The Rest of November

November was rather a busy month for us.  I have shared my stitching efforts, but not a lot else.  I did share about our trip to take Monique to the spa here and here.  Now, I will finally fill in some of the gaps.

The garden continued to flourish.  We were gifted a bulb of home grown garlic earlier in the year and hadn’t got around to using it before it started to sprout, so what do you do?  You plant it.  We have now harvested a nice little crop.  It is currently curing in the shed ready to store and use throughout the year.

Our poor old wheel barrow has seen better days.  It has quite a story to it.  We picked it up as a tip find not long after we set up house together, about 40 years ago.  We painted it dark green, planted some flowers in it and put it in our garden.  Ten years later, we moved out of town.  At that stage Mick put a sheet of tin in the base and it became our wood carting wheelbarrow for the next fifteen years.  Once we moved into town, ten years ago, it reverted to being a garden barrow.

As you can see, there isn’t a great deal left of the original tub.

Surprisingly, the frame wasn’t too bad.  

Now Mick has placed the old copper that our bay tree used to be in on the frame and yes, that is another pot on top.  We weren’t sure what to plant in the copper, so the pot with the strawberry has temporarily been put on top, so the runners can take root in the copper.

Our one standard rose bush has not been looking too healthy, but it has had a nice flush of flowers.  This was the first.

We picked the first raspberry.  We had next to none for the last two years, so it is nice to be getting a crop this year.  They are earlier than usual as well.

The strawberries have been very prolific, with about this many picked each day for a few weeks.  They have now started to peter out.

It is always nice to be able to pick a little posy of spring flowers to take over to Mum.

And Mick presented me with a floral gift.  Well, not quite a flower, but a beautiful big Santa Claus.

Other than that, we have had two more trips away.  Some good friends from Queensland came to visit, so we set off in a little convoy of two caravans, heading west to areas they had not previously visited.

We travelled to Forbes, Condobolin, Lake Cargelligo, Grenfell and then back home.  I will do a separate post.  The weather was rather hot, but we still had a terrific time.

Then, towards the end of the month we had a couple of more days away, visiting the Braidwood Airing of the Quilts.  Another very hot trip, but well worth it.  Once again I will do a separate post.

We have now given the van a good clean and put it to bed for a little while.  We don’t generally travel during summer, so will look forward to more trips next year.

Books seemed to be a bit of a feature during November.

Lifeline have a book fair twice a year and we always pop along to see if we can find any of the books we are looking for. We did have some success.

Firstly, I love their book Christmas tree.  Last year they had a competition to guess how may books were in the tree.  I never did hear how many there were.  I was looking at the spines and there were a few I would love to own.

This is what I came home with.  I have quite a few early Ethel Turner books, but not this one.  I also have several Ion Idriess books, but not these, and they were at a very good price.  I was looking for “Trust”, so was happy to find it, as it is the next one to read in a series. At the last book fair I picked up a Margaret Hickey book, which fortunately was the first in a series.  I really enjoyed it so I was very happy to find the next two.  Now to get around to reading them all……eventually.

These were the two craft book I found.  I was quite excited to find the Denyse Schmidt book, as I have a nice collection of her fabrics.  However, I was rather disappointed with the content.  The scrap one has some nice patterns.

I actually read three books in November, which is unusual for me.  They were all found in op shops on our trip west.

The first two, found in different op shops, were ones I have been wanting to read for ages, but have never found.  They are by the author of the Pryne Fisher books, but are quite different.  The lead character is Corinne Chapman, a size 20 baker who lives in an Art Deco apartment block in Melbourne, along with an unusual assortment of employees, fellow residents and her very handsome partner.  There is always a mystery to be solved.  There are six books in the series and I have now read them all.  Very light reading, but enjoyable.

I picked up the next book purely based on the title.  Nothing to rave about, but I read it.  

And that about wraps up November.  

My Goals for December

Here we are, in the final month of the year and well and truly in “The Silly Season.”  Like the last couple of months, we have a fair bit on, so I don’t want to burden myself with too many goals that become unattainable. 

ONE MONTHLY GOAL    

This month’s goal is to complete the Three Yard Dog Quilt that I started in September as part of the Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge.  

Once this quilt is completed I will have achieved all of my goals set for the challenge.

The quilt was removed from Monique’s frame when she started to play up, so the challenge will be to reload it, considering I had already commenced a bit of the quilting.  Not something I have attempted as yet.  I’m sure it won’t be too hard, once I get going.

I’m linking up over at Stories From the Sewing Room.  Pop over to see what the others are planning for the month.

