Nature parks ... and a Nice walk or 2 ...

... IN the Nature parks, of course!

Yes - this is my slightly  VERY late N post for Wednesday ABC

I did have one saved (from the last time around the alphabet, or maybe one or 2 before that) but it would take me ages to find all the photos I would want to put in that one (because it is about stuff that has been made and photographed over several years) ... and I was thinking about posting about some quilts I have Not finished ... but I have also Not taken photos of them ... although I should be out working on at least one of them Now! (Naughty me - in here on the Net again ... lol)

but ... I decided to post about a couple of Nice walks I recently went on, in one of our local Nature parks - while the subject is still sort of New ...

We have a few Nature parks here in Canberra ... the Nearest one is the Dunlop Grasslands - where some of this Nice walk with the dog happened ... but this post is about another one - Near where I work actually ... after living in Canberra for a few years, and then working Nearby (and moving up this end of town as well) I had still Never got around to walking around in the Aranda bushland, or on that side of Black Mountain, until Now (well a month or so ago actually)  ... in the last month or 2 I have been for about 3 walks in the area!

The first one was just the opening of that Garden Tea Party textile art exhibition, Nearly 2 months ago Now - I actually walked there from work - through some of the Aranda bushland/foothills of Black Mountain (I am Not sure where the Aranda Bushland ends and the Black Mountain part starts - lol)

The Next one was about 2 weeks ago - when there was an annual wildflower walk that someone organises (not sure who - I think I found out about it from a landcare newsletter or something - I have known about it in the past but it has always been when had somewhere else I had to be at the time - this time I didn't ;-)
There were lots of orchids and other wilflowers (even more than when I had walked through there a few weeks before) ... I think I only took about 600 photos! - I LOVE digital cameas!!! LOL

Then ... one day last week I decided to get DH to drop me off at work and then when I finished work I would walk through the bushland and around/over one or other side of Black Mountain and in towards the middle of town (where we went to a rather Nice little resteraunt for tea) and get him to pick me up from wherever I had got to when he rang to say he was on his way in - which just happend to be up on TOP of Black Mountain - LOL (well - by the time I got to a track that I knew would go to a road I could be met at, it was just as quick/close to go to the top of the hill as it would be to go around it ... so up I went ... talk about a good work out though! - it gets steeper up near the top)

I also took a fair few photos that day ... so I have rather a lot to choose from, to put in here - LOL
(hmmm - I suppose I should actually put that last lot ON to the computer or I will Not be putting any of those here Now ;-)

[Andrea goes and fiddles with photos, hits "publish" on this post that I just typed up for one of my other rather Neglected blogs (which could have been an N post, but I wanted to post this one so I didn't Need to use that one) and goes and puts on another load of washing, hangs up the other one ... probably Need to hurry up and mow the lawn Now - before it gets dark - too ... and by then the dog will "Need" his walk, and I have some other stuff that Needs doing ... so it will probably be later in the Night (or maybe even the Next day before I get back to this]

It is now a day or 2 later ... and I am still doing a coupld of those things ... just sticking a photo on that post on that other blog before I publish it (it is uploading at the moment) ... some washing got done, and a few of the other things, and the dog got a walk (in fact he has had 2 or 3 walks since I typed the first half of this post) ... but the lawn still needs mowing - lol

Ok ... now for the photos ... which I could have put in amongst the text I suppose ... but I wrote all that before I dug around in my photos so it is probably easier, and will make more sense, to just do it this way ...

So ... starting with the wildflower walk a couple of weeks back ...

btw - yes I took a LOT of photos, but I will not try and put too many dozen here - LOL

- I have dug around and chosen a few that were pretty and/or interesting, and in focus ... (some of the close up ones are not - what the camera thinks I want to focus on and what I actually do want it to focus on are not always the same thing - lol)

These should all be clickable - so you can click on them and see the full size photo (or you might want to right click and open them in a new tab/window so you can flick between the big photo(s) and this page (to read my descriptions/etc.)

anyway ...
here are some Wattle flowers

half in focus and half out ... that tends to happen with macro shots - because of the shallow depth of field.

hmmmm - I didn't notice when I took the photo (was probably in a hurry to take that and dash over to the next flower or something - lol) but those yellow fuzzy balls are not just evenly round fuzzy balls ... they have thick and thin patches and longer spikey bits. hmmm - I would have to look at one more closely to be sure, but I think the shorter fuzz is probably the stamens (the male bits) and the fewer longer bits the pistils (female bits) ... but because I am only looking at the photo and guessing - I could be wrong - whatever part of the anatomy - they are quite pretty actually ...

and next ... these look like something I grew up calling "egg and bacon flowers"

 I guess one can see where that name came from - lol
(drats ... now I am starting to feel hungry!)

and here is a photo of a pile of trees ... because I like trees ... and because this is sort of what the area mostly looks like, but more flowers (and mabye a few less trees) in some patches.

and ... not only were there interesting and pretty flowers - there are also funghi - quite tiny, these ones ...

