I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud…….

Let me tell you about some daffodils in our garden.

These ones are rather special to us, as they have a story behind them. We have family friends that used to live near Rydal, where the Daffodil Festival is held.  They lived in a historic sandstone cottage, one of several in the area.  When they were first married, in the 1950s, there was another nearby that was in ruins and usually had stock grazing around it.  One year there were no stock and loads of these daffodils came up.  They, and another couple, filled 44 gallon drums with bulbs and then planted large drifts under their old oak trees and along the side of the road.  If Mick and I visited during flowering time we were given big bunches of them.  One year they gave us half a dozen bulbs.  We transplanted those bulbs and took them with us when we moved out of town and also when we moved back into town. 

Our friends were instrumental in establishing the Daffodils at Rydal event, which is a beautiful weekend.  Rydal is the perfect spot for a Daffodil Festival, Rydal being the home of William Wordsworth in the Lakes District of England, the area where my grandmother grew up.  I have her book of his poetry that she was awarded in Sunday School in the early 1900s.  I digress….. This is where I posted about our visit in 2011.   Aren’t the daffodils under the trees lovely.  We have been in subsequent years, but I don’t seem to have any decent photos.  Although our friends are no longer with us, the garden at their old cottage is still open during Daffodils at Rydal in September.  We hope to pop down this year.  

In recent years ours weren’t blooming much and really needed to be divided.  In 2024, once the leaves had died off, Mick lifted them and we replanted some and gave quite a lot away.  There were still lots of little bulbs in a plastic tub, so Mick popped them in all over the place.  Literally, all over the place. Last year, come spring time, there were heaps of plants emerging but no flowers.  Not even one.  The ones we gave away had the same result.  You can imagine how  disappointed we were.

We were so happy this year when we returned from our recent trip away to see some buds forming.

To have a few already flowering in July is very early.  Later in August we are going to have so many of these heritage frilly daffodils flowering and the ones we gave away are doing well too.  We are so happy and relieved to see them bloom again.

Simply Serene Quilt is Finished

The main goal that I set myself this month was to complete the Simply Serene Quilt that I started at Scrub Stitchin’.  

All that I achieved then was to make the half square triangles, so I had a fair bit more to do this month.

I used a variety of plaids and related prints.  Some of these have been in my stash since I first started quilting in the very early 2000s, others have been thrifted or gifted to me in scrap bags.

Having the design curtain made the process so much easier.  After a bit of a fiddle, I had the lay out sorted.

Next. it was time to decide what to use for the setting triangles.  Some versions I have seen have the cream, others one constant plaid.  In the end, I decided to use a variety of the plaids.

Then, it was the tedious task of joining the blocks into rows and the rows all together.  No, I wasn’t going to attempt the webbing method for this one.  That's looking better.

Next, it was time to add the borders.  I had plenty of the cream for the first one, but not enough of the red for the second one.  A bit of a look in the stash revealed this russet brown that I had acquired somewhere along the way.  It had obviously been an offcut from a backing, as it was double width with a seam in the middle.  The border width was determined by the dividing the fabric left after cutting the binding strips by four.  It worked out perfectly, with nothing left at all.

I was liking the way it looked and thought it would need a rather blokey quilting design.  The one I used came with the software for Elly May, my quilting machine, and I think it suits it perfectly.  Cowboy bits and bobs are not something I would usually add to a quilt, so it is a nice fun design to have a play with.

The backing was made from various offcuts of a wideback from Spotlight.  The colour is a charcoal that is much darker than it is showing here.  I have used it a few times before and I also had some that came from a destash.  A great way to use them up.  I still have yardage for future quilts.

This quilt will be another donation quilt.  I hope the recipient likes it as much as I do.

And, of course, the outside photo.

Mick felt this one needed to have a photo shoot by the potting shed.

Before handing it back to me to fold up.

QUILT INFORMATION

Measurements -70" high x 50" wide

Pattern - Simply Serene by Pleasant Valley Creations.  I made it a bit smaller than the original.

Fabrics - All from stash, much thrifted.  

Quilting Design - Cowboy Essentials by QCT6

Batting - Cotton/Poly

Backing - Left over wideback from Spotlight and a destash

Thread - Glide - Warm Grey 4 on the front and Silver on the back.

The Rest of June (At Home)

We returned from our holiday in the middle of June.  Most of what I got up to was stitching…..and catching up on the washing….

