Scrapbooking

0603 Scrapbooking
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Spent a happy day working on a calendar using family photos. It's a delightful way to spend a Saturday with friends. And I always love the chance to play with colour.

I used to be rather rude about scrapbooking, particularly when all I had seen was pretty much cardstock and cutesy-poo stickers and wall to wall 'are my kids/pets cute or what?' pages. And then I went to a scrapbooking store and found printed papers for me to sigh over like I sigh over fabric. I still quilt far more than I scrapbook, but it's fun to play with. They also have a bunch of scrapbooking supplies which can be redeployed into quilting.

I don't use cardstock or stickers much. One of my friends commented, "You scrapbook like you're quilting". Looking at this picture, I see tone-on-tone, stripes, spots, patterns, variety in scale. Yup, I scrapbook like I'm quilting!

Ireland

0603 Ireland
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

For St Patrick's Day - and an excuse to photograph the lighted globe outside my office.

Utilities and Drains

0603 Utilities and Drains
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Inspired by seeing the urban photo-mosaics of others, beauty in the details I usually don't see. As a quilter, repetition is always going to call to my heart.

Yellow banksia

0603 banksia
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A street tree, most of the banksias dead and shrivelled, but then a single glorious yellow one. Another example of camera and blog making me notice and record my surroundings.

Red landscape

0603 red landscape
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

An unexpected reflection. Leaving work, no photo taken yet to use for Tuesday's image, and then the combination of actively looking and carrying a digital camera everywhere gave me this red horizon.

It's turning into a red week - odd how some weeks have a colour theme: blue, green, red.

Red onions

0603 red onions
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Another greengrocer vista. Photo Friday: Red.

Inspiration

0603 face drawings
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Wonderful face drawings by a 3 year old, inspiration for my current project.

Clothesline

0603 washing line
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

So what happens if some of the washing line goes PING! and the outer line breaks?

You discover how to go about buying new line, installing it, and remembering Girl Guide knots so you can use a clove hitch (the rabbit comes out of the hole....).

And then the weekend washing can proceed.

It is a Hills Hoist clothesline (great Australian invention) and it's amusing that the necessary equipment ended up being so patriotically coloured.

Turnips

0603 turnips
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

More veg from yesterday's excursion. But aren't these beautiful? I didn't buy turnips, but I bought a bunch of fresh basil and its fragrance is wonderful in the house. I've frozen the leaves to have something of that fragrance and flavour when the season is over.

Prickly pear fruit

0603 prickly pear
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

At the fruit shop today there were several fruits I'd never seen before - prickly pear for one. The colours were beautiful, subtle.

A very helpful fellow customer explained that you pick them up with tongs. To prepare, swish in a bucket of water (to allow the prickles to bang against each other and thus be neutralised, I think). Then, wearing rubber gloves, slit once and peel. They taste somewhat like a mango, she said.

There were so many gorgeous colours in the fruit shop. I have a set of photos in my Flickr photostream if you want to see more. Click on the Flickr icon on the right to go there or click here to go directly to the fruit & veg set.

Vintage quilt detail

0603 quilt detail
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This Ocean Waves quilt has seen some hard life. It's beautiful, with tiny triangles, and amazing to see.

Saw a double feature on Wednesday, Brokeback Mountain and Walk the Line - both excellent. As to 'quilts in the movies', there was a wagga-style utility quilt Jack Twist's childhood bedroom in Brokeback, and the dirt poor home of Johnny Cash's childhood featured some quilts. (It's an amusing game, to spot quilts in the movies).

I've been reading the book of stories that includes Brokeback Mountain and admiring Annie Proulx' prose all over again. Here is the way that story ends:

There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it.

Wonderful prose.

Hyperventilation

0603 hyperventilation
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

All I needed was black interfacing. I saw these and my fabric tart's heart went pitter-pat! They're GAWjus! I bought some, planning to return for more, and almost left the shop before remembering that what I needed was black interfacing...oops! - had to go back for it.

Southern Cross

0603 Southern Cross on flag
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

As on the Australian flag. How big was the Oz contingent at the Ozcars?! Dion Beebe winning for cinematography, while plenty were presenters - Nicole Kidman, Naomi Watts, Russell Crowe, Eric Bana.

Clean Up Sunday

0603 clean up Sunday
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

First Sunday in March is Clean Up Australia Day.

Weekend paper

0603 weekend paper
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The Saturday Herald, a weekly pleasure.

Hippo Birdy

0603 hippo birdy
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Not my birthday, but a friend's. Diplomat Cake (a rum-soaked sponge with stiff cream icing) and on the side, Honey Joys.

Leaf light

0603 leaf light
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Still playing with camera angles and leaves.

Unexpected chocs

0603 unexpected chocs
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

An unexpected thank-you box of choccies and two favourite magazines - perfect for an afternoon time-out. Luxury!

Shadow

0602 shadow
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A potential quilt (not 'sermons in stones', but quilts in shadows).

Leaves, looking up

0602 leaves
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

One gift of a digital camera is freedom of the screen view, taking the camera away from a viewfinder fixed to your eye and face. Another is the freedom to play without the commitment of consumables for every shot.

Enamel peg basket

0602 peg basket
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The small things that make you happy.
It was great to chuck the old functional but boring peg bag and replace it with this.