 I think they were less than an inch tall. (those sticks in the photo are leaf stems and very tiny twigs/bits of dry grass/etc.)

there was some Lichen too ...

and ... something ...

 ... which doesn't look like it has flowered yet - the interesting purplish brown bits look like buds where whatever it is will eventually have flowers.

There were lots of orchids - like this spider orchid (I think that is what one of the experts said this one was - so many plant names and only one brain to store them in - lol)

 and ... right where a group of people sat down (and nearly sat ON them) for morning tea:

 ... some other variety of orchid, quite a rare one apparently.

I guess one could be forgiven for not noticing them in amongst the grassy stuff:

 (yes - there are orchids hiding in amongst that other stuff, which isn't actually grass, btw)

but whatever it is - this spider seemed to be happy living there:

and talking about almost sitting, or stepping on, flowers and stuff - this was the walk where I almost stood on that Lizzard - there is a photo of that in my recent "L" post (a couple of weeks ago) ...


   - I was sneaky - because it was already uploaded for that other post, I could just use the "add image" thingy to grab it and put it here - because it just puts in the link to wherever blogger already has it stored (in my picassa web album, which blogger/google created for me when they decided to make blogger images work that way ... I think I might have even gone and looked at it once ... lol)

now ... where was I?

here is another photo of trees ... and a lot of flowers ...

 ...which kind of don't look that spectacular in the photo? - but - as is the case with a lot of flowers that often go unnoticed - when one looks more closely ...

... they are really quite pretty:

 (yes - these are the same as the blue ones in the bottom left hand corner of the photo before this one)

and here - a couple more things that an unsuspecting person might step on, without even realising they are there:

 - some kind of interesting green orchid (might be a hood orchid?) ... and a parrot feather ... and - also a reddish colour - some Drosera - otherwise known as Sundew

ah ... I uploaded all the photos that are on this post, then had another dig around and found a couple more photos of  sundew ... but the photo uploading thingy seems to be having a hissy fit and won't let me browse to actually find and select any more photos to upload ... pity ... there was a nice one of sundew with purple flowers ...
oh well - back to the pile of photos I had already uploaded/put in here:

... some more Sundew:

I am not sure if this is the same species as the red ones or not ... well I wasn't - but now that I have just googled it and read about them (on the wikipedia page that I have now linked to above) and noticed the flowers in my photos are different colours - I am sure they are at least 2 different species - there were both red and green leaved ones where we went on the wildflower walk, but I took this photo a week or so later while walking the dog down near a local pond. (this lot may be a 3rd species, different than either of the ones at the bottom of Black Mountain)

... Here is some more - closer up - showing the sticky droplets of whatever it is on what I think are actually leaves (they are not flowers - you can see the white flowers on the green one in the previous photo) - the sticky stuff is what they use to help catch insects - yes - this tiny and rather pretty thing is a carnivorous plant!

 That close up photo is one I took a few days ago (Friday, I think) when I got dropped off at work in the morning, and then when I finished work I walked back toward the area where I had gone on the wildflower walk ... and took another hundred or so photos.

Here are some more orchids

and here I am most of the way up Black Mountain ... that tower is at the top ...

(the path is steeper than it looks in this photo too!)
and this is a veiw from the carpark at the top (yes - there is a road up the other side - that is where DH drove up to collect me ;-) One can also go up inside the tower and look out, but I didn't this time - because that costs money - lol

if you look in almost the middle of this photo, there are buildings ... and if you click on the photo so that you get to see the full size version, then you might be able to see a bunch of buildings with dark green roofs (right in the middle of the photo - closest to where I am taking the photo from - to the left of the green oval, which doesn't look oval but you can see the patch of green grass colour) - those green roofed buildings are the school where I work - where I had just walked from!

(btw, there are some roundish hills behind that dead tree branch - I live over in that direction somewhere in the dark green stuff this side of the hills)

er - talking about where I work ... I have to get up and go there in the morning ... so why am I still UP? LOL

oh bother ... just went to check the ABC Wednesday page and I have missed the chance to add this to the linky thingy - O is already there and the N one is closed ... oh well ... if I do my O post really soon (like maybe tomorrow) then people might notice this one is before it - lol
... not that it matters - most of my reason for posting these silly alphabet posts was because it is a good way to motivate me to at least try and post something to my blog every week or so, rather than ever few months or "whenever" ...
I guess I don't HAVE to blog ... but I want to - I have about 10 ideas for things that I really want to post to my blog, and have been meaning to for ages but have kind of not got around to it yet (for most of them it is because I need to either take photos to go in those posts, or spend ages digging around in my photos trying to find the photos to go in them, but a couple are just because I kind of never went got around to it). I also have a few other ideas half written/etc and saved as drafts (again - mostly waiting for me to take/add photos or something) ... and I have a few ABC ideas saved as half written drafts too ...

anyway ... this is Not the hour I meant to be still awake at ... Ooops - Naughty me? lol

- time for this Night Owl to say Night Night ...

