"In due season"

You may remember the Will.i.am music video based on a Barack Obama speech.

The Chaser created a spiffing version of their own, based on the (it has to be said) rather less inspiring rhetoric of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. 

Trailer: Julie and Julia

I enjoyed the book and audiobook of this one, so it's on my list (but not out in Australia until October).

Scones. Easiest recipe ever.

I think these are called 'biscuits' in America; to me, biscuits are what Americans call cookies, and these are most definitely scones (uncooked, in the picture below, but keep reading...).



There is something very simple and delicious about a scone, warm from the oven, with raspberry jam and proper whipped cream (not the spray rubbish, which has no guts at all).

I was meeting some travelling family members today, so I made a batch of scones for them to take on their way.

You may have your simple scone recipe, and I respect that.  But if you want my simple scone recipe...I'm happy to share.  Three reasons I like it: the scones taste great, it's very quick and you don't have to rub any butter into flour (which I always found to be something I didn't much enjoy) as the fat is added more cleverly.  This also means a less handled dough, and softer/lighter scones.

ROORUU'S EASIEST SCONE RECIPE EVER

Note: Australian cup measurements are used: mess around a tad with your own measures and you'll be able to get it right.  I don't have measures from other countries, so I can't do assorted versions of this.  But it's not a hard recipe to tweak.

2 cups self raising flour
pinch salt (best left in, it does add to the flavour)
1/2 cup thickened cream*
3/4 cup milk

Oven at 220degC. 

Put flour and salt in a bowl, mix, make a well.  Pour in the cream and milk, mix till it's a soft (still slightly sticky, not dry) dough.  Place the dough on a floured board, lightly flour it (and your hands) then knead very lightly, just turning the top in until the bottom is smooth and you can flip it over and pat it out. 

Line a lamington tin with baking paper and cut out about 12 scones (I like decently sized ones).  Place them touching in the tin (my theory being that they push each other up and have softer sides this way, rather than being individual bullets).  You can do the glaze thing if you want to, but I don't - wastes an egg and I prefer the floury look.

Bake for 12-20 minutes (depends on your oven).

Enjoy.

*Thickened cream contains (in descending order): cream, skim milk, sugar, halal gelatine, thickener, emulsifier, dextrose and a minimum 35% milk fat.  The last item is the key, as this is the replacement for butter in the scones.  If you don't have thickened cream around, use 35% milk fat cream, not skinny.  Mind you, I usually use skinny milk for the milk, as it's what's most often in the fridge.



Yum.

btw, if you use this recipe or put it on your blog, could you bing a link back here as your source?  My source for this recipe was a colleague, Margaret, twenty years ago.  And I'm still grateful.
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You can of course play with this.  Savoury ones, cheese, or spinach and feta?  I worked out a spinach and feta version here.  And, on checking, I've blogged this recipe before.  But what the heck.  It was part of today, it still works, and maybe you weren't reading this blog back then.  Or you just want a scone recipe now.  (I was amused to read how I wrote it then - the same but different.  Also, it wasn't illustrated).

Finally...

Finally, holidays.  My goodness, my Guinness as is the saying of an Irish aunt.  To arrive on a sunny winter's day, the neighbour's new puppy NOT yapping endlessly, one set of quilting instructions written (another one to go...), the day full of possibilities, is a Good Thing.

A while ago my digital camera went bung.  It was repaired under warranty, and now, although the other problem was fixed, it can't be connected by its lead to upload pictures.  You have to have a card reader to hand.  The intermittency of this blog over the last while is partly testament to this hurdle - another bit of equipment to find and fish out... still haven't worked out why Blogger won't let me upload pictures directly any more, so I have to detour through Flickr.  Between these two inconveniences - and a very very very busy time at work - well, hello, I'm here again at the moment. (And I just can't be bothered going through the whole warranty, gone for up to a month business to get this new glitch fixed).  Although don't assume I didn't keep up reading my Bloglines list - I did.  You've all been doing all sorts of interesting things.

