A bit of this and a bit of that..............

 I see that 17 days have disappeared since my last post and today I had a gentle reminder that there has been no blog for May. So here I am. The weather has turned out very cold and we had a frost this morning, so I have the laptop on my knee and am sitting in the chair by the fire. (I will tell you that I did not see that frost, but was told about it.)

In my last post I hoped that my 'get up and go' would return soon, Not long after that I thought that it had returned as I got back to work with Max and spent time in the garden. But the next week it left again. Some days are productive, and others are not. So I am just going with the flow, and listening to my body. 

Going back through the photos I have found a few that tell me what has been going on here at Number 8. Or should I say, what has not been going on??

There was a QFO day....(Quilts For Others)......... more string blocks being made, but the container doesn't seem to going down............

..and these blocks are now being laid out......

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.........and another day with friends that we enjoyed stitching time with.....(there might have been more socializing time than stitching time!!)

                                                        

                                           ..................and a load of wood was delivered to my shed.......

                                                                  

                           ............some time has been spent trying to sort fabric for the coming market day.......

Another year has gone and I am another year older,,... which is so close to Mother's Day which means that this collection is for 2 special days................

....it was a surprise to have this box arrive at my door one day.........

..and fortunately good friends turned up a few days later and soon organised the setup.....which was followed by Chinese takeaway while checking out how the TV works.............

.........and I confess to a some time since then 'cruising' through the movie list of Netflix......... 

There has also been more book reading time, and some stitching time with Dear William. (I shall do a separate post about Dear William  sometime.)

I drove to Murray Bridge on Mother's Day and enjoyed time with family at Mums.

Monday I had appointments in Murray Bridge and enjoyed coffee time with my brother and his wife.

That's about all for now. Another time there will be an update of quilting with Max and a post  about Dear William.

I am hoping for that get up and go to return permanently very soon, as the fairy is due to return next week and she will be 'cracking the whip' as we prepare for the market day.

Stay warm in the southern part of the world, and stay cool if you are heading into warmer temperatures.

Blessings, From Jude

The last day of another month...............

How does this happen so often?? 

It's not like I am so busy here that time is going so fast for that reason.

I have to confess to much 'watching the world go by' since returning from our road trip.

While the covid was relatively symptom free, the after effects are quite different.

I find it is very easy to fill in my days with doing very little.

Add in a few 'shut eye' moments and time disappears. 

Some time has been spent joining in with Chooky's zoom sessions, and now that I have met some of these ladies personally, it's quite different.

I have been trying to get some order into the garden by weeding, and pulling up the summer veg in readiness to plant winter ones. My chrysanthemums are flowering nicely at the moment, and sorry this photo is not so good. After less than an hour outside, I am ready for another rest.

I have read some books, including this one which was a good read.

Before Raylene caught the train to home, we did a stock take of the fabric bundles on the shelves...............

.............and added some more to the supply..........

.......and I have cut more fabrics ready for the fairy to add her magic touch to when she returns. There is another market day happening soon, so I really need to find some motivation.

This is the quilt I made at Scrub Stitching and now has a backing prepped and is in the queue ready for the quilter..............it was made with a layer cake and is 72" square.

This was the scrappy Moda Love that had got this far at retreat.......

...............and now looks like this. I wanted a rectangle and not square, so didn't make any more blocks, but added some units to each side of the above photo, and then 2 borders. A backing has also been made and put into the ever growing queue.

I had made the 2 rows at top of photo at retreat, and put it aside until I had more space to layout the blocks,...............

 ......................and have now made more blocks and added borders. I had intended doing 6 rows, but decided finished was good. It also has a backing and is in the queue. This is not my favourite quilt, but it will keep someone warm when it is donated.

This afternoon I pulled out the blocks for Dear William and trimmed some of them and started constructing the centre with sashing. But sad to say, I have called it a day, and had a snooze by the fire for the rest of the afternoon.

I really hope that the 'get up and go' that left the building, will return very soon. It will be 2 weeks tomorrow since we returned and there are jobs waiting to be done. Max will think I have forgotten him.

My apologies to those who have left comments on my blog. For some reason blogger is not emailing them to me, but I thank you for visiting.

Time to get back to the recliner and the warm fire. The temperatures have dropped and the grass is green again. Think winter might be coming, ready or not!

Back sometime, 

Blessings, From Jude

The final day's travel, to home.........................

                After collecting our extra passenger, we departed West Wyalong soon after 8am.

I did say in a previous post that we had another 2 days of touring before heading home. But plans change and I made the decision to head home in one day, which meant we had a 10 hour journey to go. Our first stop was at Hay, and I know most people say how boring and flat and straight the road is. 