My Mad Mind

We (and there seem to be More and More of us every week!) are up the the letter M for ABC Wednesday ... and I just happen to have something that Might do for My M post! (providing I remember to take a decent photo of it ... or Maybe I Might be able to actually find the one I took when i finished it? ... yep - found that one ;-)

I actually Made this Miniature quilt for a challenge, over a year ago (almost 2 years ago actually) but I finished it just before I delivered it (probably a day or maybe even an hour before - the photo was taken on the front porch of the house I was delivering it to) and it has been travelling around (and then possibly sitting forgotten for a while until I remembered to ask about it, because I did not supply a return envelope for it to be sent back - because I live a couple of suburbs away from the person who ran the challenge) and I only just got it back a week or so before I headed off on holidays (Meaning I got it back about 3 weeks ago).

er ... where was I?

We (those of us who signed up for the challenge) were all given a small bit of fabric (the yellow bit on My quilt) which we were Meant to use all or some of in the quilt, there was a set size it had to be (or maybe it was just a maximum size - can't remember offhand - either way it was quite small) and the theme for the challenge was a self portrait ... but I figured who would want to look at a picture of Me?!

(that - and I am almost totally useless at drawing people/faces ... although I did do an A4 sized quilt a year or so before this one, that was Meant to be a self portrait of sorts - but it ended up looking more like someone reading My e-Mails/blog Might imagine Me than what the real Me actually looks like)

so ... because we were allowed to interpret the theme any way we liked - I decided that instead of doing a picture of the outside of my head - why not do one of the INSIDE?!

The quilt is meant to look like the top of my head (that green thing at the bottom ;-) exploding with all sorts of weird stuff ...
... and the title of this blog post is what I named my quilt - "My Mad Mind"

I Might even be able to remember what some of that junk I sewed on there Meant:

A "fried" (as in it kind of died a sad death, taking a bunch of My photos with it!)  Memory card (for my camera) - because I think I have the same problem sometimes - lol

some nuts - because I am nuts.

a few loose screws - because I am "a few screws loose"

some fuzzy yarn - for fuzzy logic ... or is that just fuzzy thoughts?

some light bulbs - for ideas ... not sure if the light bulbs work - ditto with some of my ideas ;-)

a fuse ... for when I blow one

an odd corner (probably something used/made for scrapbooking or something) - my mind has lots of odd corners!

some stars ... probably because I like space, and we are all made of stardust ... and we probably all dream of visiting and/or being stars?

a spring ... er ... my spring has sprung? ... cartoons often show springs flying out of a car/machine/etc when it breaks down ... the inside of my mind probably looks even worse ...

a cross, from a broken necklace DD had lying around - to represent faith and spirituality and religion and the whole "why are we here?" thing that I often think/wonder about.

a few other assorted dingy dangly things etc ... probably no particular reason/etc - just stuff I found in my stash, and liked, and figured it would look good if I put it/them on the quilt.

... that last lot includes a snail I made by embroidering eyes on stalks above a shell - I like all sorts of odd creepy crawlies and other weird creatures.

there is also some copper wire, some wound into springy looking things ... I think that and the light emitting diode (the little green light) were kind of meant to stand for faulty wiring and short circuits and stuff - I am sure there is some of that kind of thing going on in my brain/mind at times!
(even as a child I used to wonder why I seemed to be "wired differently" to other people ... as I have got older it is good to see I am not the only one ... although I think I still am "one of a kind" ;-)

There is probably other stuff on there that Might have Meant to Mean something ... but now that you can see what sort of Mess is in My Mind - sometimes a few things kind of get lost in there ... or fall out of the holes (or into black holes?) or something ...


btw, I did some Meandering lines of Machine quilting before I sewed on the bits of stuff ...

pity I finished it so "at the last Minute" - I really should/could have done a better job of the binding (I think I stretched it too Much as I was Machine sewing it on so now it looks like a total Mess) ... but I really had a lot of fun Making the rest of that quilt!
... I Might have to do More of that kind of thing - lol

textile art meeting - it wasn't worth going home in between work and the meeting because I would only have been home for less than an hour before it was time to head off again, and drive back past work to get to the meeting - lol
... I actually got organised and typed most of this blog post, and added the photo, a few days before it was time to post it ... which is why I can post it now, when I am not actually at home - lol
- I am at work ... but I am not wasting the boss's time - my "knock off time" was over an hour ago ... but I stayed here because I had a pile of old e-mail to delete, this blog post to publish, and I a couple other things I wanted to do before I head off to a

... but ... I DO have a couple of things I need to do before I walk out the door, and if I don't go and do them now I will be late for the textile art meeting ...

talking about My Mad Mind ... Most of what I just wrote is probably a perfect example of why people probably think I am "Mad as a Meataxe"
(Not to Mention Nutty as a Fruitcake ... but N is Next week ... )

A Little bit of this and a Little bit of that ...

