THE HOLIDAYING LIBRARIAN

Coorparoo Quilters Quilt Show 2011

2011-06-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

Coorparoo Quilters have a quilt show every two years. This year, we held it over the weekend of 4-5 June. We had a Mug Bag Challenge (eg make a bag to put a mug into, to take to class). The bag had to match the mug. I had an idea to make a bag like a rose, to match a beautiful mug my sister Lee had given me a few years ago.

Here are all the beautiful mug bags:

I dropped off my quilts and mug bag on the Friday afternoon. We had an opening event on the Friday evening. I was walking towards the mug bags with my friend Conny. I said, 'Someone's put something purple in my mug". Conny said, "They must have accidentally left something behind". We went up close to it and it was a Winner blue ribbon!! What a fabulous surprise. There were so many fantastic mug bags there. I didn't even realise that it was being judged that afternoon. I also received a book and 8 fat quarters at our next quilt meeting, so I was very happy.

When making the rose mug bag, I had thought about individual petals right through to the middle. The middle petals were going to be long and kind of come together like the inside of the rose. It didn't work out like that though. I found this fabulous fabric in my stash that looks like the inside of a rose and so I made a tube with that for the inside. The mug sits inside this tube, which has a drawstring at the top. The fabric is drawn together, swirled and then tucked into the mug. I also spray starched and curled the fabric petals.

The is the trade table - many of our group made pretty things to sell.

Here I am with my reversible Sudoku quilt, finally finished!!

Conny is on the right, selling tickets in front of the amazing Raffle Quilt some of our group made.

This is the Joy of Christmas quilt I made from the blocks I won at our Christmas in July retreat last year. I made the letter blocks.

My sewing room

2011-03-20T03:34:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my Sewing Room!

We moved house in late 2010 and now I have a new sewing room. It is a little wider than my sewing room at the old house, but it has windows on two walls and a built in wardrobe on another. That meant that I had to do something different to get a design wall, as there was only one full wall in the room and my bookcases had to go there! :-)

One wall was painted bright royal blue. As you can see, that is now painted a gorgeous deep purple called Chive Blossom. My sewing desk has been with me since 1974 - the first 5 years, it was my high school study desk and it has been my sewing desk ever since. My Horn cutting table fits very nicely under the high window - inside I keep the larger pieces of fabric and future projects in old shirt boxes. I had new lighting installed above the table that is 3 spotlights with daylight bulbs. In the corner is a nice little sewing chair that has my Ott light very handy. The big wicker basket holds batting. Also under the cutting table is an old wooden tea trolley with many different boxes on it. They all hold interesting bits and pieces.

There is a pile of pretty cardboard boxes next to the sewing desk which are full of fat quarters.

Here is my design wall - I covered the two doors of the built-in wardrobe with BlockButler. Rather expensive but a very good use of what would have been otherwise unused space. The BlockButler is thin enough that both doors slide past each other, even with blocks attached. Though at the moment the quilt top I am working on is too big for one door, so it is attached to both. So I have to pin one side back to open the doors.

Inside the wardrobe is rather full. Lots of boxes with patterns, charm squares, fabric strips, fun stuff for art quilts, packets of pellon hanging, big boxes of fabric, a bag of batting off-cuts and much more....

Here are my lovely bookcases. These replaced two smaller bookcases from the old house. I was only going to have one in my sewing room, but we couldn't get the other to fit in the study, so now I have two. And they are fabulous! So much room for books and other knick knacks. :-)

In the corner, next to the bookcases, is a wooden 10-drawer CD cabinet - it is full of fat quarters - a different colour for each drawer.

And finally, here is my view from my sewing desk - trees in the distance - my local park. (just as well you can't see the weeds directly in front of the window!!) :-)

Quilting retreat July 2010

2010-07-14T04:17:00.000-07:00

I attended the Coorparoo Quilters annual retreat at Mt Tamborine last weekend. We all arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday afternoon. The theme was "Christmas in July" and we each had to make a block with the challenge fabric. The blocks were divided into groups of 6 blocks and I was lucky enough to win one lot of blocks (the best group, I think!). We also had to bring Secret Santa gifts - I made a little jewelry roll and also a pencil roll out of pretty pink & green batik. I received a nice table topper in Christmas fabrics in a log cabin design.

All in all, it was a fun weekend. We all worked on whatever projects we wanted. I took along a foundation pieced table runner - a pineapple design with lots of small pieces (what was I thinking?) I didn't finish it over the weekend - got through 10 blocks and have 4 more to finish off.

Sudoku quilt - reverse side

2010-03-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

Here is the reverse of the Sudoku quilt - obviously in black & white.

Now I just have to put the two sides together!

I'm thinking of tieing the quilt in case each side is different in size.

small projects

2010-03-04T02:54:00.000-08:00

Last weekend, I finished off two small projects - a bag and a cushion.

The bag is made from 4 fat eights of book theme fabric. I had bought the fabric a long time ago, intending to make a bag from it. A librarian I worked with is retiring tomorrow, after 44 years in our library service. She is a very lovely gentle person and so I have made the bag as my gift to her. I only used the four fabrics - it is about 30cm square, fully lined and padded with fusible pellon.