It’s always a delight to come home after a holiday at this time of year to see the zygocactus in flower.  Actually, the garden was looking much better than we expected, as there had been quite a bit of rain while we were away, and there had been very little frost.  The lawn even needed mowing.

Having said that, it is still nice to have the heater going to keep us nice and snug inside.

As it was well into winter it was time to refresh the little shelf in the kitchen.

I went to a high tea, hosted by the church ladies.

They always put on a good spread.

I listened to the audio book “The Deadly Dispute”.  This series of Tea Lady mysteries are a lovely, light hearted listen.  I think they work best as an audio book, as the narrator really brings the characters to life.

And that about sums up the second half of June.  More of our Queensland travels will appear soon.

The Aftermath

So much for a tidyish sewing room.  This is the current state it is in.   Quite a bit of sorting and putting away is required.

Scrub Stitchin’ for 2026 has been and gone.  What a wonderful time we had. We were away for just over a week, arriving back home last Monday.  We unpacked the necessary things and all the washing is done, except for the van linens. As you can see, the ironing has not been done.

Having arrived home on Monday, I started helping set up the Bathurst Show on Tuesday.  When you just attend a show you have no concept of the amount of work involved behind the scenes.  I know I certainly didn’t until I put my hand up a couple of years ago.  Although my main section is the Needlework, everyone pitches in on most of the pavilion section to get it done.  We are well and truly on track.

We had the day off yesterday for Anzac Day, but it was an early start to attend the dawn service at 4.30am.   A lazy day was had after that.  A bit of progress on my corner to corner rug was made.  The only crafting I have done since we returned home.

It was back to the show this morning to assist with more judging, then this afternoon we removed the remainder of my sewing stuff out of the van.  It was rather mind blowing how much I had packed.

I noticed this gorgeous row of trees as we drove to Bunnings today to buy some red onion and leek seedlings.  It was the perfect autumn day.

They will be the only veges planted this year as we will be away when most veges will be needing some TLC next summer.  They are all netted to stop the birds from digging them up.

While we were in the garden, we noticed that the first feijoas have dropped, so enjoyed one each at lunch.  Yummo.  There aren’t a great many this year, but we will enjoy what we have.

Mick is having a lovely time this afternoon, supervising some corned silverside cooking in the  camp oven.

Tomorrow it is back to the show.  It is a big day, with the judging of the Needlework and getting it all displayed.  Being a public holiday has been a great bonus, as there will be quite a few more helpers.  With a bit of luck, I will then not have to go back in until Thursday afternoon for the final tidy up and check that everything is ready to go on Friday.

Hopefully, on Tuesday, I will get a chance to start loading posts about our wonderful week away at Baradine.

The Start of April

The start of this month has been rather uneventful, with Mick doing all his favourite things at the bowling club and in his shed and me playing in the sewing room, as per my previous post.  This post is just the little extras.

We had a lovely day on Easter Sunday, visiting special friends for lunch.

The day started with an Easter egg hunt in an area on their property, not far from their house, that they have named “The Enchanted Forest”.  

Everyone had to join in the fun, including us, although we left the majority of the eggs for the littlies present.

I was amazed at this ancient old cypress tree.  How old must it be with the thickness of the base of the trunk?  And look how it had fallen over and then continued to grow further upright trunks.

Inside there was a gorgeous centrepiece on the table, which had apparently been well picked over even before we arrived.

Back home, I gave Mick an Easter Bilby.  Having visited the Save the Bilby Centre at Charleville last year, I had to buy one of these.  Now to see how long until he gets around to eating it.  Let’s hope it is before it starts to get too stale.

Now that Easter has passed, it was time to yet again change up my little kitchen shelf for autumn.  I can’t believe we are already over a month into the season.  Where is this year going?

I have picked some of our dahlias to add a pop of colour to the house.  With temperatures getting down to close to freezing forecast for early next week, we are making the most of them before they are finished.

Speaking of weather, our street tree has really coloured up and some of the trees down the road have already started to lose their leaves.

It is only less than a week until we head off with the caravan to Baradine, so much of this week will be getting things packed and trying to remember all the bits and bobs and show and tell that I need to take.  Just as well we have a truck.

The Rest of March

Apart from stitching, some other things took place during March as well.  Grab a cuppa, this is a long one.

Let’s start with the first thing that I was rather happy about.  I finished the jigsaw that I started between Christmas and New Year.  This one was rather challenging, so I kept avoiding it.  

