The Start of a New Chapter

Yesterday was my last day in paid employment, and what a busy day it was, being the end of financial year. 

The day was brightened when some flowers arrived at work from some special friends and my colleagues gave me a card with beautiful sentiments and a gorgeous bracelet for a farewell gift.

I had mixed emotions as I left the building for the last time.  It hasn’t sunk in as yet, as we prepare to head off on our big adventure at the end of the week. It just feels like getting ready for a holiday.  When we return from our trip it will start to sink in.

The weather has been wet today, so when Chooky sent an invitation to a Zoom sewing morning I was definitely in.  Of course I forgot to take a photo of us all once again.  I always marvel at the range of topics that are discussed while we work on our projects, or just sit and chat.

I made a bit more progress on my Blue Quilt, finally getting around to fusing the lightweight interfacing to the appliqué background fabrics and then getting a couple of blocks ready to stitch down.

Then I remembered that I have to get my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks completed this week, so pulled out my 1930s fabrics and made a start on them.  

After the session finished, I kept on going and now do have the purple Rainbow Scrap blocks for July completed.

Firstly, my butterflies and nine patches.

Then my bright half square triangles.

I then got stuck in and cut the setting triangles and fabrics for sashings and cornerstones of the churn dash quilt. 

A day of bits and pieces, but progress on a few fronts.

I had to cut short my time in the sewing room, as we were going out to an early dinner with some friends and then to have a wander around the Bathurst Winter Festival.  The weather is disappointing, but it was just very light rain, so we still were able to see some of what was on offer.

Tonight was “Ignite the Night”, the first of two night time events with food stalls and street performers.  We will be away for the second, which will be next Friday night.

This is the seventh year of the festival, having missed 2020.  Our first port of call each time is to the Renzaglia Wines stand to buy a glass of mulled wine.  They are our old next door neighbours from when we lived out of town, so nice to see them.  We only just scraped in to get our glass this year, as they were about to run out.

Then it was just a wander to see the lights and street performers.

The centrepiece of the illuminations is the Court House.

Last year the court house wasn’t illuminated, as it was wrapped in scaffold while undergoing a major restoration.  That was completed just a couple of weeks ago, so it was nice to see it all lit up again this year.  One of the restoration tasks was to completely overhaul the clock, which is now working perfectly once more.

The Festival is such a feel good event, running for the two weeks of the school holidays.  It brings lots of people to town and gets us out and about in the middle of winter.

There are more illuminations, which we hope to get out and see during the coming week.  This year there are also sculptures in the park, so we hope to go and see them in the daylight.

As we went back to the car, we noticed that the old Techical College, that we toured a few weeks ago, has now been lit up at night.  It looked lovely reflected in the wet road.

Tomorrow is also predicted to be wet, but we must start getting organised for our escape at the end of the week.