The cushion started as a project in my quilting group a fortnight ago. To participate, we needed to bring in our buttons, plus a piece of fabric lined with pellon, or an item of clothing. We then drew the hearts and sewed buttons in the heart shape. I wanted my button heart to look sumptuous. I had a collection of leaf buttons from a Button shop in The Rocks, Sydney. The fabric is left-over scraps from Tegan's Year 12 Formal outfit. The buttons are mostly plain shirt buttons - I've used pearl buttons on the leaves and also several fancy flower buttons. I finished it off with ruching and it is for our spare bedroom.

Painting fabric

2010-02-26T23:30:00.000-08:00

I bought some textile inks in spray bottles at the Textile Fair last year - the brand is Moon Glow. These iridescent inks are in powdered form and are mixed with hot water. I bought several bottles, not knowing quite what I'd do with them. I bought 2 Starburst Sprays: Cathedral Pine Green and Red Hot Poker Orange. When sprayed, they leave a starburst, as seen left and below. I really liked these effect, especially as they dried very glittery. Anotherer type I bought was Moon Shadow Mist: Moonlit Mulberry. I was disappointed in this brown colour.

I also tried using the spray inks on a quilt top I had made from a birthday block swap. I was bored with the quilt top and wanted to see if I could jazz it up. Here is the quilt top before any colour went on.

You can see some of the starburst colour on a block below, but overall I wasn't fussed with the result.

Next I'm going to use some of my iridescent PaintStiks on the quilt top as well as the other fabric piece, to see if that will be more interesting.

The fabric and quilt top got caught in a heavy downpour and some of the colour came out. Then the ultimate disgrace - one of my daughter's puppies decided that pulling the quilt top off the clothes line would be a fantastic game. So now one border has got chew holes in it.......

Business card holder

2010-02-26T23:05:00.000-08:00

I subscribe to the Quilting Daily email from http://www.quiltingarts.com/ . One recent email had a link to a free downloadable ebook "Five small quilting projects".
One of the projects is a business card holder which slides out your business cards when you pull on a ribbon or cord. The cord/ribbon loops under the business cards.

I've made one with some fab geometric fabric and put a few interesting beads and square sequins on it. I also couched over blue glitter cord around the outside with brown thread. Fun!

I'm thinking of making a whole bunch of these to give away. This business card holder is very easy to make.

Conference Services| Annual Conference |

2010-02-12T03:47:00.000-08:00

Conference Services Annual Conference

L is for...

2010-02-11T03:47:00.000-08:00

You know how an idea can swirl around in your head for a long period... and then you can see part of it clearly... then it swirls around again while you need some more inspiration?

Several months ago, I read an article (in Quilting Arts, I think) about making fabric book pages with a Letter as the theme. I thought about using this idea to make something for my sister and brothers for Christmas. The ideas certainly didn't gel enough in time for Christmas, but an idea stuck in my head for my sister, Lee.

Lee is our family historian, who has done an enormous amount of genealogy research. The image that kept popping into my head was of a glittery letter L that had an old tree growing around it. (Possibly fueled by a wonderful photo we have at work of a Moreton Bay Fig tree growing around a park bench in New Farm Park, Brisbane.)

It got to the point where I had to sketch the design to get it out of my head. I used to draw a lot when I was a teenager and have not done a lot since. But it was wonderful to pull out a sketch pad and pencil and get the design to a more concrete state.

In my vision, a person is standing at the top of a cliff and can see into a distant valley. This symbolises looking into our past, particularly to the green rolling hills of Britain, where most of our family line is from. The old tree is in the foreground, with a large L firmly entwined.

And a poem also emerged... a bit basic, but emerge it did.

L is for leaf

L is for Lee

They both fill the branches

Of our family tree

And then the sketch sat on my cutting table. I pulled fabrics - a great sky fabric with clouds, several woodgrain fabrics, lots of greens, some earthy fabrics and a dark purple fabric for branches in deep shade.

Last week, I started putting it together - cutting the background freehand - it didn't really matter if the mountains were a bit different. The tree I traced onto tracing paper and then pinned to the woodgrain fabric, cutting loosely around. I cut chunks for the cabin.

The Letter L is a piece of yellow fabric with gold foiling. My first try of the foiling technique.

The leaves and grass are all free-motion embroidered with wonderful variegated thread.

The branches are also emphasised or darkened with free-motion embroidery. Highlights were added with white Inktense pencil.

The person is drawn on with permanent pen, but the river in the background is sewn.

I've also used Inktense pencils for some shadowing, particularly the mountains.

sudoku quilt

2010-02-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

I've finished the bright floral sudoku quilt top.
Nine different fabrics in a sudoku format -
nine in each square and across and down.

This quilt will be reversible - bright florals one side; black & white the other.
Here is the mix of black & white prints in a test block:

Playing with Inktense pencils

2010-01-24T16:57:00.000-08:00

I bought a box of 12 Derwent Inktense pencils in 2008, but haven't done a lot with them (besides colouring in parts of a Christmas stitchery). I discovered that Eckersleys art shop in Brisbane has the full range of Inktense pencils available to purchase in boxes or individually. So now I have a whole lot of colours! :-) Plus I now have an outliner pencil (dark grey pencil that doesn't react to water) - good to draw the basic design with.