HEXY FLOWER QUILT    

The only other goal I have is to finish piecing the hexy flowers.  There are only seven small and four large to do.  

Of course, I still intend to work on something for 15 minutes a day.

Anything else is a bonus.  It would be nice if I did achieve some bonus further stitching.

Once again, I’m not setting any other goals.  Hopefully, when we start the New Year I will get back into it.

November Stitching Wrap Up

 My goals for November were rather minimal.

My One Monthly Goal to complete the Koala baby quilts was met, once Monique was back up and running, which was also a catch up for the Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge.

I did manage a little secret stitching, so no photos to share at this point.

Other than that, all I have worked on is my hand pieced hexy flowers.  I prepped all the remaining hexies and have been stitching away at them.  All that remains is to piece seven more one inch flowers and four more two inch flowers.  Then it will be time to glue baste them all to their backgrounds and hand appliqué them down, before piecing the blocks together by machine into a quilt top.  It doesn’t sound much when reading it here, but it will still take a little while.

Joining in on Zoom sessions last night and all of today really helped achieve this much.  I pieced eleven hexy flowers today.

I’m feeling rather pleased with my progress and, fingers crossed, I will have it for show and tell at Scrub Stitchin’ next year.

That’s all I did.  Everything else is sitting there, patiently waiting its turn to be worked on.  It was a busy month for both of us, so this is about all I expected to achieve.

Other than one day, I still managed my 15 minutes of crafting each day - the beauty of hand stitched hexies.

November = 29/30

Year to date = 310/335

Success rate = 92.54%

Now to start thinking about December.

November One Monthly Goal Completed

My goal this month was to complete the two little koala baby quilts that I pieced at Baradine in September.

Happily, I can report that they are all done and ready to donate when I get a few more completed.  Well, I actually had them completed by the 10th of the month, which was just as well, as we have been a tad otherwise occupied since then.

I once again used the  “Scrollwork” pantograph. It just seems to be so versatile.  The backing is a flannelette that seemed to suit the quilt well.

The quilting still didn’t go straight forward on these two, despite Monique’s spa treatment, but we got there in the end.

As you can see, they are very similar.  I was able to make three baby quilts from eight fat quarters.  I really like them all.

I’m linking up with Stories From The Sewing Room.  Pop over to see what the others have achieved this month.

They were also #10 in the Chookshed Stitchers’ Challenge for the month of June.  I’m pleased that they have been completed in 2024, if not June.

Taking Monique to the Spa - Part 2

After visiting the Crookwell open gardens we headed across to Taralga, where we had booked a room for the night at the local pub.  It’s a lovely old building that has been undergoing some serious renovations.  Our room was freshly furnished.  We opted to go “Shared bathroom” rather than ensuite.  They can often be a bit dodgy, but this pub actually had two fully self contained bathrooms for the ladies.  You can’t get much better than that.

Once we were settled in we went for a bit of a walk up the street.

It was a lovely evening, so we enjoyed our dinner out on the pub verandah.  We felt it was rather hot during the night, and were somewhat surprised that the minimum temperature was only down to 21C!! We are not used to anything over 10C at this stage of the season, especially as Taralga is traditionally cooler than home.

The following morning we got away nice and early to deliver Monique for her service.

While there we were able to see the nice collection of vintage machines.

Centre stage was the rare East German machine we gave him.  It is the black one to the left of the green Elna Supermatic.

We now had time to kill, so went in search of a cafe to partake of “second breakfast”.  We were rather pleased with the one we found.  It just happened that we parked the car right in front of a patchwork shop….. and I didn’t go in.  Very strong of me.

With Mick being a bit of a cricket tragic, we decided to go and have a look at the Don Bradman Cricket Museum, housed beside the Bradman Oval.  

Don grew up in Bowral and played his early games with the local club on these grounds.

They even have his first cricket bat on display.

Another section talked about the evolution of cricket from a game played by shepherds in the 1300s by throwing a rock into a hole to what we now know.  This is a bat from the 1700s. Just a tad different from the modern version.

It was also interesting to learn that bowling over armed was developed by ladies, as they couldn’t bowl underarm, as they were hindered by their hooped skirts.

The museum also covered more recent developments in the game, in particular Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket of the 1970s.

They had  a large display of magazine ads from the time.  They were fun to have a look at.

Finally, there was a portrait gallery of more recent cricketers.

Outside, Mick posed with the statue of “The Don”.

So much detail.

It was about then that we heard that Monique was ready to collect and take home.  We just had a quick bite to eat in Goulburn for a late lunch and drove straight home via Oberon.  Yes, the road was rough.

It worked out that we had a very enjoyable couple of days away.