Quilts May 2010

This started as a blog that would record my quilt making, the hope was that my skills would grow and I would create much loved quilts. It's now so long since I even made a quilt related posting. My life just gets busier - what happened to slowing down in one's old age?

But I've had a couple of long weekends, and Mum is in Melbourne as Linda (sister) is again struggling with cancer. So I've taken the time to finish the hand quilting on Mum's 80th birthday present - she is 82 today. Happy Birthday Mum.

these Dresden plate blocks were inspired from a SCQ swap in 2008 with Masu.

now I need to make and attach the binding.

And to complete the top I'm making for Linda to go in her Miss Bridey room. Her grand-daughter sleeps over.

the individual blocks were again inspired by a fellow swapper -Glenda in Kuranda

now to hand quilt, I've pieced the backing, and I pinned on the tressel tables at work as there's no space here.

So nothing is ever all bad, I've had time to be more creative, even starting a paper pieced diamond hexagon quilt in African fabrics. Just what I needed -another hand project! I'm still partisipating in the on-line Scquilters swaps and I find the monthly deadlines keep me sewing something when I would just veg out on the couch.

the start of my "Pieces of my Past" quilt just for me.

I shared the scrapbooks I'm making for the kids with Jess when she visited, and so that's an on-going project. Last weekend I got 51 prints of Christmas photos from 2009 when I visited Canberra. There will be some for Jess, some for Dan, and some for all three of us. I'm considering keeping up with the current photos and memories, and then just filling in with the history ones - the kids current scapbooks are Christmas 1984, so a long way to catch up. Now I'm trying to locate all my Molly photos and collect and record all the Molly stories.

RIP Molly

Molly who has been with our family "forever" was hit by a bus at the Griffith Shops a couple of weeks ago. This is a big loss for us all.

1998 Dan and Molly both love quilts. Molly is a Broncos fan! 1998

Dan got a text message that his dog was dead at the bus stop at Griffith Shops. After work he went round to find her. Dan said that scrapping her up was the hardest thing he's done but he couldn't leave her there.

Molly 2009 Tarnie was boistrous and bit her head.

Dan took her to the RSPCA, as the house he is currently renting will be demolished in October and he didn't want her disturbed.

Molly and Dan at Christmas 2009 - Dan got Molly for his birthday in 1994. She was always his dog, choosing to sleep with him and always being there.

April 4th 2010

The boy is 26! Just where did the years go? When did this

become this?

Molly (mini-foxie) has been his constant companion since he was about 11 years old. He will tell you, Dad left, Mum left and Jess left, he's a drama queen at times, but there's always Moll.

Computers have been a long time interest and form the basis for his career choices.

I'm very proud of all he has achieved in his young life - true he didn't always get it right or make it easy being his Mum, though the journey was an interesting one. He has a kind heart, last Christmas he allowed Jess to use him as a Christmas tree when she couldn't find anywhere in thier new tiny home to hang her lights.



He is such a contradiction, cautious and conservative at times then very much his own man through his art and music. He has confidence in his abilities but maybe not so much confidence that others will see this in him.

Dan's lounge room wall at Griffith. Dec 09.

He still has his Garden Gnomes, when he was younger he used to take them out into the garden for an outing, but wouldn't leave them there, in case they got taken. I remember them appearing in unusual places around the house in new outfits. In the fridge or in the shower you might find a Goth Gnome or one wearing a blue tutu.

So Happy Birthday my boy and there's many more adventures to come.

Easter 2010

Easter was a great break with Jess and Ben driving up from Canberra to visit. They arrived on the Gold Coast on the Tuesday before Easter and spent a few days with Emily and Elyse at the Nobby Beach Caravan Park. Elyse is now into all the theme parks and she kept them busy. Good Friday they came to stay with me, it was squishy but we managed well for a few days - great excuse to clear out the "study/sewing" room so we could put down the airmattress. They were impressed that it got plugged in and inflated (and deflated) it'self.

Jess wandered round looking and touching everything - she hasn't been to my home since I left Canberra, then curled up on the couch with a book. We did lots of talking, Jess took time to go through the scrapbooks I'm creating for her and for Dan of their growing up - currently at Christmas 1984 - so a long way still to go.

We spent some time at Harbour Town ( a shopping outlet) and I took Ben's good advise and got Dan's birthday present. On the Sunday after calling in to leave chocolates for Mum and Linda, we took a journey down into NSW to the Tropical Fruit Farm. We felt it was too expensive to tour but we did spend up in the shop - Mango Jam, I found a very cute "bush baby" for Maeve's first birthday, Dragon fruit and Custard apple ice-cream, and of course fruit. We bought Dragon fruit, custard apples, avacados, and Jackfruit ( which tastes disgusting).

Jess and Ben eating Dragonfruit and Custard Apple Icecream then posing.

