An Apple a Day

A little while ago I read that Nic from Craftapalooza was doing another stitch along, this time being her Apple Pincushion.  I thought “Why not?”.  It would be a simple project and a nice one to do with my friend while we were visiting.

It’s amazing how much stuff I had to put together to make up a little kit for each of us to make the project.  There was the fabric, interfacing, buttons, thong for stalk, felt for leaves, sewing thread, strong thread, long needles (which I found in the deep dark depths of Mum’s sewing drawer) and stuffing, as well as making a couple of templates to make things easy.

Anyway, it all worked well.  The hardest part, as usual was deciding on the fabric to use.  I went with ones that would work well with the Blossie Basket I made previously.

We spent a fun afternoon and ended up with two lovely apples.

Isn’t my friend’s hand crank Singer a beautiful backdrop.

They were very different looking, according to the fabrics we used.

A lovely way to spend time with a good friend.

My Wishes for June

I’m starting to sound like a cracked record when I announce that my goals this month will be minimal.  The excuse reason this time is that we are still on the road and we aren’t too sure when we will get back home.  We are making it all up as we go along.

MY MAIN GOAL

My main goal this month is to complete the red scarf that I am knitting.  That should be rather easy.  I’m enjoying knitting a few rows most days.  I will just keep going until I run out of wool and then weave in the ends.  It will be blocked when I get home.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

In anticipation of this month’s colour announcement I packed the pre cut blocks I have prepared and brought them with me.  The crumb blocks will have to wait until I get home.  The colour for June is PASTEL.  Well, that has thrown me, as I don’t have any pastel colours pre cut and therefore none are planned for the finished quilts.  The closest I have is AQUA, so that is what I will make.  Hopefully, I will get the potato chip blocks and the solid cross blocks completed while we are on the road.  Time will tell.

CROCHET

It would be nice to do some more work on the Corner to Corner rug.  I do have a deadline of mid July for this project, which is a good incentive.  The red scarf will take precedence, so once again, time will tell how I go.

OTHER WISHES

Depending on when we get home, I would like to finish the Solid Fat Quarter quilt that I started at Scrub Stitchin’ and quilted last month.  All I need to do is trim it back and add the binding by machine.  It will take all of one day.

As you can see, I still haven’t made a start on the Alpaca jumper I want to knit.  It would be nice to make a start when we get home, if time allows.  We’ll see……I really NEED to get cracking on this one.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I’ll try, really I will.

NON STITCHING WISHES

There really aren’t any.  I’m guessing we will probably listen to an audio book as we drive along.  I have to download a new one.  That’s about it.

As always, it will be interesting to check in at the end of the month.

May Wrap Up

Here we are, with May all done and dusted.  Time to see how my little wishes/goals went.  You can read about them here. 

We have been travelling for the second half of the month, so that did slow things down  bit.

RAINBOW SCRAP CHALLENGE

The colour was orange and I did manage to make all the blocks.

I was pretty happy with that.

I also added the shadows to the crumb blocks, so bonus points to me there.

MY MAIN GOAL

This was to complete the quilt that I started at Baradine.  Well, I didn’t do so well on this one.

I did get it quilted, using another new to me pantograph and was really happy with how it looked.

I didn’t get to trim the backing and wadding and bind it.  I could easily have, but I usually do the trimming on the dining table and it had things on it for packing in the van.  I couldn’t be bothered to move them.  A pretty poor excuse, but it is what it is.  At least I made some progress.

KNITTING AND CROCHET

I made some progress on the Corner to Corner rug, but it still needs one more ball of yarn (which I have with me) to finish that final corner before I add the border rounds. I have worked on it while travelling, but it is getting a bit big and cumbersome.

I did, however, bring a knitting project with me to start.  It isn’t the alpaca jumper, which is one I will work on at home.  I brought some red 4-ply wool with me that I had bought at the Heritage Trades Trail.

This is much more portable to work on and I have made good progress.  It is the same pattern I have made numerous times before, and is rather practical.  I’m enjoying working on it.  The photo of the skein of wool is a much truer version of the colour.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I certainly have not worked on something every day while travelling.  This is what I did manage.

May = 24/31

Year to Date = 121/151 = 80.13%

A NEW START

I have one finished project for the month.  It is an apple pincushion that I finished on 31 May, so snuck in by the skin of my teeth.  I will do a separate post on it shortly.

OTHER GOALS

The only other thing I managed was to listen to an audio book as we were travelling along.  This series is ideal for travelling, as it is not too serious.  Very entertaining.

So, all in all, not too bad.  Now to plan for June and to continue our travels for the next little while.

Crossing the Border

When we left Narrabri the following morning the sky was crystal clear looking towards Mount Kaputar.  That would be right.

Anyway, we travelled further north and had a nice morning tea and wander around Moree.  There are some lovely old buildings.  This is just a small taste.