To use these pencils on fabric, you need to use textile medium with them. You can either paint on the textile medium and then draw over with the pencil, or draw with the pencil and then paint over the textile medium. I traced a few leaves and hearts with the outliner and set about colouring them in. Then I used textile medium (1 part medium, 2 parts water) with a fine brush and painted over each coloured area, cleaning the brush in water between each colour. I also did some very fine lines surrounding the leaves, creating a halo, and painted over. Colouring first and then painting with the textile medium keeps the colours lighter, as seen in this photo:

Next I experimented with doing both methods to see the colour difference. The red flower on bottom right was done by painting on the textile medium first, then colouring in with the pencil. Much more intense colour this way. The top left flower was done by colouring first, then painting over with textile medium. The photo on the right shows how the colour intensifies as you paint on the textile medium.

Here is the finished block with the two techniques used. The colours in this block generally are brighter, as more of it was done by painting first.

I think the damp cloth draws more colour out of the pencil as you use it. You do need to be careful that the cloth isn't too wet (esp if you go over your line), as it will bleed into that wet area. I also found it harder to have different strengths of the same colour. eg when colouring in on dry cloth, you can put a heaver concentration of colour in different spots (eg as shadowing), but I couldn't do this with the other method. Of course, it may simply be that this is my first experiement! :-)

It has been decades since I played with colour pencils (except helping little girls to colour in). I really need to play some more.....

View from my room

2010-01-20T02:02:00.000-08:00

I'm a member of an online quilting group, Southern Cross Quilters. Recent topics have included the view from your sewing room and thread jars.

My sewing room looks out onto the side of our yard - really the side for the 'out-of-sight' things like the bins and the garden shed. We had started a garden bed but never put any plants into it. The main thing I looked out onto was a topiary fig with a wooden fence beyond. So I was inspired to go to the local nursery and buy a few plants to finish off the garden. So now when I sew during the day, I've got more greenery in my view. :-)

For around twelve months, I've been collecting my threads cut when sewing (hand sewing and machine sewing) and putting them into a big coffee jar. It will take a long time to fill!

I'm also a member of Coorparoo Quilters and I take along hand-sewing for our Tuesday night meetings. I've been working on a series of stitcheries by Robyn Allen Waters - The French Collection. Here are the ones I've finished so far - nearly done on a fourth one. I just fell in love with the designs and the hand-made buttons. We visited French speaking Switzerland last year and saw villages similar to these patterns - entrancing!

Here is the link to the designer:

http://www.orangedaisy.com.au/

Craft show

2009-11-03T03:06:00.000-08:00

Wow, it's been 2 months since I blogged... and what have I done in that time, quilt-wise... well not much at all. I seem to skip from project to project, without finishing much. Mind you, our younger daughter and her husband have moved back home to save a deposit to buy a house. They have brought two puppies with them, who sleep in the laundry. Trouble is, the laundry is close to my sewing room and I'm being careful not to disturb them. And probably another factor is the rotten flu I had several weeks ago, that I'm still getting over.

I've put together the bali pop blocks into a barn-raising set and now am stuck on what to do next. It definitely needs something... got some embellishments that I'm mulling over... So that quilt top is sitting in a corner for now.

I loved the Sudoku quilt pattern shown in a quilt magazine recently, so I've cut out 2 colourways- one big bright florals and one in black & white. I plan to make it a reversible quilt, so will do QAYG to match the sides. I've got 3 of the bright blocks sewn together.. still heaps to go.

The Craft show in Brisbane recently just gets better, particularly as there are more stands for textile craft. I did a class in felting and made this groovy felted flower from wool with silk strands on top.

I also bought two pieces of beautiful velvet along with a bag frame, to make a handbag for a Masquerade Ball this weekend. It's to go with a dress that I made years ago - luckily I still had some of the fabric, so lined the bag with the fabric (seen in the background).

At the same stand where I bought the velvet, I also bought a wonderful selection of sequins - a bit different, they were square or flower shapes! They come from Colour Stream Sequins: http://www.colourstreams.com.au/

I've also done some sorting out of my scraps into strips, trimmed some to various square shapes and left others in scrap piles. Great to get it done.

Bali pops - more

2009-09-05T00:30:00.001-07:00

I've made 36 blocks from the strips. From each strip, I cut 2 each of the 3 sizes I needed for the logs. eg for the pink/purple logs, I cut 2 1/2 inch, 4 1/2 inch and 6 1/2 inch logs.

I chain-pieced each section of the log cabin blocks, taking the next log from the pile, without specifically choosing the log, excepting if the same colour would end up next to each other. I wanted a random look.

As the tones are very low contrast, I wanted a layout that would show the colour differences between the pink/purples and the blue/greens. These are the three layouts that I ended up deciding between:

Bali Pops

2009-08-30T16:48:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I bought a Bali Pops set, in the colourway of Sherbet. Bali Pops are pre-cut 40 x 2 1/2 inch strips of fabric in the same line.
http://www.hoffmanfabrics.com/SuperStore/SuperStore-Assortment.asp?AssortmentID=302

Since coming back from holidays, I've been pondering what to make out of them. I have a book on Jelly Roll designs (same concept, but by a different fabric manufacturer - the 40 strips are sold in a roll - for Aussies we would use the term Jam Roll to understand the concept).

There's not a whole lot of contrast in this set, though there are two clear colour sets - pinks (with some purples) and blues (with some greens).

I checked out the ideas on the Hoffman's website but still nothing appealed. I glanced at my quilty calendar (new quilt blocks every day) and there was a quarter log cabin block that day - mmmm. That looks like an idea. The quilt is still going to be very soft with low contrast, but I like the look of my sample block, so here goes!