This is the view from outside Tropigal Fruit World with Mt.Warning to the left and Springbrook to the right.

We then went to Tumblegum, where the cafe was up for Sale. We spent the afternoon fantacising about the possibility of owning a cafe/gallery/home on the Tweed River. ( Later we discovered it was up for $1.6 mill. )There's a antique shop there now and Jess and I had a great time browsing.

We bought vine tomatoes, bread, pears and goats cheese on the way home.

Tuesday Jess and Ben left to stay with Nick - a good friend of Ben's, a fellow chef, who moved up here in February. A good holiday - they got to do the theme parks with a kid, the Mum stuff with me and the young people nightlife stuff with Nick.

On the Wednesday night Jess and I went to the Casino to see Mother Africa it was a circus dance performance-fun and lively- it was just great to share this experiance with Jess.

On the Friday, after Ben got tatooed, they headed home. I hope they enjoyed their visit as much as I did.

Two in one weekend!

On Monday when I got to work, our building had been broken into, the doors smashed, quite a bit of damage to filing cabinets and fixtures, but I couldn't find anything but a small amount of petty cash missing. All the computer equipment, tv, dvds etc were there. When Tuija arrived an hour later - I start at 7:30am, she arrived as the police did. We found a digital camera and a safe was missing. Stupid thieves really - we are a charitable organisation that tries to survive on miminal govt funding. We work with some of the least powerful people in our society- women with intellectual and learning disabilities. I wonder just why they thought we would have anything? Turns out the safe was empty - I didn't even know we had one, and the camera was missing the memory card. Forensics told us that the would be thieves wore gloves, and now our front door -upstairs- and the glass doors down stairs are bolted into what remains of the door frames till our landlord can get them replaced. Luckily we also have rear doors through the kitchen.

On a much brighter note we had our launch in Logan at CASV, on the Friday. Three of the women who come to WWILD volunteered to go with us and talk about what it's like to be a WWILD woman and use the counselling services and attend the group work that we provide.

WWILD is funded to cover the whole of QLD - a big ask when there are 2.5 0f us and I'm the only counsellor. But we have established the work in the Nth Brisbane area and we found we were getting quite a few people from the Logan/Ipswich area, so we negotiated with CASV, an established Sexual Assault Service in Logan, for some space and I'll be working there on the second Friday of each month. It's a small step but maybe we can show there is a need and maybe even get our funding increased to employ more staff.

Today I bought myself this book from Book Depository UK, I've just discovered them and I suspect they will be getting more business from me. Free shipping to anywhere and great prices - but I digress! I've been feeling stuck, and without time, for my quilting and I hope this will give me lots of inspiration.

There's an exhibition Quilts 1700-2010 at the V and A in London and this will be a good substitute.

Best Intentions

and now it's March! Just where do the days and weeks go?

This will be a quick update of my boring life.

Christmas in Canberra.

As Linda (my youngest sister) decided to come to Surfers with her three girls and granddaughter for Christmas, I took the opportunity to go to Canberra to spend Christmas and New Year with my kids and catch up with friends.

I had a great time staying with Jess and Ben, we ate at some great restaurants, and had a simple Christmas lunch at Dan's new house. Both the kids had moved since I last visited - Jess twice!

Molly is still with Dan, and Jess played Santa Christmas morning when we got to Dan's.



Earlier Dan had come over to Jess's and she was trying to put up her Christmas lights, their new place is smaller and she was struggling. Dan volunteered to be her tree and wear the lights.

Our Christmas lunch at Dan's. We had prawns, boerwors and ham, Ben stood in the rain to cook the braii, roast pumpkin, potatoe salad and a beetroot salad.

I made trifle and we also had plum pudding - we had that New Years Day.

This is Jess and Ben's place in Lynham, Ben works at Tilley's. And Dan in front of his house on Captain Cook cres Griffith. Great old art deco home with a huge yard.

I got to spend time with Trish, Jacqueline and Cathy. Trish, Jess and I spent time at the gallery. I visited with Cathy and Geoff and also went with them to Cheryl's.

February saw Mum and I travelling to the Hunter Valley to attend Chris and Kelly's wedding. It was a lovely wedding and a great opportunity to catch up with family and friends. Some I hadn't seen in over 30 years. When did we get to be the oldies?

