ATCs 1910-1920

The next set of ATCs. Less swappers this time.



Christine McKenna kept going with her 'corset' theme with these beauties. I can remember my mother wearing something similar.


















Some of my very early memories are of buying poppy badges on Remembrance Day. It was a day my mother and father held very dear. This was my card from this decade.





On September 1st, 1912 the Golden Wattle was declared Australia's National Flower and was incorporated into the coat of arms with the kangaroo and the emu.

1st September then became Wattle Day. I don't know if it is still celebrated.

This exquisite card was made by Pam Murray

The last card in this set depicts WW1 - Gallipoli and in particular Anzac Day - April 25th, 1915. This very evocative card was created by Cathy Smith.

Liz Needle

History in ATCs

One of my interests is to create ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) in fabric, using a variety of techniques. I rarely have time to sit and make quilts these days, so making these little pieces of 'art' gives me an interest, a chance to try new techniques and to express any latent creativity I may still have in me. I swap my creations with friends from quilting groups - mainly the Southern Cross Quilters.

One of my favourite swaps has been the "Past Decades" swap where each month or so we use a decade of the 20th century as our theme. As a history buff, I have enjoyed these swaps as I find they have more significance than some of the other swaps and they set my brain working..

Here are the cards I received in the first swap - 1900 - 1910.




This was my contribution. "Federation"-a representation of Australian Federation in 1901. The trickiest part was making the little fabric flags.




These gorgeous corsets were worn around 1905. This card was made by Christine McKenna



These much loved books - "The Wizard of Oz" and "Anne of Green Gables" were first published in the first decade of the 1900s. Cathy Smith made this delightful card.





The "Breaker" Morant card was created by Karen Rosewarne. The photo does not do justice to the beautiful craftsmanship. The little book opens and has Harry Morant's photo inside.



















Women's Suffrage - the right to vote was granted to some women in Australia in 1902. Pam Murray depicts this in her clever card.

One of the fascinating things about this series of swaps is learning what other women consider to be landmarks in each decade. You will just have to wait and see what we thought significant in the 1910s - 20s.

Liz

So Long

Oh dear. It's so long since I played with my blog that I had actually forgotten my password. Tragedy! Now have a natty little bit of software called Roboform, so my ageing memory should no longer cause me any anguish.

These last school holidays were very fruitful. This year I have been really slack and achieved very little during the holidays, but this time I decided to get off my butt and do something. Each day I made myself do an intensive clean out of part of a room. Brilliant. I managed to get through two complete rooms and the front hallway and since then another room. Everything was washed, dusted, polished cleaned out and left sparkling. I threw out bags and bags of unwanted stuff that had been collecting in cupboards for years. Only 4 rooms and a huge bank of storage cupboards to go. LOL!!

At the same time I determined to work in the garden each day and to complete some sewing - catching up on ATC swaps.

Where to from there - painting inside and out. In my dreams. Still I do feel good about actually getting something completed.

Our poor garden suffered several tragedies of its own this winter. In the fron garden we have a huge willow that has provided welcome shade for a num,ber of camellias, tree ferns, other shade loving plants and the patio. This year it collapsed in 3 parts and fell on the garden underneath it. No way we could cut it up so had to call in a tree expert. Said it was the largest willow he had ever seen. He charged us $2300 just to cut it down and cut it up. We had to dispose of it. So far we have burnt quite a bit of it in the middle of the front lawn, but there is a huge pile of logs that we cannot shift - the agreement was that the tree would be cut up in manageable lengths, but because it was not written into the contract, that did not happen. That's one business we will not deal with again.

We still have another 5 or 6 willows that need to be removed - may have to wait until we strike Lotto!!!

Oh bum!! Now Blogger won't let me download photos.

Here we go after much fiddling and swearing!! This is the tree as it collapsed. Willows are lovely if they are relatively young and not subjected to winds. This one was here and a decent size when we moved in 40 years ago.

This is one part that came to rest on another tree.

Another view of the mess

These are the stumps of the three branches - the main trunk was huge and encompassed all three of the branches shown.

