June Stitching Wishes

Time to think about what I would like to achieve during the month of June.  Much will be the same as usual.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour for June has been announced to be orange. I will make my usual two split nine patch blocks.

CHOOKSHED CHALLENGE

The number selected this time is Number 5.  For me that is the Sew Together Bag.  I had to have a think to see if I will make it this month, or once again swap things round.  I think I will, as it has been on my wish list for about ten years and I have had the fabric for two years.  I have made a couple previously, as gifts, but not one for me.

Since the beginning of the year, I have found the missing fabric and Lou kindly provided me with the pattern, as I have still not located mine, which is annoying, as it has my hand written notes with it.  But, in reality, I do have everything I need to make the thing……oh, I may need to buy a few zips.  The fabrics I have chosen are the same Tilda range as the dilly bag kit that we received at Scrub Stitchin’ in 2023 and the fabric basket I made at the beginning of this year.  Anyone would think that I like it.  Also, previous Sew Together Bags that I have made have featured several diffferent fabrics.  At this stage, I have only two.  I may add more.  I did buy more of the range when we went to Scrub Stitchin’ this year.  However, they are earmarked for a By Annie bag. All very matchy, matchy.

I really want to get a wriggle on with the crochet blanket.  

Now that I am ready to start the decrease rows it should really zoom along……I hope.  Then to do a few rounds of something as a border.  It would be nice if Mick could actually use it when watching the footy.

What else?  I really don’t know.  

Maybe try to progress the projects I took to Scrub Stitchin’.  There has been no progress since I came home.

Perhaps, I will get the rest of the appliqué completed on the bright fish quilts.  All that is needed is the grey of the fish skeletons (there are two) and all their eyes.  It would be nice to get them moving along.  

And maybe the Five and Dime quilt that I started at Baradine.  

And the hexies are waiting patiently to be stitched into a panel.

Who knows?  Time will tell.

Other May Happenings

May was dominated by two things, firstly, Mick’s Mum’s passing and our short trip to Queensland.

So what else happened during the month?  I had to have a bit of a think.  I must say, I was fairly prolific on the blog post front during the month, but a few things slipped through the cracks.

Back at the start of the month the main service for the Bicentenary of the local church took place.  It was well attended and the weather was beautiful.  This altar cloth is brought out on special occasions.  It is over 100 years old.

We spotted a sweet little spiders web in the garden one morning.

I changed my little shelf over from Easter to Autumn.  Very simple again. Now it is time to change it to Winter.

I did read two books.  The first was picked up in a book exchange at a caravan park and brought back childhood memories.  I had one of these books when I was a kid.  It was rather amusing reading this book as an adult in 2025.  It depicted a sweet innocent time, where everyone is nice and the world in which she lived was rather idyllic.  In reality, I don’t think the world in the 1920s was quite as depicted either.  I do hope it was so, at least for some.

The second was an audio book to listen to as we travelled along.  Mick found the story telling to be too detailed, but I felt that it was often quite relevant to the context.  Yes, if you were reading an actual book, you could skim over some of it.  Overall, I really enjoyed it, as I have any of hers.  I see in today’s paper that she has just released another book.  I’ll have to keep an eye out for it on the library website.

I actually tried two new recipes.  The first was the feijoa muffins, which were definitely a success.  The second was a Massaman curry, which was also a success, but no photo.

There were  couple of Chookshed Zoom sewing days, which were very enjoyable, and helped me progress my crafting projects.

This time last year we were on the Isle of Man watching the TT motorcycle races.  This year we are not, but are watching from the lounge room.  Sadly, there has not been a lot of action, due to poor weather, which is rather ironic, as the previous five weeks were fine and sunny.  Fingers crossed the weather improves for the racing this week.

And that about sums up the month. Quite a lot going on.  Let’s hope June is a little calmer.

May Stitching Progress

It is time to have a look at all that I achieved on the crafting front during May.  You can pop back here to see what my grand wish list consisted of.

Firstly, the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks were made.  Easy Peasy.

My Chookshed Challenge was completed.  Yay!