March saw me travelling to Adelaide for the Summer School at the Dulwich centre for Narrative Therapy. I always love my trips down there, such inspiration and lovely to just immerse in all the possibilities and extensions of Narrative Practice - hard to believe I've been working that way for 10 years now. I could live in Adelaide - if I had the money to live a leisurely life within the 1 mile city square- great architecture, gardens, restaurants and lifestyle. Loved sharing meals with friends and colleagues along Hutt st. One night I had goat curry and another buffalo curry and the most exquisite Nepalese mango/pistachio/spice ice cream.

best intentions and some of the activities

despite my best intentions almost a month has passed, work continues to pick up - this week I continue to leave home at 5:45am, but I'm now having breakfast at work while I check my day and my e-mails - it stops the gnawing hunger by lunch time, Monday I saw three clients as booked and one who just arrived as life was tough right now, I then headed off to Goodna (just this side of Ipswich) where I did the last session of a six week program at the Goodna Special School. I've loved working round self-protective behaviours with these young women. It's meant I've had to be very adaptive and very basic in concept development so I devised a game - rather like musical chairs - to explain their "Magic Bubble" of personal space and taught the "from my head to my toes I say what goes" routine. These girls are taught compliance all their lives so this is hard for them to get. We also did lots of activities around different types of relationships - when they struggle to differentiate between an acquaintance ( someone I just know) and family, you can imagine how hard it was to make progress with the difference between a boy who's a friend and a boyfriend and what it's ok to say or do with each. I was so proud of them for gaining some understanding between a hug and a cuddle and a kiss on the cheek and one on the mouth.
My work varies so much: the week before I did a school visit to Cleveland District State School to do a workshop with the about to turn 18 and have to leave the safety of the school system, Special Edu students. We again covered the boy as a friend and boyfriend concepts but also looked at the difference between sex and sexuality! These concepts are difficult for your average kid. But they got it - we made a collage and it clearly showed they understood the differences even though they couldn't be verbalised.
Tuesday was client work, again some unplanned crisis intervention. These women have such strengths to deal with all the difficulties in their lives and sometimes they fall down and make the best choices they can to deal with the pain - at least they reach out to us. So my work day was 7:30am to 5:45pm. Then I drove home. The Tuesday before my home journey took over 5 hours
with road works on the East-West arterial, a car ran into the back of a truck and the tray went into the windscreen on the Gateway and everything just gridlocked and then another accident at Logan had only two lanes (feeding from 4) and then again at Helensvale! I wondered if I was ever going to get home or running out of fuel was an option.
Thursday I was at the Family Law Court with a client then went back to Wooloowin for a 5pm meeting with management - another long day. Yesterday was also long but more fun, we had a Christmas card making workshop that had been requested by the women, one in particular, who really struggles with schizophrenia as well as a mental disability and all the health problems that seem to go with that- did most of the shopping for bits and pieces and helped encourage the others to partisipate. You can't imagine what a huge step that is for her. Then at 4pm I was at QUT at Kelvin Grove to support the Nutrition students who came and did a six week cooking program at the house. Another long day- then throw in calling in to see Mum to just see how she is going, medication is taken and that she knows what she needs to do the next day and what that might involve and then I sleep!

I uploaded these photos ages ago - they are from our Murray trip - we visited a museum that is privately run by a woman who lives well out of Mannum , is 86 years old and now lives alone and opens her collection for the tour- there was the most amazing and facinating examples of just about everything you can imagine. Including a cast iron cot the same as the one I had for Dan - cost me $10 at a second hand shop probably close to 40 years ago. I loved the wooden high chairs.




We also spent a morning at the Ngaut Ngaut Aboriginal conservation site. This is run by the women, the men don't want to be involved, except for one and he comes with his mother, his wife, his sister and his aunt, I doubt the man has much choice but he was very knowledgeable and happy to share his information. There is lots of graffiti in the soft sandstone cliffs along with the traditional carvings - I liked that they accecpt this and incorporate it into their lives. For example the dots represent days to travel and they say that the white fella got it right- it is about 6 days walk to the nearest MacDonalds. Sadly there are chunks of cliff face missing where they have been stolen. I bought a pair of ear-rings made of Ecidna quills - and a necklace of juniper berries - they were asking $10 each but as this is their only income from the tours I paid a whole lot more.

Mum loved these wonderful bright bottle brushes which we first noticed in Glenelg. Here they were planted as a hedge on the Yabbie and almond farm.

This is the Mypolonga State School, the most amazing little school. We were there during school holidays but there were kids and teachers to greet us as we arrived - volunteers. When we first arrived on the boat there was a gift in our cabin from the students at this school of chocolate dipped dried apricots. This is a big apricot growing area and the kids mostly live on the orchards so know about and help with the air drying of the fruit. Then their school has a registered business to sell the dried fruit and other local produce and crafts. Mostly these are done by the children, and their whole curriculum is based round running this business. The kids are confident and knowledgable, they were happy and proud to show us around and encourage us to spend.

We did so much but the most amazing for me was the wombat hunt. On the Tuesday night we went on a wombat hunt in a full size bus with a spot light on the top - I was sceptical - no self respecting wombat was going to get surprised by that. The driver told us that they usually see one or two and that his recond was 22 in one night. We were to be out for about an hour and a half.

We saw 51! Yay - wombats wandering down the road, ducking under fences, and just waddleing along. it seems so long ago now.