Lest We Forget

A time to reflect, at a cold and foggy Anzac Day Dawn Service.

Lest we forget. 

Scrub Stitchin’ - Part 1

Wednesday was rather exciting, as we greeted one another, some not seen for twelve months, others being met in real life for the first time, after getting to know one another via our fun Chookshed Stitchers Zoom days.

Mick took a photo of the freshly set up room when he delivered my sewing machine for me. He’s a keeper.  More on those spotty bags later.

Now, I was somewhat remiss with my photo taking, so I am borrowing a few of these from the group photos.

Here are Jo and I with Tracy and Deana from the USA, Chris from Canada, Gail from the USA, Lou from NZ and Sylvia from Germany.  Raewyn from NZ and Sue from Victoria had not arrived at this stage.  It was somewhat surreal having all these ladies together in the one room.

We set ourselves up, ready for some serious stitching and made a good start.  The suggested project this time was the Moda Love quilt.  I was looking online for some colour inspiration and came upon a variation of the design, so decided to make that.

I had it cut out and marked before I left home, so it was time to play with some colour.  I am using some nicely matured Denyse Schmidt fabrics that I have been saving for a special project for many years.  It was nice to finally use them.  These squares finish at 2 inches.

Next it was dinner time, so off we all went to the local pub.  This is the one event over the weekend that husbands are invited to.  There were nine fellows in the background this year.

Lots of smiling faces.

After dinner, it was back to the sewing machines.  By bedtime, I had finished the first section of my quilt. Happy with the progress so far.  This finishes at 16 inches.

The Lead Up to Scrub Stitchin’

It’s nearly a week since we bade our guests farewell, so high time I posted about our wonderful time together.

I left you on Easter Sunday when we hosted some of the international visitors for lunch at our house in the cold weather.

On Easter Monday the weather was still a bit ordinary, so we played the tourist close to home, visiting the Australia Fossil and Mineral Museum.

It is amazing that we have such a facility here in Bathurst.

Next it was a visit to the Railway Museum.  The feature is a large railway model, but sadly it was playing up on the day, so not working.

The original plan was to travel to Baradine on Wednesday, but at the last minute, we decided to head up on Tuesday, so we girls could be raring to start on Wednesday morning.  Therefore, there was some caravan packing required.

We contacted Chooky and were told, in no uncertain terms, that we were to go to her house on Tuesday night.  Who were we to argue with that.

The boys headed off first in the ute towing the caravan. Lou and I followed in my car, after a delayed start, as a couple of things needed attention here first.  We caught up with the boys at Coolah for an early lunch, before heading on to Coonabarabran.  

Here the boys left us once again, going on ahead to Baradine to disconnect the van and get it set up. We girls had a bit of a look around Coonabarabran.  

Firstly, to the op shop, where I found another couple of cuties to add to my Easter decorations next year.

Then on to the Rotary second hand book shop, where I found a book by the author of the Elm Creek Quilt series.  It will be interesting to read one of her other titles.

Finally, we visited the new patchwork shop “The Crafters Cottage”.  Deb was providing a pop up shop at Scrub Stitchin’, but it was nice to visit her shop.  It is a beauty and a real asset for the town.  I just made a couple of purchases, some much needed glue pen refills and a handy dandy little cushion to hold those part used machine needles.

We also stumbled upon some colourful yarn bombing in the street.

From here we drove to Baradine, where we all piled into the ute and headed over the dirt roads to Chooky’s.  

There ended up being eleven of us for dinner, as not only were Sylvia and her hubby and Gail there, Jo and her hubby had also arrived.  We did have a fun night.

The following morning, after a visit to Coonamble, we drove over to Baradine, arriving by lunch time, ready for the fun to begin.

Exciting Times

Yesterday was the culmination of plans that have been evolving over the past year.  Who’d have ever thought that we would have friends from New Zealand, Germany, America and Australia all having lunch together in our home.  It was a wonderful experience, as we all start to gather for our retreat “Scrub Stitchin’” at Baradine next weekend.

The fun started on Saturday, when we drove to Sydney to pick up Lou and Tony from the airport.  As their flight arrived late int the afternoon, we called into the village of Glenbrook on the Blue Mountains to find somewhere for dinner.  We stumbled across a little Italian restaurant which has absolutely delicious food.  A great way to start the fun of the next week or so.

Not a great deal else happened in the last week.  The weather has turned decidedly autumnal, with our street trees starting to change colour and now lose some of their leaves in the windy weather.

When we were in town the other day, Mick wanted to have a look at drones and now has a new toy to learn to use.  He has been talking about getting one for a while and I think he will have fun with it on our travels.