I have now joined in with Betty’s Rainbow Quilters and completed the nominated block for the month.  You received some feature fabric, in this case the batik centre piece and the small teal squares, and make the block following the pattern provided, in the colours requested and return it to Betty to be put into a quilt.  A bit of fun, but not too onerous.  This block is very effective and I look forward to seeing how the quilt comes together in the future.

During my short time at the sewing machine, I have managed to piece a further ten pairs towards the Bonnie Lass leader and ender quilt.  Only a squillion more to go.

I have made good progress on the crochet rug.  This is the first time I have seen it laid out.  As soon as I finish this ball of yarn, I will stop making it any longer and do the decrease rows to fill in the corner.  That will take a further two balls of yarn.  Following that, I will do a few rows of something around it as a simple border.  Watch this space.  I’m eager to get it finished, so Mick can use it and I can work on something else.  

I didn’t make a start on the hexagon panel and I have made no progress on any of the projects that I took to Scrub Stitchin’, and that doesn’t matter in the least. This is supposed to be fun. 

I managed to complete 15 minutes of crafting on 27/31 days.

119/151 days = 78.81%

I only managed to empty one thread spool. That is better than nothing.  I may have something to do with spending very little time at the sewing machine.  Who’d have thought.

Now to think about what to do in June.

Chookshed Challenge #8 Is Complete

Can you believe it.  I actually completed a Chookshed Challenge project within the month!

I did not expect to get this project completed in May, but we did not expect to be back home after only about a week away.  Let’s recap.  You can read my initial post here. 

So, this was the kit I was working with.

As I explained at the time, I replaced the embroidered centre hexagons with vintage doiley pieces.  Despite saying I would include a yellow fabric, it was too strong.  In the end I made the three EPP motifs the same.

The kit used two different background fabrics for the blocks.  They were from fabric that was cut at ten inches square.  I felt that an extra half inch would give the motifs just a smidge more room to breathe, so would use something else.  I have a box of fabric labeled “Pretty”, so I was hoping to find something suitable in there, and I did.

This super soft green on cream was ideal.

I also wasn’t too fussed on the border fabric.  It was a bit too lolly pink I felt.  Therefore I auditioned a few options, all with the striped binding fabric that came in the kit.  

This is what came with the kit.  When I look at it now, it would have been fine.

This fabric was one of the fabrics that came with the kit and was to be the background for one of the blocks.  I liked it, but then realised that it was directional and that wouldn’t work.

I found this one in the Pretty box.  Mmm, that’s OK.  Still a bit too pink.

Let’s try something else from the Pretty box.  Maybe a bit to green.

Now, what if you refold the fabric, which has large florals?  That’s better.  

Next to look for some batting.  I knew I didn’t have sufficient iron on batting, but maybe I could make some frankenbatting that would work, and also use up of some of those small bits.  

It worked….just.  Mum would be proud of my frugality.  She was always careful with fabric usage.  If ever she used a commercial pattern, she would lay it out at home before purchasing fabric and inevitably found that you didn’t need as much as the pattern recommended.

I found a backing fabric in the Pretty box that would work but I’m not that fussed on.  You won’t see it, so a great way to use it up.

So, here it is.  All finished on the 29th of May.  

And the back.

I am so very pleased to tick this one off the list.  It is very “pretty”.  In the end, the only fabrics I used from the kit are the pink and blue in the EPP and the binding, but I am happy with the fabric choices I ended up making.  The other fabrics from the kit have now been added to the “Pretty” box for use in the future.

I am linking up with Deana.  Pop over to see what the other girls achieved.

Now, we just need to have a nice afternoon tea with pretty cups and saucers.

Musings While Sewing on a Button

What!  Two mending/adjusting activities in a week!

A few days ago a button mysteriously appeared on my sewing machine.  I didn’t know what the story was behind it, so I just sat it to the side to investigate later.

Today it became apparent where it had come from, when we were doing the groceries this morning.  Mick was wearing some work trousers, minus button, just held in position by his belt!  Oh, Mick!  I suppose that is one way to get me to replace a button……and that explains the button on the sewing machine.

As it was a button that needed to be sewn on with a shank, I had to get out my old original pin tin (well it is actually plastic).  This is the one that Mum bought for me when we started to do craft at school in 3rd class.  It is a Dorcas and originally had a yellow foam pincushion on top.  