Current reading

0602 current reading
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The Jane Austen Book Club because I'd meant to for ages; Santa: A life because it's the kind of literary nonfiction that I've enjoyed before; and Brokeback Mountain because the film was brilliant and I wanted to read it in Annie Proulx's distinctive, sparely embroidered prose.

Weekend lunch

0602 lunch
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Dappled sunlight on the verandah and the remains of a perfect weekend lunch. Triple-smoked ham and salad rolls, Castello and smoked salmon on seaweed crackers, the world's best yoghurt with frozen raspberries, and a leetle chocolate chaser. No, not everyday life at all - but fun. Accompanied of course by good conversation, the salt of any meal.

I'd put my digital camera in a different place yesterday and for five horrible minutes today I couldn't find it - it pointed out how accustomed I've become this year to carrying it everywhere and being able to photograph in the moment.

Number plates

0602 Number plates
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

My mechanic's office wall includes numberplates from all over the world, including some vintage NSW ones.

Green leaf, black trunk

0602 green and black
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

I liked the contrast between the limey green and the black tree trunk, although it was an interesting puzzle as to how to get them into the same picture. Trying this sort of thing lets me find out what my camera can do - I liked the way the focus worked out.

Seed pods

0602 seed pod
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Acacia? wattle? not sure. Last week looked like a blue week, while this week's going green.

Rural green

0602 rural green
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

You can tell we've had rain recently - some months ago this was not so lush.

Lolly jars

0602 lolly jars
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The jellybean jar was nearly full at the start of term less than four weeks ago, and this is the second jar of boiled lollies...children(students) are an expensive (but amusing) indulgence!

Quilt under construction

0602 quilt under construction
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

My current project - singing colours, simple blocks and wonderful fabrics from designers like Kaffe Fassett, Amy Butler, Jan Mullen, Jane Sassaman, the Alexander Henry and Michael Miller fabric houses. I'm so grateful we quilters have such a kaleidoscope of choice today.

Storm clouds

0602 storm clouds
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Late in the day a big summer thunderstorm rolled through. This was after the thunder, lightning, rain and hail.

Blue tongue lizard

0602 blue tongue lizard
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A native Australian lizard which was sliding through the garden this afternoon. Must have been attacked by cats, as at least one back leg was gone and the other didn't seem to be of much use, so it was sliding rather than waddle-stalking along in their usual deliberate goanna-like manner.

Swimming pool

Swimming pool
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Carnival day - a rare moment as the pool settled between races.

Pallets

0602 pallets
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

All those varying weathered blues, and then one red. There's a quilt in this image (someday).

Graffiti eye

0602 eye
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Big Brother? Big bother? Just one eye, facing a fairly uninteresting wall.

Backyard soccer

0602 backyard soccer
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Serious competition, even if it's a rather small multicoloured soccer ball.

Blur

0602 blur
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

This is one of my quilts, which includes lots of bright, cheerful colours. The way in which the rectangular structure is still visible while the colours blur across it is interesting - I was prompted to take the photo because of the challenge. Photo Friday: Blur.

New watch

0602 watch
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

My old watch having died, I had to get a new one today - the stopgap Harry Potter plastic digital one wasn't going to last forever, although it was often admired.

Fascinating exercise in gender perception - am I one of the few females in the world who wants a watch with a decent sized face, luminosity in some way and the date? Not some tiny/delicate/distorted fashion thingy? Apparently, unlike men, few if any women want to check the date on their watch, or so it might seem.

After saying that, I've photographed it with a girly background of pretty quilt fabrics in the shop I went to afterwards...

Afternoon tree

0602 afternoon tree
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A change was rolling in in the late afternoon, grey clouds and some relief from a hot day. The distant horses grazed on.

Flannel flowers

0602 flannel flowers
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Flannel flowers a colleague brought in for her desk, having grown them in her garden.

White star, red carpet

0602 white star, red carpet
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

A humble, durable red carpet at a now-closed theatre.

Red (painted) brick

0602 red brick
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Repetition, one of my favourite colours, one example of how I'm seeing more because of the camera.

Tools

0602 tools
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The cleaners' tools from work, glimpsed on taking a different route out to go home.

Toothpaste

0602 toothpaste
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

When you cut through all the foofle and marketing hype, isn't this just another North American excuse to experience cinnamon? Although the necessity of the luminous feature eludes me. Cinnamon disguised as hygienic virtue and dental wisdom. An unusual, amusing present & window on the extent of cinnamon addiction. Photo Friday: Disguise.

Country home

0602 magazine
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

One of my favourite magazines - this latest issue came on Saturday (when I originally posted this until it was eaten by Blogspot and is now gorn into the ether).

Choc chip cookie slice

0602 choc chip slice
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Today's Clever Idea (not mine, someone else's) for when you're pushed for time and need bickies. Make choc chip cookie dough. Avoid eating all of it. Place remainder in rectangular dish and cook like a slice. Crunchy on the edges, squishy in the middle. Yum.

Better still, get a dear and useful friend to do the above and bring it to your place.

Fern

0602 fern
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Hot, at 39degC in the shade, and humid - by late afternoon the ferns were wilting, just like us.

Scroll

0602 scroll
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Even inside it's unpleasantly hot and humid - can't escape.

Bicycle

0602 bike
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Too hot today.

Sign of the day

0601 sign
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

The new school year began for students today. The cherubs returned...

Charm

0601 charm
Originally uploaded by rooruu.

Luscious samples from Charm (by Amy Butler for Free Spirit fabrics). Couldn't get to day's end without starting a quilt with them!