Here we are starting to build up a pile of small brances

Once we got it going we were able to roll some of the logs onto the fore and Mark helped with some larger ones when he got home. It burnt for 48 hours. BUT, we have at least 3 times as much agin to burn when we work out how to move it. Never plant willows!!!!!


And this is what it used to look like under the willow tree!!!





Liz

So Far Away

My girls - Mandy, Niamh and Erinn are currently holidaying in Ireland. Well, Mandy has been to Italy and now Barcelona as well. They are having a wonderful time, but I wish they were back in Australia. Sydney doesn't seem nearly as far away as Ireland.

Waiting at one of the airports. Amazing pink seats

On the beach in Ireland

With some of the Irish cousins. I wonder whether they will want to come back after all this fun.

Liz

Jump Rope

Have a look at this video. http://blip.tv/play/Ae+9MJOSSA . And I thought my kids could skip. This group is amazing!!!

Catching up

May already and it is ages since I blogged - and after all my promises. Still, by this time I imagine I am the only one still reading my blog!!

We have had an eventful few months with Don's heart problems flaring up until last Wednesday he went in for another Ablation procedure. 9 Hours on the operating table! The doctors are fairly confdent that the procedure was a success this time, so we are keeping our fingers crossed. He's pretty miserable at the moment as his heart took a fair beating and there has been a lot of pain. He floated around on morphine for a few days until I pointed out that I wasn't working to keep up his habit. LOL!!

Autumn in the garden. How I love this season. I was a bit late with photos this year, but this old persimmon is a favourite.



Thanks to Mark's enthusiasm we were able to grow most of our own vegies this summer - and supply the restaurant as well. Nothing like home grown produce.



And an update on the antics of young Ollie!! As cute as he is, he is also very naughty!! His latest escapade was to find a half bag of potting mix which he proceeded to spread all over the patio.



Still I guess that was better than the bag of flour I rescued in the pantry!!

Liz

What's on your........?

This week's challenge is "What's on your Needles'? Any sort of Needles.

Well, here's what's on one of my Needles. My very long suffering Don Needle!


And more traditionally for a stitcher. A couple of my recent ATcs which were made for swaps.

Circles

Butterfly Magic

Liz

What's on your..........?

Found this fun activity on Lindi's blog and from there I went to Susan's. Looks like fun, so will join in - if I remember. Perhaps it will make me get moving on my blog.

What's on my.....? This week it's Desktop. Currently a photo of a beautiful flowering apple tree in my garden.

A Visitor

Great excitement last night. We had a visitor!! Not that a visitor is all that unusual, but this one got the dogs going mad, Don yelling to Mark to get the dogs inside and me racing for the camera.

Seen on our verandah at dusk - a red-bellied black snake. The poor thing was more terrified of us than the other way around.

Ollie of course kept wanting to get back out there to tell the snake what he thought of it - from a distance thank goodness. It wasn't a huge fellow, but big enough to make a little dog pretty ill. We have a lot of frogs around our ponds at the moment and the snake was probably on his way home after tea.

And speaking of frogs. We finally have frogs eggs and tadpoles in our ponds. Very exciting!

Liz

My Ollie

Funny, but we have had dogs ever since I can remember. When I was tiny we had a beautiful cocker spaniel called Trixie. When she died, my dad didn't want another dog for years, so we kids had cats, budgies, white mice etc instead. Then Don and I bought Dad a pup for Father's Day when I was about 19. He was a mongrel and we weren't sure how Dad would take to him as my father was really into pure-bred, quality anythings!
Well, he and the new pup got on like best pals. Dad named him Horace after Horatio Nelson (they both had a patch over one eye!) And, as my maiden name was 'Hornblower (I kid you not), the name Horace Hornblower had a certain appeal. After Dad died, Horace and my mother kept each other company for many years, though neither would ever admit to any show of affection. Eventually Horace disappeared one day when he was about 14 - possibly he found a new home, though more likely he found a spot to lie down and go to eternal sleep.
When I married and started a family, we had a variety of dogs - as you do - from rescued mongrels to pure-bred Dobermanns. My eldest daughter was (and still is) a sucker for any stray and we housed and fed many drop ins over the years as well as carefully chosen and much cherished long term friends. Not just dogs, but cats, ducks, geese, chooks, pigeons, cockies, finches, quail, budgies, canaries, tortoises, mice, guinea pigs, kangaroos, emus, donkeys, ponies, sheep, goats, rabbits, goldfish,. tadpoles, hermit crabs, pheasants, peacocks, guinea fowl, calves, cattle and 2 very lovely dingo puppies.

