fly by

Reading:
Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. Terry Pratchett crossed with Franz Kafka.
Also reading:
a stack of back issues of Textile Fibre Forum which was not a good idea cos the brain has gone into meltdown. It's the same if more than a couple of mags arrive in the same week. Can't handle the sensory overload. Mind you filling in forms of more than one page has been known to have the same effect.
On the hook:
ACKrylic Ripple Baby Blanket in aqua, lemon, cream and mauve. Being done as a favour to a good friend who will be gifting it to yet another friend of hers in August. Don't think she realised that it would be 25 hours plus work. I strongly suspect that she asked me to do this rather than a quilt because she thought this would be faster or easier in some way. Could've whipped up a far more creative and unique machine pieced and quilted cot quilt in a similar time frame.
Listening to:
the Project Spectrum red/black/metallic CD that I won from the delightful Chris over at Stumbling over Chaos . Almost all artists that I was unfamiliar with and some not my taste but I'm enjoying discovering new sounds.
Waiting for:
the bag I knitted this week and felted last night to dry.
I didn't show you any in progress photos in case I buggered it up which is always possible when you are making things up as you go especially when the somewhat unpredictable 'art' of felting is involved. At least with a bag, the finished dimensions aren't critical. It will fit SOMETHING... but just to be on the safe side I didn't knit the handle on. Figured if I made it separate and it was too long I could adjust the placement. As it turned out, I think the length is just about perfect so I COULD have just knitted it straight on... but if I hadn't done it this way... well Mrs Murphy's Law would've almost certainly come into play. Figures. More about the specifics of size and yarn when its done.
Oh and I also knitted up a black alpaca version of Coronet. Quite a nice knit and I only made a couple of smallish changes mostly to deal with the fact that I was using a thinner yarn, and that for some unknown reason, I didn't feel like knitting it in the round. Can you guess what Coronet taught me?
No?
Well, basically, it taught me that my beanie wearing days are definitely behind me. I look like shite in it so there are no modelled photos of the FO
and Nadie doesn't wear close fitting hats.
So now I have to either a] figure out who it WOULD suit [ DS#1 would look great in it but maybe alpaca's too girly for a 32 yr old male ] OR b] I have to unsew the seam and then frog it. Would've been easier if I HAD knit it in the round. Bugger.
Watching:
the first eight eps of the new season of Dr Who courtesy of my darling daughter and the BBC. Don't worry, there won't be any spoilers for the rest of you... oh and I've got the whole series of Torchwood too.
Thinking about:
the next quilt project and psyching myself into cutting up some of my bestest hand painted and sundyed fabric.

Birthday MeMe

I didn't know that this one was doing the rounds until I got tagged by Ms FrouFrou but here's the drill:
you have to log onto http://www.wikipedia.org/ and type in your birthdate [ without the year ]. Peruse the results and give us 2 birthdays, 3 events and one holiday.
So:
16th December

didn't need to look up the birthdays. This part was easy.

Beethoven

Jane Austen

Holiday:

South Africa - Reconciliation Day [ instituted after the end of Apartheid ]

Events:

1653 - English Interregnum - Oliver Cromewell becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland

1773 - Boston tea Party. Members of the Sons of Liberty disguised as Mohawks dump crates of tea into Boston harbor as a protest against the Tea Act.

and I'm throwing in a personal one - 1999 Marc, my husband of 25 years passed away after a long battle with cancer, aged 49. Needless to say birthdays are not exactly joyous any more. Sorry folks. If you were expecting feelgood this ain't it.

I'm tagging:

Sheepish Annie

Bells

Nora

Caitlin

Tanya the Art Butcher

vintage needlework basket to die for

I actually took these photos a while ago but realised that I'd never gotten around to posting them.

This piece is a beautiful chinese-made needlework basket most probably from the 19th century, and it is housed in the collection at Buda which is a historic house here in Castlemaine.

Normally this basket is well behind velvet ropes, but one day someone had obviously moved them, and I had the camera, so of course I took advantage of the opportunity to get up close and personal.

The inlay inside the lid is in fabulous condition and a lot of the [ presumably original ] fittings and tools are still there. A friend who volunteers at Buda told me that there has been some pilferage in the past so a couple of the smaller sewing items have gone walkies. The silk bag underneath where one would have stored WIPs has seen better days but it's still obvious that this would've been an extremely expensive piece.