It's Tuesday, of course, and it would be a lovely day to spend at the cinema on cheap tickets day.  That would, of course, be if there was anything on worth seeing.  Usually there's something, even if I do end up travelling a little bit to the larger megaplex with enough cinemas and a local demographic that leads it to assume it might want to screen something other than blockbusters for fourteen year old boys.  But no, no joy there either.  I'm looking forward to seeing Young Victoria (yes, Isabelle, it may undoubtedly be piffle, but watchable piffle I hope!), and have promised to take assorted dear and lovely kids to films coming out later this year (Where the Wild Things Are, and Twilight: New Moon - on its first weekend, that promise includes) and if Warner/Roadshow gets its act in gear and releases The Time Traveler's Wife more in line with the US release date (August) than, gods forbid, not until November....then I'll SO be there to see that... but casting my eye over the current cinema offerings, cinema will not be part of these holidays.  Unless I travel to the city in search of an arthouse.  I will see the new Harry Potter film, but assume that right now the cinemas will be crammed to bursting for that one.  So I'll wait.

On the to-read pile is a mix of lowbrow and higher brow and probably medium brow.  Assorted levels of brainpower/attention required, really.  Alicia Paulson over at Posy gets Cozy blogged about The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie and Little, Big so I have both of those on hand to try thanks to her account of them.  A nascent book group to which I've been invited has set Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin as its first text (I use the words 'set' and 'text' with some precision there) and luckily the local second hand book shop had a nice copy at a good price.  From my teenlit sources, the prizewinning The Graveyard Book and the megapopular City of Bones have landed on the pile too.  On Sunday, between quilting, I spent time scooting for the umpteenth happy time through The Unknown Ajax and enjoyed Georgette Heyer's wit and characters just as much as I always do.

Quilting?  There are, not unexpectedly, a few items on the to-do pile.  I've just finished a top based on Saffron Craig's Fields range - pretty pinks and yellows - and am doing some perle cotton quilting on the S quiltlet, both for Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine.  Some mad colours are waiting for the T quiltlet and there are plenty more fabric bundles and designs waiting for my sewing attention.

Lunches with friends, spring cleaning (it's not spring, but that's irrelevant), a niece wants to spend a day sewing a bag....oh, lots to stay busy with around here, let alone ventures and adventures elsewhere.  Went into work yesterday for a few hours, and will go another day, but apart from that, o joy it's HOLIDAYS!
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blog? what blog?

0903 water dragon
Originally uploaded by rooruu

Well you might ask. I've been, in the lovely Australian expression, flat out like a lizard drinking, and when it's that busy, something goes. Haven't even been TAKING a photo a day recently, let alone blogging one.

I've been reading other people's blogs, as time permits, and it's good to keep up there, but as to the rest.... there's a break coming up in a few weeks, thanks be.

Went Out and About today. Reverse Garbage in Marrickville is always good for a look: I only invested in a backpack ($2.50, bargain!) and a bag made out of an advertising vinyl banner (cool!) but came away with ideas I want to investigate further. (Reverse Garbage recycles clean industrial waste, and there are lots of things and lots of possibilities in that tin warehouse).

The Remnant Warehouse and Quiltsmith are two inner city (Sydney) quilt shops (Alexandria and Annandale) that I don't get to very often - lots of yummy things at both of them, but I was restrained, buying much more with my eyes than with my wallet.

Most of my driving is on the outskirts of the city, where I live and where I work, so it was not my usual situation today to be crawling along a major highway into the city with traffic lights every fifty metres, or so it seems. You can have stress, I figure, or enjoy the view. King St in Newtown certainly has a different array of shops to see and people to observe (as your car remains stalled in traffic) to those on my normal rounds. So what the hey, I saw and observed and it was part of the day too. A different view of the world.

