A little bit windy and a little bit of stitching!

The wind was whipping up the sand on the beach this morning making walking very unpleasant. So a very short walk and back home to stitch.  One of my 'disasters' has a silk moon appliqued over it with some stitching added, and one of my bleached moons also has some stitching. Need to do more!
I have also been working on my 'Harvest' challenge which will be revealed next week.

Short holiday!

Have been away for a few days at one of our favorite spots - Port Vincent. It was very cold but we had a couple of lovely sunny days. These fellows are always hanging about waiting for all the fish guts at the fish cleaning station. They are so ungainly on their feet but so graceful when they fly overhead.

I have invisibly basted one of my bleached moons ready for stitching. The moon was done on a piece of fabric that was sun dyed with leaves many years ago. It has a piece of spotty navy Japanese cotton and a gold coloured shot cotton behind it. To me it looks as if you are looking through a window at the full moon, which we did last night! Have got no idea how I'm going to stitch it yet so I have basted some moons ready to do some experimental stitches.

And just to show you that all my bleaching experiments weren't perfect, here are some of the disasters! Good fun trying though.

Sun Moon Stars

I have joined Jude's sunmoonstars whispering class and I had a lovely afternoon yesterday experimenting with bleach dyeing. Jude showed us how to make stencils using freezer paper. Some results were good, others not so good!  Here is a picture of some of the better experiments. I used a variety of mixes - straight bleach, bleach mixed with cornflour, bleach mixed with Jif, and Harpic Bleach Gel. I am keen to try some more.

An unusual site at the beach today - five swans swimming just off shore! I think they come from the nearby wetlands but it is unusual to see them in the sea.

Ominous clouds

                                                  

Some showers forecast for today so there were dark clouds at the beach this morning. A row of galahs on the fence and part of a rainbow far across the water took my eye.
The subject for our next challenge is The Harvest. As we live in a big wine growing area I decided my subject definitely had to be about harvesting grapes. I've gathered some pictures and some appropriate fabrics, now I have to start cutting and stitching!

Where did April go?

Oh my, where did April go? We've had some stunning weather so there's been lots of gardening, outdoor lunches and time on the beach walking and fishing. Easter was a five day holiday this year as Anzac Day fell in the middle of it, so we had to have an extra public holiday!  Not a lot of stitching happening, although I have finished my Wagga.
It's been made in the traditional style of 'making do' using a book if tailors samples, a book of furnishing fabric samples, an old pillow case and some pieces of a woolen dressing gown. All things I had in the cupboard! The back is two pieces of some old curtains and the hanging sleeve is some old mattress ticking. I've then stitched it all together with some big stitch quilting.

At the beach there has been some beautiful lace seaweed, a cranky crab leaving interesting tracks, and probably a cranky man who got his car stuck in the sand as the tide was coming in!

Autumn

Not much stitching happening around here at the moment apart from very repetitious things. I've made 20 fabric rubbish containers (with plastic tub insert) for participants in a class I'm teaching this weekend. They are very quick and easy to make and make a very small dent in my fabric collection!
And I'm cutting up metres and metres of fabric that will be packaged up and presented to delegates at a quilting conference later this year.
A perfect autumn morning at the beach this morning - cool, sunny and crystal clear water! (Click on photos for a close-up.)

Hunting for ants!

We had a visitor in the backyard yesterday! An echidna digging around looking for ants. He was quite happy for us to get close. I guess with all those spines you don't need to worry about predators.

I made an echidna quilt many years ago that included an echidna, an echidna train (several males follow the female around!), a puggle in the nest (a puggle is a baby echidna), and some flora and fauna from the bush. It's hard to see but there are ants stamped on the central background fabric.  Sorry about the quality of the photo, it's a photo of a photo!  No digital camera in those days!