next home

I am on the move again, this time to Queensland! After spending most of last winter in Perth (after spending the one before in Broome) I decided I would not sit through another miserable, boring winter here. So off to the Tropics I go!

My home for the next 3 months will be Willis Island, Coral Sea. Don't bother sending mail, because I won't get it! 300km east of Cairns, there isn't much else out here! The island's population is 3 weather observers, 1 tech and thousands of birds!

Sadly I will be leaving behind my sewing machine, but I will keep myself amused with painting and some hand sewing. Oh and some drinking, snorkelling, internet, pool, dvds and studying moray eels (not by choice!)

Find out more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willis_Island_(Coral_Sea)

or wait to hear the inside story when I get there next week!

Finished projects

This was a 'quick' project that was in Quilter's Companion - a magazine which comes with a DVD (very helpful when you are like me and HATE reading instructions). The design is by Lisa Walton who's amazing hand dyed fabrics I bought at the recent Craft show in Perth. (They don't feature in this quilt though - I'm not that quick!).I was almost creating a new record for myself and was headed to finish this quilt in a week, until I sewed myself to it!

Yes, I put the machine needle (on my brand new machine) all the way through my finger while quilting this! I calmly turned the hand wheel on my machine to remove the needle (ok, after yelling some words I will not repeat here), and went and knocked on my housemate's bedroom door. She was trying on outfits for a wedding, and not sensing any urgency in my un-urgent knock (she didn't hear the yelling), she got changed and then found me slumped on the bathroom floor!

I was lucky the needle didn't break in my finger or go into the bone (it went around the bone) and that my wizz-bang new machine was is 'needle down' mode so the needle only went through my finger once!

So it took me a few extra weeks to finish this quilt as I then had to get over my fear of quilting again! (I have learned my lesson - don't shiraz and sew!)

The quilt was made for my goddaughter Talia because I am a crap godmother and never send her things for her birthday or Christmas! It's inspired my best friend to start quilting again despite the fact that her boyfriend threw out her sewing machine (an old Pfaff of her mothers - absolute tragedy) and her stash of favourite fabrics!

This quilt took a fair bit longer to finish. I think I started it early last year and finished it at the start of this year after having wanted to make it for a few years. Sorry the pic is dodgy - the quilt is on the floor of the unfurnished flat I had in Geraldton (one good thing about having floor space!) and my dog's favourite toy, Pooh Bear has snuck into the picture. At least I managed to get the dog off it!

Quiltwest

I recently entered my first quilt competition (I previously entered a quilt showing which you can see here) with my Japanese quilt 'Sakura'.

It is 180cm square and took about 8 months to make.

The most of the designs are traditional Japanese crests and sashiko (a type of embroidery/quilting), many of which feature in Susan Briscoe's book "Japanese Quilt blocks to mix and match".

She has kindly written a post on her blog about it.

Japan

OK, haven't been blogging for ages.

I went to Japan last month to see the cherry blossom, explore the art, history and crafts of Japan and, most importantly, to shop for fabric!

I did this and more. I drank lots of sake, explored bazaar department stores and toy shops and spent lots of time on the wam, comfy bullet trains.

I came home with about 9kg of fabric and other mementos!

Unfortunately, I didn't come back with nearly as many photos as I had taken. My brother (usually a computer wizz) busted my memory card and I lost all but 300 photos out of 1800 taken in the first week and a bit of the trip.

Anyone know how to retrieve photos from a dodgy memory card???

Here are some of the pics I took (ok, still ended up with 1000 pics)

Clippers

The yachts from the Clipper around the world yacht race arrived in Geraldton in mid December. They had sailed from South Africa and they are now on their way to Singapore in the fifth leg of the 56,000km race which began in Hull, UK in September.

The presence of 200 crew members and their families was a real boost to the local economy over Christmas while surrounding towns recorded a dip in visitors.

The race was supposed to stop in Fremantle, but the council there didn't think it would do anything for their economy so refused to host them. Our win!

They departed on Sunday afternoon. The race goes for 10 months, but each crew only does one leg of the race on the 68 foot yachts.


<--Spitit of Australia yacht

More info can be found here on the official website

and in our local paper

Yachts race passed the Sun Princess cruise ship

After having been on this ship the morning I went to see the yachts, the 68foot-ers didn't look so big!

Denmark's main attraction

The little town of Denmark in SW WA is but a little spot on the map. It is surrounded by beautiful forest, has an award winning bakery (best known for its pies), is mainly populated by hippies and has the World's Largest Barometer.

This is the 12m high Bert Bolle Barometer in the barometer museum in the Denmark visitors centre.

According to the tourism website Bert and his wife moved from the Netherlands to this town (perhaps they got a bit lost?) in 1999 and couldn't part with his beloved barometer, so brought it with him.