You can see here how the shapes were not the usual standard sizes.  It was occupying half of the dining table, so it was time to knuckle down and get it done before any pieces were lost.  I spent a full day on it and it has now been packed away.  Fortunately, all pieces were present and accounted for.

As the season officially moved on from summer, it was time to redo my little shelf in the kitchen.  Firstly, with a very simple green theme for St Patricks Day.

Then after that, it was time for Easter.

Now, for the garden…

The start of the month was quite warm and we were still getting lots of veges, but the plants were getting rather tired.  

To our delight, we ended up getting enough tomatoes to make a batch of relish.

The freezer is full of zucchini slice, which is the perfect lunch to take to a stitching day.  We also have a large supply of frozen beans.

The eggplant did well, so some moussaka was on the menu.  Yummo!  There was also barbecued eggplant and eggplant curry.  All so good.

The veges have all been pulled out now, until next season.

To our delight, after a couple of years bearing next to no berries, our raspberries are starting to produce lots of berries.  These are our favourites, so we are rather happy with the outcome.

The flower gardens did well in the late summer/early autumn.  They look a bit unruly now, but will get a good haircut in a little while.

Over the road from us there is a horse paddock and the roadside verge sometimes puts on a nice display of wildflowers……until it gets mowed.  I was able to snap a photo while they were still there.

Mick alerted me to some mushrooms growing amongst them, so I went to have a look.  Now, we have grown up with foraged mushrooms and they do sometimes grow on our front lawn and we have foraged them just up the road from our place, but when I went over, although they on the whole looked OK, the crinkling on top didn’t look quite right.

I cut one, and no, that was definitely not a mushroom to eat.  I went home and washed my hands and knife well.

What else did we get up to?

I tried a new recipe.  It was muffins made from just four eggs, two bananas, half a cup of peanut butter and some berries.  They were OK, but I won’t really rave about them.

I listened to a book.  It was The Road Trip by Tricia Stringer.  A light hearted read about a caravan trip.  I enjoyed it as the characters followed a pretty similar route to what we did through northern Australia.  It was amusing reading of all their dramas.

As we do twice a year, we helped out at the church fete.  This the white elephant stall that I work on, before the rush of patrons.

We had  day in Orange, while Mick’s truck “Frank” was serviced.  On the way up we saw some ibis flying in perfect formation.  This isn’t something you see very often here.

As we had loads of time to kill we visited the art gallery.  There was a photographic exhibition of spiders.  They are an Australian variety called “Maratus”.  The males have very colourful tails that they display during courting.  

What is amazing is that these spiders are only three to five millimetres in size.

There was another exhibition from their permanent collection with all works featuring animals.  I was delighted to see an original Jenny Kee Jumper.

With more time to kill, we went to the museum next door.  They had an exhibition of botanical drawing by two sisters in the 1800s, who drew butterflies and moths.  They were one of the earliest records of the creatures.  It also shows some of the early landmarks of Sydney in the background of some of the paintings.  All rather lovely to see.

The trees in the forecourt were starting to change colour.  The first we had seen for the season.

And now for the weather…..

March usually starts to see the sting go out of the heat and transition to relatively stable weather.  The nicest time of the year, in my opinion.  This year it was rather hot at the start, with some nice rain, and then it did start to get to that gorgeous temperature of the mid 20s C.  

Then, on the last Thursday of the month a rather strong cold front came through with a little rain and lots of strong wind.  It even blew a tower crane off a building in Dubbo.  The next day saw us reach a maximum of 10.9C!!!  That is the coldest March day since records have been kept.  The previous coldest day was 11.3C in 1939.  There was even snow in Orange and Oberon.  Fortunately, that was just a blip and today we reached 26.4C, which is 5 degrees above average.

What I have noticed since Friday, is that our street tree has started to change colour and ones further down the street are quite golden.

Now, for the elephant in the room…. This is just for my record……

Australia, and the world, are living in “uncertain times” due to the war in the Middle East which started on 28 February.  The vital shipping lane for oil, and consequently our fuel, has been blocked.  Fuel prices have doubled with diesel at about $3.50/litre.  We are assured there is sufficient fuel coming to Australia, but our reserves aren’t all that large.  People have been panic buying and the farmers are stressing as it is just about time to plant the winter cereal crops.  Not only is diesel an issue, most of the fertiliser also comes from that region.  It will be interesting to see how long this goes on and the outcome.  As a result, we have decided to cancel our trip to Melbourne to attend the Australian Quilt Convention.  There will be other years when we can go.

On a more positive note, we will still definitely be going to Baradine.