Buda belonged to a well known and talented Hungarian silversmith, Ernest Leviny, from 1863. Five of his very artistic daughters never married and the house is filled with their embroideries, paintings, copper enamelling, even wrought iron work which would have been a very unusual pastime for a well brought up young woman in those days one would think. The interesting thing about the Buda story is that the last of the daughters lived to a very very old age, by which time all the money had long run out and so she was reduced to living in penury in one heated room in this huge old house. This lack of funds meant that the furnishings pretty much remained untouched even down to the original hall carpets from 1850.

When she died in 1981, the house was left to the people of Castlemaine. and is a veritable time capsule of affluent high victorian life. Oh and the nearly 2 hectares of gardens aren't half bad either even with the ravages brought by the drought.

I'm still using it Mum

Maz and Linda have both posted recently about vintage needlebooks so I promised that I would too.

THIS rather plain little needlebook was made by my late mother in primary school, most probably around 1930 or 31 [ based on the fact that she was born in 1920 ]

The stitching is crude and the colour is awful but still bright and still serving its purpose after over 70 years of use.

I have a reasonable collection of needlebooks, hussifs, pincushions and sewing caddies of one sort and another. In fact all the sewing paraphenalia that you would expect a quilter to have made or acquired in a quarter century of stitching [ not counting a decade of dressmaking before that ] but this battered little piece holds fond memories of a mother who couldn't sew to save herself but still held onto this treasure from her childhood.
I'm not even sure at what stage it came into my possession. I just seem to have always had it.
Nadie you are NEVER to throw this out!

oh and people? Maz is having a contest and all you have to do is tell her about your collections.

zero degrees again last night

Fabrications [ bulletpoint ramble ] - actual quilt content!!

As promised, my impressions of the Fabricate Exhibition by TAG [ Textile Art Group ] at the Embroiderers' Guild, 170 Wattletree Road, Malvern. Given that the migraine is still hovering, I've opted for the rambling bullet point approach over the carefully crafted:

• when we arrived there was a video presentation already underway so we had to creep in quietly by the 'tradesman's entrance'.


• overall impression? Well worth a visit if you have even a passing interest in contemporary embroidery, quilting, felting and hand dyeing. A small exhibition but beautifully balanced and presented.
• At a lot of exhibitions of this type, one is generally very aware of pieces that have been 'let down' by poor finishing / cheap framing / poor hanging. Certainly I've been guilty of that myself in the past when funds were limited. That was not the case here. Thought had been applied to choice of framing materials and where money needed to be spent, it clearly had been but at the same time, none of the framing overwhelmed its subject matter. There were no grubby finger marks. Stretched canvases were finished properly around the sides. There was really only one piece that was not displayed to best advantage and I know from talking to a friend who was on duty, that it was not from want of trying: many strategies had been tried with lighting etc.
• The piece in question is cream stitching on cream transparent silk and it was suspended in the middle of the floor space. Perhaps hanging it 12" or so from a wall with a low front spot so that the shadow of the stitching is cast onto the wall might have worked better, but I can only say that because I saw a similar strategy used on an all-cream piece at a show I recently attended at the Central Goldfields Gallery in Maryborough. Oh well. As it was, it was a valiant effort and very nearly successful.


• Almost all the girls from Maryborough commented to me that their recent work with photo transfer, fusibles, shibori, fabric printing, sashiko, etc, had given them a far greater appreciation of what they were looking at. They were mostly able to look beyond the initial impact of form, line and colour, to focus on technique. I think it was an interesting experience for them to connect the processes that they have been working with to these quite polished and thoughtful [ in the main ] products.


• the artists' statements were the usual mix of the insightful, the self-agrandising and the hyperbolic. Poor grammar and mangled syntax aside, mostly they were quite helpful but I have to wonder why we feel the need to do this with fibre arts when it's rarely done with fine arts. Is it that the process is often as important as the product when dealing with fibrearts?


• If you DO go [ and it's on until July 8 - 10 till 4 weekdays, 10 till 5 weekends $5 entry ] seriously consider spending $10 on the DVD.


• The major prize winner was a representation of bushfire using a collage technique with extraordinarily subtle use of photo transfer, printing and stitching. The photos were a harmonious part of the whole, not " Hey look! Aren't I clever? I'm up with the new technology. I used a real photo here! " Often I get the impression that photos are used because it's the easier option. That was SO not the case here. In fact, it was worth going, just for that piece.


