. 



My sweet peas were right up at the top of the fence, but very strong winds one day brought them down like this. And there seems to lots of leaves and plant, but not a lot of flowers. A garden guru friend told me that there was probably too much fertiliser in the garden???












The first carnation to appear.




I hope you enjoyed your visit to my garden this spring. I have sorted some before and after photos of the side garden, which I shall post soon.  The bottlebrush tree is just coming out into flower now, so will be taking some snaps of this soon.

Blessings, From Jude

Another patient

Some of the recent newsfromjude has been about accidents and illness, with photos of Miss Bridie in hospital and Pauline cutting the tendon in her hand. And now there is more news, this time about Miss Bridie's dad, DS1 who had a fall playing basketball last week, and broke his leg!!


As he will be out of action for a few weeks, and not able to work, he is not real happy. There was more damage than originally thought, so not sure how long his recovery will be yet.

The day after this happened I also received the news that DD2 had "connected" her vehicle with a kangaroo, and sustained a lot of damage to the car. Thankfully noone in the vehicle was injured.

I was starting to wonder "if I had run over a chinaman". And then I wondered about that saying and how it had come about. I asked Mr Google about the origin of that saying, and found out that nowadays it is considered offensive, but apparently chinamen were considered lucky, so to have run over one, was rather unlucky.

Yesterday I decided it was time to pay a visit to most of my family as it had been awhile since I had made a trip. I left about 7am and arrived home again at 9 last night. First stop was morning tea at the home of DD1 and children. DD1 has a birthday next week, so we had an early birthday cake with coffee. Next stop was at the home of DD2 and family, who live about an hour away. Next on the agenda was checking out DS who lives in the same town as DD2. It was good to catch up with Miss Bridie too, who showed me her knee, and the little scar from her operation.


On the way home from there, I called into my mum and dad at Murray Bridge, and had a visit with them.

It was a good day, for a Sunday drive, although a very windy day with some rain. Today I am a bit jetlagged, so sitting in the lounge with my feet up while writing this post. Shortly I shall head to the kitchen, and do a bit of food preparation for lunch tomorrow. There will be about 10 of us for a sewing day, lunch, some bubbles, a few sweeps, and maybe a look at the big race of the day, the Melbourne Cup.

Blessings, From Jude

Educating myself


Whilst chatting to Michele recently about her new Beatrux Potter book, I had to confess to not ever having read the books. I must have had a "deprived" childhood, and so, when I saw these books in the local shop today, I decided to buy them and educate myself. I did read lots of Enid Blyton books and remember the story of the Magic Faraway Tree well. Somehow Peter Rabbit seems to have missed out being at our house. Maybe I can share them with Miss Bridie when I have read them?


Be back soon,
Blessings, From Jude

Just checking in.......

My apologies once again for a week of silence. My mother told me yesterday that she had been checking in waiting for another blog post, so I guess there are others too. I thank those who commented last week, that my blog was not boring and mundane. Thanks to all those who come back and check in on newsfromjude.

I have a bit of info re the last week to share, and will probably do a few smaller posts in the next couple of days, in between preparations for tomorrows Melbourne Cup sewing day and luncheon here. Still working out a lunch menu, and need to shift a few things of mine that have spread to the sewing tables, even though I have not been sewing at those tables. I have worked out that the more space you have, the more things you fill it with!

My patient has gone home to her house, and is managing with one hand, and goes back to the doctor this week to see how the progress is, and is hopeful that the plaster will come off.

My appointment with the accountant went well last Tuesday, and now it's time to work on the last 4 months paper work before I get to the end of another year. Please remind me before life takes over again.

Time to hand the washing out, and cook some food. Be back soon.

Blessings, From Jude

Monday 24 October 2016

A Sunday afternoon drive

A few weeks ago I received a special invitation in the post, to attend the Book Launch of Michele Hill's latest book, Stitching with Beatrix Potter. So after the departure of my cousins yesterday morning, 3 of us from Bordertown went on a lovely Sunday drive. It was held at the home of Lessa Siegele, and it was a lovely afternoon, meeting up with special friends. Michele has reported of the event on her blog, so you can read more about it there. I have a few photos to share below.


And it was special to meet Valerie, who is pictured below with Faye. Valerie apparently reads my blog, and made herself known to me. I can see the numbers of people who read, but don't know who they are, so it is lovely when I meet them. (As I mainly write this for my records, it never ceases to amaze me at the numbers of people, who keep up with the newsfromjude, as I think it is pretty mundane, ordinary, everyday stuff, not exciting travel news etc.)






Lessa made a lovely speech, and Michele has better photos on her blog.



It was also an early celebration of Michele's special birthday which is close to Christmas, so a cake was cut and shared.


This banner was very appropriate for someone with a surname of "Hill"!


These biscuits were almost too special to eat, but they disappeared off the plate.


These thankyou gifts were hand made for us by Michele, when in fact we should be giving her a thankyou for the invitation.


We came home with a bundle of the new books for members of our group who had ordered them. I know Marie and Pat read their's in the car on the way home, but I look forward to checking mine out soon.


