Newbridge Open Gardens

We enjoy visiting open gardens and spring is the busiest time of the year. Last weekend we attended the open gardens at the village of Newbridge, halfway between Bathurst and Blayney.

The weather on Sunday was ideal for being out and about, with the tunnel of elm trees on the way looking fresh with its new leaves.

The first garden we visited was a country garden.  When the owners purchased the property, about twenty years ago, there were no trees or plants at all.  

They have done a wonderful job.

Having a good water supply makes all the difference.  They have a good bore, as well as the dam.

Who’d think to turn the small path between two large sheds into a lush walkway.

There were several old implements being used creatively to enhance the garden as well.

The next garden we visited was the standout.  Wow!  What a hidden gem.  It left many of the show gardens at Leura for dead……and tucked away in little Newbridge.

The gate was a nice teaser.

This garden was only started twelve years ago.  When the owners bought it there was just the old cottage and some mature trees.

It is a work in progress, with this section converted from being the driveway only eighteen months ago.  I forgot to take a photo, but they have just planned and planted out a Japanese inspired section of the garden, complete with koi carp in a pond.  It will be a beautiful spot, complete with tea house in a couple of years.

The vege garden is on a large scale.

Indoor plants are also a passion, with this area opening directly off their living room.

We’ll take a stroll around the rest of the garden.

It was a truly beautiful place to explore, without being at all pretentious.  You couldn’t get nicer.

By then it was lunch time, so we adjourned to the pub for  Sunday Roast Lamb, which was delicious.  In the afternoon there was live music.

Another country garden was also rather impressive and with quite a few quirky things dotted around the garden.

Let’s take a little walk.

They also had a grand man cave.

There were a couple of other gardens where I didn’t take photos, some markets, art shows and craft store.  We had a very enjoyable and relaxing day out wandering around.

Sunbonnet Sue

One of the ladies that attends my Friday Stitch and Chat group has recently had her mother enter aged care.  As a result, she is sorting through her mother’s craft items and has offered a few to me on the basis of  “I won’t be offended if you don’t want them”.

In amongst them was this little Sunbonnet Sue block that had been beautifully appliquéd onto calico.  It measures 12” x 12”.  Yes, I would love to have the little block.  There was also a small collection of fine crochet threads and a cute cherry fabric.  I had a plan.

This all took place on the day of the Bathurst 1000 car race, just a couple of days after the block was gifted to me.

Firstly, I trimmed the block down to what I considered a better size for my plan.  Then I hand basted it, ready to use the crochet cotton.  I used the cherry fabric on the back, as it is a bit too fine for patchwork and a small scrap of batting I had kicking around.

I then went and sat myself down in front of the TV for the majority of the day, watching the race and hand quilting our little lady, using the crochet cotton.  Yes, you heard that right.  H A N D   Q U I L T I N G!!!  Very much different to what I normally do.  The last time I did any hand quilting was the centre block of the very first quilt I made in a class, back in 2003.  After my recent little bit of Sashiko, I felt a bit more confident to do a little hand quilting.  My first stitches were a bit how’s your uncle, but as I progressed, they became a tad smaller and more even.  I really enjoyed the process, not that I can imagine me ever hand quilting a full sized quilt.  However, maybe I could do a little on smaller projects.

My original idea was to add a pieced border around the block, but in the end I thought it would compete too much with the appliqué, so I tried another new to me technique, by adding a two toned blue flange border.  I used this tutorial I found on Missouri Star Quilt Company.  I’m really happy with how she turned out and she will be added to my minis on the wall in my sewing room.  She will also tie in with the Holly Hobbie pieces I have dotted around the room.

When I took the finished project to stitching the following Friday my friend was delighted and took a photo so show her sister, who had thought the block should be chucked out.  I’m was just pleased that such a sweet little block could be saved and that I could also use other items from her mother’s sewing collection.

A Day Out In Mudgee

Each year we like to head over to Mudgee to visit the Sculptures in the Garden exhibition.  This year we had a beautiful day to go for our drive.

We enjoy just wandering around looking at all the varied art on display.

Much of it is large.

Some tiny.

All sorts of mediums.

We always like to check out the vege garden, which also is adorned with sculptures.

You could have bought this horse for $25,000. Oh yes, someone did…. Still probably cheaper than keeping a horse.  It is beautifully crafted and the pose so natural.

We saw this one pass through town on the back of a ute earlier in the week and correctly guessed the destination.

Here are a few more that caught our eye.

The event is a fundraiser for the Guide Dogs and the all other profits are used to purchase sculptures as public art for the region.

We finished having our wander around in time to find a nice cafe in town for lunch.  We tried a new to us venue, which proved to be a great discovery.

When you see a special described like this you have to give it a go.

It was very good, as was Mick’s burger.

After lunch we had a bit of a wander around the street, coming across the rather new statue of Louisa Lawson.  She is probably best known as being the mother of poet Henry Lawson.  

However, she was a rather impressive person in her own right.

Mudgee dresses up in pink during October for breast cancer awareness month, so Louisa was getting in on the act.

The plinth she was sitting on was appropriately a pile of books.

The next part of our day out was to see if we could get close to the wind farm that we see when travelling to Hill End.  We thought that by driving along the Crudine Road we would be fairly close to them.  In years gone by, when we visited the Mudgee Small Farms Field Days, we would always travel home via a different route.  We are lucky that there is a veritable labyrinth of small roads in the area.  We would not have travelled on this road for probably 20 years, so would be fun to revisit.

It reminded us a little of South Australia, as there were lots of little abandoned cottages and huts, although these were generally built of corrugated iron.

This would have been a lovely home.  So sad to see it empty.

Well, we miscalculated on which road to traverse to get a better look at the wind farm, as it was to the other side of the ridge of hills.  However, it was still a very scenic drive home.