Cocoa Blue

0706 Cocoa Blue
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This was my original blue and brown quilt, with amazing freemotion quilting by Kim Bradley. Her detail on the leaves in particular is remarkable. I like its modernity and energy.

Sydney Quilt Show 2007

I'll do a longer quilt show report in the next day or two. Lots to see! - Sunday 1 July is its final day.

As you may notice, I've done some catching up, and have filled in the gaps in patterning the world so it's back to at least one photo and entry a day.

Red Nose Day

0706 Red Nose toy 14
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Maybe the red nose you bought is the one that means in someone's house there won't be an empty chair where a little one would have been to grow and laugh and be part of a family for more than a little while.

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au/

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007 - today. Did you buy a red nose? Did this series serve a purpose in reminding about the day and the cause? It would be nice to know - comments welcome.

Number 14 in a series

Settlement quilt

0706 Settlement quilt, both versions
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The quilt on the left is closely based on one made by Aboriginal children in the mid-nineteenth century at the Swan River Settlement. The original is in the National Library of Australia.

The quilt on the right is based on the same design, but with modern Aboriginal and hand-dyed and hand-marbled fabrics, handquilted with perle cotton. I wanted to make a second version that drew on its Aboriginal heritage and also showed how one design could be done in a second, quite different way.

Sydney Quilt Show 2007

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 12
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The mad-eyed rosella (whose aerodynamic qualities are intrinsically compromised, even without a red nose) realises that it's just two days till Red Nose Day. Got your gear yet?

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Number 13 in a series....

Normal posting should resume soon...sometimes, life gets in the way.

Scrap Jazz

0706 Scrap Jazz
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is my entry in the Quilters' Guild of NSW calendar challenge. All from scraps, invented as I went along.

2008 Calendar available now from the Guild.

Sydney Quilt Show 2007

Busy - back soon

Coupla days....back soon. Haven't forgotten you.

Crossing

0706 crossing
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Even zebra crossings aren't black and white, but shades of grey.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 04
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It doesn't need the whole blurb, does it?

Love this primitive doll - it was a purchase, made by an unknown dollmaker. Great cotton reel hair!

Number 14 in a series

Quilt detail

0706 quilt detail
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Can't show the whole thing yet, but isn't this swirly blue Judie Rothermel fabric a corker???

Camellia in sunlight

0706 camellia 02
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A friend said that she particularly liked this one, and the way the light caught the petals. So I've blogged it (can you tell how much I like this particular camellia?!)

Evening palms

0706 evening palms
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of looking up and realising that you can see the moon, and that the silhouettes of the different palm trees are framing it with serrated variety. Sometimes it's about what you can see and appreciate at endings, rather than beginnings.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 08
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS. Hasn't this bear got a wonderful winsome face? (and yes, I will take a photo of the bears without red noses so you can see them!).

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Number 12 in a series....

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 13
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The red nose or bracelet you buy might be the difference that brings light to someone's heart, stops a heart breaking from a baby dying of SIDS.

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Number 11 in a series....

Eucalyptus, early morning light

0706 eucalyptus, early morning light
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

I'll be truthful and say it wasn't this morning, although we weren't being battered by the forecast cyclonic winds. But some winter mornings, the sky is blue and clear and somehow clean in a cold and winter way, and then the sun rises and the light catches the trees with delicacy and beauty. Fresh air, morning light, a new beginning.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 07
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

"What, you haven't bought your red nose yet? Don't miss out!" Doesn't she look startled?

This doll is one I bought at a Total Fabrications Canberra Cloth Doll exhibition, it's exquisitely made and is by a lady who has now passed away. I have two of her dolls, and treasure them for their workmanship, delicately fine detail and care.

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.


Number 10 in a series....

Binding

0706 blue and brown quilt
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

If they grow like Topsy, you end up with over 320 inches of binding to sew down....

The machine quilting of this was done by Kim Bradley, who is a genius.

It's one of my entries in the Sydney Quilt Show - due in to the Drop Off Lady, um, tomorrow.....

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 11
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS. Unless you've got a hump to show off, the bracelet works very nicely on the wrist, waterproof and attractively bumpy. Unlike the nose, you can wear it discreetly for days and days.

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.


Number 9 in a series....

Rainbow

0706 rainbow
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It was much stronger than this, but still wonderful to see, and had a shadowy twin that my camera couldn't catch.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 10
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS. I myself personally wore a red nose at a meeting today, as a reminder. I'd forgotten how they make you cross-eyed. Certainly this bear is not enjoying the non-proportional nose on his face. The nose is too big, the bracelet's too big - what's a bear to do?

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.


Number 8 in a series....

