Taking Monique to the Spa - Part 1

We made arrangements to take Monique, my Grace Q’Nique machine, to the service man in Mittagong on the Monday morning, last week.

PLAN A - Leave home at 5am and drive there and back in the day.  Not such a good idea, as we would be driving through quite a bit of scrubby country at that early hour when lots of roos are out and about.

PLAN B - Mick and my brother had planned to go fishing on the Sunday morning.  We would drive half way on Sunday afternoon and went ahead and booked accommodation at the pub at the village of Taralga, planning to travel via Oberon. Mick decided that the road via Oberon was reportedly too rough.

PLAN C -We would travel to Taralga via Crookwell instead, leaving in the afternoon.

PLAN D - The weather was forecast to be quite windy, so not suitable to take the kayaks out on the lake, so we would leave in Sunday morning and visit the Crookwell Open Garden Festival on our way to Taralga.  The Crookwell gardens have been on my wish list for quite a while, but keeps getting put off each year.  This would be a nice bonus.  This is the plan we finally went with.

Not the best photo, but we settled Monique into the back seat of the car in a nest of pillows or her trip.

It’s a pretty drive to Crookwell and the road was good.

The village of Tuena has a pretty church and nice mural.

The first garden we visited was “Markdale”.  I’ll let the brochure they gave us tell its story.

I was very much looking forward to visiting another Edna Walling garden.  We had visited another in Crookwell many years ago.  One of my very early blog posts.  Edna Walling is one of Australia’s most famous garden designers, working mainly in the mid 20th century.  Have a little read about her.  It is really interesting.

As you enter the property you firstly see the old farm buildings that are currently used as farm stay accommodation.

Let’s explore.

Immediately, you are greeted with Edna’s signature style of shallow stone steps.

The homestead was built in about 1910 and extended at about the time the garden was designed.

I was quite excited to see this lamp.  It is what we affectionately refer to as a “Ferdy Lamp”.  They were made by a man my dad used to work with in the 1960s.  Ferdy was a Yugoslav immigrant that worked at the local gas works, but made these lamps on the side.  Eventually, he was able to make the lamps his full time job.  He gave one to Dad, after Dad saved his life, by turning off the power, when Ferdy accidentally stood in some water while welding and was getting electrocuted.  A simple, but timely act to save a life.

The next country garden we visited was one of my favourites.  It featured lots of old bits and bobs, collected over many years.  The owners are retired potato growers and commenced the garden in the late 1970s.

Mick reckons this is by far the best use of a hand operated cement mixer.

Now, onto another country garden.

Isn’t this quirky.

I think this old machine is beyond restoration.

By now it was time for lunch.

I had made a spinach pie, so we found a nice park to enjoy our picnic.

While in town, we visited the Linder sock factory and bought Mick a nice pair of woollen socks.  If you visit during the week you can see the machines in operation.

There was only one open garden in town, surrounding this beautiful old bluestone house.

It had a lovely vege garden

I loved the metal arches.

Now onto another country garden.  This time only designed and started in 2015, surrounding a new home.  It was absolutely beautiful - both the house and garden.

Imagine wallowing in this pool with that gorgeous view in the background.

From here, we travelled to the small village of Laggan, where the remaining gardens were open.

The first was a compact but lovely garden.

Next was the old Willow Vale Mill.  The owner bought the derelict mill in the 1970s and has restored the building and established a wild garden with lots of trees and follies.  There was not a tree on the place when he bought it.

By now we were about gardened out, so it was time to keep on our way to Taralga.  

More soon.

It’s Too Simple - It Will Never Work

I’ve seen the occasional YouTube or blog post that shows a little gadget used to cut threads between chain piecing.  Something I’d never worry about buying.

Then one day I saw a set up with a Clover thread cutter, that you take on a plane, or wear around your neck, sitting in a nice old rustic cotton reel.  Now, that got me thinking…..but I didn’t do anything about.

Well, the other day I was doing some chain piecing of the backgrounds for my hexies and decided to have a play.

Yes, I have lots of old cotton reels, and I have both my and my Mum’s Clover cutters, but I also had something else that happened to be sitting on the shelf above my cutting table.  Let’s have a play.

Firstly, I couldn’t quite put my finger on my Clover cutter, since our last overseas trip, but Mum’s was hanging on its leather cord on the side of my bookcase.  The item on my shelf is a glass pie chimney that came from my Grandma’s.  Why is it there?  Who knows, but it was just stashed there at some stage and I seem to use it as a pattern weight.

Ta da!  Not the most ideal, but it worked.  When I find my cutter, I will use it, so that I can leave the leather thonging on Mum’s for travel.

Anyway, it worked a treat.

My Goals For November

I’ve been umming and aahing about what goals to set this month.  So much depends on how Monique plays.  She has been to the doctor and I think she is going to play nicely from now on……..fingers crossed.  Also, this will be another month with commitments that take me away from my sewing room.

This is what I have come up with.

ONE MONTHLY GOAL

This has been the hard one.  In the end I’ve decided that my goal will be to complete the two little koala quilts that I pieced at Baradine in September.  They were also my Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge for June.  It will be good to have them completed this calendar year.

FISHY BUSINESS QUILTS

I haven’t made any progress on either of these quilts in the last couple of months.  Maybe I will get to it this month, maybe not.  We’ll see.

HEXY FLOWER QUILT

This will definitely move forward.  It is my go to portable project.

USE MONIQUE

It would be nice to quilt at least one other quilt this month, but we will see how things progress.

15 MINUTES A DAY

I will endeavour to keep this up.  The hexy flowers help on this front.

Everything else will be a bonus.

NON STITCHING GOALS

I’m not setting any goals here.  Life is a bit too busy at the moment.