Headed back west into the sunset at day's end with a couple of finds I wouldn't have found around here, and having had a change of scene. It's not as good as a holiday, but it's not bad. And still one more day of the weekend to go, hurrah!
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The Young Victoria (trailer)

This is another film I'm looking forward to seeing - although it was released in the UK in March, its Australian release date isn't till August. 



The Young Victoria stars Emily Blunt, Rupert Friend and Paul Bettany, plus a bunch of other excellent actors.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-l_IsIdjAg

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0962736/

Reviews: http://au.rottentomatoes.com/m/young_victoria/
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The Time Traveler's Wife - official trailer

Finally, finally, the first official trailer for the film/movie version of The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger.  Release date in the US: August.  Release date in Australia? November.  Sob.  Sniff.  I wish Village Roadshow Film Distributors would be wiser/smarter/nicer/more co-operative.  Especially since the film has been held up for a long time already.

Anyway, here's the trailer:


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YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPfpi1XoLm0
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Yahoo Movies: http://movies.yahoo.com/summer-movies/the-time-travelers-wife/1809937231/trailers/216/1757
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Interesting, the way they've done Henry vanishing.  It will be so good, eventually, to see the complete film..
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Village Roadshow Film Distributors, are you listening?  August would be a GREAT month to release this - winter is a good film time, why wait till spring?  Oh, and I want it released at the same time as in the US (as you do with so many films).  Because I do.  Please.  Thank you.
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PS.  There is a pic of the film's poster on this blog.
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Sydney Quilt Show winners 2009

Head on over here and see some absolutely wonderful quilts!

http://www.quiltersguildnsw.com/quiltshow/index.html

You can click on the thumbnails for larger views to enjoy.

what to do on quite a, I mean a quiet Sunday

• Breakfast. Tigger Tail bread (because the label saying it's made from "local and important" ingredients makes me chuckle) and the last of the double brie
• Download audiobooks in my ISP's bonus time (so this doesn't vacuum up the megabytes quite so much) - first up, I've succumbed to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, because in the sample the reader did a spiffing job - and I might be able to use bits of this at work. I'm behind in downloading - the list also includes Bill Bryson (Notes from a Big Country) and Skulduggery Pleasant books 2 and 3 (because Rupert Degas' narration is beyond brilliant).
• Wonder again why authors/agents/publishers/audible.com conspire to make so many books I'd like to download 'unavailable to my geographic area'. Don't they want my custom/money? Sometimes you can get them on CD, but really truly, I don't want to mess around with CDs and boxes and postage. Just want to download them to my computer and transfer them to my iPod. And listen, and enjoy.
• Cut out the Christmas table runner (I gave up and chose entirely new fabrics that are happy to co-operate with my design ideas)
• Make the Christmas table runner
• Bind the other Christmas quilt that I sewed and quilted yesterday
• Feel pretty much unChristmassy, but then you never do in April/May, even though that's the season when you're designing magazine projects
• Listen to The Time Traveler's Wife on audiobook again while addressing the above items (William Hope and Laurel Lefkow, your work is brilliant!) and wonder why the dogs, I mean gods of film distribution think that it's OK to release The Time Traveler's Wife film/movie in August in the US and not until November in Australia - even after they've been sitting on it for months (AND Eric Bana, who plays Henry, is A Local Boy).
• Cut out and sew another quiltlet (letter S is next on my making list)
• Work out yardage/meterage for another quilt project from some deeeeelicious new Australian designed fabrics
• Finish planning Monday's presentations at the work seminar that's on
• Aim to write a 1000 word draft of an article that's due, oh, by the end of May for a work-related publication
• Write a short blurb for another work-related conference presentation that needs to be in early this week
• Feel happy that I have till mid-June before another work-related article for a publication is due
• Try not to think that there are going to be five quilt projects requiring instructions to be written
• Plan to quilt, bind and write instructions for another table runner that's due next week
• Plan to quilt, bind and label one quilt show entry quilt (due in by Wednesday) and bung some velcro on the other entry
• Breathe. Eat lunch and dinner sometime, too.
• Stop writing an entry for my recently-sparse blog and get back to the list above....

