The Modern HST Sampler

A couple of facts:

1.   I've always been a bit nervous working with half square triangles.  They never seem to be the right size, despite making sure the seam allowance is correctly adjusted on my machine.

2.   I have a little pile of blue and white fabric that I want to make some sort of sampler quilt out of.  There is plenty of fabric, but a limited variety, as it came from just one range on clearance.

 Along came "The Modern HST Sampler QAL" hosted by Alyce from Blossom Heart Quilts.

This Quilt Along is free to joint at any time.  There are 24 blocks, finishing at 12 inches square, which will be shared over the course of the year.  Alyce is sharing various methods of piecing, which will be good to try.

This sounded ideal for me.  My colours aren't modern, but that won't matter.  It sounds like the blocks will be fine in blue and white.

I pulled some extra fat quarters and less from the stash to come up with this selection.

The first block was released a couple of weeks ago, so I jumped in with both feet.  Quite simple, so a good one to start with.  The blocks are so much easier to get accurate when you make the fabric 1" larger than the finished block and trimming back, rather than the usual 7/8".

The traditional Shoo Fly block has been renamed "Candy".

The second block was only released a couple of days ago.  Another simple looking block, this time using a different technique.

The traditional Friendship Star has been renamed "Ninja".

Now I have to wait a couple of weeks for the next block.  I wonder what it will be like?

By the way, the seam ripper has already been out to get the points to meet.  Not to worry.

I am linking up with Alyce at Sew Cute Tuesday and Cath at Design Board Monday.

A Christmas Finish

Last Christmas, like most, we had a leg of ham.  Also, like most years, it was wrapped in a tea towel in the fridge.

That was a bit slack, as a couple of years ago I bought some panels to make some ham bags at the Christmas sales.  

Next year I will be ready, as I now have four ham bags.  There were more panels that I realised.  I'm happy to have that job done.

Cheers Janice

Australia Day

We usually attend some event or another on Australia Day and this year was no different.

Bathurst starts the day’s festivities with a breakfast at the village of Eglinton, just on the outskirts of town.  The Historic Car Club attends each year, but we have not been there for quite a while.

 

After storms and rain last night everything looked nice and fresh.

There was a nice little roll up of vehicles.

It is also a good chance to have a bit of a catch up.

As you can see, we have a diverse variety of vehicles in the Club.

We took “Olga” the old girl along but I forgot to take a photo.  Some kids had a great time sitting in and on her.  I think they will be in the local paper.

Other than that, we have just had a quiet time at home…….starting to think about our big move which will happen before we know it, as we have a fair bit on before then.

Showy Ride - part 2

Continuing with our weekend away at the Snowys a week and a half ago.......

On the Sunday, after breakfast we were back on the bikes and I had a go at using my camera on the back of the bike.  It wasn't too bad.  Not as good as the sidecar, but OK.  The only down side was that I noticed that I have another "Damn Spot" in the lens.  See it at the top right of the photo.

This time the camera is out of warranty, so I will be up for a new one.  I'll have to have a bit of a think about what I buy.  I love the great zoom on my little point and shoot, but that is the problem.  Dust seems to get into the lens when the zoom is out.  I'll just use Mick's little waterproof one for the time being, despite it having minimal zoom, but of course we didn't take it with us on the weekend.  So be it.

Back to our ride......

We headed off to Jindabyne for morning tea.  The landscape was quite different to the steep windy stuff we had been on the day before.

However, it wasn't too long after Jindabyne that the lines on the road changed back to yellow.  Our ride was over the Alpine Way, one of the highest roads in Australia and one that is closed for a lot of winter.

Mick and I visited here about ten years ago.  There had been bushfires through the year before and everything was very black and sad looking.  Now there seems to be loads of regrowth with a haze of the old dead trees above it.

After we climbed and climbed, we came to this sign.

And down we went.....and down... and down.

Finally we came to a lovely little creek and had a breather.  The creek really was lovely,

The water was beautiful and clear over the rocks.

I couldn't get over how tall the trees were, after the smaller snow gums higher up.

After a little while we were off again.

Our next stop was at the viewing spot for the Murray 1 Power Station.