Meanwhile, I noticed our Jacobean lily has flowered.  I bought the bulb some time ago.  Mum always had a plant in her garden.  They are quite striking.

I had to make a quick change to the little shelf in the kitchen, now ready for Easter.

Despite having quite a few things to do, I did take time out to read a book.  You know how it is, when there are things you need to do but can’t get enthused.

The book was ‘The Enemy within”.  The front cover said it was a Guaranteed Good Read and it was.  It is set in Sydney in January 2020, as bushfires rage and just before COVID hit.  The author is an ABC journalist and the main character is an investigative journalist.  Apparently, there are a couple of other books with the same main character.  I’ll have to look them out.

I did manage to maintain my 15 minutes a day.  I did some secret stitching and otherwise continued with my knitting.  I could cast it off now, but will continue a bit further, otherwise I would have nothing easy to work on over the next couple of days.  I’ll link up over at Life in Pieces.  I’ll update my stats next week.

As soon as I pick up the needles, Joey decides that my lap is the place to be,  At least he was reclining in this photo, usually he decides to sit up like Jacky, which makes things a little difficult.

On our way to Sydney we called in at the wool shop in Katoomba for me to buy some more knitting needles and this ball of very pretty 2-ply wool just happened to jump into my shopping bag.  It will be made into a lacy scarf.  They had one as a shop sample which wa absolutely gorgeous and so soft.  I couldn’t resist.

March Wrap up and April Goals

Well, March ended up being a rather busy month.  So, how did I go with my goals?

I met my OMG, completing the Harry Potter quilt.  I also ended up making two cot quilts and a table runner.  That ticked a few boxes - one project completed for the month, donation items and playing with Monique.

The green blocks were made for RSC.

I also made progress with my Blue Quilt EPP and my knitted scarf, both of which are still ongoing.

Finally, I made a start on some secret stitching.  No leader and ender progress was made.

I did try to keep up with 15 minutes of crafting each day.  Once again, it was often only just 15 minutes and it was all knitting. I did miss one day.

My tally is:

15 minutes day/week = 6/7

15 minutes day/March = 29/31

15 minutes day/April = 2/2

15 minutes day/2023 = 88/92

Success rate = 95.65%

I can live with that. I’m linking up with Life in Pieces.

Outside of stitching, we used our caravan, I read one book and we listened to two more.  We had quite a few fun days out.  However, no new recipe was tried and we didn’t get out on any of the motorcycles.

Now, onto April…..

Like the last couple of months, the first half of April will also be crazy busy.  Therefore, I’m really cutting back on my goals.

ONE MONTHLY GOAL

My goal will be to make a quilt top at Scrub Stitchin’ using the fabrics I prepped a little while ago.  

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour this month is purple.  It won’t take me too long to get my blocks made….later in the month.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I still hope to continue with this theme.  It keeps me grounded.  I’ve no idea what I will work on.  Whatever takes my fancy at the time.

And that is all the goals I am setting.  I’m not setting any non stitching goals this month.

As the Doris Day song goes “Que Sera Sera, whatever will be will be….”.  It will be nice to just have a breather.

I’m linking up with Elm Street Quilts.

Travelling South to Home

We arrived back home on Saturday, enjoying our trip along the way.

When I last posted we were staying at Bargara, on the coast near Bundaberg.  We had a second night there, giving us a day to have a look around the area.

Firstly, we drove up to “The Hummock Lookout”, half way between Bargara and Bundaberg.  This is a volcanic plug in the middle of  vast rich basalt farmland. 

You can see out to the coast when looking east and overlook the sugar, fruit and vegetable farms to the west, south and north.  Such a productive food bowl area.

There are quite a few houses as you drive up to the summit, taking advantage of the wonderful views.  We were really taken with this one.  It is a container house, albeit on rather a grand scale.

Bundaberg is another regional town with impressive historic buildings.

The Catholic Church.

The Anglican Church.

The Post Office and war memorial.

The School of Arts.

Back at Bargara, we called into the local op shop and were surprised to find spotty plates to match ours that are getting cracked and rather worn.  Happy dance.  The down side is that they were taped together and when we got home and opened them up, other than the top plates they were also rather worn, some more so than ours.  We can use a few, but quite a few are beyond it.  Oh well, you get that.

It was rather hot, so time for an ice cream.  Chocolate hearts.  We haven’t seen them for ages and didn’t think they were still being made.  Mick had to play the clown.

The next day we started to head further south.  Some friends of ours have recently moved to Hervey Bay, so we caught up with them for lunch.  This was  the view from the pub.  Rather hard to take.

Continuing on our way, we drove through Maryborough.  No need to stop this time,  but we always love the old Queenslanders on the main road.  

