Wombat Tasting

What tastes do Wombats have?

Not the marsupial kind, but the sewing kind. This month the Wombat Stew girls are making Fabric Artist Trading Cards to send to eachother.

That means I have to spy on the tastes of 8 other bloggers and work out something that either reflects me or them.

So today I made a list of each of the Wombats. Then I wrote down some of their tastes.

For example 

Marieka likes purple...but Lara likes orange.

Alyce loves Kate Spain...but Jane is not fond of Heather Ross.

Gina likes strawberries...but Gemma loves croissants.

Kristy loves birds but I have no idea if Melissa does.

Then I checked my ATC Pinterest board for inspiration.

I gathered fabrics and started sorting them into colours.

Then I started cutting and sewing. I am getting excited.


Linking up to WiP Wednesday.

July Round Up

Sunrises
Mid Winter mornings are getting crisper but more beautiful.

Sewing

Only blocks this month I am afraid. The top two are for Bees and the bottom is for a Wombat.

Chickens

All of the girls are laying now. So some days I get half a dozen eggs. 

One day Scruffy layed two eggs in one day!

As they started playing "hide the eggs", this month I changed the routine and kept them in the chicken run until lunchtime. It seems to be working.

And I discovered that they are jungle birds at heart.

Palm Felling

Limb Removal 

Slashing

Sowing

Weed Removal

Reading - I read my first Jack Reacher novel. Not bad.

How was your July?

Last Week In My Garden #5

Tree Felling

Last Tuesday a team of three guys from Tallow Tree Services from Byron Bay came to deal with a few jobs felling trees on the property. I had four companies come out and quote me and these guys impressed me from the beginning and their price was second cheapest.

Alexander Palms

It's no secret that I am not fond of palm trees. These  Alexander palms and are indigenous to the local area and are therefore not a listed weed. We have more than 80 on the property but 16 of them were in close proximity to the house.

However their trunks and bowls had grown too large to be so close to the front of the house. They also drop very heavy palm fronds. One narrowly missed my son on his bike. They had to go.

The Tallow boys had an efficient way of tensioning the top of the palm and dropping it away from the house. Then their mulcher dragged it into its jaws.

Canary Island Date Palm

This miniature palm was very pretty but sported some nasty spikes. See earlier posting on my injury.

Jacaranda

It's hard to see in this photo but this tree had taken some battering in the January storms. One large branch was stuck hanging over the driveway.

Jamie prussiked up the tree and removed it and a few other dead branches.

Swamp Gum
I love this tree. So huge and beautiful. But very dangerous. It is right on the fenceline that has a new estate on the other side. 

Can you see all the dead limbs hung up on the live branches? There were at least three. All there when we bought the property in December 2012. They needed to come down safely.

Then there were a couple of limbs that over hung into the next property. I would not buy a block of land that had a gum tree overhanging it. It's a matter of safety. Gum drop limbs. They can kill.

Mulching

The guys bought a great machine that turned all the palms and gums into mulch to use on the garden. I now have tonnes of the stuff.

I hope to work with this company once a year to clear the risky trees and maintain the existing trees.

Sunday Stash #73

A big thank you to Kristy from Quiet Play for hosting a Sketchy Sunday Stash last week. Next week Sunday Stash will be hosted by Amanda of What the Bobbin?

The most popular Stash visited last week was Gina from Party of Eight: Our Story who profiled the latest Heather Ross' gorgeous Briar Rose collection.

Last Monday night I had dinner with my lovely friend Marieka from Bespoke Bites. She was up in Lismore for a 2 day conference and so we felt very special having a night off, sans children, to catch up. Marieka and I have been friends since 2008 when we both moved to Tumut. We live about 200Km (130 miles) away from each other now. We both know the lifestyle of being married to Civil Engineers and having to move towns often for new projects.

She had a little fabric offering for me  - extra wide Essex linen/cotton blend in Natural. This is beautiful to work with on Zakka projects.

And another linen fabric which actually feels like linen. I wonder if it will sew and crush like linen. 

Recently I bought a couple of Denyse Schmidt prints that were in the $4 per/m discount section at Spotlight .

This for backing. I love orange.

This for binding.

Now it's your turn to "flash your stash". (Borrowed that hilarious phrase from Kristy's post last week!)

You can share

• newly purchased fabric
• precious fabric that has been in your stash for a while
• op-shop (thrifted) fabric finds
• swap triumphs
• give-away wins
• books, magazines
• patterns
• rulers
• threads and other sewing notions.
• fabric stamps.

Please also feel free to link up the place of purchase and even a price. I am all for supporting small businesses on Etsy and Facebook as well as Local Quilt Stores - no reason why the big retailers should pocket all our cash. 

You can also share a post about some fabric that has been in your stash, what you have made with it or plan to make with it, if you wish.

Octagonal Orb Block

Octagonal Orb Quilt Block

These are the blocks submitted by our Bee members so far. I think making a little mosiac helped me to choose scraps for my own.

The pattern is by Elizabeth Hartman and she has a great visual tutorial that I followed. 

Linking up to TGIFF for only the second time this month.

The Dreaded Orb Block

This month the block chosen by the Queen Bee had me stressing. I kept putting it off.

Today I knuckled down with many hours stretched out in front of me. I emptied my scrap bucket.

Cutting the odd sized pieces takes a long time.

Sewing the sections not so much.

Trimming was easy.

Putting the block together was quick.


Linking up to WiP Wednesday for the first time this month.

Last Week in My Garden #4

Slasher Power

Remember when last week I said that I spent 6 hours getting rid of a clump of lantana? Crazy right?

Lantana Clump Before and After

I should have just called Phil instead. Phil came out on his tractor slasher to cut back the bottom paddock that  had been whipper snipped previously.

Phil's slasher just backed over two other clumps of lantana and obliterated them. Then he took out the corner of weeds we had not yet got to.

The Slope Before and After

He saved me about 12 hours worth of work!

And look at the tractor's cute little face!

Unfortunately the slasher cannot access the steep areas of our property. That's where the remaining lantana grows.

The land drops away at that tree line 

Burn Pile

We also tried to set fire to our burn pile. We have only had five fine weekends this whole year. 

The pile is very wet. We perhaps only made a dent on only 1/30th of the burn pile.

Sowing

The local agent had run out of rye grass seed and so I could not sow into the areas where the slasher had been.  I did manage to get the ride on mower into most of the areas through. A huge victory as I thought it would be too steep to mow.

The slope is steeper than this photo would suggest.