Las Vegas

2009-08-21T22:56:00.000-07:00

We left Scotland at 1.30pm on Sunday 9 August. There was a problem with our itinerary on the airline system and it took them 30 mins to sort out at Edinburgh airport - queue behind us not too happy, but it was a technological problem! Just as well we were early.
We flew to London Heathrow and connected to our United Airlines flight to Chicago okay.
The plane was 30 mins late taking off. As Chicago O'Hare was the first place we touched down in the USA, we were required to get our luggage and take it through customs (it couldn't just go through to Las Vegas and collect it there). It took 45 mins for our suitcases to arrive, which was 8pm - the same time our next flight was boarding in another terminal. Once through customs, we were to put our luggage on the transferring flights intake. We said that we didn't think we'd make our flight (nearly 8.10 now), but they said, yes you might - run!

So we headed off - had to wait for a train to connect us to the other terminal - of course it was the furtherst stop. We dashed towards the gates, but had to get through security and there was a queue and no way to speed through. Off came the shoes & belt, through the security - shoes & belt back on, carry on luggage collected - a dash down a long terminal... plane well gone by the time we got there. No one there to assist. One fellow said to just use the kiosks - no we said, as there did not appear to be any more flights to Las Vegas that night.

So off on a long wald to Concourse C to the United Airlines Customer Service Desk - another long queue. By now, we had been up for 16 1/2 hours.... 2 hour wait in line. Finally, as it was the airline's fault, they put us up in a hotel overnight and booked us through to Las Vegas the next day. First class tickets to Denver, then Economy Plus to Las Vegas. We arrived in Las Vegas around 3.30 pm, when we should have been there at 10.30pm the previous night, so nearly a whole day was wasted in airports and flying. Mind you, we had a spectacular view over the Rockies and the Grand Canyon on the flight.

We were booked to see Wayne Brady (does improvisation - very funny) at the Venetian. Now that is an amazing hotel and casino - check out this entry way! Matches anything we saw in the real Venice in 2006.
http://www.venetian.com/

Wayne Brady was very good. We had a 9pm show and discovered that dinner wasn't included. So we bought something from the food court. Horrible.......

We just laughed all throughout the Wayne Brady performance - he is very talented. Prior to the show, Col filled out a form with name and home town, plus a suggestion for a song title. Col's suggestion was 'my koala just died' and it was used. Wayne made up this kid's song about having a koala... and at the end it became a backpack...

This wonderful umbrellas in the rain scene was in the shopping centre attached to the Venetian Hotel.

We stayed at the Luxor Hotel, in the pyramid itself. The lift (or inclinator) felt very weird, as it went up on the same angle as the side of the pyramid.
http://www.luxor.com/

This massive structure is part of the entry foyer of the Luxor.

And the Sphinx is also huge - outside the Luxor. It formed the tram terminal and the taxi drove in under the Sphinx for the hotel entry.

Even the gardens had interesting statuary. This one is next to the driveway. You can see how intense the sun was... esp after our balmy Scottish summer.

Next door was the Excalibur Hotel... again amazing. Looked like a Lego castle, except full size.

Inside the Excalibur was also very interesting. Col found the Dragon's Lair shop with everything dragon!

If we go to Las Vegas again, we'd like to stay in the Excalibur or at least do the dinner show, which is a jousting tournament.

http://www.excalibur.com/

It was impossible to walk up the strip and not be amazed by the size and design of each of the hotels. Up on the next corner was New York, New York, with the Statue of Liberty in front.

http://www.nynyhotelcasino.com/

There was even a Parisian hotel, with quite a large Eiffel Tower in front - not as big as the real thing, but pretty impressive, all the same.
http://www.parislasvegas.com/

Tegan wanted us to get her something from M&Ms World - 4 storeys of everything M&Ms! http://www.mymms.com/merchandise/las_vegas.asp

We had some truly awful fast food in America - too fatty or too sweet, or just no taste. But we had a memorable meal at

http://www.billslasvegas.com/

Chicken taco salad with a side order of Onion Rings. Delicious! And we stayed for dessert, too.

We didn't get out to the Hoover Dam, which was a shame. But maybe there will be a next time! Las Vegas deserves a visit, as it is one of a kind - a massive theme park.

Libraries

2009-08-19T03:27:00.000-07:00

I dropped into or passed by several libraries while overseas.

When we were returning to our Bangkok hotel after a bus tour of the Grand Palace and several temples, I spotted this sign for a library:

I didn't have the chance to go back and see the library itself as we were flying out to Switzerland that evening.

Interesting that the sign was in English!

Certainly the cutest library was the one in Leysin, the alpine village where we stayed in Switzerland. Leysin is in the French speaking part of Switzerland, hence the library is 'bibliotheque'. Quite a different building, but typical of the Swiss village.

There was a little library close by to where we stayed in Cardenden, Scotland. It was part of a miners society building and took up just a room about the size of our West End Library. No computers were provided for the public, as another branch in the village had computers for children to use. I also popped into a shopping centre library in Glenrothes - quite small too, but had a room for computer use.

When out visiting Falkland Palace (in the middle of the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland), we came across the office of a Library Supplier! Had to take a photo. :-)

After visiting Falkland, we drove up to Perth and just happened to find a carpark right next to the Perth Library. I had already been told by someone that this was a good library and it certainly was. Obviously it was an old building, but the inside was very modern. I quite liked the layout of the shelving, which was many L shaped shelves to create spaces.