This is just a couple I snapped out of the car window.

And another impressive Post Office tower.

Our destination for the day was Tin Can Bay.  No reason other than we haven’t been there before.  

We were surprised by the number of pine plantations in the general area as we drove along.  We are used to them down here, but weren’t expecting such an expanse in Queensland.

It is a quiet fishing spot with a nice walkway along the foreshore.

There is not a beach as such, and it was low tide, but still nice to see.

I haven’t seen a mangrove in flower before.

Some of the walkway was through lush scrubland.

The caravan park was small and rather lovely.  The nicest we stayed in.  It was another hot day and we enjoyed a dip in the pool.  It even had a ramp for access, which must be very helpful for some people. We don’t expect we will visit the town again, but it was nice to visit this time.

The next day was rather stressful, as we travelled south past the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, back into New South Wales.  We joined the M1 motorway at Gympie and it was busy traffic from then on, including lots of roadwork and rain.  It isn’t the best fun driving in those conditions towing a van.  There is not one single rest area where you can pull off to the side of the road, unless you go into a town or a Service Centre.  They were all on the opposite side of the road, so accessing involved several roundabouts and then trying to find somewhere to park the van.  We have come to the decision we will not drive in this area again with the van.  If we want to go to a particular place on the coast we will drive the inland route and then over the range to that town, then taking day trips without the van.

Our initial plan, (not that we really have plans, rather we have a vague idea and make it up as we go along) was to stay at Ballina.  In the end we felt we would like somewhere quieter, so continued on a little further and stayed at Evans Head.  Aaah, the peace and quiet.

The caravan park is huge, with 450 sites. We’d hate to be there in holiday season, but it was only about a third full.  The row of cabins reminded us of beach huts.

It was in walking distance to a nice beach and the mouth of the Evans River and breakwater.

There were a few fellows beach fishing.  We saw one catch a small shark and release it.  There were also a couple of surfers trying to catch a wave.

We say a few water dragons on the rocks beside the river.

No photo, but we had fun watching a dolphin swimming in the river mouth and surfing the waves.  Such a lovely sight.

There was a lovely sunset.

When we returned to our van, just on dusk, the sky was alive with bats flying over.

In the morning we drove around to the boat moorings.  There appears to be a small fishing fleet still operating from here, complete with a fisherman’s co-op.

We are really pleased that we stayed there, on a whim.  It is a lovely little spot.  We can imagine returning for a few days in the future, as we enjoyed it best of all of the coastal towns we visited on our way south.  We’ll see.  

Our initial vague plan was to continue on to Port Macquarie and the west over the Oxley Highway, but in the end we decided we would rather head back inland, where life and the roads are much quieter.  Therefore, we only continued south to Grafton, before going over the Gibraltar Ranges.  I didn’t even take any photos, which is rather remiss of me, as the scenery is rather lovely, with views back to the coast and majestic tall trees. Best of all, there was hardly any traffic.  We made it to Guyra, where we free camped at the “Mother of Ducks Lagoon”.  We have stayed here a couple of times before.  The last time was in November, on our way home from Toowoomba, when I sat in the afternoon sun doing my knitting.  Well, that wasn’t going to happen this time, as the temperature was 16C, feels like 10C, with a chilly wind.  That was a bit of a shock to the system, as we haven’t experienced anything under the mid 20s, even overnight, since we left home.  

Back on the road the next day, we called into the village of Bendemeer for morning tea.  Mick remembered that we had seen a new cafe there last time we were through, so we gave it a try.  The building was the old original general store.

Our morning tea was to die for.  I had a slice of caramilk mousse pie, while Mick had lemon meringue.  Both home made and absolutely delicious.  We know where we will be stopping on future trips north.

Our final night on the road was also a free camp.  This time at the “Black Stump Rest Area”, just north of Coolah.  We have had this place in mind as somewhere to camp for some time, but never stopped before. 

It is said to be the sight of the original “Black Stump”.

Unlike the previous afternoon, the weather was lovely and warm.  Perfect for afternoon tea outside.  The rock was perfectly placed as a foot rest.

And yes, this time I did bring out my knitting and got quite a bit done, as we listened to the end of the audio book we had been listening to as we drove along.

The book was “Death at the Auction”, a rather light hearted murder mystery along the lines of Midsomer Murders, Grantchester and Father Brown.  Just the right sort for travelling.

And that brings us to the end of our latest trip.  We really enjoyed our time away.  Now it won’t be long until we have visitors and head off on our next adventure to Baradine.  A busy week ahead.

I did manage my 15 minutes of knitting on six of the last seven days, which I am happy enough with.  I will do the stats on my next post.