The reason that I needed this particular pin tin is that is where the essential button sewing on tool is kept.

A match.  Not just any match, but the one I have been using for I reckon for about 45 years when sewing on buttons.  Surprisingly, it even still had the phosphorus head intact.

Anyway, the button was duly attached and I won’t be embarrassed when Mick wears these trousers next time.  Oh, and the match has been put back where it belongs, in the pin tin.

Musings While Hemming Trousers

I needed to buy some new “good” trousers, ie: not jeans.  While walking up the street towards the shopping centre I had to pass the Red Cross shop and decided to pop in and see if there was anything there.  I don’t often think to visit an op shop when looking for clothes, but maybe I could be lucky.

Well, this time I was definitely in luck.  I came away with a pair of charcoal Sportscraft woollen trousers that looked like they had never been worn for  the princely sum of $12.00.  You have to be very happy with that.  They fit like a glove, other than being way too long, which is the usual story for this shorty.

Taking up hems is not one of my favourite jobs, but needs must.  

While I was doing the hand stitching, I remembered how much I like stitching with woollen fabrics.  When I used to make my own clothes in my teens and early 20s, wool was my favourite fabric to work with.  It has a lovely hand and drape.  These trousers are from a nice fine woollen suiting.  They will be lovely to wear.

I also got to thinking about how I used to take up hems commercially…….. Well, as a teenager in the early 1980s,  I used to get paid $5.00 to take trouser hems up for the fellow next door.  When I think about it, that wasn’t too bad for back then.

I also had a paid job of hand stitching down the waist bands on wrap around skirts that a friend’s mother used to make out of calico and hand paint with designs.  They were quite the fashion item around here back then.  The waist band and long ties were finished, but the hem was just zig zagged for the purchaser to hem themselves.  I was paid $5.00 per waist band.

These days I will just stick to taking up hems for myself, Mum and Mick, if necessary.  That’s far more than enough.

A Walk Through the Garden

Someone has just celebrated his birthday.  I baked a lemon drizzle cake for him, using our own lemons.

The weather has been kind of crazy here lately.  We are towards the end of May and we still haven’t had a frost.  We were very close, right at the start of April, but not really even close since then.  It has also been rather dry.  We have had bits and pieces of rain, but not a lot, so quite a bit of watering has still been happening.  With the latest weather event that has caused serious flooding all down the east coast of NSW, we have received just 12mm.  That was rather lovely, as it was nice and gentle, so all soaked in.

Anyway, let’s see what is happening at the moment.

Firstly, our lemon tree in a pot has had its first decent crop of lemons, with fifteen.  The last couple of years we have only had a couple.

We are starting to see some of the winter flowers emerge.

I love the faded colour of the hydrangea blooms as they fade. In addition to these, the daphne is budding up nicely.

There are quite a few summer flowers that are still hanging in there.  Some frosts will put paid to them.

We also have some colour in the pots on the back verandah.  Inside, the zygocactus are budding up.  They will be a hot pink.

Not much is happening in the vege patch.  The rainbow chard is still going strong and surprisingly, the strawberries are still putting out the occasional flower and berry.  That won’t last for much longer.

We have done a tiny bit of planting.  We have put in a lot of onions and planted out a bulb worth of garlic cloves.  If you look closely, you can see a few of our weedy little onions and at the bottom of the photo you can see the garlic sticking its head out.  These were only planted a week before the photo was taken, so we were a little surprised to see how quickly the garlic have emerged.  The rain we received over the last day or so will have done them the world of good.

So, that’s where things are at present.  Most things will now go into hibernation until the ground warms up in September.

Heading Home

After receiving the sad news about Mick’s Mum, we started heading home that afternoon.  After consulting Google Maps, it turned out that we could retrace our steps, or we could travel via Thallon, Mungandai, Moree and down the Newell Highway and it would take all of eight minutes longer to get home, over a distance of about 760 km.  As you can probably guess, we took the alternate route, once again travelling on new to us roads.

While we wanted to get home, there was no urgency, so we still had a little look around as we went.