When we visited Hamilton, we went to the library to do some research, as Col's parents were both from Hamilton. We were able to find their names in electoral rolls, as well as the names of Col's grandparents and great grandparents. The staff in the local history room were very helpful. I left them copies of a number of family photos that showed the area where they all lived in the 1930s and 1940s.

quilt shops OS

2009-08-15T23:43:00.000-07:00

Excepting Las Vegas, I had not set out to find any quilt shops, but I did come across several in our travels:

- Aigle, Switzerland. This is a little village 60 mins by train from Geneva. There was a needlework shop and quilting shop next to each other down an old cobbledstoned laneway. We were there on Sunday and I was trying to work out the hours sign (written in French, of which I know very little). It said: Lundi - Ferme.... anyway, dropped in again on Monday, to find the shop closed. Now I know that it means Monday - Closed.

- Lausanne, Switzerland. There was a Bernina shop with patchwork fabrics, in the main shopping street

- Sion, Switzerland (I think). Another Bernina shop, which was closed.. for holidays, I think.

- Stirling, Scotland. A craft/sewing machine shop just off the High Street. Had nice little collection of patchwork fabrics, cross-stitch kits, etc.

- Las Vegas, USA

Of course, when in the USA, one must check out the quilt shops.
I had googled Las Vegas quilt shops at home and had a list of the five shops in town, plus found out how far each was from our hotel. We were in Las Vegas for only a couple of days, but we did manage to get to the Fabric Boutique on Charleston Blvd. I ended up with this bag of Fat Quarters, at half what we would pay in Australia. ie $2.75 ea.

We bought a medium suitcase in Las Vegas as we both bought clothes at the outlet stores. The pocket in the suitcase lid was just the perfect size to slide in the rolled FQs. :-)

The Gathering

2009-08-07T00:22:00.000-07:00

Day 1 - Saturday

Right, we're here for 2 days of the biggest clan Gathering for over 200 years.... what will we see first??

It's held at Holyrood Park, just behind Holyrood Palace.
There were: heavy weight Highland games, highland dancing, pipe bands aplenty, historical displays, lots of Scottish food (including haggis pasties and yummy lemon tarts). Lots to keep people busy.

Right - the Clan tents. Robertson comes under the Donnachaidh (donn-a-key) clan, so there first. We met the Clan Chief and shook his hand.

My mum was a Wyllie, which is part of the Gunn Clan.

My sister-in-law Helen is a Cameron, so a quick greeting there.

The organisers were expecting 40,000 people to come from all over the world. The weather on the Saturday was fantastic... and nearly 50,000 people turned up. We had bought Silver passports, so were able to just walk in, while there were long queues for the day tickets.

Arthur's Seat was the spectacular backdrop. On Saturday, you could see people like ants scurrying up and down the hills. We went only a short way up to take the photos above.

The people one sees - Prince Charles and Camilla - coming out of the back of Holyrood Palace. Charles officially opened the Gathering.

Interesting bands - this one wearing the old-style tartan, playing drums and bagpipes.

There were plenty of the traditional pipe bands as well.

The highlight was the clan parade up the Royal Mile from Holyrood Palace to Edinburgh Castle. This was the biggest parade of tartan in over 200 years. Though most of the participants were not Scottish, they were all of Scottish descent. Apparently there are 37,000,000 people in the world claiming Scottish descent, but only 5.5M living in Scotland. There was a long wait, as Robertson was towards the end of the alphabet. We talked with the Ross & Stewart Clans. I had my photo taken with two pipers who were practising.

Col was thrilled to hold the Robertson placard and lead the clan. Most of the group were Aussies - there were a few Scots wearing the Robertson hunting tartan (green/blue)

What felt amazing was that there was a crowd of onlookers, all up the Royal Mile. The parade itself took over 2 hours, but people were waiting so they could cheer on their Clan. We felt like film stars on the red carpet (no autographs).

The parade finished at Edinburgh Castle and only silver passport holders could attend the pageant. We weren't allowed to take photos of the pageant itself - Aisling's Children. It was about the changes in Scotland over the centuries and how many people left Scotland for other countries. The pageant was written especially for The Gathering.

Day 2 - Sunday

The weather was not so good on the Sunday - forecast rain most of the day. So we set off in our weatherproofs (it was about a 2 mile walk from our Edinburgh apartment to Holyrood Park)

On Saturday afternoon, we had seen the last few minutes of a performance by The Red Hot Chilli Pipers. We had heard their music in many of the Princes Street and Royal Mile souvenir shops... who was this band playing Queen and John Farnham on the bagpipes??? Apparently they won a British 'Who wants to be famous?' TV show in 2007.

The Red Hot Chilli Pipers were fantastic. They call what they do 'bag rock'... bagpipe rock'n'roll.

http://www.redhotchillipipers.co.uk/ They were playing again on Sunday at 11am.

They even had the Red Hot Chilli Pipers dancers, who merged traditional Highland dancing with contemporary dancing.

Col bought a CD and 2 DVDs!

The Gathering finished on Sunday at 6pm, with a final pipe band. Most people had left, so we got good seats on the stands, without people standing in the way.