"... and you wiggle your ..."  oh hang on ... that is the chicken dance - and I am not doing that right now - lol
(I am not sure it has any official lyrics ... but there seem to be lots of different ones that come up in a search ... but I just remember what Mum and Dad - who have been known to get up and do the chicken dance in public without even having to have their grandkids around at the time sometimes sing - "With a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, and you wiggle your bum" actually it was Dad who would sing it and Mum would pretend to be a bit shocked at him being a bit rude - lol)

but ... to get to the point (if there ever IS any point to most of my blog posts?) ... I have been sitting here getting Lost in cyberspace while uplaoding a pile of photos onto the computer (and the darn camera software seems to be having a go slow lately ... even re-starting the computer did not fix it)  and I thought maybe while I am here I probably should post something to my blog, seeing I have not done my L post for ABC Wednesday yet (and in a couple days it will be time for the Letter M)

... and while I am here I will maybe even do something I have been meaning to do for months and Lose that Light coloured background - which is   was  a nice Light blue with a Lovely sky picture, but, for a few people at Least (possibly even Lots of people?) it is not the easiest thing to read my blog on top of ...

but what should I put there instead? LOL

I think my text (and everything else for that matter!) would get Lost among these Leaves:

The weird brown flower is a Banksia ... still in the process of flowering. There were Lots of them growing along the paths near Mum and Dad's place when I was up there visiting them (that is where I have been for the last couple of weeks - up in Queensland ;-)

These weird pink and green Leaves were also up near my parents place:

... somewhere in a garden in their street, I think.

these sunflowers were also nearby:

There is not much Left of the one on the Left - Mum has a similar photo to this, but the bird (I think it was a parrot) was still on there eating the seeds from it ... it has Left a weird, but rather cute, heart shaped patch of seeds in the middle (maybe it Left those for Later?)

I Like the Legs on this Lovely spider:

The spider was a Little way away from where I took the Leafy photo.

btw - you should (if things work like they normally do) be able to click the photo (and any other photo in this blog post) for a Larger one if you Like - LOL (but I bet most people don't click the spider one!)

To me, the veins on this Leaf (not Lettuce - it was cauliflower - lol) look more gruesome than spiders Legs:

 ... but that didn't stop me eating it ;-)
(the veins kind of Look all Lumpy - like on some creature in a B grade sci fi movie or something ... but I actually ate that leaf just after I took the photo, and it tasted Lovely ... so did the thing Mum cooked with some of the cauliflower in it, when we ate it Later)

I also took this photo of a Lily and its Leaf - in Mum and Dad's new fish pond

 a very Little fish pond actually ... but it was the deepest one they could find at the time (their garden is only Little so they couldn't really build a huge great Lake or anything).

Mum and I went walking along a beach one morning and found some pelicans waiting for some Lunch

the table thingy is where the fishermen clean their fish (there is a boat ramp just to the Left) - the pelicans know where to come and wait for some Lunch ;-)

I Love the colours on this Little beasty - not something many people Like - a Bluebottle - which has a nasty sting!

I also Like the Little holes in the sand (from where air bubbles were as the waves washed up the beach and back - and Left this poor Little creature high and dry, where it won't Live for Long)

"Leave only footprints"?

yes - my footprint, and some more weird bubbly marks where the waves had been.

Let's get a bit more? "arty farty"?

I had to Lie down on the beach to get the right camera angle!
(I am sure anyone who was Looking would have been Laughing at me)
I think a storm is Looming? (actually it was just a very light shower of rain that came - and it was not as big as I had hoped it would be - I Like swimming in the rain!)

I also Like the colours I got in this photo:

"quick - Let's dive under the water so we don't get rained on ..."?

I seem to have a Lot of watery photos - but I guess water IS a Liquid ...

I think this ship got a bit Lost:

it is the wreck of the ship that the beach is named after - Dicky Beach  - "Dicky" is a weird name for a ship - lol

there is not much Left of it now ...

I took this photo (and the ones after it) a couple days Later:

it is amazing what a difference one can get with different Light for one's photos

I also Like to get right into what I am doing:

(yes those are my toes - and yes - I was IN the water for a Lot of these photos - I Like my clever Little waterproof camera!)

I also Like the fact that the Lifesavers are there to Look after those Lunatic tourists (and possibly a few odd Locals) who Like to Leap into the water on days Like this!

it was getting Late in the day when I took those Last few photos - soon after this the Life savers packed up and Left for the day ... and I Left too ... not swimming once the Lifesavers had taken their flags and gone was one of the things in the List on that sign, and also - I figured DH (who was reading a book in the car) might Like to go back to my parents place in time for tea!

and ... this is now a rather Long post (maybe I should have called it a Lot of stuff, rather than a little bit ...)  