From there it was time to cross the border at Goondiwindi.

A walk up and down the street was required and I noticed a couple of quite new murals down a lane.

We stayed a couple of nights with Jenny (Bird on the Border) and her hubby Bernie.

We had a lovely evening that first night sitting outside and enjoying pizza from the wood fired pizza oven.

The following day, we were given a guided tour of the town.  We have travelled through countless times, but generally have just stayed in the very central area.  There is a bush botanical gardens and a nice water park.  There is also a quirky row of sculptures.  I’ll just share a few.

Notice the little table setting underneath the large one and compare the sizes.  Rather fun.

Dinner that night was cooked by Bernie and was delicious.  Gail, who comes to Scrub Stitchin’ with Jenny, joined us.  Of course, I once again forgot to take a photo.

Bernie discovered that it would be Mick’s birthday in a couple of days and decided he needed a birthday cake, which was a rather lovely gesture and a rather delicious cake.  Mick was thrilled.

All too soon, it was time to get on the road again.  It was such a pleasure to spend time with good friends.

Starting to Head North

Once Mick had finished his bowls it was time to head north on our latest adventure.  When we travel with the caravan, we generally have a rough plan of where and when we will go.  This is always subject to change.

The first day was wet, so we didn't stop and look at things as much as usual.  Not only that, it was all places we knew quite well - Forbes, Parkes, Narromine and then onto Gilgandra. 

While walking up the street in Parkes we had a chuckle at this fun creation.

We did call in at the butcher's at Narromine to buy some meat for tea and were surprised at the beautiful tiles.

It turns out that the Butcher's shop was opened in 1902 and the tiles were imported from England.  The cow tiles look like new.

The current butcher is only a young fellow, who has been working there since he was an apprentice and now owns it.

We free camped at Gilgandra and it rained gently all night. The following morning we went for a walk and noticed this fun mural.

Then it was time to venture further north.  There is a little village off to the side of the road, Armatree, which we've never been to see.  This was our opportunity.  It is famous for its pub and we noticed that there is good camping areas to its rear.  We may look at camping there in the future.  There was a rather new sculpture in the park, which we had to take a photo of. 

From there it was on to Coonamble, where we enjoyed catching up with Chooky and Mr Chooky for morning tea.  Of course, with all the chatter, we forgot to take a photo.

Plan A of our trip was to camp at the Pilliga Bore Baths for a couple of nights, but due to the rain, that wasn't going to be a terribly smart idea, as the ground tends to get rather sticky and boggy when wet.  Therefore, we went to Plan B, that was to travel on to Narrabri and have a couple of nights there instead.

So, what to do while there?  The obvious choice was to drive out ot Mt Kaputar, the highest point in the area, from where you can see 10% of New South Wales on a good day.

We headed off nice and early.  As you can see, the top of the mount was shrouded in mist when we left, but we hoped it would clear by the time we got there, as it is 52kms east of Narrabri.

As we got closer the trees created a lovely tunnel.

Once you enter the National Park the road turns to gravel.  There are various rock formations along the way.

As you start to climb, the road returns to bitumen and is narrow, windy and steep.  We passed a sign saying we were at 914 metres above sea level and then kept climbing.  The summit is at 1,510 metres above sea level.

One spot had a lovely collection of grass trees beside the road.

By the time we were nearing the summit, we realised that we were not going to see anything, as we had entered that layer of low cloud.  It was all rather moody.  We made the decision to turn around and return to Narrabri.

We had visited the summit back in 2014.  You can read my blog post from the time here.  The photo of the two of us in my blog header is the one we took of ourselves at the summit on that day.

We did manage to snap this photo of the view once we returned below the clouds.

So, what to do next?

We had heard of a place called Lake Yarrie, to the south west of Narrabri, so headed out there.  It is only a small, shallow lake, but such a pretty setting.  The water level is currently quite low, but at times people take their boats out on it.

It has camping sites all around the lake, and even power for some of them.  We enjoyed our picnic lunch there and had a nice walk around.  Another potential camp site for future reference.

On the way back to town we did our final touristy thing, visiting the Australia Telescope.  As you enter, on several signs, they instruct you to turn off your phone, wifi and bluetooth.

They say this set up is like the Parkes Telescope x 6.  There are six dishes.  (You can't fit them all in the photo.) One is fixed and is 5kms away from the centre.  The other five are close together and on tracks.  They can be positioned up to 3km apart.  The array of the six smaller dishes creates the same effectiveness as a 6km diametre dish. It is so sensitive that they say they could pick up a mobile phone call on Pluto.

It was all very interesting, but way above my understanding.

Oh, and as we returned to Narrabri, we noticed that it was as clear as a bell over Mt Kaputar.  We should have waited till after lunch to venture out there.  Oh well, there will be another time.

And that completed the next couple of days of our trip.  More soon.