Matching Pegs

The heavens opened this morning, (which you will not find me complaining about) right before we left for Rory’s first day at school.

This left us taking photo’s inside before kitting ourselves out in Raincoats for our very short walk to school.

Rory was pretty laid back about it all, and barely said goodbye once he reached the classroom. He was more interested in having a go on one of the computers, so we didn’t linger.

Overall the feeling here is of excitement, rather than any sad feelings about our little boy growing up.

Dinner tonight was made by Luke and the kids, thanks to the fact that today was a public holiday. It was de-lish!

I felt like I was able to get so much done thanks to an extra day with an extra (and very wonderful) adult in the house. So Davo is almost done. All he needs before he starts kicking goals (on the school bag) is a coat of varnish. As I have none, this will require a shopping visit with 3 kids in tow (sigh). But both Rory and I are very pleased with my latest design.

(pronounced Dave-o of course).

He is an Aussie Rules Footballer, and if you know anything about Aussie Rules, you know that every player needs a nickname. In fact, all Aussies need a nickname. Mine was based on my surname prior to getting hitched. Anyway, Davo is for Rory as he heads off to school. At the kid’s school, all the students have the same school bag, so they are encouraged to hang some kind of identifier on them. Davo just needs some football colours painted on - Yellow and brown for Rory’s favourite team.

These days, being an Aussie means being very aware of water.
Here in Melbourne the level of water in the dams is published on the front page of the paper every day, (37.5%).

I often think of what it was like for the people who lived here many generations ago. Those people surely had to worry about water. While now we worry about the effects of climate change, they used to worry about basic availability - no mixer taps in the kitchen and showers in the bathroom. We are again living with the reality that Australia is the driest continent on earth.

Even with it’s arid nature it is a beautiful country, and I feel very lucky to have been born here. I am definitely proud to be an Aussie.

This poem, one of our most famous, sums it all up….. (The first verse, which is often left off, is written to the many new Australians settling here from the UK at the time)

My Country
by Dorothea Mackellar (1885 - 1968)

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Happy Australia Day, especially to Aussie friends in distant lands (you know who you are!)

Today we spent the day with my good friend Rebecca, and her 5 children. She is an extremely busy lady who is the brains behind this website dedicated to larger families.

Rebecca has asked me if I could create a library bag for each of her children. They all have their own favourite colour (which are all different), which Rebecca has encouraged because it helps her keep track of their different belongings. So I am armed with that information, and some details about their favourite things.

I arrived home and started sketching (in the small amount of time before I had to produce dinner) and here is a page of butterflies.

I have been wanting to draw out some Butterflies for a while. Michaela will be moving from a cot into a bed soon, and I plan to put some on the Doona cover that I am going to make. I have a sheet with a Lavender coloured gingham print which I am going to . They also happen to be Brooke’s favourite thing (Rebecca’s youngest daughter).

So I have made a little start. More sketching will be needed before I start on drawing out an actual design, for either the doona or a library bag, but I like this page of angular butterflies. I am going to explore this look, I am having fun!

“Because they AAARRRRRGH”. This is my brother Julian’s favourite joke, if frequency of repetition is anything to go by. Of course it could be that it is the only joke he knows that is suitable for my children.

This is Rory’s library bag for school. The front of it is completed, and it is waiting to be turned into a bag. I have some great Pirate Map fabric for the back and I am thinking of lining it with black. As school starts in 10 days, we were running out of time for me to needle-turn the applique (which I would have preferred), so I completed it with fusible web and buttonhole stitch, as it was designed.

It was designed by Natashia Curtin of Smee Designs and was printed in a copy of Quilters Companion (No. 17 - Vol. 5, No. 1) and Rory was very definite that that was what he wanted and not something I designed. It has been quite some time since I have done any applique with fusible web and buttonhole stitch - It is a great method of applique for beginners, but can get quite thick where more than one layer of fusible web overlaps. I was very pleased with the coin fabric that is cascading out of the chest, and I needle-turned it, and the little map that the pirate is holding, so as not to obscure any of their fine detail with embroidery thread.

Now all I have to do is finish it, in all my spare time…..

Here is a look at my one of my very favourite posessions - This handbag used to belong to my Great Aunt Rita. This lovely older lady had quite a handbag collection, including lucky handbags that used to accompany her to the horseraces.

She never married and never had children. My grandmother died over 6 years ago, and left so many beautiful things, that not only she had collected, but that her sisters had left to her. The earings and watch came to me via her - My mother paid to have the watch fixed and I wore it on my wedding day. I am not sure if the earings were Grandma’s or one of her sisters, I never saw her wear them. They are clip ons and very heavy, but I think that they are just divine. I wore one of them as a brooch with a black “flapper” outfit for my Jazz themed 30th birthday (a few years ago), with feathers on a headband on my forehead.

These things are very special to me even if I have very little occasion to wear them. They connect me to a generation that is no longer with us.

At least they wear their big brother’s gumboots.

The Christmas tree is all prickly and brown on it’s side in the sun, and today we packed away the last of the Christmas decorations.

All the silver doily and paper plate angels made at preschool have been put away, and the Christmas fabric bunting taken down. No more Christmas cards on the mantle-piece, no more stars in the window.

I have packed away this little angel for the first time, as she was only just completed it time for Christmas. I have been making these for the last two years, as presents for Amelia’s class teacher at school, but felt we deserved another one as well. They make a nice end of year present for the teacher because there is room to write a message of thanks on the tummy.

I have been making the Preschool teachers a series of matching decorations, with a new one each year. So far I have done “Joy”, “Love”,” Peace” and for 2007, “Hope”. On the back I always write a message from our family. After a break this year, there are two more to make, when Michaela goes to Preschool.

I also have these on our tree every year along with a star for each family member, complete with their birth-date on the back. I made 14 of these a few years back for my mother-in-law, one for each of her grandchildren, (Actually I made 11, and have added 3 since).