Tuesday 12 November 2013

A broken sewing machine, a break away, and change of perspective

Last Thursdays class was fantastic! Talk about achieving!! My ladies were onto this quilt appeal thing like you wouldn't believe. We had 7 quilts tops put together (some were already done), backings cut, pressed, sandwiched with wadding and pin basted ready for quilting in 2 hours. What an effort! I decided to stay back with Mary and finish a top I was working on and wouldn't you know it, but my sewing machine died. Well, it didn't die as such, but the tension disc has blown a spring and I have no top tension whatsoever. AAAARRRGGGHHH!!!! A few days before that, my quilting foot (the hopping kind) totally dismantled while I was quilting. Thankfully, I have a spare quilting foot and sewing machine, but I'm sure you'll know what I mean when I say the Plan B sewing machine is not like the Plan A sewing machine. I haven't taken it to be fixed yet as I had to go home and pack.

On the weekend I had the privilege of going to a friend's beautiful wedding in Melbourne, and the break away from the smoke and blackened trees did me a world of good. We left at 4am on Saturday morning and we knew it was going to be a hot day here as it was already in the low 20's before dawn. We arrived at Tullamarine Airport at 8:30am and it was only 10 degrees, windy and sprinkling. Brrr!!

Our apartment hotel was in Chinatown and getting out of the Skybus I remember thinking how clear and fresh the air was. I think it was possibly one of the few days we hadn't been breathing in smoky air in weeks. I am fairly sure you will never again hear me say that inner city air seems fresher than Blue Mountains air.

We had a lovely time in Melbourne. The wedding was wonderful and fun and relaxed and it was just the kind of party we needed.

Yesterday we had the privilege of experiencing Remembrance Day at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne and that always helps to put things in perspective for me. What a powerful place, especially on that day.

A Flanders Poppy in bloom



On the way back to our apartment we saw some of the crocheted poppies from the 5000 Poppies project installed in the memorial gardens.



Earlier in the day we had seen the installation of poppies at Federation Square and had a chat with Lynn about how the poppy project has taken off. I have a couple of bags full of poppies (see the post here) that I meant to send down but with the fires everything was put on hold. I'm still going to send them and they will be in next years display.





We got home late last night and there was light rain all the way. Pulling into our street you could smell the damp ash smell mixed with fresh rain and wet gum leaves. It is the smell of home, and I am glad to be back. This morning as I am typing there has been rolling thunder for an hour or so and very constant rain that sometimes comes down quite hard. I love the sound of it on our Colourbond roof. The trees have had the smoke and ash washed from them and they look even more green than before against the black ground underneath. The burned trees have bronze and copper coloured leaves and if I didn't know better I could think the eucalyptus trees had decided to turn brown for Autumn.

Now I am off to design and sew and return phone calls. We had had a nice response from the flyers that went our in the Sunday papers on the weekend. This week I will also be posting more easy quilt patterns with fabric yardage required, so stay tuned.

Thanks stopping by!

2 comments:

  1. Hi Tracey, We were in the Grampians a year after their really nasty fires a while back. The green shoots on the blackened trees were beautiful as was the wildflowers. there were lots of seedlings of new plants coming up. New life after so much destruction! Thanks for the patterns by the way. I'd best get busy!

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  2. Hi Sandra, Yes, the regrowth is spectacular. I have a photo of a new shoot coming out of a burnt eucalyptus that I took after the 2001 fires went through Yellow Rock. I borrowed a digital camera at the time to take the photo, and I was thrilled with the new technology. I will have to scan it and put it on here. I'm hoping to get some more patterns up, too. Thanks for your support! Tracey.

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