Back in Scotland

2009-08-06T09:31:00.001-07:00

Back in Scotland! The day after we arrived was our 29th wedding anniversary, so it was a good excuse for a BBQ and a family gathering. BBQ not so good an idea, as it was cold and rainy.... ahhh a Scottish Summer.

We caught up with Col's cousin Linda and her two daughters, Amy and Debbie.

Also got to meet a new member of Hazel & Mike's family - Cookie the Westie. Nice to get enthusiastic puppy greeting - we're missing Oscar and Lucy.

Hazel, Mike and Abby took us for a drive to Loch Lomond - while it looks fine here, it rained most of the drive. Also got in a little shopping... the sales here are amazing. There's a nice brown skirt with embroidered details in that bag.

We had lunch at an old inn at Bulloch.

Col in his favourite place - outlet shopping in Tillicoutry. Yes, he spent up in the Adidas and Nike shops. About £120.00 all up that day, on bargains not to be had in Aussie sports shops.

Adventures in Switzerland

2009-08-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Switzerland is an amazing country. I had not realised just how long people had been living in this area of Europe - from Neanderthal times!

We had a 5 day Swiss rail pass, so most days we travelled down the mountain in the funicular (30 mins) to Aigle and then on to other cities.

Even in the small village of Leysin, there was a library. Very quaint.

On Sunday, we walked around the charming little village of Aigle. As it's in the French speaking region of Switzerland, everything is in French. I saw a patchwork shop, which was closed. We were back in Aigle the next day, Monday, but the shop was closed again. I now know that 'Lundi-Ferme' is Monday - Closed, not Monday to Friday.....

The Aigle Chateau (Castle) is also a wine museum, as it is in a wine-growing region. Here I am at the entrance to the castle.
We tried several local white wines (we just asked for 'vin blanc') over the week and they were all lovely - slightly sweet and fruity. Each city and village we visited in French speaking Switzerland had signposts for the village/city centre - 'centre ville', so we would follow these signs and end up in cobblestoned streets, with quite old buildings - often festooned with window boxes overflowing with bright flowers (especially geraniums).

We went on the Swiss Chocolate Train on Wednesday. It was an additional cost to the rail pass, but was an all day train trip. We went out through Gruyere and stopped at a cheese factory. The journey finished at the Nestle chocolate factory at Broc. The whole town smelled of chocolate.

We had lunch at Gruyere Castle, which was fascinating. The castle had been lived in for hundreds of years by the Counts of Gruyere and was a medieval castle. The village seen here is a walled village in front of the castle. All tourist shops and restaurants, now. I had an excellent roesti for lunch (grated potato pancake). Col had Alpen Macaroni Cheese (not as good as my lunch!).

From the castle, you could see the whole valley.

It was a very picturesque village, with lots more window boxes!

One day, we jumped on the train and did a big circuit around 1/4 of the country. We left Leysin at 8.58am and returned at 9.30pm! Leysin - Aigle - Lausanne - Bern - Speitz - Montreaux - Aigle - Leysin. Whew! Bern is the capital and had heaps of of outdoor dining, as seen here. It was good to be somewhere where we could understand more of what was spoken (it is in the German speaking area).

In Bern, I bought zwei saltzbretzel (2 salted pretzels) from BretzelKoenig (Pretzel king) - delicious!

We also visited a natural history museum and saw a complete mammoth skeleton, as well as tons of fossils. Amazing.

In Lausanne, there was an alphorn busker.....

There was also a wonderful fresh food markets through the pedestrian mall in the city. Lots of wonderful berries and other fruit and fresh vegetables (reminded me of the Wednesday farmer's market in Brisbane).

Another day, we were going to go to Lausanne, but missed the train because we were booking the Swiss Chocolate Train. So we decided to go the other direction to Sion instead. As we approached Sion, we could see a castle up on the hill overlooking the city.

We got off the train and followed the Centre Ville signs, but weren't sure how to get to the castle. We stopped at a souvenir shop and asked for directions to the castle. The shopkeeper only spoke a little English, but we asked if she spoke German, which she did. So we had this great French/English/German conversation and got directions to the 'Alte Stadt - drei Strassen und gehen rechts' (old city - 3 streets and go right). Once we got to the Alte Stadt, there were signs for the castle.

We climbed up this rather steep roadway to find outselves with a choice, as there were two big hills - so, was it up a very steep long path to the castle or up a shorter, but no less steep path to the cathedral and natural history museum? The shorter path won out! It was rather warm and we had already walked some steep hills.

The museum was fantastic - neanderthal bones and artifacts from the stone age, bronze age and right up to modern times. Just amazing to see these items 'in the flesh' that we would only see in a book.

The view over Sion from the cathedral was worth the hard climb. We looked over at the castle on the other hill and decided to call it a day - it WAS rather hot.

Switzerland was really very interesting - I would go again!

Switzerland

2009-07-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

We spent a week in Switzerland, in the French-speaking region near Geneva. Here I am at Lake Geneva and also beside the large Flower Clock in the Jardin Anglais (English Garden). We had flown overnight from Bangkok and couldn't checkin until after 3pm. We spent a pleasant morning wandering around Geneva.