Maybe I should Leave it as it is and go do something useful?

... except I am still Loading photos onto the computer, and I don't want to Lose track of where I am up to - LOL

(and I might find another good L one?! ;-)

ok ... now the only photos not on the computer are the ones on the card in the camera ... I was going to do those but I have other things to do before I go to bed, so that Lot will have to wait until tomorrow, or sometime.

- for some odd reason DH wants me to actually take up the hems on the 2 new pairs of jeans he bought, so he can wear them to work instead of his old worn out ones with holes in the pockets ... not sure what the rush is - they have only been sitting waiting for me to do it for about 5 weeks - LOL

(yes - I guess I sometimes Like to Leave things for Later - lol)

but ... one thing I did do while I was in here was to Loose that Light background on my blog ... well, it is not actally Lost as such - I just replaced the Link (to the background image) with a different one, and I could find and put the other one back if I really wanted to ... I threw some other photo up online (on the same photo website the other one was on) and stuck a link to that one in the widget thingy instead ... my original plan was to do something similar to what was here (if you want to know what that was, and how I did it, this post on one of my other blogs describes how I did it, and that blog still has the same background that this one did have until today), but I was going to do it with a different coloured and hopefully more interesting photo and a darker background behind the text, but it could take me a while to work out exactly how I did it and make an image that was the right size/etc again (having different image editing software than I used back then doesn't help!) - so for now you will have to live with what is there - which for most people will probably be the same as I get - the top bit of a bigger than it needed to be photo of the dark sky that was above the sea when I took those photos of my swim in the surf.

anyway - I have to go back to work in the morning, and I still have those jeans to hem ... and it is getting has got rather Late ...

but ... here is one more photo that I almost forgot to add  - Last (but not Least) is the Lizard I almost stepped on yesterday morning!

Looks like he/she is Looking at me ... I kind of don't blame it for keeping an eye on me - it was probably happily minding its own buisness at the bottom of Black Mountain, when this whole Lot of Lunatics came tramping along the track on an annual wildflower walk ... and one Lunatic with a camera (me ;-) Lunged off into the bush and almost stood on it! ... Luckily I was sort of looking to make sure I didn't step on any rare orchids or other such thing (there were rather a lot - that was what we were walking around looking at - lol) so I did not quite step on it ... but I must have almost - because the first thing I noticed was when I heard it rustle as it ran out from the bunch of grassy stuff I was stepping over ... it probably stayed where it was in the photo until everyone had gone past - it stayed there looking at me for a few minutes while I took some photos of it, and the red flowers on a nearby grevillia plant, and it was still there when I walked off to take photos of some orchids and a whole heap of other things ... at least one of which has a name that starts with an L ... but I might have to do a whole other post about wildflowers and put some of the photos in there.
- I think I took a few ... HUNDRED ... photos on that walk!!!
(there was room for over a hundred photos on the memory card that I had in the camera, and I filled that up fairly quickly and then took a lot more photos on the card that is now in the camera!)

oops - time to stop getting  Lost in cyberspace and go do those jeans hems ... Luckily that should not take too Long to do. (I seem to have had a Lot of practice at taking up jeans hems - sigh)

btw - anyone actually reading this stuff will probably think I have Lost my mind and belong in a Lunatic assylum ... hmmm - a lovely holiday in a nice soft room - I could Live with that ... for a Little while ... until I find out they won't Let me have my crochet hooks or sewing stuff in there ...


 

Just a bit weird ...

... but I like weird ;-)

which could be why I like all those old TV shows that Julius Sumner Miller did ... I guess that as a kid I also wondered "why is this so?" LOL (and yes - I still like science ;-)
 ... but what has that got to do with weird? - well - he was a bit of an oddball ... but he would have been a rather interesting person to meet.
But why am I posting about him?  - well - I was trying to thing of something to post for the letter J for ABC Wednesday ... and I was catching up with putting some photos on the computer (the lot I am doing at the moment are from the middle of July!) when I found some photos that I took at the Cadbury chocolate factory (yum yum - lol) - they had a display with a pile of (rather peculiar but very interesting) letters that Julius Sumner Miller had sent them, and among them was this recipe for baked beans ...

(I don't think it is copyright or anything ... and it is there on public display)

I don't think I will ever bother with cooking my baked beans that way ... it is way easier to Just open a can and microwave them while the toast is cooking - lol

Also ... Just because I felt like adding it to this post - is a photo of a rather interesting tree:

I took the photo late in the afternoon, near some blowhole south of Hobart (but not the one on the way to Port Arthur - we went there the next day - this one was down the other way ... I could work out where if I dug out the map, but I am not doing that at almost 4am ...  not when I should have gone to bed 3 or 4 hours ago!)