Nothing like a quiet Sunday.

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Is there?

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coming soon....

....more blog entries.  Work's been crazy-busy, and I've been working on other deadlines too.   Hope your lives have been calmer!  It felt wintry today (wintry for here) - a nip in the air, and wanting a coaty layer while heading for the car, and the heater went on at home for the first time this evening.  So it's kinda amusing to be reading northern hemisphere blogs with delighted/delightful effusions about spring and summer.  Still, after the summer we had, there are no complaints about cooler weather, no siree!
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This evening I've been trying to get a Christmas project together, and the fabrics just won't cooperate.  I haven't cut any, am still working on the design.  Fabrics are fine, I'm happy with what I have, but I just haven't yet landed on exactly how they should go together, block/layout.  I don't usually find this particularly difficult, but tonight, with a tired tired brain, I've been messing about in EQ for a couple of hours and nuffin is working.  Think I'll sleep on it.  Tomorrow is another day!
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And the weekend.  Hurrah!
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Do you know Booko?

This house contains quite a few books (cough).  Recently, some have been coming from The Book Depository (gimmick: free shipping worldwide) - it's a UK online bookshop, and with our dollar being strong against the pound, plus free shipping (most books arrive in a week), it's been pretty good.  Certainly cheaper than buying the identical books locally, sad to say.  And well packed, so they don't get bingled (unlike some Amazon orders which thumped about in their boxes and arrived the worse for wear).
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But what if you wonder if you're getting the best price, and you can't be bothered checking a whole shebang bunch of online shops for what you want?  This week I learned about Booko (http://booko.com.au/).  Bung in the title you want (or for greatest precision, the book's ISBN/International Standard Book Number) and hey presto, a whole bunch of prices from a multitude on online bookshops, INCLUDING freight costs and ALL CONVERTED to Australian dollars.
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Great little online toy, that one.  Another good one if you do want to convert currencies is the Oanda VisualFX converter.  What I like about this is that it doesn't have to load another page to show you the conversions.
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Of course if you're buying a certain number of books, or over a certain dollar value, some sites will offer free shipping too, but for a one-book comparison, Booko's handy-dandy to know about.  (I've just reread its info page: it can calculate shipping for multiple items from one supplier).
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Small domestic pleasures

• The warmth of sunshine on clothes from the washing line
• Quiet time to read the Saturday newspaper on the verandah
• The smell of baking that you know is almost ready
• A new book you've been looking forward to reading
• The corner of the sofa to curl up into to read
• Watching a quilt come together, something that was an idea and is now real
• Flannelette sheets on cold evenings
• New season Pink Lady apples, crisp and sweet and tart

What would be on your list?

Quilt: Charm and Charisma

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I've been making an intermittent series of table runners for Australian Country Threads magazine, basing them on charm square packs.  This is Charm and Charisma, from vol. 9 no. 6.  Such pretty colours, this fabric range!  Sometimes all you want to do is play with a little bit of a lot of fabrics you like, to enjoy them and make something useful from them.  Do let me know if you make your own version of this.

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I've got some more design ideas in the works - these are great for quick hand made gifts, too, and not vastly expensive.  Here's a pic of Festive Charm.

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Quilt: Secondhand Rose

So Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine decided to do a Recycled-theme issue, and asked me to design a larger quilt as well as the Kalgoorlie quiltlet.  OK, I thought, shirt quilt coming up, I always enjoy making shirt quilts and I won't have to go out to buy anything, I know that....
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And then the editor said, oh, we already have a shirt quilt, it would be good to have something done with only a couple of fabrics.
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Now that's a harder call, with recycled fabrics.  I thought for a bit, then remembered a tablecloth I'd bought with Recycled Threads in mind, when I was writing and designing that for Australian Country Threads magazine.  I found it, and looked at it, and thought.  Washed it, for starters.  Began harvesting the largest pieces I could from it, since it had frayed sections.  I then bought some pink cotton gingham in two different scales, and started a jigsaw game. 
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It resulted in Secondhand Rose, in the current issue of APQ, vol. 17. no. 11.  You may not have a tablecloth the same size, but I hope it's an inspiration for what is possible.  I had it commercially quilted by Kim Bradley, who is a brilliant machine quilter with so many designs to choose from (not all machine quilters have so many)...this quilt, I thought, needed that extra surface texture, given the areas of white space and gingham.  Hasn't one old tablecloth, with frayed and shabby bits, come up nicely?
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Quiltlet: K is for Kalgoorlie