Quilt detail

0706 quilt detail
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A taster, rather than a view (but it's going to be published, so I can't show it all just yet - maybe later! ?October?). I particularly liked the Jo Morton print with diamonds, but it 'read' much darker than I had guessed it would. It's a Christmas quilt - I often don't use directly Christmassy fabrics in Christmas quilts. Just the instructions and steps left to create on this one.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 17
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS. Even if your jalopy isn't as stylish as this, look out for the box of goodies at the checkout next time you're out for a spin...

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Wooden car made by my dad!

Number 7 in a series....stay tuned!

Late afternoon sky

0706 afternoon sky
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Yesterday, the late afternoon was suffused with golden light, partly from the coming rain clouds. Looking west, the sky was glowing in this amazing way, almost boiling with colour. Looking south, grey sky and a rainbow. Looking east, the rain clouds. But this was something to see. Not that I didn't like the rainbow - and the rain's surely welcome, this June is apparently Sydney's wettest month since May 2003, which hints at why the dams are under 40% full and we have water restrictions.

But would you look at this sky? How could you not? As I took the photo, a lady passed me, and smiled, and commented on how beautiful it was.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 05
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The doll, who's been around long enough to know what's what, says, in a very refined way,"It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS!".

The dog says, "Woof,", which roughly translates into, "What's this bracelet doing on my tail?". But then chrome yellow dogs are given to odd fancies.

More information here: http://www.rednoseday.com.au/. Lots of chemists have boxes of noses and bracelets and more, if yoiu're on the hunt for them, and newsagencies too.

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Doll and dog by Gillian - thank you!

Number 6 in a series...

Detail

0706 Red Nose toy 06
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The post above gives you the full picture, but there was something I really liked about this detail shot. The doll's hands are able to cradle the red nose, and while you can't see all of her, there is enough information for you to make sense of it. Sometimes, it's getting the details right that enables you to make sense of something. In quilting, I am at times - most often - a bit OK, that's fine...but sometimes I'll fuss till it pleases my eye - it's going to be a quilt a lot longer than a quilt-under-construction. Details, details...

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 02
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The rather vicious-looking pig says, "It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS!".

More information here: http://www.rednoseday.com.au/.

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

If you're finding yourself amused or prompted by this series, maybe you could post something about it on your blog, or let your pals know, to spread the word. It's such an important charity, such important research.

I found this pig at a craft stall, I think it was meant to be a character from a children's TV series. It always looks as though it would rather take a piece out of you than be your friend...

Number 5 in a series...

Looking up...

0706 Queen Victoria Building 3
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

From the lowest floor of the Queen Victoria Building in central Sydney. There's such grace in the architecture - the curves, the symmetry, the geometry just seems calm, pleases the eye.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 03
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS.

Just like Caity's done (thanks, Caity!)

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Amazing forest elf doll made by Ann (thanks Ann!)

Number four in a series....

Old tin

0706 old tin
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

I wonder if they worked? And did they treat indigestion of the heart? Or was that just to show they cared, having heart shaped tablets...but wouldn't the pointy bit catch when you swallowed it?

So many unanswered questions. The tin's not telling.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 15
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS. Bet the Red Nose day box of goodies is getting lower at your local chemist or other supportive business...

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au (and you can buy online).

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Wooden tractor made by my dad!

Number three in a series....stay tuned!

Choir of Hard Knocks

0706 Choir of Hard Knocks CD
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A friend gave me this CD - I've been watching the documentary series on ABC-TV.

It's magic. Wonderful. Makes you cry, and feel exalted, and humbled, and taken to a new place. I'm grateful to be able to hear it.

The choir is made up of homeless people. Their singing is rich in experience, life experience, and infused by hope and the community of lives and voices created in a choir's co-operation. My particular favourites are their versions of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, and of Amazing Grace, and the Melbourne G&L choir's version of Angel.

Buy one here. You won't be sorry. Royalties go to the choir. The album and individual tracks are also available on iTunes.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 09
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Waving his arms wildly (and finding the bracelet a tad big), the bear says, "It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS!".

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au.

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

Number two in a series....stay tuned!

Hope album

0706 hope album front cover
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is a journal sort of album I put together. Each inside page has a word and a tag pocket with tags. The tags can be written on over time. The edges of the album are sanded (great finish for a chipboard album!).

I've posted a photo of an inside page and the back cover, with some of the tags.

Chipboard album: Maya Road (3in x 5 1/2in). Papers: Basic Grey and ??for the collage images on the tags (bought that one too long ago). Lettering: K&Co.

Hope album

0706 hope scrapbook album 02
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

An inside page of the album, showing the lettering and tag pocket.

Hope album

0706 hope scrapbook album back cover
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is the album's back cover, with some of the tags I made for it.

Red Nose Day is coming...

0706 Red Nose toy 01
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Darth Tater says, "It's time to buy a red nose and contribute to research into SIDS!".