But in all that time I never actaually had a dog I could call my own - until Ollie! And he is very much mine - according to Ollie. He is a Jack Russell pup - now 12 months old and is probably the smartest dog we have ever had. He's very naughty, very possessive, very human oriented and totally captivating and very loving (my family say spoilt, but they still love him). Ollie does everything I do. he eats anything I eat. He shares the bathroom when I use it, he helps with the washing and gardening. He chases the bird seed when I throw it on the lawn and picks the vegetables with me. He is my shadow. He sulks when I am using the sewing machine or computer, but is ready for a game as soon as he hears the closing down music on the computer.

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I forgot to say he is also very handsome.

More on Ollie later.

Liz

Spectacular

Sitting on Mark's verandah the other night and watched as an amazing sunset lit up the sky. Couldn't resist getting out the camera.





Stunning!!

Agapanthus

Had a lovely day last Saturday. Started with lunch with our daughter Jo and her partner Steve. We lunched at Howard Vineyard where our son Mark is the head chef. Great meal of tapas and delicious wines. Howards, at Nairne, have a tapas day every Sunday with live music and great food. You do need to book, though. Friday and Saturday lunch is the bistro menu. Superb food, even if I am the chef's mum. Check out the website if you want a pleasant day in the country and good food.

After lunch we visited the Agapanthus Farm at Littlehampton. Don and I had been there before and spent too much money, but Jo wanted to have a look - not to buy, just look.

We spent well over an hour there just looking around. The gardens are fabulous and of course we couldn't resist buying 'just a couple more'!! Check out the website, then visit. You are assured of a warm welcome from a very helpful, friendly family.

Finished the day with pizzas! LOL!!

Liz

Pandas

Two days in a row. Amazing!!!

Adelaide has been hit by Panda Frenzy!! This Christmas nearly every little girl must have received a panda in her stocking. They were everywhere. Funi and Wang Wang (pronounced Wong Wong because so many jokers were substituting the 'g' for a 'k'!!) must be the best known names in Adelaide.

So, Jo, Mark and I took the girls to the zoo!

After a long and tiring tour of the zoo, we duly lined up with hundreds of others to wait 45 minutes or more for our time to see the precious pair - tedious, boring, but like everyone else there we were captivated by our first contact with real live pandas. We had heard that all pandas do is eat and sleep, but we must have been there on a good day. Funi, in particular put on a very cute and entertaining performance and the several hundreds who were there with us were totally under her spell. Shutters snapped, video cams hummed and the very photogenic pair were captured on a hundred cameras. Small matter that the reflective glass gave a very poor picture - we had our photos!





Just as impressive is the area in which they are housed. When we were there, they were still in quarantine and behind glass, but they are due to be allowed outside mid-January, so next time we will see them in beautifully landscaped custom - built compounds.


I for one am a fan. I will be going back!!

New Year's Resolution

My resolution this year was to keep up to date with my various commitments - including my blog. So far I have done a pretty lousy job. However I am at least up to date with making my ATCs - if not posting them.

One of my excuses has been that the 'm' on my keyboard has not been working. Quite remarkable what gobbledegook one can write when one letter doesn't work. However, that has been rectified and now I have no excuses.

We had a very pleasant Christmas this year. For the first time in many decades (apart from two restaurant meals) I did not have to cook Christmas dinner - the girls did it and at Jo's place not ours. Have to admit that I did feel very bereft for a while not having a hundred and one things to do on Christmas morning - but a few wines soon made me feel far more relaxed.

