Following good advice from a fellow blogger (to try for ease of use) I finally found a shop here in Auckland which I was told sold GO! Baby but not the bigger GO! which I really wanted to buy. Turned out she had come back from Quilt Market having ordered two of the larger cutters to see what the interest would be over here, the order had arrived that morning. Dashed over and found it was the one with the "new improved roller system" with Alex Anderson and Ricky Tims on the packaging. Tried it out and it really was easy to turn the handle, I had thought it may have been quite hard, but not so. After buying the cutter, three dies and mats and and a few pieces of new fabric I headed home, picked up two pieces of scrap fabric to try it out. Really happy with it! Can't wait to start using it seriously.
Although I was out of action for two weeks with hand surgery I was able to order a package of batiks from Batiks Plus and they arrived yesterday and they're just gorgeous, can't wait to start using them, here are just two pics, I have a whole lot more!
What have I been doing whilst waiting for hand to heal and bandaging to come off? Lots of reading done, catching up on videos and watching the birds feeding out the front. I've mentioned before that we have the Malaysian doves in abundance around here and this morning there were around 50 all pecking at the feed on the ground. They have to share with the mynahs, blackbirds, starlings and of course the sparrows.
We have two quickly put together bird tables in the front garden just in front of the kitchen window so I normally make bird cakes with fat (beef dripping), honey, seed, nuts and fruit and stick them on a blunt spike on one table and maybe half an apple on the other. The greenfinches and wax eyes just love this for breakfast, even gave them a half avocado yesterday and that disappeared in record time!
The garden is now closing down for Winter but still I have a few things flowering, we have had an awful lot of rain and the blooms are so easily marked and then rot and fall off. One of my favourites at this time of year is the Wintersweet, always labelled as having an insignificant flower but a delicious fragrance, and yes it does have an amazing scent, one small piece can scent the whole room, but I went around the garden this morning and I reckon the flower is not insignificant when you have a close look. The yellow outer petals of this one below have faded to white with age but you can just see a new one about to open which is soft buttery colour.
There are two new camellias blooming and the pink one has a perfume, and of all things a rose still flowering. This is a David Austin rose Sharifa Asma which he reckons is one of his best, and I agree!
The magnolia stellata is also flowering, what a sight when the whole bush is in flower.
I think I will have to get a shot of the centre of this magnolia.
This pink frilly camellia has the perfume and I had a look for the plant label to check the name but that seems to have disappeared.
The one below is about the last of the Sasanqua variety which we grow as a hedge.
Next week I desperately want to get back into sewing mode - I need a bigger room! My computer really should be in my sewing studio but there just isn't enough space so it is sitting in a corner of the living room for a few days which is not ideal. We have a couple of ideas to shuffle things around and give me a larger place, my husband paints and he also needs a dedicated room for this so all these plans are works in progress. However as I am due to have a small exhibition in February next year the pressure is on to get things out for this as well as working on my present "bits and pieces", should hopefully have something to show next week.
Hope you all have a good week and happy sewing!!
1 comment:
Linda and I have a Go Cutter and find it to be a great asset.
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