Sometimes life is like that.

Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge 2024 Wrap Up

The inaugral challenge, hosted by Deana has wrapped up for the year.  It was great fun to take part in and I’m looking forward to the 2025 version. 

So, how did I go?  Not too bad, but a couple of months got derailed, due to Monique playing up.  I did swap a couple of months around and I switched one out when I couldn’t locate the required fabric.  With a bit of luck, they will all be completed by the end of the year, with Monique playing nicely, fingers crossed.

MY GOALS

#1 - July - English Paper Piecing (work on any project) - 13 flowers completed

#2 - February -  Sparkly Dragonfly Quilt (start and finish - for donation) - completed

#3 - August - Laundry Basket Quilt 2023 Spring Mystery Quilt (progress) - Flimsy completed in August, still need to quilt and bind.

#4 - March - Make a panel quilt (start and finish - for donation) - Completed

#5 - May - Half Square Triangle Baby Quilt (quilt and bind - for donation) - Completed in August

#6 - January- 2023 Scrub Stitchin' Bag (start and try to get as much done as possible) - Completed

#7 - September - Three Yard Quilt (start and finish - for donation) - top made in September, loaded on frame when Monique started playing up. Still to be quilted and bound. 

#8 - October - Anni Downs 2023 Christmas Stitchery (stitch and hopefully make a small project) - Stitchery completed - Not going to make small project at this stage - maybe include in a quilt.

#9 - April - Harry Potter Quilt (start and finish - for donation) - Completed

#10 - June - Koala Baby Quilt (start and finish - for donation) - two quilt tops pieced at Baradine Retreat in September.  Still to be quilted and bound. 

Thanks so much Deana for hosting this challenge and thanks also, for only making it for ten months.  That gives me a bit of lee way to get the remaining projects finished in 2024.

The Rest of October

 As predicted, there was quite a bit going on during October and it’s about time I got it down here.

It was the month to get some things happening in the garden.  Our beans and corn were planted.  We have had a good success rate with our beans.  A couple needed replanting, but all are up now.  There has only been one casualty to snails……so far.  The corn has only just started to come up.  We’ll give it a few more days, but may have to do some replanting.

We planted our zucchini and egg plants.  This zucchini is planted where last year’s beans were.  It is looking so very healthy.

This one is from the same punnet, but planted in a different bed.  Mick actually lifted it a couple of days ago and added lots more compost underneath it.  Hopefully, it will do better now.  Next year we must remember to plant them where the beans were.  It just goes to show how crop rotation to where the nitrogen has been fixed from legumes really makes a difference.

The eggplants have not done well either, so they have also been lifted and replanted in richer soil.  If they don’t come good in the next week or so, we will buy some new seedlings.

We have picked our first strawberry and now have the plants netted to try to keep the birds out. 

The potatoes are going gang busters.  Fingers crossed for a good yield in the coming months.  You can see the netted strawberries in the background.

Our Zephirine Drouhn rose has really got established now and is looking a picture on the arch.   It is ideal, as it has no thorns and will flower for most of the warmer months.

The sweet peas on the other side are also looking lovely.

We did have a couple of very light frosts during the month, so were covering all frost tender plants each night.  Fingers crossed, there won’t be any more, but it is definitely still a possibility.

We had a couple of days giving things a cut back and also had a big clean out in the potting shed.  It was looking rather neglected.  It still has turned into a dumping ground, but is a lot better than it was.  

In the process, we realised that the zygo cactus were looking very sick. They have now been brought down to the back verandah, along with a few succulents that we bought at an open garden.  But where to put them?  Down came the old plant stand we have had for ever.  It originally came from Mick’s Mum.  There is an old photo of it out the back of his childhood home painted in several different colours, as was the fashion then.  It was white when we received it and we painted it Brunswick Green, as was the fashion in the mid 1980s.  It is looking very shabby at the moment (not just shabby chic), so I may have to get some more paint and give it yet another makeover.  After all that, I do think the plants will come back nicely with a little TLC.

So, what else have we been up to?  We both helped out at the Church Fete, me on the White Elephant stall and Mick on Bargains for Blokes.  My wedding dress and another lady’s christening dress were on display to promote our Wedding and Baptism display scheduled for early next year as part of the Bicentennary of the Parish celebrations.

Another feature of the celebrations will be Pioneer Cemetery tours.  There are a couple of people learning how to deliver these tours, as like so many things, the current experts aren’t getting any younger.  A small tour was given for training purposes.  Although I have walked past these graves all my life and know many of the pioneer family names, I learned a lot.

There is one First Fleeter buried in the cemetery.  Apparently, he lived to the ripe old age of 103.

October is always the month of open gardens.

On the day after the Church Fete we headed up to Cowra to see theirs.  It was a lovely outing and I will do a separate post for the day.

The following weekend was the Bathurst Spring Spectacular.  Another lovely day out that I will post about separately.

One perplexing thing that happened was that we had a blackout.  The reason it was perplexing is that we have a solar system with a battery, although we are still connected to the grid.  The grid did not have a blackout.  We hoped the battery hadn’t failed.  After a few phone calls and the visit of an electrician it was established that the safety circuit breaker switch had failed, not our solar system or any of our appliances.  It ended up being a rather simple fix.  Phew!

And finally, Mum celebrated her 95th birthday.  It was tinged with a little sadness, as she wouldn’t believe it was her birthday and for the first time ever, she didn’t know who I was.  She did eventually start to believe that it was in fact her birthday and she has known who I am every time I’ve seen her since.

So, how did I go with my goals?

No books were read.

No new recipes were tried.

We had lots of fun days out.

All, in all, a good month.