As we travelled south, cotton was the main feature in the paddocks.

Lots of bales in paddocks and quite a few on trucks as well.  It was quite colourful in places.

Then a cotton gin.  This is where the raw cotton has its initial processing before being exported for the final use.

As we travelled south, we noticed a sign to the Nindigully Pub.  

This was somewhere we had read about, but worked out we probably wouldn’t see this trip.  It is situated on the banks of the Ballone River and has a huge camping area.  It would be a great place to camp and do a spot of fishing before an evening in the pub.  Something to keep in mind……for one day. This time it was our turn to just drive in, take a photo and keep going.

Our next stop was the tiny town of Thallon.  We first heard about it on the TV show Backroads.  The local pub was closing, so some locals pitched in and bought it.  The Post Office was closing, so they took that on too.  They wanted to attract some tourists, so they got the silos painted and there were giant wombats living in the area in prehistoric times, so they had a giant wombat sculpture made, named “William”.  Now it is thriving.  There is a huge camping ground, with power, near the silos, the pub is famous and there is a coffee shop/corner store.  

We just took our silo photo and kept on our way this time.  Once again, somewhere to keep in mind for future trips.

Our destination for the day was Moree.  We have driven through oodles of times, but never stayed overnight there.  We often hear people mention the caravan park with the five thermal pools, so we thought this was a good chance to check it out.

The pools were lovely.  We hopped in the hottest one, which was 39 degrees C.  Way cooler than the cooler one at Lightning Ridge.  It was just like sitting in a hot bath.  Very pleasant and relaxing.

The next day saw us heading down the Newell Highway, heading towards Narrabri.  You could see the hills to the east receiving a shower of rain and looking very moody.

Our first stop was at Narrabri, where we went for a walk up and down the street.  There are some beautiful old buildings.

This is the original cordial factory.  They have recently turned the adjoining brick warehouse into a commercial hub where you can set up meetings etc and a pub.  This particular building has recently been purchased and is currently undergoing restoration to be then let on a commercial basis.

We’ll just browse the rest.  The bottom two photos are the Masonic Lodge.  The windows are gorgeous.  Sadly, they don’t show up much from the outside, but I imagine they are stunning from the interior.

I was very happy to find one ball of the yarn I was looking for at the two dollar shop.  Happy dance.

Next stop, after we drove through the Piliga Scrub, was Coonabarabran, for lunch.  We visited another two dollar shop and were able to buy a further three balls of yarn, which is all I was after.  Another happy dance.

The weather was getting rather grey and after Coonabarabran we actually drove through some fairly heavy rain, obscuring the Warrumbungles.  It did make the scenery rather atmospheric.

Our day’s travel wasn’t all that long.  We were too far from home to make it in one day, so we may as well not rush.  Therefore, we called it quits at Gilgandra.  

The Coo-ee Heritage Centre has a good free camp beside it, so we stayed there.  Once we had set up the van, we wandered over and had a look through their museum.  It has been refurbished a few years back and we haven’t had a chance to visit since.

The main feature is about the Coo-ee March where local men marched to Sydney to join the army in WWI, gathering more recruits along the way.

As we wandered the rest of the museum I was drawn to the textiles, as always.  

You have to love the ingenuity of the baby’s rattle.

This wedding ensemble was very special, complete with the cake topper.

This is a quilt that was made to raise funds for the Hospital Auxiliary. 

Zoom in to read the details.  The maker was rather crafty in how she raised additional funds.  Good on her.

There was also a beautiful tapestry hanging, made up of many panels.

Once again, zoom in to read the details.

Back outside, there were some lovely murals mounted on screens.

The camping area is just beside the rural museum and they have a really long mural on the side of the building that was only painted a couple of years ago, depicting the early agriculture of the area.

It was a lovely afternoon, so we enjoyed sitting outside the van and I even did a bit of my crochet.

In the late afternoon we decided to go for a walk into town and back.

There is a collection of windmills along the path and they have recently been decorated with artworks carried out by community groups.

The main street looked good in the afternoon light.

And that pretty much completed our trip away.  We were home by lunch the following day.

With a bit of luck we will get to head off again before too long.  We’ll just have to wait and see.