This was near the other blowhole - the one that IS on the way to Port Arthur ...

but it is not right next to that blowhole, it is actually at the tesselated pavement (which is a rather interesting rock formation at a beach a few km up the road).

(hmmm - maybe I could post a photo of that when we are up to the letter T ... along with a few other photos I Took in Tasmania? lol)

btw, the other day (before I found that J photo) I think I was thinking of writing a post about how one should not use the word "Just" as often as we do ... like when someone makes a really nice quilt or other hand made item/work of art and says it is "Just a 9patch" or "Just a log cabin quilt" or "Just something I threw together" ... or "Just a painting I did" or "Just some poem I wrote" or "Just a photo I took" ... it is not JUST anything ... it is something you have created (or in the case of those who say "I Just did ... " when they have done something nice/good - it is something nice/good you have done) - so it should stand alone and be counted on it's own merit - you don't need to JUSTify it - lol
... Just thought I should say that ... lol

er ... I now have Just a few hours until I have to be up again ... I might Just get enough sleep to tide me over until tomorrow night ... (it is a good thing that I will Just be a passenger, rather than the driver, on my Journey tomorrow - lol)

goodnight ...

I have been Involved In something Incredible!!!

I started typing this post a couple of days ago (with a different title, which I didn't like so I thought of a way better one - so If this one Is bad think how bad the other one must have been!) ... I came back to finish It now so I can post It In time for It to be my I post for ABC Wednesday - LOL
(If I post It now, It will be able to be added to the linky thingy ... but If I was to wait until tomorrow It would be too late ... and I can't think of a good/clever way to make all this stuff fit the letter J or K and I want to post something to my blog now anyway - lol)

Tonight the other night was the opening night for the ACT textile arts association's "Garden Tea Party" exhibition ... OMG - it looks ed amazing!!! ... I got DH to drop me off at work thisat morning, so I could partake of some wine and not have to worry about driving home ($4 bus fare vs DUI/killing someone/etc - not a hard choice - LOL)
If u live in/near  Canberra you HAVE to go see it ... if not .... I will get around to posting some photos ... eventually ...

I decided not to worry about posting anything right then - It would have been a long and Involved task to stick photos on the computer, and a boring post without them ... and I had to go to work the next day and I was rather tired - gee I wonder why? LOL (all the late nights during the last few weeks - some from getting "lost in cyberspace" or watching TV with DH on nights when he was on days off and didn't have to get up for work in the morning, and some (most?) from staying up late finishing stuff at the last minute - lol)


I don't think I have anyone who reads my blog who also lives in Canberra, who wouldn't already know about it ... at least I hope you already knew about it - because if you missed it - you missed something amazing! It was such an Inspiration to be Involved with something so Imaginative and Incredible as this exhibition ... when one went Inside the gallery it was like being In a garden tea party ... but a rather Interesting garden tea party with Interesting Insects and Interesting (stuffed) people and oh I so wish that I had been able to hear the music that the green man looked like he was playing on his violin. Yes - someone made a musician, with a needle felted face/head and hands, who looks like the "green man" ... it was kind of funny watching some little girl getting a bit freaked out by his gnarly toes ... but she loved all the other stuff like the flowers and butterflies and stuff, and the amazingly eccentric lady with a weird feathery dog and a bunch of ducks on leads! (there are some Incridibly creative people in our association!)


Anyway ... DH and I are about to go out for tea, but when I get home I might have time to stick my photos onto the computer so I can show you the bits of it that I did (and maybe some other stuff ... depends if I have any photos that show what it was like but that I can post without worrying about Infringing anyone's copyright/etc. - we allowed photography at the exhibition - but only for personal use, which probably means not for sticking up stuff that shows the details of peoples work all over the internet or whatever ;-)


ok ... DH and I have been and eaten (Leong Kitchen in Campbell - yummy - one of our favourite spots to go for tea ;-)


then we watched some tv, and while we did that I finished off some weird tree branchy thingy with fabric leaves and copper wire - was something I was going to put in the exhibition but I ran out of time ... had the "leaves" and the wire so I figured I may as well finish the thing and see if it turned out ok (yes ... it is ... ok ... but nothing fancy - it might get used for something, sometime).


anyway ...


These are not the greatest of photos - the light was a bit bad when I took most of them, and/or I was in a hurry, and I have not even cropped any of them or anything, let alone doing anything else to fix them up a bit - they are just uploaded from the camera and thrown in here as is (I WAS going to have an early night, and it is already getting late - sigh).


