Thursday, February 28, 2013

Boonah

I look forward to my Boonah weekends three times a year.  The first for 2013 was 15 to 17 February.  I had a relaxing trip as I was driven (thanks Margaret).  We stopped at Ipswich for a poke around Bargain Box and lunch at Deann's Cafe.  Most of my weekend was sewing light strips to dark strips
cross cutting them, counting them (150 plus 112 for the dark/light/dark, and 175 plus 112 for the light/dark/light)
then sewing them into blocks.  The finished size of each square is 1 inch.  Yikes!!!
Of course there was some red medicine consumed.  Suzanne generously shared some of hers -
extremely yummy!

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Sounds Good....


BCEC

The Convention Centre extension has some intriguing sculpture pieces - I've often driven past - last week I was walking in the area and took some snaps.

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Driving Miss Daisy

Photo: Waiting to go in to Driving Miss Daisy
Thanks to the generosity of a friend, I got to see this amazing show.  There were only three characters and a cleverly simple set, but I was totally absorbed.  Theatre at its best.  Everyone else thought so too, judging by the standing ovation.

Monday, February 25, 2013

Book Club

I joined the Riverbend Tuesday evening book club as away of keeping in touch with a friend.  The group was friendly, thoughtful and articulate.  I look forward to more meetings!  Our first book was Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner.  Parts of the book were like watching someone else's slides - a tad boring.  But overall well worth reading, and the characters and themes led to lots of discussion.

Riverbend

I was back at Riverbend later in the week.  The Tiny Owl Workshop came up with the concept of printing short stories - they were launched on Valentine's Day and I wanted to pick some up from the shop.
While I was having coffee on the deck
one of the authors was being interviewed.  Chloe works at Riverbend.  The professional photographer posed her, and I took advantage and snapped away.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Empisal

I just love these vintage machines.  This Empisal was a steal, but it's not without problems.
It's clean and freshly oiled and greased BUT its straight stitch is not right.  I had a morning of sleuthing to discover that it's a Japanese "Happy" machine, rebadged by different companies.  In the US it's a Montgomery Ward "Signature" machine.  Once I figured THAT out I was able to find and download the instruction manual and fiddled and faddled.  I had no luck fixing the stitch, so it's being looked at by a professional.  I'm looking forward to having some fun with it.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

St Helena Island

We set off early - it was glorious on the water.
We paddled all the way around the island then landed at the picnic area near the causeway.
We walked around to visit quite a few sites that were accessible and then headed back.  It was daunting to think about how far we had to paddle, but we did it.  About 18 km all up.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Street Food Australia Launch

I was keen to sample some of the street food for sale at the SFA launch in Fortitude Valley.
We arrived only 1/2 an hour after the scheduled start time, but it was already packed.
They'd stopped selling tickets, so we had a drink and came back but still no ticket selling was taking place.  I figured the food was due to run out anyway.  So we had a lovely evening walk to the Eagle Street City Cat terminal and caught a City Cat to the Powerhouse. We had dinner by the water by the light of these luminaries.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

Chinese New Year Events

Sunnybank Plaza had a program of events for Chinese New Year - Lion Dancers
and a chef who made noodles as you watched.  Apparently he does this every day for his restaurant.  He twists and twists the dough
and cuts the ends to make these glistening strands.
I got a fortune cookie with my meal - I hope it comes true!!

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Bittersweet

I'd heard good reviews about Bittersweet in Wellington Point, so I bought some croissants and a mandarin cake there.  The croissants were dense with almond meal, and well baked and crunchy on the outside.
They were a perfect breakfast with freshly pressed orange juice.
I tasted the mandarin cake later in the day - very yummy.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Amazon Reviews

I've just finished reading a couple of books, and thought I'd review them on Amazon. You can read the reviews here. I've been leaving reviews there since May 2009 (yikes!) and have posted 81 reviews (double yikes!!).  I have twice been set a book to review (not quite major league, but nice).  I'm ranked 60,298th.  Pretty good, eh? :)

Wellington Point Evening Paddle

At the beginning of February we launched to the east of the Wellington Point jetty, headed south then east, then west back up around King Island and beached on the west side of the Point.  Here's me showing off my new gloves.
The trip had the right balance of calm and chop.  We landed near on sunset - a nice bonus.  So many were out enjoying the view with a beverage or two.

Monday, February 18, 2013

Fabric

Of course I have "enough" already, but a friend passed on some fat quarters the other day - new (to me)  fabric always gets the creative juices flowing....

Sunday, February 17, 2013

Down Under Textiles

After a long break, the mag is back.  I was excited to find it in my local Newsagency.
There are some interesting articles in there, but most exciting for me was seeing what's in NEXT issue!!!  An article about the Broadstrokes!!

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Flake

There are some things, simple things, that give a lot of pleasure.  Eating a Flake is one of them.  It's more air than chocolate, really, so you have to slow down, eat daintily and savour each thin shard...mmmm

Friday, February 15, 2013

New Sewing Room

To go with the neater sewing cupboard, I decided to spring clean and reorganise the sewing room - it's so much lighter and brighter!!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Fabric and Projects

Anality hit me during the break - I measured and folded and banded each piece of fabric.  I sorted and organised all my projects  into boxed "kits".  Somehow the fabric pile does not get smaller, and the number of projects waiting in line does not diminish....



Monday, February 11, 2013

Tomato Tart

Possibly the easiest and yummiest thing I've done in a while.  Mix garlic and thyme into 150g of goat's cheese.  Spread on butter puff pastry (MUST be butter puff - I said so).  Lay pretty slices of tomato over the top in a pleasing pattern.  Bake.  Eat.  Smack lips.
Before
 After
 Not pretty enough

Sunday, February 10, 2013

Daddy Loops

During the holidays there was some wonderful music happening in the Mall.  This guy just had a guitar and a looping machine and produced gorgeous layers of sound.


Saturday, February 9, 2013

Expo Reminders

I first saw these "statues" at Expo - doing this wouldn't be comfortable in the heat I imagine.  I did spot the man putting on more makeup at one stage.  The dog looked very real!

Friday, February 8, 2013

Man-Sitting

A wonderful community service - spotted during the holidays...

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Gates of Heaven

I like how I captured the church steeple in the background within the Gates of Heaven sculpture.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Myth

I thought I was seeing Daleks, but these are images from a series of sculptures depicting the Agamemnon story from Greek Mythology.





Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Visitor

A cute little bundle found its way inside the house last night....and curled up on top of the curtain rail in my sewing room...
 I think it came down the fireplace....
It's gone now - really hope it does NOT come back...

Coral

I'm glad I've taken shots of a lot of these boxes - I notice that many are being over painted a plain grey/blue - ready for another artist's works?  Meanwhile, enjoy....

Monday, February 4, 2013

Chinese New Year

This pic is in honour of Chinese New Year.  I don't really know if it's Chinese, but the shape and colour suggest it is.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Playing Brisbane Tourist - 2

There are some wonderful places in Brisbane that I rarely see.  Jacobs Ladder is one of them.  It's been freshly painted and spruced up.
People were using the stairs and relaxing in the park.  I hope they enjoyed the art as much as I did.