A Stitching Wrap Up of August

This is rather late, but I wanted to get our trip posted first up.

Let’s see how I went with my wishes for the month…..

My main wish was to have the Batik Fish Quilt finished.  I’m very happy to report that it was done.  A full post coming soon.

Then I finished off the Strippy Rainbow Quilt.

Elly May was used on both of these quilts, as well as Jo’s.

In amongst all that, I helped a friend with a baby quilt.  She purchased the kit about 20 years ago and was finally wanting to make it as a gift.  I helped her cut it out, she then pieced it.  An afternoon at our house saw it quilted with a cute butterfly pantograph.  Then I showed her how to add the binding.  

Once that was done, she used all the scraps to make two cushion fronts, which I also quilted for her.  I didn’t get a chance to see the two completed before gifting but they would have been lovely.  She is an experienced seamstress, so did precise stitching and the cute Peter Rabbit fabrics hadn’t dated at all.  A lovely gift to give.

The next thing to work on was the Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks.

Of course, Betty’s blocks had to be made as well.

My Corner to Corner crochet squares progressed nicely, with ten squares being completed.

My knitting didn’t fare so well, with no progress being made.

An August Escape was a driver during the month, with four quilts being prepped.

The Jelly Roll Quilt, which was pieced at Baradine.

The Aeroplane Quilt, which was appliqued and pieced at Baradine.

A Farmyard Quilt, that still has to be pieced.  I did work out the layout on the design curtain, but have since cut a golden yellow for the sashings instead of the blue.  It won’t take long to make, once I get to it.  There is no rush.  It may even be next year at Scrub Stitchin’.

Finally an easy strippy quilt, which will also get stitched at some stage.  No rush.

So, all in all, not a bad month.

The other thing that I did during the month was donate a pile of quilts to the domestic violence support organisation here in town.

15 MINUES A DAY

I stitched on 30 of the 31 days.  The best for the year.

YTD = 201/243 - 82.72%

While piecing the Batik Fish Quilt I managed to empty lots of bobbins and a couple of spools of thread.  It was great to be able to use up some odds and ends that were darker colours, as most quilts require something lighter.

Now, even though it is half way through the next month, I will get down my wishes for September.

Merriwa to Home

Finally, we were to be on our way home.

This was a nice easy drive with us arriving just on midday.

However, we did make one tiny detour on our way.  The Golden Highway passes quite near Cassilis, but it is just in off the road, so of course we went in to have a quick look.  I had been here to a sewing day many years ago and one of my work colleagues many years ago grew up here, but Mick hadn’t been to see it.

When I was last here the old sandstone pub was not trading, so it was good to see that it is once again up and running.  The little cafe/bakery over the road was doing a roaring trade.  That is where I had gone sewing.

There are a few rather nice historic buildings.

Then it was back on the road, traveling past the large coal mine at Ulan.

What we noticed when we arrived at Mudgee was the blossom trees.  There had been very few further north.  Market Street in Mudgee was looking a picture.

We were starting to see more wattles again too.

More blossom trees.  They were so pretty.

In the two short weeks we had been away the willow trees had turned green once more.

As we neared home we noticed that the wind was really picking up and were glad we weren’t going to be on the road for much longer.  The trees were really swaying.

When we arrived home it was good to see that our wattle was still at the peak of its flowering, if also a bit windswept.

We got the van unpacked that afternoon and parked back in the shed just before some incredible winds came through.  It was really violent.  Definitely not the afternoon to be on the road.

And then life was back to the usual.  

It had been a lovely couple of weeks, for what could have been just four days. 

The plan was to put the van to bed for the rest of this year, so she had a good wash…….but plans can always be changed, can’t they…………

Merriwa - Singleton Day Trip

While we were at Merriwa we thought we may as well go for another day trip, this time to Singleton.  Singleton is a town that is not generally on our way to somewhere else, so this sounded like a good opportunity to have a bit of a look.

We decided to do a loop, travelling through Jerry’s Plains on the way down and then up the New England Highway to Muswellbook on the way home.

This is the Upper Hunter area and we crossed the Hunter River several times over the few days we were in the area.  However, it isn’t the grand river that is closer to the coast, rather a small river.  It was hard to get a photo, so this will have to do. You get the idea.

When we reached the Denman area we started to see lots of irrigated lucerne paddocks.  The previous day had been extremely windy, whereas the weather on this day was nice and calm, although rather warm, so lots of irrigators in action.

We arrived in Singleton and then wondered what we could see.  In our usual style, we had done no homework.  

A little search on line informed us that they have the world’s largest sundial……and as far as touristy things, that is about it.   The town has a large military base and is the service centre for a lot of coal mining, so not really a tourist destination.

It turned out that the famous sundial was quite near where we were parked.  Bonus.

After checking it out we thought it was time for a cuppa.  We hadn’t really seen any coffee shops on our way into town or driving along the main street.  There is a large shopping centre, so we went in there and found a cafe.  Other than the shopping centre, there isn’t much retail on the main drag.  

We still went for a walk and checked out the old buildings.

We decided to have a look at a couple of op shops and one was located in the Anglican Church Hall.  

It was a nice little shop, but I was rather taken with the church building and grounds, so went for a little walk around. Unfortunately, the building was locked, so I couldn’t have a bo peep inside.

The rectory was a lovely old building too.

This monument commemorates so many members of the same family.  The earliest date of death was 1861, with the monument being erected in 1862 and the latest date was 1998.  

When you read the inscription about Henry Dangar you appreciate that he was a very prominent citizen of colonial Australia.  

Once we had finished having a look around we headed back to Denman for a very late lunch.

I loved the carved Kookaburra.

Also the bird figures on the top of the street signs.

Then it was just retracing where we had been earlier in the day.  It had been an enjoyable day out exploring.

Another nice evening view from the caravan.

The next day would see us making our way home.

More soon.