More information here: www.rednoseday.com.au/

This year, Red Nose Day in Australia is on Friday 29 June 2007.

(Love the concept of Darth Tater - the mild and the mean in one contradictory and most amusing package!)

I'm saving up the nose, but wearing the bracelet, although someone thought I'd adopted some sort of weird goth look...

Rainy leaves & brunch

Rainy leaves mosaic
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Since yesterday it's been raining, steady rain of the kind that can't believe you were so het up about dam levels being under 40% and water restrictions being in place, and dry gardens and etcetera. The weather being contrary, I coulda but I didn't but see? I coulda and now I am.

The autumn leaves are waterwashed, hard to catch as they tremble and give under the steady fall of rain. Rain caught on leaf tips, poised to let gravity pull them to the thirsty earth. The gutters run full, the rain drums its greeting on the roof and it took less than a day to hear someone wish the rain would stop....Not yet. Not yet.

I was going to photograph brunch. We had the caf's Big Plate: bacon and eggs (damn, I forgot to ask for poached not fried - the underneath of fried eggs gives me the irrational oooks), chipolata sausages, smoked salmon, onion jam, mushrooms, roasted tomatoes, two doorstops of buttered toast. After that, afternoon tea and dinner will suffice for the day. The Big Plate-ful got eaten before the camera came out. Maybe we'll have to go another time? Weekend brunch is good.

Queen Victoria Building

0706 Queen Victoria Building 1
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The QVB is a most wonderful building in the CBD of Sydney. Which means, of course, that it was ALMOST torn down, only thankfully someone grew a brain. So it was renovated and restored, instead, and so you can still enjoy its grandeur and flourishes.

dream

0706 dream
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The scrapbooking stuff out there does just beat all! (and if that isn't a revert to Aunt Eller out of Oklahoma, I dunno what is).

These may not end up together in the same album, but for now they're playing together.

I particularly like papers like the background one, already with the scuffing of age. BasicGrey are probably my absolutely favourite company for scrapbooking papers - they've produced some corkers!

There's an idea I have for a mini-album (I like mini, it means finished quickly, as I find scrapbooking time-consuming enough when I fiddle around with it. Too many choices) and some or all of these will find their way in...

animal, vegetable, mineral

0706 Kingsolver book
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This one came highly recommended - I've seen it mentioned round and about. The novelist Barbara Kingsolver, with her husband and two girls, move back to the family farm in the Appalachians (from the Arizona desert). Their goal is to see, in a year, if they can eat seasonally, and locally, and grow as much as possible themselves. In Arizona, pretty much every foodstuff carried with it a burden of the fuel required to get it from wherever to Tucson. One thing they aimed to do was to reduce this burden. I'm not finished reading it yet, but it's good, thought-provoking stuff (with some very do-able recipes).

The recipes, and more about the book, are here:
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/Recipes.html

Autumn ] [ Fall

0706 autumn/fall
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It is. It really is. Among the gum trees and evergreens, there are trees of fire and light like this Japanese maple.

Camellia

0706 camellia
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It's still probably the most beautiful, reliable plant in the garden, this camellia. This last week the buds have been opening. It's the one in the banner photo, with the cakes and candles. A special part of winter.

Middle

0706 middle
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Guess this pegs me as middle in a bunch of ways. Although perhaps it's daft or foolish to buy an entire soundtrack just because you really really want Peter Gabriel's version of The Book of Love and can't seem to obtain it any other way (eg. it's not on iTunes).

Still, as I quilt away, these are part of the soundtrack.

(Sharp eyed readers may notice I'm pre-emptively posting Sunday's photo on Saturday, so the computer can Go Away for the weekend and fabric and thread and colour and design can occupy the available time instead. See you Monday!)

Quilt-in-waiting

0706 quilt-in-waiting
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

It started with the larger blue pieces, light and darker, and the red/blue spriggy one you can barely see in the background.

Over twenty permutations in EQ5 (must upgrade!) later, and a fossick through the stash, and some other friends have come to the party.

I took the photo this morning.

It needs to be nearly finished by the end of the weekend, certainly by the end of the week.

So this isn't going to be a long blog post. Unsurprisingly.

See you later!

Dusk

0706 sunset (again...)
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Same song, next verse (but hey, I did put a quilt in the middle just for a tad of variety). (If you're wondering what I'm raving about, I've been on a roll of dusk/sunset/twilight/end of day photos - scroll down and you'll see...).

Irrelevant aside: etymologically, tad is considered likely to be an abbreviation of tadpole. In 1877 it's recorded as meaning a small child - not a usage I recollect hearing. By 1915 the extension of meaning into a small amount was recorded. Here's a new toy if you like chasing down etymology: http://www.etymonline.com/.

Isn't that sky purty? and the reflections?