Lunch was at Khancoban.  It is in a valley and it was HOT!  We were happy to be on the road again and climbing back up into the mountains, where the air was cooler.

Next stop was at Tooma Dam.

There was a sign with a good map showing where we had travelled.

At our next break we took a group photo.

I thought we were high, but we had to climb even more to pass the Tumut 2 Power Station and Cabramurra, the highest town in Australia at 1,488m above sea level.  (Don't laugh if you are from overseas, we technically only have one mountain in Australia.)  We didn't go in, just past.

Then it was back past Kiandra to Adaminaby.

Mick and I made a little detour.  We weren't going to come all this way and not see Old Adaminaby and Lake Eucumbene,  The village is only quite small, but the lake is HUGE.  It holds roughly the equivalent of nine Sydney Harbours and covers nearly 36,000 acres.

After that we travelled further around the lake to Anglers Reach.  Both settlements are really popular with fisher folk, with most houses being holiday homes.

These roos had the idea, resting in the shade on such a hot day.

Then, finally, it was back to the pub for a cold shower and cool drink.

Monday was just a day of travelling home.  We left the main group after Cooma and came home via Canberra, Boorowa and Cowra.  It was so HOT - like riding with a hot hair dryer being directed on you. That was even with our summer jackets.  We were very happy to get home and into the cool house.

It was a really enjoyable weekend away. Lovely riding country and good company.  Last time we were down that way for a few days I commented that I'd like to spend more time poking around the area and I have come away with the same feeling this time.  It really is lovely in the summer time.  Normally it isn't quite as hot as when we were there, but it was certainly cooler than most places.

Snowy Ride - Part 1

Back in September we were invited on a weekend's ride to the Snowy Mountains on the second weekend in January.  It is an annual ride that a group from Oberon go on.  It sounded like fun.

There were 10 bikes and 19 people that went along.  We didn't think we would know anyone other than the couple that invited us, but it turned out that we knew a few.

We aren't used to riding in big groups, and knew that the sidecar would be too slow to keep up, so Sophia the Moto Guzzi had her longest trip in fourteen years.  She went really well.

This was my view for the weekend.

We travelled down through Cowra, Young, Gundagai for lunch, Tumut and finally Adaminaby, where we were based for the weekend.

We stopped at one lookout and you can see how vast and steep the mountains are.  OK, they are probably still technically only hills.

The weather was really hot for riding, so another stop was had in the shade at Yarrongabilly.  It can get a tad chilly here, so every second year this is the venue for the Alpine Rally for motorcycles.  Mick camped here in winter once as a young buck and when they left the tyres on their vehicle had frozen.

I didn't have the camera out on the bike on the Saturday, but as we doubled over some of the road on Sunday, this is what we road past.

Kiandra was an old gold mining settlement in the 1800s.

It must have been a cold, godforsaken place in winter time for the miners.  There isn't much left to show now.  It would be interesting to have a wander around one day when we have more time.

The bikes enjoyed a bit of twisty stuff as we climbed further.  Notice the yellow lines on the road and the high guide posts.  We were now above the snow line.  Fortunately, that meant the air temperature dropped a little.

We started to travel through areas that had previously had a bush fire go through.  The trees don't come back  like the gums around our area.  They were rather lovely, looking silver against the sky.

We went passed a couple of old mountain huts maintained by the National Parks.

There were very few houses along this part, but I liked this old group of buildings.

Finally, we arrived at our destination, Adaminaby, the home of the big trout.

Our home away from home for the next couple of nights.  Time to enjoy a cool drink and delicious fresh trout for dinner.

The next morning we got up nice and early to have a look around the town.  Adaminiby is only a new town, being relocated from its old site in 1956, when the river was flooded to create Lake Eucumbene for the Snowy Hydro Scheme.

The beautiful church was dismantled and rebuilt, stone by stone at its new location.

Most buildings were relocated on the back of trucks - 100 houses were moved.  The bank looked rather impressive on its travels.

Here it is now, nicely settled, with established trees.

There is a lovely view looking along those shady trees to the church.

Adaminaby is rather a sleepy place at this time of year, but I think it comes alive during the ski season.

Next I will share our ride through the high country.