So ... what did I make? - I made a mess:

... which the cat seems to like sleeping in!    (yes those are legs on the right ... they belong to "Mary" and now have feet, but they didn't when I took that photo - lol)


This is taken (late in the afternoon) from inside the door of the building we were in:

Quite an interesting place for an art/etc exhibition - they have a few other ones (for other groups/people/etc) there during the year too - it is actually part of the CSIRO - downstairs (under the ramp/etc in this photo) is an education place for families/school students/etc and beside me on the left, but not in the photo, are a whole pile of offices/min labs where one can look in the window and see some of the scientists working/whatever ... and on the right, but also not in the photo (you have to go along the ramp and around the corner to get in) is a lecture theatre and a function room - the function room is where the exhibition is ... there is also a sales area next to it - behind the red screens in the photo, and sort of straight ahead (you do have to veer right a bit or you will fall over the rail into the garden below - lol) is a cafe/eating area - where we ate and drank on opening night, and also sold tea/coffee and cakes all weekend (well - it WAS a TEA party after all!)


This is a general view of part of the exhibition

Hopefully nobody will mind this one being posted here - the only thing where any real detail can be seen (the table of stuff) was photographed and published in Saturday's paper. My stuff is not in this photo (except for a small caterpillar which I know is on top of something I can see in the photo, but I doubt that it would show up even if you clicked to get the full size version, and part of my nest is visible in the top of the tree ... but probably a bit hard to see if you don't know what you are looking for - lol). Some of my stuff is out of sight in the back corner (off to the left behind that bird cage) , some is beside where I stood to take the photo and "Lizzie" is standing with a few other "people" off to the right somewhere ...


This is "Lizzie"

she was going to be more royal (hence the name) but then things didn't work out that way when I threw her together (besides - I didn't have time to make a corgi or 3 ... )


This ...

is the back corner of the garden - my compost heap which is made from a cardboard box with some of my crochet shawls/etc int it and fabric scraps and crochet mushrooms and stuff on top, and a wooden box with more crochet fungus/etc in it, with "Bill" the gardener leaning on the wooden box having a cup of tea and donut (crocheted ones - must taste a bit wooly - lol) - brought to him by "Mary" the cook/house maid - who is standing there with a carrot, which I actually made as a pin cushion, in her hand, and wearing an apron I made from 2 cheap tea towels  ... pity about that weird person standing between them - LOL (yes - me! - wearing some strange thing I made to wear as a "tea gown" and an even stranger hat - an old felt one recycled - with beads and crocheting and lizards and spiders and stuff on it - I will have to take a better photo of it sometime I guess). "Bill" also seems to have been adopted by a bird (I made that from sticks and grass and string, at some open day/workshop type thingy I went to last Summer) I also made the tall plant in a pot ... which is now standing in the passage waiting to see how long before DH asks me to hurry up and "put it away" - trouble is - I have decided the spot it is standing in IS it's "away" - lol


This is my table and chairs - The chairs are a pair of old directors chairs I have had for years (since before I met and married DH actually) but the back bits (the fabric part you lean back on) were old and tatty hessian stuff that had gone brown and were a bit torn, and the chairs were a bit grotty looking so I slapped a coat of paint on them and made some new backs with applique' flowers on them. (one day I might make some nice cushions or something to go over the seats (to cover the paint splots - I did say I "slapped" on that coat of paint! lol) - I sort of wanted to do matching seat cushions for the exhibition but I didn't have time, but oddly enough the chairs actually looked fine as they were ... )

The table is actually made from bits of 2 tables - the legs off some table I found on a rubbish pile on the side of the road near here (the glass top was missing - it probably broke when someone drove a car through the wall of the yard where the table used to live - the rubbish pile was all the old bricks and broken table - they left the junk outside the fence/wall when the re-built it and then forgot about it for a couple of months ("out of sight out of mind" - lol). The top of the table came from a friend (who is also in the textile art group but was too busy with work and other stuff happening in her life to have time to make stuff to exhibit this year) she was throwing it out and I was going to use it on top of something to make a round corner table but it was too big for the space I had to put it in - but it was perfect for this! It was also the perfect size for the table cloth - which was also made from a bit of crocheting the same person gave to me - she crocheted the doily (the part that is on the top of the table) many years ago, then added the corners (the pink and purple bits) later when she made it into some huge beadspread or somesuch, then she unpicked whatever else was around it and re-used the yarn, and decided to give me the middle bit because I liked it - so I added the white bit with beads around the edge - so she DID have something in the exhibition after all (hmmm - a collaberative work? LOL).






Here is a closer view of the stuff ON the table:

... and the weird crochet vase with blue and orange flowers - yes I made that too - and all that other strange stuff on the table (well - except for the stuff I obviously didn't make, like the "tea set" that is actually laboratory glassware I borrowed from work). There are some doilys and milk jug covers etc, and a tea light holder which I probably wouldn't actually use as one because it is crocheted from garden string (stiffened with a mix of water and woodwork glue) - the "candle" in it is actually a metal bit from the bottom of a tea light candle, with a toy "troll" standing in it - it's bright orange hair looks like a candle flame - lol. At the back is a "Garden Tea Pot Party" - a party in a garden in a tea pot - lol  - one way to find a use for a teapot without a lid ?! Some of the stuff in it is crocheted, some is yarn wrapped around wire, and there are some fabric flowers ... and the people are wire stick figures with yarn wrapped around them and their clothing is made from tea bags (ones I had used for my cups of tea at work - kind of handy that I don't take milk in my tea else the tea bags would be a bit too smelly to use for stuff like this - lol)