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There wouldn't be many quilters without the odd doyley or ten stashed away somewhere, with plans to use them sometime, somehow... Australian Patchwork and Quilting vol. 17 no. 11 (the current issue) has a focus on recycled quilts, so I turned to the doyley stash here for inspiration.  The cottage doyley was charming, the bluebirds sweet and I had a length of linen ready to hand.  The linen came from an art supply shop - worth trying if you're after linen, as it was a LOT less expensive than fabric shop linen.  (This is where I found it, but I bought it from a (physical) shop, so I'm not sure if this is exactly the same.  But it's the correct retailer, so you can email them and enquire).  I added some simple embroidery inspired by the fancywork, and stash doyleys became something I could put on display to enjoy.

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Alexander McCall Smith interview on ABC TV

Geraldine Doogue interviews Alexander McCall Smith on this week's Compass program - this Sunday night coming on ABC1, repeated 1 May on ABC2.  TV guide details here, Compass program website here.
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Since I've read so many of his books this year, I will be interested to hear him speak.
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Also this week on the ABC is the doco about Tim Minchin, Rock and Roll Nerd.  Dang, but he's a clever man with words and music, and his Required grand piano.  Program info here.  Thursday night.

Today, it feels like the season turning.  Warm in the sun in the middle of the day, but cool at beginning and end, and you start to think about winter clothes, and the heater, and hot water bottles and flannelette, and pea and ham soup, and other things which were impossible and unthinkable in January's scorchers.  A curious thing: however well it's dusted, the living room heater always has crevices of dust that whiff up its first firing.
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Quiltlet: I is for Innamincka

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This quiltlet is the result of spotting an irresistible charm square pack at Post Office Patchwork in Glenbrook NSW.  One charm pack, then add your own red centre fabric/wadding/backing/binding, and you have a lovely vintage-look little quilt.  If you buy one from POP, be sure to tell Rhonda it's for Innamincka, and she'll include the four extra charm squares you need (free) - I just needed a tad more than the pack held.  The pattern was in Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine vol. 17 no. 9.  I wanted to do one of the quiltlets as a log cabin, and these reproduction fabrics suited it so well.  Rhonda takes her shop to the Sydney Quilt Show each year, too, and will have these charm packs there.

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Diana Gabaldon Australian tour 2009

According to her website, Diana Gabaldon's UK publishers are planning an Australian and New Zealand tour in November 2009.  The seventh book in her Cross Stitch/Outlander series about Jamie and Claire Fraser is due out in late September this year: it's called An Echo in the Bone.
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If you don't know this series of historical/time travel/damn-good-read fiction books, you have a treat in store.  Read more here.  I've lost count of the number of pals I've added to the Gabaldon fan base (only two have said it didn't work for them, but most zoom through the whole series with great enjoyment).  The UNABRIDGED audiobooks are great, too (don't bother with the abridged ones, you'll miss too much).
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Springwood Quilt Show

After a day spent in and out of the car, two more projects are now with the magazine editors - the Q quiltlet to Australian Patchwork and Quilting, and a medallion/frame quilt, Song of the Country, with Australian Country Threads.  They'll be on the news-stands in four or five months.  And I forgot to take proper macro-esque obscure-detail photos of either to blog here so you could have a glimpse.  So here is a little bit of each, grainy but the best I can do:
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And then, stopping at a couple of op shops (not finding a lot, but it's always nice to have enough time to stop for a squizz) I headed up to Springwood to see the Springwood Community Quilt Show.