We stayed in a little alpine village, Leysin, which is about 90 mins train journey from Geneva and is 1300m above sea level. This is part of the panoramic view from the balcony of our apartment. Little bits of snow on the highest peaks (hidden often by clouds)

This is one of the traditional swiss buildins in Leysin - there were many like this. Just about everyone had beautiful window boxes full of geraniums. The village is a ski resort in winter and a hikers paradise in summer. To get down into the main village from our apartment was quite a steep walk. There was a free bus that went around the village, but we never used it. I had very sore calves the first few days walking up and down steps and steep slopes!

Bangkok

2009-07-24T01:24:00.000-07:00

We're now 2 weeks into our overseas holiday. First we went to Bangkok, spending only 2 days there. We flew in at 6am on the Thursday and flew out to Switzerland at 11.30pm on the Friday.

The traffic in Bangkok is crazy - here is Col on one of the pedestrian overpasses. WH&S is almost non-existant - we could walk straight across railway lines, with no barriers. Workmen would have open pits in the middle of the footpath with no warning.. Fun! Did manage to do some shopping though! very cheap. :-)

Beautiful night sky from our hotel window. Great hotel - had a tailor in the foyer, so I ordered a 3 piece suit (jacket, trousers, skirt) to be handmade. It was finished on Friday before we left, though we got them to post it home, so we didn't have to lug it around the world for 5 weeks. Fabric is cashmere/silk - grey with fine pink pinstripe.

We did a tour of the Grand Palace and a couple of temples on Friday morning - absolutely amazing buildings. Some statues are covered in gold leaf, which gets replaced periodically at great cost. In the Grand Palace, we saw the blackboard used by Anna (as depicted in the movie The King and I)

QAYG

2009-07-06T03:44:00.001-07:00

Quilt-as-you-go. I've used this technique, as found in a number of web sites.

This quilt is made of scraps left from a couple of recent quilts. It went together very quickly - certainly easy to do!

Long time UFO

2009-07-05T21:30:00.000-07:00

Medallion Quilt

This quilt was started about 10 years ago, when I was a new quilter AND when blue & yellow bedrooms were the "in" colours. I really wanted to try Broderie Perse (appliquing pre-printed flowers) and just had to put the basket of flowers and the four surrounding posies together.

Then I knew I wanted to the do the square in a square border... but got stuck after that.

I had seen the ribbon border and wanted to do that further out, but how to increase the quilt to that size. And, oh no, I didn't have any more of the cream homespun. Spotlight didn't have any more of that colour and so I was a bit stuck. I put together the ribbon border and attached it after the square in a square border... yuk! Not what I'd pictured - it really needed a cream border in between.

The quilt sat for years, until I found more of the cream homespun. So on went the ribbon border.... then what. I dídn't have enough of any of the fabrics for an outside border... :-(

So it sat for another couple of years. Until earlier this year, there was a call for quilts after the Victorian bushfires. That 'fired'me up - I took the quilt top to a fabric shop and selected the outer border fabric, binding and backing. Now it is complete and I really like it. Though I can really see the change in workmanship over the years, particularly in the cut off points in the square in a square blocks. So now it's ready to go to Victoria - I hope it brings some happiness to someone.

Bushfire quilt

2009-04-24T22:34:00.000-07:00

I've been busy quilting lately, but not taking photos or blogging. :-)

Early this week, I completed a wall-hanging, with the name "There was an eerie light in Marysville, after the fires".

This wall-hanging started as a hand-dyed Lisa Walton 'Aurora' kit (Dyed & gone to heaven).

http://www.dyedheaven.com/workshops/

The fabric in my kit was gorgeous - a dark pink, running into yellow-blue. The idea is to machine quilt all over and then use the supplied beads in whatever pattern you want. I didn't quite know what the fabric wanted me to do with it. There was a section in the yellow that reminded me of the clouds on Jupiter, so I borrowed several planets books from the library to see if that would inspire me.

I was quilting the piece in February - right when the bushfires were devastating Victoria, Australia. http://www.abc.net.au/news/events/bushfires/

You could not escape the images of burnt out homes and countryside. It was incredibly emotional to constantly see these images. While quilting, I kept seeing images of burnt houses and trees superimposed over my quilt. It got to the point where I had to find some black fabric and fusible web, draw up the trees and iron them to the quilt.

Then on to the beading. The supplied beads were mainly blues and gold. For the next few weeks, I was looking for silver, grey, black and red beads. Gradually I added more and more beads - some to represent burning embers in a stump, others smoke through the air, or flakes of debris blowing in the wind. Until finally, it was finished.

Close up of the smoke rising from the stump.

Making silk paper

2009-02-07T20:52:00.000-08:00

I've joined a monthly art quilt program with http://www.uniquestitching.com.au/
Each month, I receive a package of arty items for experimenting with new techniques. It's a great program and you order in the colourway you like. Then all the things you make will work together (if that's what you want).

In December, I made silk paper from this program. It's really easy. I won't give the instructions as they were written up by Unique Stitching and I'd be breaking copyright if I gave them here!

You end up with this fabulous silk paper that can be used in all sorts of ways, including quilts, scrapbooking, etc. :-)

New York Beauty quilt - finished!

2009-02-04T02:45:00.000-08:00

Here it is - my New York Beauty quilt that I estimate took around 150 hours to make, over a 2 year period. It's from a Karen K. Stone pattern. The fabrics are orientals, batiks and some hand dyes. I have named the quilt 'Oriental Beauty'.