• Mind you that wasn't the one I voted for for Viewer's Choice. My favourite was a largish piece of multi layered hand felting, in cream, honeyed tones and browns, heavily stitched with running stitch and [I think ] split stem stitch in a heavy brown thread. The running stitching wasn't quite sashiko, but sort of heading that way and added a whole extra layer to a piece that was already a beautiful confection of shapes and colours and textures. not even "MY" colours, but I really felt drawn to it.


• Because I don't have the individual artists permission, I can't show you the photos that I took [ with permission from a committee person ] but here's a sort of general shot to give you a sense of the space

Can I have a little whine with that?

In accordance with the 'no posting while under the influence of a migraine' rule, there will be no post today.

Yes. I do realise that technically this is a post ... but ...erm... uh ...

oh bloody hell ... here's a gratuitous cute cat to be going on with. I'll be back tomorrow or Saturday. Whenever I can extricate what feels like an extremely large ice pick from my left temporal lobe.

random wednesday photos

I've spent most of today on a bus down to Melbourne and back to see the TAG Fabrications exhibition at the Embroiderers' Guild.. My rear hurts. I had a fabulous day. Too tired to post properly and can't sit for too long, so you'll get the report tomorrow.


Instead you get some of the stuff I didn't get around to earlier in the week.
If you've been paying attention, you know that Nadie came up on a flying visit on Sunday to drop the grandkittens off while she and The Boy are up in Queensland.


Before she headed home again on Monday, we squeezed in a visit over to Daylesford ... Purl's Palace for me, Dragons and Dreaming for her, Himalaya Bakery for both of us.


While we were at Purl's that little black sheepy tape measure tried the old " take me home, take me home" spiel and my beloved daughter decided it needed to live with me and the flock. Call it a belated Mother's day pressie. One of black sheep's paler sisters came too and is going to be rehomed with Caity once I get to the Post Office [ tomorrow Caity, I promise, it's been a busy week]. Oh and Maz? I got your Knitting Nancy while I was there. Everybody happy :]



Anyway, here's the black sheep of the family settling into the bottom pasture while the rest of the flock graze the top paddock.
Nadie gets up close and personal with some of the locals [ awwwwwwwwwwww]



and



for all you shoe freaks ... I spotted this in the window of a local ... ahem ... ADULT store. Yes. We do have one here in the wilds of Central Vic.


and this? oh, this is nothing. Move along. Move along.


No I didn't fall off the Knit From Your Stash 07 wagon ... well, not much. There were these 22 x 50 gram balls of Heirloom pure wool at the Op Shop [ Thrift Store] for $15. 16 were new and 6 had been frogged and rewound. So that's over a kilo of wool. It's normally around $4.50 a ball. What was a girl supposed to do? It's not quite a hot pink and not quite a cherry red either, but more red than the photo shows and totally luscious. Yes. I thought you'd understand. No, I don't know what I'm going to make with it ... and your point is???

oh yeah :

minus point 4 again last night

three minutes to midnight

You know that Doomsday_Clock thing? The symbolic clockface that shows how close we are to the end of the world? Well, the official one is currently set at 11.55pm but on Sunday afternoon, I set the "Catsmum quasi-official doomsday clock pertaining to all things feline" forward by three minutes with the arrival of Nadie with the grandkittens Suki and Sumi. Sophie immediately flew to Defcon One, Oakley retreated to his basket and the obligatory hissings and growlings were mutually exchanged followed by the equally customary Hiding of Sophie Under Mum's Quilt And Refusing To Come Out Even For Food.
Things have quietened a tad so I'm easing back a minute, as reflected in the title to this post. Make no mistake though, I'm on full alert.
As soon as the girls realise that Nadie has gone back to Melbourne without them, en route to Townsville, and the grandkittens are here for two WEEKS... well... anything could happen.
Suki has stopped growling at me ... mostly. Sumi is skittish but fairly resigned ... oops no ... three way mexican standoff in the studio... gotta go. Bye.

Look out Captain Hook

Did that title get your attention? The original version was " Up to my A*** in Alligator[s]". Should I change it back, do you think?