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Which is absolutely worth visiting (it's on this weekend, Saturday 11am - 5pm, Sunday 10am - 4pm) for two reasons: a great array of quilts, and a great array of shops and stalls.  There are all sorts of quilts, from intricate to simple, repro through oriental through pretties through brights.  Lots of inspiration, with contributions from quilters living in the Blue Mountains and beyond.

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The Springwood High School auditorium in which the show is held is a very high ceilinged polygon shape, so there can be quilts high on the walls too - it's spacious in the aisles of quilts, and well/evenly lit, so you can examine the quilts without peering.  All around the outside are stalls from local shops in the Blue Mountains and Hawkesbury - it's as good as a quilt shop crawl, gives you a great snapshot of shops to go and see in greater detail, but here you can see them all (in abbreviated form) and only have to park your car once.  There are some local designers/teachers with stalls selling their patterns/fabrics too.

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This general view of some of the hall was taken with permission from the show convenor, who was standing right next to me.

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If you're a quilter who can get to this show, do.  I didn't take refreshments, but the coffee and the hot chocolate smelled very fine indeed - there is a quilt show cafe with teas and lunch available.  Admission is $5 and the school is on Grose Road in Faulconbridge - turn right off the Great Western Highway just past the Faulconbridge shops, at the traffic lights with a sign to Norman Lindsay's house.

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Waterspring: a story of two quilts

Last year, a friend with a particular form of cancer needed a special form of radiation therapy - the one where you get to swallow a radioactive tablet offered to you at the end of tongs by thoroughly garbed medical staff, and then you are in an isolation ward for several days until it's safe for you to mix with people again.  Not the easiest experience.  So a bunch of us decided to make her a quilt - she could take it with her to the hospital isolation ward, and it would be there for her afterwards while she recovered at home.  She's a keen canoeist, so blues and greens seemed like the best colours.  The sewing experience of the group varied (from very to hardly any), so something simple was called for. Our colleague, who is thankfully well now, knew nothing about it, and loved it (you can see her reaction here.) 

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The thing was, I'd bought the fabric on special (to be economical), and so needed to buy the minimum cut, and had leftovers; I'd also bought more of the border/sashing fabric.  Add to the mix a nevvy who had plaintively pointed out, on more than one occasion, that he was Too Big Now for the quilt he'd had since being a baby.  See, Aunty Ruth? he said, his feet sticking way out beyond the bottom of the farmyard quilt.  O-kay.  So I made another Waterspring quilt, and this one went into the magazine and then onto the nevvy - it's big enough to keep him warm and happy for the long haul.  Here's Waterspring, as published in Australian Patchwork & Quilting vol. 17 no. 10 - not photographed with either original, as they're both long since wrapping up lovely people to tell them they're loved and appreciated.  Which quilts do rather well.

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A bookshop rant

Myer department store in Sydney (the city store) has a book department.  It looks like this:

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The sign on the left indicates why I was prepared to travel up four escalators to take a look today.

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I shouldn't have bothered.  Firstly, because of the stock.  If I had wanted a cookbook, or a war book, or a sport book, or the latest in publisher-pushed popular fiction, maybe there would have been something for me.  But no, and so no.  Take a look at that black and white sign.  Does it give you any clues as to their expected target market for their book dept?  (Hint: the reading glasses). 

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And they have soft chairs and chairs at tables, in case you want to browse.

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Fat chance.

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Behind the camera, the adjacent dept (with incredible logic on the part of the shop-layout-planners) is a section they call The Basement (it's on Level 4, HELLO GUYS, THAT'S A TAD DOPEY!), which sells, as far as I could tell, funky modern T shirts and associated garb to young fellows.  Who apparently need the lure of music to pull their wallets out of their pockets.  Not any music, but (I can't spell dufduf/ douf-douf) techno.  Driving, insistent beats, thudding away throughout the floor.