Lessa lives very close to the beach, and we drove along the Esplanade on our way home, so that we could say that we had seen the sea!


We arrived home about 8.30pm after a wonderful day. Marie's husband did not quite "get it", that we would drive 3 hours there, and 3 hours back, just for afternoon tea! But, as one lady said, he did not know just how special the people we were having afternoon tea with, were! THANKYOU,  Michele, and Lessa and others (you know I mean you Faye) for a fantastic event.

Now it is time to sort out the book work ready for an appointment with the accountant tomorrow. (Just another thing that has been put off in the recent "busyness" of life!)

Blessings, From Jude

Cousins, cards, car, coffee and more...........

Here we are again, and almost a week has disappeared without a blog update. And once again, I am racking my brains to work out a title for the post. I should just date them, that would be easier. It is like trying to find a name for a quilt, sometimes it just comes easily and others it does not. A lot has happened in the last week, and I need to decide if I will cram it into one post, or do little posts??? If I haven't taken photos, it is sometimes difficult to remember just what the week has been filled with.

Last Tuesday afternoon my cousin Helen and hubby Harold returned to spend the night and I posted a photo of Helen sewing the binding to her quilt. After the binding was sewn on, we spent a fun evening playing cards.

My patient with the bandaged hand joined in, and, (sort of), managed to manipulate her handful of cards. One person, who shall remain nameless, helped her when it was her turn to deal out, or pick up from the pack each round. And during the conversation, we heard a few phrases, such as "do you need a hand?", or "gotta hand it to you"!

A photo of the finished quilt.


They left on Wednesday morning and I headed up the highway to Keith to get my car serviced. It was a bit overdue, and something I had been putting off for awhile. While the car was being done, I enjoyed a coffee with a quilter friend from Keith, and had a great chat. We had a lot to talk about, as both of us had been down the "C" road, (the c standing for cancer.)
While I was in Keith, Pauline was taken to Mount Gambier to see the specialist about her hand. She got a good report, and a new bandage, which is a bit less restrictive, but is still limited in what she can do for awhile yet. (She has now gone home to see how she can manage.)

Thursday was our patchwork group day, and I was hostess, so took morning tea and opened up and set out the coffee, tea and cups etc. While I was there, my car was getting a couple of new tyres, so that's another job ticked off the list! And I spent my morning tracing patterns onto vliesofix for a quilt that has been patiently waiting in the "to do" list for awhile now. I purchased the "Dear William" kit by Michele Hill last year sometime. I have quilted so many of Michele's patterns for other people, that I decided I would like one of my own. It feels good to have finally started, and I managed to trace the patterns for the first 3 months. Lots more tracing and cutting out in my future though!



I had been telling Pauline, that I was expecting my cousins, Chris and Max to visit for the weekend, and I think she thought that they were a couple of guys. But Friday afternoon, Christine and Maxine arrived! It is a long time since we have caught up, and the photo albums came out, and we spent a lot of time reminiscing and catching up on events since we had last met. Our families spent a lot of time together when we were young. I don't think we stopped talking the whole time they were here.


In my house, it is probably no surprise, but I have quite a collection of quilts, that I have made over the years. Not everyone admires, or appreciates a patchwork quilt, but when I meet sometime who does, I have been "offloading" a quilt or two. (I figure it will make things much easier for my children, one day, if there are less to "dispose" of!) And these 2 cousins, were happy to choose something they liked, although they deliberated long and carefully about which ones to pick.





I received an email from Chris, with a photo of her quilt, on the bed at her house, showing how she had changed the room around to suit the quilt. Maxine chose a wall hanging, and a couple of quilts that Chris is holding. I don't think they made much of a dent in my collection, but I am pleased that they have gone to homes where they will be used and not stored away in a cupboard.


On Saturday, Christine went to the Open Gardens in and around Bordertown, and Maxine and I went to Kaniva to their Quilt exhibition. I took a few photos, mainly of ones I had quilted for members. It is always good to see them again, as when they leave here, they don't have bindings yet. The following quilts were all made in "Pick a case" Mystery retreat, that some of their members have attended here.







And the following photos are of others that I had quilted.



The next 3 are quilts made with the Quick Curve Ruler. Our group are doing this workshop on Saturday, so I will finally be able to try out the ruler, that I bought a few years ago. (I wonder if I might find some fabric in my stash somewhere?!)




This quilt was made by Lyn, I have not blogged it yet, and can now do this. I was pleased to get the distance photo, as on my bed it was just too close. The label below tells about the quilt. Lots of little pieces went into the blocks of this quilt.



After Maxine and I had visited Kaniva, I did the tourist thing and showed her around Bordertown. She learnt about the White Kangaroos that Bordertown is famous for, and we drove to the lake, around town, and then out to Poocher Swamp, which is full of water this year. The cousins left early Sunday morning, where the early morning temperature had been 1 degree with a frost on the lawn.

I think I will end my post here and tell you about my Sunday drive in another posting.

Be back soon,

Blessings, From Jude