This is a basket I threw together (made from grass, shredded paper, red fabric scraps and string) last Summer

- I thought it looked like a bird nest and might fit in nicely somewhere - so I named it "nest" and took it along - and it was perfect as a bird's nest in the top of the big tree in the middle of the room ... I took a photo of it when we were packing up because the tree and a pile of the other things (vines, leaves, bugs, flowers, etc etc etc) from the exhibition are being donated to a good cause and the nest went so well in the tree that I decided it had to stay with it (I didn't really need it for anything else right now anyway - and if I do decide I want a grass basket for something else, then I can go weed the garden, dry out the weeds, and make another one - lol)



I will try to get around to taking some more/better/close up/etc photos later - photos of some of this stuff, and the stuff I made (and modeled) for the fashion parade part of the exhibition (2 hats and some clothing made from other old clothing and a vest crocheted from strips of plastic supermarket bag) and I also need/want to take photos of some of the other stuff I have made this year ... not sure when though ... I have other things to do this week too ... and then I am off to Queensland for a couple of weeks ... then I am going to a weekend quilt retreat a week after that ... but I do have to sort out/pack up/put away the stuffed people and the other stuff sometime, so hopefully I will remember to take the photos while I am at it - LOL


er ... who stole my evening?! ... it isn't meant to be "Tomorrow" already!


If the photos are all skew wiff or something then I guess that is too bad - the putting photos in posts seems to be working better than it used to so maybe it will be ok anyway (they used to end up with a pile of extra gaps between some of the photos and text, which I had to fix by going in and deleting a pile of extra bits it had put into the html code ... I noticed that it still puts the "div" tags in there, but what used to mess things up was it put even more in when I had to move photos down from where it put them at the top of the post - but things seem to have been improved and it has let me put the photos into the post exactly where I wanted them to be - yaaaay!  (I wonder if it was something google/blogger fixed, or just that it works bettwer with the newer version of the web browser that I don't think was on here last time I put photos into a blog post? ... either way - I am happy ;-)


Anyway ... it is past bed time, and I have to go to work in the morning ... methinks I will be tired tomorrow night - lol (if not from the late night now, then from walking home from work - I don't have to walk home, but I want to - I have been trying to organise things so I get dropped off to work and walk home at least one night a week - because I kind of want to be a bit fitter and healthier and I think that helps - seeing it actually takes me a couple of hours to actually walk home (it takes a good 15 or 20 minutes to drive there - so it is a fairly long walk, and in Winter it is still dark when I get home ... but I enjoy the walk and I don't feel cold because I am walking ... now it is Spring here it is not totally dark when I get home ... so I end up taking even more Sunset photos on my way home - LOL (there is a better veiw to the West closer to home than near work)


er ... I was supposed to be posting this not still raving on about stuff - oops? ;-)

but one two more things B4 I go ... I can't help but noticing something - with the stuff I did for this exhibition - which was a new and different thing for this group - where instead of everyone submitting their own stuff and someone having to put it all together - it was done as an installation and largely worked on as a collaberative effort (where a lot of people worked on the various bits/things in groups and most of it was all coordinated/put together as one big thing ... sort of ... lol)  ... but for most of my stuff I seem to have ended up doing what I used to often do with stuff we were meant to do in groups at school - I worked on things as a group of one! ... kind of weird that ... it wasn't because I didn't want to work with others ... it is just that it kind of didn't work that way - I only had time to work on stuff at odd times here and there, and ideas often came to me late in the evening while I was doing the stuff, and if I had tried to work with a group for most of what I eventually did half of it never would have got done ... which ... is also kind of how it used to happen at school ... LOL
Yes - I guess one can still call me an Individual ;-)
But I did also do some stuff with groups of people - I was part of 2 or 3 very productive days where a group of us got together and made things like bugs and creepy crawlies and other stuff one day, and vines and leaves another day, and we all had a great time working on stuff together ...

hmmmm ... that reminds me - I still have not had a chance to find my coffee cup (which was old but I liked it, and is now probably totally lost/claimed by someone else) after I left it behind at the last one of those days - we met (on weekends) at a primary school on the other side of town, so me being down there when someone is AT the school kind of never happens, because I am usually at work - at a different school on the other side of town! - LOL

oh well ... it was originally an old un-claimed one that I got from the staff room at the school I work at (they were left out on a bench for 2 weeks for owners to claim, then word was sent out that if anyone wanted to come "shopping" for a "new" cup/mug to come and help themsleves before those that were still left were then put in a box destined for the op shop) so I guess my mug decided it was time for it to move on to the next owner? lol



goodnight ...