Just me trying to think of a clever way to show you the new Alligator chainsaw:

and in totally unrelated pix we have:

the new haircut [ and the not-quite-poncho that Nadie's probably taking. Unpattern anyone?]

the 6" blue and white [obviously] owl teapot that Chris and Maz brought up with them to add to the collection:

What the goats were complaining about at the back door where there is actual green ...

and the opposing view out the front [ kitchen ] door this morning:

2.4 degrees up from a brisk minus point 4 [ zero or under for the fifth day in a row - last year I had 16 straight days like that ] Totally worth it for views like this.

Misty.

Ethereal.

Was that an arm I saw, rising out of the dam, brandishing a bloody great sword?

Like German tourists...

"Like German tourists, the stupid are everywhere"

Arnold Judas Rimmer, Red Dwarf



The Pyrenees Highway has a highway type speed limit - 100 kph - BUT- and as you can plainly see, this is a big BUT - if one tries to turn onto a narrow dirt road from said highway at the aforementioned 100kph, one is likely to oversteer and have a terminal encounter with a very large gum tree or at the very least cause severe startlement to the local and very cute black faced sheep.

As I am philosophically opposed to both my own unnecessary demise AND the vehicular interruption of sheep deep in the contemplation of grass, I generally choose to slow down as I come down the hill approaching the turnoff. This is accompanied by both break lights and appropriate use of indicator lights.

This process of slowing down and indicating was obviously too much for the car load of young men behind me, who chose that moment to pull out OVER DOUBLE LINES to overtake.

It wasn't scary because I saw them. More annoying... but the potential was there for a really nasty accident if I hadn't seen them make their spectacularly stupid move. Given that I was making a right turn, in a right hand drive vehicle, I would've probably taken any impact squarely on the driver side door at about 100 kph.
and in other 'news' the overnight low was minus 0.9 degrees C. Yes, Bells, I know Canberra was probably colder but that's still cold enough for me. Particularly because I had myself shorn back to my customary 1/2" haircut today. Couldn't stand it a minute longer. I actually had to resort to using the blow dryer this week for the first time in about a decade.

Random Photo Wednesday

In totally random fashion, because once again I couldn't work up a clever segue to save myself:
my new[?] kindling box which Chris and Maz found at an antiques place on the weekend. Looks much more suitably rustic than the blue placcy tub. Just ignore the classy cardboard box on top of it. That's been moved out of sight... and yes I can get excited about a big rusty box. I can even get worked up about this:
the woodpile by the kitchen door. Most important if you live in the bush and have wood heating. Specially when the overnight hovers around zero.
Chris was a busy boy while they were up. Wood got chopped, gutters cleaned, I learned how to operate my new chainsaw, and a fancy schmancy system was installed to divert the gumleaves out of the water supply.


Ms Rosie and Robbyn would appear to be taking a very close interest in Chris's posterior... actually, I think they were trying to figure out whether they could muscle past him, through the open gate, and make a break for freedom and my rose garden. Straight after I shot the pic, they were incarcerated in the slammer... I mean, the goat shed.
...and still on the subject of four hoofed beasties:
You may remember the super cute sheepie tape measure from Lantern Moon that Chris and Maz gave me earlier in the year... well... there is a whole flock of them over at Daylesford, including the black sheep of the family :]



I am SO tempted by that little black one. Don't need it , I know, but what's THAT got to do with anything?


[ Nadie: Mothers' Day ?]


One member of the flock has obviously been over indulging in all that lovely green grass. How else do you explain the size of this one. It's actually a floor mat but I prefer to think of it as a tape measure sheep that ate too much. The Sheep That Ate Daylesford.


...and speaking of Purl's Palace at Daylesford, which is what I was doing, those of you who know Zoe may be concerned to hear that she fell through the verandah at the back of the shop last Tuesday where a phone technician had lifted some boards, broke 2 ribs and was hospitalised till the weekend. Got rushed to Bendigo when it looked like there may have been more damage but luckily that wasn't the case.
Today was spent at Bellydancing and Patchwork [ I'm talking about me now, not Zoe ] so I think tonight may be for some housework.
Seriously.
Stop laughing.
Okay that's about it for now. There are other photos but I'll save them for tomorrow.
ETA Since some concern has been expressed by Val in the comments, perhaps I should ellucidate re the chainsaw. Full sized chainsaws scare me silly, as they do most right thinking women. However, there is a limit to what I can split with an axe [ what with the FMS and all ] so Chris has been bugging me for months about the lightweight chainsaw that he found at Bunnings. Geez, anything to get out of wood chopping [ kidding ]
Anyway, even though he DID explain it over the phone, I really needed to see it. Which I did. When we all went to Bendigonia last week.
If a chainsaw can be said to be cute, well, this is cute.
It's got two handles each with it's own 'on' button which has to be held down for it to operate [ so you can't operate it without both hands being safely on the handles... very important ] the chain is guarded and the whole shebang weighs 3kgs. [ 7 lbs ]
Don't mess with me. I'm a chainsaw wielding woman!