I really enjoyed piecing all of the blocks. Each of the 30 blocks has a different background fabric and then fabrics for the arcs and spikes are matched with that background fabric. This involved sorting fabrics into colour and then by lights/mediums/darks. Each block needed contrast so that the spikes would stand out. What fun! And it also necessitated a lot of fabric shopping! :-)

The pattern came with foundations for the spiked arcs and
freezer paper arcs and backgrounds, so that the blocks would
go together accurately.

Here is a detail photo. There are a number of blocks that have
a little person peeking out. All of the people look towards the
centre of the quilt.

The outer border of the quilt was drawn up on greaseproof
paper, as per the directions in the pattern. It actually took a
lot of time to sew the borders. It would take an hour to go
15 cm (6 inches), as each spike was quite long and was vertical on the pattern.

A fortnight ago, I took 'Oriental Beauty' to my quilt group, Coorparoo Quilters, for show and tell. It was so nice to hear the 'oohs and ahhs'. :-) As I was going to quilt group after work, I also took the quilt to show everyone at work.

I'm really happy with this quilt. The pattern lived up to the dream I saw in it!

Playing with Paintstiks

2009-01-04T02:47:00.000-08:00

One of my Christmas presents was a lovely pack of 15 iridescent mini-Paintstiks. They're solid oil paint in a crayon-like stick. Will be permanent and washable after being cured and heat-set.
I've been playing with rubbings - putting a patterned sheet under the fabric and rubbing with the paintstik to show the design.
I've decided on a design for the chair covers I dyed (ultraviolet - what a great colour!). :-)

End of 2008

2008-12-30T02:10:00.000-08:00

2008 has been a milestone year, with 2 weddings (both of our daughters), 2 funerals (mother and mother-in-law), a tender and an overseas holiday.

Photos: left - Col & Vicki

right - Sharon, Tegan, Vicki

I'm looking forward to a less eventful 2009.

Back at work

2008-11-15T19:44:00.000-08:00

Well, I've been back at work for 2 weeks now. It's been over a month since I last blogged and I had forgotten how to login! But, I did remember my LAN login on the first Monday back at work. Pretty good for 4 months away.

I've been playing with 23 things again - added RSS feeds. Quilting and library blogs, of course!

I already am subscribed to a number of library e-lists through work and these come to my email. I find that it's vital to know what is happening in the library world, especially at my level within the organisation.

Going to see overseas libraries was truly worthwhile. European libraries particularly are innovative and they do have much bigger budgets and libraries. But Australian libraries are also extremely innovative. In fact, librarians from other countries are often astounded at what we do in much smaller buildings. I've uploaded a photo of the new Amsterdam public library - the equivalent of our Brisbane Square Library in function.

World Library Tour

2008-10-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

I'm writing this in Stockholm, Sweden. Fifteen Australian librarians have been on a study tour for one week now.
So far we've visited Singapore and Helsinki and will go to Copenhagen, Amsterdam and Hong Kong after this.

Libraries in Singapore and Europe are so much bigger than our own, with much larger collections. However, many things are very similar, particularly customer behaviour and changing expectations. The European libraries are very impressed with what Australian libraries achieve and how efficient we are. We are impressed by the beautiful buildings and services they provide, particularly in Scandinavia, where education and literacy are highly prized.

We' ve been taking lots of photos, so once I am back in Australia, I'll put a lot of photos up on the blog.

Fav blogs

2008-09-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

While reading through all the info on blogs, I realised that blogs are already part of my life. I have a small blog on my Bebo page, to let our Scottish rellies know what's going on here in Oz.
I read a couple of blogs regularly - but that's it, as blogs could just take over your life. I already try to fit in so many things into my free time!

Here's my favourite blog to read, "Postcards from Cairo":
http://jennybowker.blogspot.com/
Jenny Bowker is an internationally recognised art quilter and teacher. She also happens to be married to a diplomat who has just finished as the Australian Ambassador to Egypt. Previously they have lived in other Middle Eastern countries. Jenny combines her cultural exploration of Egypt with her quilt-making. Her latest incredible art quilt was a portrait of an Egyptian man (from a photo she took of him). Here is a photo of the quilt on Flikr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/7665648@N04/2477225640/

Another blog I read is by a new quilter - a Dutch woman, Linda, who moved to Brisbane last year because her husband got a job with UQ.
http://q-linda.blogspot.com/
So many quilters on our e-list wanted to read her blog that she now has an English language one for Aussie readers and a Dutch one for people back in the Netherlands. I'm enjoying watching a new quilter develop her skills as well as discover our great city.

back later

What are you going to do for four months??

2008-09-10T22:04:00.000-07:00

Well, that's the question I have heard the most. What are you going to do for four months? And the answer is: Whatever I feel like! :-)

At the moment, I'm taking the opportunity to do my 23 things while I've got time on my hands.

I'll take a break soon, as I have to go and have coffee under the gazebo! It's become something of a ritual to have morning and afternoon tea out in the garden (if I'm at home and not gallivanting around somewhere). It's been so nice during Winter, to sit in the sunshine and sip coffee. What am I going to do when I go back to work in November?

I'm really glad that BCCLS is undertaking 23 things. How amazing that we've been give special access to social networking sites etc. I do already have Facebook and Bebo pages. If any BCCLS staff would like to be my friend, just send me a message and I'll invite you. The Bebo page is mostly for our Scottish rellies to share photos etc, as they tend to use Bebo rather than Facebook.