                                    

                              

The 2 of us in the front seat are both from farms and we were very interested in seeing the countryside, what they are growing, what animals were in the paddocks etc etc. (We decided that there should be signs on the fences, telling us what crops they are growing. And further up, where the trees grow along the edge of the road, we would like gaps so we could see into the paddocks. It was noted that we didn't see many cattle or sheep along the way, although the feed seemed to be abundant!!)

In fact we came across a large mob of cattle, grazing the 'long paddock' which was good to see.

Our first stop for the day was at Hay, at the local bakery and of course the necessary conveniences.

                                       

We had seen a few emu's on the edge of the road as we travelled, but not close enough for photographs. This is the entrance to Hay, and I did think about stopping long enough for a pic, but time was marching on. So when Jo posted this photo, I asked permission to 'borrow' it. Thanks Jo. ......(Note that I was happy to see emu's on our travels, but you will understand I was not so keen to see any kangaroos, although there were lots of signs warning of them!!)

                  

We took a different road after Hay to head back to the river, and would be crossing at Swan Hill this time. There were a lot of cattle grids on this road, to stop the cattle from venturing into the next property. I wondered if they might prevent fairies from crossing too??

                                      

The road was very ordinary along here, having been damaged with the floods a few months ago. A lot of road works were underway, and travel was slower. (You could tell the local traffic though as they did not slow down).

Our next stop was at Swan Hill, and I learnt that it was a Victorian town, and I don't know why, but I always thought it was on the NSW side of the river. Swan Hill is a very pretty place and we got some lunch and headed to the riverside. Again, the flood levels have dropped right back in a short time. The bridge is another one of those "one car at a time" bridges.

                          

                                         We enjoyed our lunch by the water, on a very sunny day.

                                               

Thanks to the lovely couple who were also sitting by the river, and offered to take a photo of the 3 of us.

The park was a very pretty area and the fence was still standing, where I presume it prevented access during the flooding.

We did do a quick tourist trip and found the Giant Murray Cod for a photo.

                               

Time was marching on by then, so we headed south west, down through country Victoria and some of the towns we had stopped at on the way up. It was late afternoon when we saw a large mob of kangaroos on the edge of the road. I wasn't taking any chances, so drove very slowly through there.

We arrived at Nhill for a quick 'convenience' stop and found these trees decorated with knitted poppies, ready for Anzac day.

From Nhill, we were then on the main highway and much more traffic, especially trucks. We arrived back in Bordertown about 6pm, 8 days from when we left after travelling 2,657km!! 

What an amazing trip we had, meeting all the quilting, blogging zoomers, especially the international contingent!! 

I guess the only downside to the Road Trip, was coming home a 'bit unwell' and doing my first ever Rat test on Tuesday morning and seeing those 2 red lines!! But after spending 8 days together, I caught it, and the fairy didn't!!?? How does that work?? I have dodged it for the last 3 years and now.........

I have to say my symptoms were not too severe, although now the fatigue has set in and not a lot is happening here at Number 8. I might claim sick leave for the rest of the week. (I think the boss might owe me some time??)

There is probably a lot more I can say about our road trip, but that will do for now. It is great to read everyone's posts as they arrive home and look at their photos. Gail is travelling from Adelaide to Melbourne and was only an hour from me yesterday!! Wonder if she saw me waving?? 

Will have to come back another day with a 'back to reality' post.

Blessings, From Jude

The road home - Dubbo quilt show...............

Time to  show some photos from the Dubbo quilt show that we stumbled upon on Sunday afternoon. Like I said, it must have been meant for us to attend, when we ended up finding somewhere to lunch and discovering there was a quilt show in the same street!! The coincidences didn't stop there either. As we entered the show and lined up to pay admission, and buy raffle tickets, we were asked where we were from. When I said South Australia, the lady asked where in SA?? When I told her Bordertown, she asked if I knew.... and named some relatives of hers!! It turned out that I knew her cousin very well, and in fact had been messaging her earlier in the day. It was truly meant to be that we ended up at the quilt show!!! What I would could call a "Godincidence!!"

                                  The smiling face at the door to greet us.....

                 There were some fantastic quilts hanging at the show, and I did take a few photos.......

 Some I have pics of the labels, some I don't.....this quilt was constructed using lots of doileys, and I love this idea, as I have quite a collection of these, somewhere................

This quilt was a great way to use up ties..................

This quilt required a closer look to see how it was constructed..............

....and we discovered it was really a curved log cabin!!

This lady was treadling away on her machine, piecing a quilt, and lots of people stopped to watch and chat to her...............

This was just a small selection of the quilts that were hanging. A lovely quilt show ladies, we are glad to have been in Dubbo at the right time to see your display.

We had a few more hours of driving to our booking at West Wyalong after leaving the show. More unpacking and turning the heater on. I made good use of the motel Wifi to download some photos and post a blog before an early night ready for the next stage.

Be back with the next instalment of newsfromjude soon.

Blessings, From Jude