Ageing gracefully

There is yarn in my stash that is older than some of the people who read this blog... and while I may not necessarily know the exact date of acquisition for all of my yarn, I DO know for a fact that THIS is left over from a jumper that I knitted in 1972 or 73.



and here's the proof:



that's me wearing it near Bairnesdale, Victoria midwinter, 1973. ETA Chris [that's Stephen's Godfather Chris, not Nadie's Chris or Daughter in law Chris ] wants to claim photographic credit.
I remember when I first saw a print of this photo, I thought "Gee, those cords make me look fat" but now my perspective is a little different. Now I look at it and think " What possessed me to knit a whole bloody jumper in bright YELLOW?"



I decided that the time had come to use the one lonely little ball that was still languishing in the deep dark depths of the baby wool tub, but there are limits to what can be achieved with slightly less than 25grams. Ergo, a pair of bootees.


Specs:


vintage [!!] Patons Patonyle


2.5mm hook


and an old Patons pattern that has been reprinted umpty gazillion times but I used the Patons Bootees Galore Book 652



The leftover leftovers are in the process of being turned into a matching beanie. I'm working top down and basically I'm going to keep crocheting till I run out, then switch to white for a roll up brim and then I'll make the ankle tie for the bootees to match.

oh and just as an aside, you could say that winter has indeed arrived. For the second time since June 1, this was the overnight temp. and the birdbath was frozen.

The blue wrens are not amused.
Just out of curiosity, what is the oldest yarn in your stash? Did you buy it new? or is it perhaps the remnant of an older relative's past knitting endeavours?
For that matter, if you're a quilter, what's the oldest fabric that you bought new? Enquiring minds [ well Maz and I ] want to know!

Stash

Maz and I did a bit of minor [ and totally "Knit from Your Stash 07" legal ] yarn acquisition today.

We dropped Maz's other half off at a good secondhand bookstore in deepest, darkest Bendigonia while we hied ourselves hither to the delights of the magic back room at Bendigo Woollen Mills.

As everyone knows, a prime rule of KFYS07 is "on sale in the backroom at BWM doesn't count" and I actually thought we were pretty restrained, all things considered.

Maz: 3 balls of a lovely denimy blue machine washable wool in 8-ply [sport] and a 200gram ball of a very pretty pale green, the composition of which is currently unknown as they've headed off to bed.ETA: It was Carisma in Soft Opal colour. - 75% wool, 15% mohair, 15% angora . 8ply/DK/ sport. I couldn't find Charisma on any of my BWM order cards either new or old or their new website either , so I don't know what the deal is, but it is lovely stuff. Hey, maybe it's a trial run for a new line. That would be good ... well it would be good for people who can wear mohair.

Moi: 2 balls of navy and 2 of dusty blue in Aran weight wool,[ odd weights but averaging about 180 grams each ] a 200 gram ball of mulberry coloured wool/alpaca blend Caprice [ 8-ply / DK/ sport ] and a 900-odd gram bag of blue and grey alpaca tops for felting ... a small black sheep ... and a partridge in a pear tree.

The rest of the expedition, once we'd reclaimed Chris, was spent scouring some of the local antique establishments with a side order of Bunnings [ 21 metres of plastic pipe, a chain saw and 2 oil heaters ]

Collected David on the run through, some minor supermarketing and then home.

The evening was spent in a fruitful manner involving the oldest yarn in my stash of which we will speak more tomorrow.

This is a holiday weekend here in Oz. For reasons that have never been entirely clear, we have a public holiday on Monday to celebrate Queen Lizzie's natal day which was actually several months ago. Still, any excuse for a barbecue, eh?

Karma

It was bound to catch up with me eventually.


