On the weekend I finished reading The Flower Seeker, A Painter's Travels by Judy Cuppaidge. It was a lovely book, both a visual treat AND interesting in the written content. The book shows the author's beautiful botanical paintings accompanied by interesting snippets and often amusing experiences of actually getting to the plant so she could document it. It's a book I will happily leaf through for years to come. I did a bit of research about the author on the net before I wrote this blog entry and I found that she has lost most of her eyesight due to macular degeneration and can no longer paint. This is the front cover of the book to give you an idea of her work:

The Austalian (newspaper) has an article online about Judy Cuppaidge and her daughter Virginia who is also an artist. It's worth a read especially since the description of the book is better written than mine. I finished making Sophie's bag tonight. I'm glad I decided to redo the handle. I'm happy with it now. I also JUST remembered that the Straight and Narrow Challenge is due today. So I sent in my entry :-) Oh yeah, I'm entering two of my traditional quilts into the local quilt show. I've never shown anything in public before (apart from having a photo of one of my quilts published in Down Under Quilts) and I'm not looking forward to attaching a hanging sleeve. But it should be fun to see my quilts next to others from around the area.

I decided to show you some photos of our picnic yesterday. I've been sewing, but I can't show you yet, because it is for my swap with Sophie. We decided that since our camping didn't happen we should at least have a picnic, so yesterday we packed a couple of salad rolls (made up with lettuce, tomato, Tasmanian Smoked Salmon (check out the link for some yummy looking receipes) and King Island Dairy Blue Cheese and some Cascade Apple Isle (no link, sorry LOL) This is the lake at the park

This the predominant type of bird residing in the lake and surrounding wetland. I don't know what they are called, but they are quite handsome.

Our dog, Reuben, thought the birds were handsome too. This was pretty funny to watch, Riscy didn't find it amusing.

I am very excited by the quilting I did on Sophie's bag and I'm keen to try something similar on a larger piece of wall art for my dining room. I'm not sure if it will translate sucessfully into a larger piece though, but I'm definitely gonna give it a try. Sophie, I would have declared the bag finished, but there is a problem with the handle, its the wrong length. Too short to cross shoulder to hip across the torso, too wide to work as a straight handle just too tooo tooooo..... I'm sure you understand. I have to unpick and rethink. I took it to work for a second opinion (we're a bunch of engineers, but we still like our accessories!). I think two short handles would be best for this bag and will allow the (pretty intense) quilting to be shown off best. I'll do that tommorow night. I returned my borrowed spinning wheel tonight, allowing me to have another chin wag with Bev and Ian. Bev had knitted up a heap of these Ear Flap Hats with Colinette yarn. YUMMO One day I'm gonna be a knitter of THINGS THAT FIT. Did I tell you that the beret doesn't fit anymore. I washed it and it got huge. Then I tried to felt it and its still huge. I'm gonna have to sew some elastic in the rim to try and make it work.

Just a quick note to say that I"M SEWING!!!! No wonder I was having major withdrawals, this is heaven. Sophie, your bag is coming along nicely :-)

As promised here on this blog yesterday. I ventured into my sewing room to tidy up the mess that has been festering there for a few months. I get into a frenzy of creativity; fabric and 'stuff' gets flung all over the place and then the lull happens, no tidying occurs, junk gets thrown in when visitors are coming and before I know it I am paralysed by not having a serene, well ordered place to work. Here is a little glimpse. Before and After:

That box on the floor is the extent of my stash. I don't need a huge one since I dye pretty much all the fabric I use, so I can dye more as needed. I discovered I have a lot of purples and pinks, I will overdye a fair chunk of it I think. In the 'before' shot, you can see a washing basket on my desk, that was part of the stash prior to organisation today. I threw out a heap of scraps I was keeping. I couldn't be bothered putting them into any sort of order, so they were chucked. Without regret. How cleansing. Since I was in the mood. I unsubscribed from a number of mailing lists.... Including QuiltArt. I will resubscribe in a few weeks. But I need a break. Those of you on that list can understand how overwhelming it can be. At the moment I prefer the more gentle world of blogs. Tally ho.