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So very relaxing for the middle aged reading-glasses wearing book customer.  I feel deeply sorry for the book department staff.  There was no way God made little green apples I was even vaguely tempted to sit in one of the comfortable lounges there to browse, since I didn't have noise-cancelling earphones with me. (Probably because I don't own any).

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You will be pleased to know, dear reader, that since a Myer Feedback form could not be found, I went in search of a manager.  I had to put some effort into this, and eventually found one, two floors down.  He was very polite, as was I.  I advised him that few book customers, a very different demographic to dufduf Tshirt wearing young chaps, were unlikely to be charmed by the experience of being trapped in a techno-fan's iPod while browsing the books, as was the current situation.  Oh, he said, he'd check the speakers.  Why, I asked (not unreasonably, I thought) was this conjunction of departments deemed to be smart marketing?  Oh, he said, well, they are on the same floor, that's the way things are.  Ah well, I thought: somebody in Myer can choose to put them on the same floor, and madden book customers with loud music.  Customers, however, also have a choice: not to bother going anywhere near the Myer city store book department.  Even if they have got 40% off every book, for one day only.

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I would, of course, be so pleased to know that my efforts at feedback will be of use to Myer.  Snort.

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So then I went off to my more favourite city bookshop venues: Borders and Kinokuniya.

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Aaaah.  No techno music of any kind.  And a vastly superior choice (Kinokuniya had even sold out of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, according to a sign near the door.  Who'd'a thunk??).

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The Borders in Skygarden is closing on 15 May as the building is being redeveloped.  I browsed happily, and picked up a few bargains on the 75% off table, including some for me, some for presents and some for work. 

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Laden (I admit nothing) I then headed off to Kinokuniya.  And browsed some more, equally happily.

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I may have had other things planned for a day in the city, but at this point the books were, um, not at all burdensome, of course, but not getting any lighter... so I figured that I hadn't planned at all well, and didn't really care either.

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It was way too early for the evening commuters, so I easily got a seat on the train (and one for the bags of books) and had a hassle-free trip home, reading.

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Quiltlet: J is for Joadja + Australian quilt fabric designers

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Last year at the Sydney Quilt Show, I saw Saffron Craig's fabrics, and especially liked this red bird (I've got a bird thing happening at the moment - bird china I've blogged about before, and some other bird homewares have found their way into the house).  So I bought some (served with great style and care by her little daughter, who was helping on their stand at the time) and it became part of this quiltlet.  Joadja was in Australian Patchwork & Quilting magazine vol. 17 no. 10.  Saffron blogged about it here, and if you follow the links from there you can see and buy her gorgeous fabrics (always good to promote an Australian designer!).  She still has stock of the red birds - and a couple of other colourways too, last time I checked.

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For each quiltlet, I also write a one-page article about something related to/inspired by making that quiltlet.  For Joadja, I wrote about Australian fabric designers (many doing short run/hand made fabrics).  The magazine didn't have room for all the links to designers and retailers stocking their designs, so here they are for you to follow and enjoy.

• Kelani and the Kelani blog 
• Quilt Fabric Delights http://www.quiltfabricdelights.com.au/  
• Belsize Square http://www.belsizesquare.com.au/store/  
• Sarah London http://sarah-london.blogspot.com/  
• Saffron Craig http://saffroncraig.com/  
• Prints Charming http://printscharming.com.au/  
• Shannon Lamden (Aunty Cookie) http://www.auntycookie.com/  
• Sprout Design http://www.sproutdesign.net.au/  
• Ink and Spindle http://www.inkandspindle.com.au/

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Of course there is always the online marketplace Etsy, which you can search by country, too.

• Etsy http://www.etsy.com/
• Etsy – Australian shops (not just fabric) http://www.etsy.com/shop_local.php?place=australia  

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Please let me know any other Australian fabric designers I should add to the list - drop me a note in the comments.