Y'see I live in the bush [ well, yeah, most of you know that already ] and even though I've only been up here a few years, I am now a more or less bona fide, card carrying, rural person. This means I rarely lock the doors. People have enough trouble finding the place even when they have directions. Any persons of nefarious persuasion would need at the very least a mud map, a compass, and a packed lunch to get here.


Oh sure, I deadlock the front door and the laundry door but I don't always remember to do the same to the kitchen door unless I'm heading out of town.


Today that habit came and bit me on the bum.


Relax. I didn't get burgled or anything like that.


Actually it was worse


much worse.


Backing up a bit for exposition:


Since the weekend I've had a fairly nasty migraine ... all gone now, thanks for asking :] ... so things like dishes and beds kinda didn't happen. Today I woke up sans migraine but instead of mucking into the neglected houswork, I took off to Daylesford with Jeanette for our monthly knitting binge at Purl's Palace, secure in the knowledge that there would be no visitors until Chris and Maz arrive on Thursday.


What I didn't count on was that each and absolutely EVERY one of my 2nd-and-4th-tuesday quilt class ladies had not taken account of the 5th Tuesday in May ... yep ... they all, singly and in groups, rocked up to my place. The havoc within was clearly visible through the full length glass door .


Can we say sprung????


but wait... there's more...


At least one of them just went ahead and let herself in so she probably also saw the unmade beds and the overflowing laundry...


Geeze, you'd think she could have at least done the damn dishes for me.


How do I know all this? Because, dear friends, I arrived home to a note on the front door and three separate messages on the phone. Everyone figured that there must have been some awful emergency and that either David or I must be somewhere ensconced at the local hospital. They were concerned for me. This is all to the good that I have friends who are concerned.


Unfortunately I also now have friends who know that I am quite capable of going out and leaving a sink full of dishes and beds unmade.


bugger

but then


on the good karma side of the equation:


this arrived in the mail yesterday from the lovely Donni at Good Yarn Karma. There are several really nice tops in there that are begging to be added to THE LIST. I probably shouldn't show it to my darling daughter

Now in case you haven't caught up with the concept yet: GYK
is a website where Bloggers [ yes that's a prerequisite] can list yarn, knitting books, mags, etc that they are prepared to gift to a new home or swap. It's a fabulous idea and deserving of your attention. Current yarn, vintage yarn, wool, acrylic, novelty stuff, mohair. It matters not. Someone will be happy to receive it. It's all about what goes around coming around.

and just for the record
no
I haven't done the dishes yet.
I'm going, I'm going. Sheesh.

random snapshots of my week

One of these days I'll take you for a visual walk round the immediate vicinity, but this week has been more of a 'jump in the car' week ... or to be more precise, given the cracked coccyx... an 'ease gently into the car' week. Notwithstanding, here are a few random shots that didn't make it into posts:

Windmill and adjacent interesting ricketty wooden structure on the Malloort Plains on the way over to Maryborough. There are a number of these wooden platforms in various states of extreme disrespair and always in close proximity to a windmill so I suppose that at some time in the distant past they were tank stands or something.

My home away from home: The Coffee Bean. The lovely Donna who has just found out that she's having twins, 11 years after producing #1 son Jackson. Any excuse for me to start cranking out tiny mittens!! and bootees? and beanies?

This is Tom. A local character whom I only know through the amount of time we both spend hanging at The Bean. Nice Man. Donna told me to take his photo so of course I obliged :] You can just TELL that he's one of those salt of the earth country blokes , can't you?

Back at The Bean, this time with David, Jessie and Robbyn in the background in the green cardi. Obviously, I spend far too much time there.

This is the local Wizard. Well actually he lives in Bendigo but seen frequently around Castlemaine. Nice chap. Didn't turn a hair when I asked if it was okay to take a piccy and post it here.

Usually seen in a kilt and top hat but yesterday he was obviously having a Johnny Depp moment. Note the spiffy wizard's staff. Wizards are obviously not averse to a skinny cap at Saffs. [ Nadie and Chris came up on the train Friday night and we all went to lunch at Saff's yesterday cos The Coffee Bean isn't open on a Saturday afternoon. They had three attempts at getting the coffee order right, without success. Food was bloody good though. ]

There WAS knitting this week and quilting too

just no photos

and to finish up a rather photo heavy post:

PND's saanan/anglo-nubian kids

and

some of the denizens of Fryerstown