The Sydney contingent stayed with Jo and Steve this year which was better all round as they didn't all have to squeeze into the sewing room, but had the luxury of a parent's bedroom and a kids' bedroom.

We had an indecent number of presents under the tree and a mountain of wrapping paper to clean up, but we had such a lot of fun and this was followed by great food and entertaining company - and NO family arguments!!!

In among the wrapping paper.

Erinn enjoying the cream puffs

A quiet moment reading a Christmas book. Lovely now that Niamh can read to Erinn. They share some very precious moments.

I do love Christmas.

Will it ever end??

Disaster follows disaster. We have had a night and now a day of steady rain, which is very welcome, but along with the rains we have had high winds as well. One of the trees along the driveway shed a large limb this afternoon, narrowly missing Don's little truck. Then, as we sat having tea, we heard a crack and a thump outside and went out to find a large limb of the old willow across the lawn. We have many old willows that we planted 35 years ago to take up the water in the side paddock which is always a bit of a bog. They looked lovely for a long while but as they have aged, they have become top heavy and brittle. During the last few years they have begun losing limbs on a regular basis. In fact the side paddock looks a lot like a bomb site.

So I wasn't too fussed when the willow came down. However 10 minutes later there was another crack and a thump and we went out to find a large limb had fallen from the claret ash, just missing the outdoor table and the chiminea on the patio. This was starting to be a worry. Five minutes another limb down, but by now it was getting dark and we couldn't see it, so we assumed it was one of the willows in the paddock. Since then there have been at least 6 loud noises and thumps - I wonder what we will find in the morning!! Hopefully they will all be willows, but at some stage we are going to have to get a tree expert in to clear the willows as they are now a tangled mess of limbs and far too big and dangerous for us to do anything about.

Lesson to be learnt - don't plant willows!!!

Liz

More Garden Disasters

Strolling around the garden a fortnight or so back, noting all the work I had to do to clean it up, when I noticed that our beautiful big shrub rose 'Fritz Nobis' was not looking well. This 20 year old rose has been my favourite ever since it was planted and the sight of it not looking well was somewhat of a worry. Looking further along the garden bed, I noticed that a few other shrubs were looing yellow and sicjk. Curious? We had just survived 3 very dry summers and I had been amazed at how well the roses had survived, but this one was looking very sorry for itself, despite a mild wet winter.

I mentioned it to Don and he came out to inspect the plants. Then, he apologised profusely, almost on bended knee!!! And all became clear. A few metres up from the rose, was a flowering prunus which for some years had a blackberry coming up through the middle and we had been unable to get rid of it. Don had decided to cut the blackberry right back and put some poison on the cuts. Normally he is very careful and paints this stuff on with a brush with no problems in the past, but he discovered that he can adjust his sprayer so that only one drop comes out, so he decided to do it this way for a change!!!!!!

Not only did he kill the blackberry very successfully, but he also managed to kill everything within 5 metres all around the darn blackberry!!! He then admoiitted that he had done the same for another large blackberry at the front of the garden. We checked. Sure enough, the trees and shrubs in the vicinity were also long sick, but not as badly affected as the first lot.

Needless to say he has been banned from using this poison anywhere in the garden!!! And we have learnt a valuable lesson.

And here is my beautiful 'Fritz Nobis' in happier times.

Liz

About time

Why do I do this. Get all enthusiastic for a while, then nothing ............................... for ages. It's no wonder all my thousands of fans and followers have abandonned me!! LOL!!

In my last blog I proudly displayed some beautiful shots from the garden. Alas, since then the news has been pretty disastrous. Our glorious old flowering gum - at least 70 years old - decided to drop one of its very large limbs - right on top of my rose garden and across the drive. It took an age for the tree man to come and clean it all up, but I guess we have enough firewood for next year - leaves a very bare patch in the rose garden though.

A week later, down came another, higher branch. It is a very one sided tree now. We are going to have to get a tree doctor in to look at it, as some of the other limbs are looking rather unsafe as well.

More garden disasters tomorrow when I get my camera organised.

Liz