A Mid- Week Treat

 

The Tram Cafe

Finally, after all the dramas of the past few months I managed to book a train ticket and headed down to Melbourne for a couple of days with my sewing retreat buddy, Christine (MacDonalds Patch Blog)! We’ve been talking about doing this since we went on our road trip last April to Scrub Stitchin up at Baradine……. And we plan to do it again so part of the “reason” for the this trip was to sit together and work out out road map and over night stays…… which was fun and motels are now booked ready! 

Years ago we used to live in the area around here so it was fun to enjoy doing some walks …… we even had a nice stop over at the Tram Cafe they now have in Diamond Creek and enjoyed a hot chocolate 

A stop at the opp shops where I picked up this cute little tin ……. And I also found some lovely writing pads at the “cheap” shop for my snail mails.  I still have a just a couple of friends whom we share snail mails with and it’s always sooo much fun to see one arrive in the mail box. I wait to make a cuppa and sit down in a nice quiet spot so I can read and enjoy all there news.  Letter writing is something I started with my Grandmother when she used to write letters to me as a young girl, and then when I was a young mum living in Melbourne and she was living in Brisbane we would write letters to each other all the time - even though we also had a phone chat once a week or once every couple of weeks.  At one stage I had a whole group of ladies writing and we even had lots of circle letters (robins) going back and forth …..unfortunately with social media began taking over for many of them as well as other changes …….thankfully I have 2 ladies in Australia who write now and then and another in USA. Those letters take around a month to get from me to her and vice versa (snail mail indeed lol) .  I’m hoping to find another couple of ladies interested in this old art of letter writing to bring back some of the slow paced enjoyments - let me know if this interest you.

The Mad Hatters Tea Party 

Back to my mid week treat …….. I’ve had lots of fun talking sewing and projects with Christine.  We took a day trip - first stopping at a Felt shop which had some amazing items like the Tea Pot above .... and I may have purchased some felt to make a Lupin Rabbit lol ...... next a quick stop in at Spotlight for a bit of lace and then on to Gail B …… I've never been there and WOW ..... What a sight to behold as you walk in .....

And it just keeps on going .........

Of course I came out with some goodies ................. So I have lots to keep me occupied - and then some lol

Of course no outing is complete without coffee and cake .... or in this case scones ...... which was had at a lovely nursery in Warrandyte

Such a pretty place with a little bridge to walk over the duck pond up to the cafe sitting on the hill overlooking all the ducks and the pond

We had the best time!

Molly

 And finally I got to meet Rex and Molly who I'd heard so much

 about - they were so friendly and
excited to have me staying over for a couple of nights.

Rex

Rex decided this was a great way of letting me know he was up for a treat lol

I've also decided that being in an outer Melbourne suburb has just as many native animals and birds around as we do here in the country!  In fact, I'm almost wondering if they have more lol ..... here is a group (mob) of kangaroos enjoying breakfast whilst people were walking and cycling by on the walking path not far from where they were!

Thanks Noel and Christine for having me come to stay!  I had a ball!

And when I arrived home Pete had organised the delivery of stuff to make a carport for our cars to keep them a bit cooler during these 40+ C degree days and also during the winter months to keep the frost off!   

After spending the morning helping me with the cleaning and washing, Lucy felt it was time to go out and supervise with Pete lol  Meantime I'm off to go play with some sewing ..... or crochet .....

The Time Before ……

 That time before you have to go back to work comes to an end today ….sigh!  Still it’s been productive on the crafting front even with all this hot weather …….we got up to 42 Celsius here today!!! I started working on the embroidery section from the scrub stitchin project 

I’ve been doing lots of plotting and planning for a number of projects …….I want to make KORE and have made a start on it in the lime green Aurora Yarn from Bendigo ….this is the pattern 

Pete came up with the idea that making a high cushion that we can pop the dog bed on in the Ute might make it a bit better for Lucy so she can see what’s going on ……I’ve taken a couple of old pillows and am in the process of of sewing them together to make said cushion.  I plan to have a cover that I can remove for washing as needed and it’s a curtain fabric with that backing that should help protect the cushion to a degree.  I’ll likely add something to it so the dog bed can sit without coming off when we go around a corner …..   

It still needs to have the closure studs sewn on and then the finishing bits but here it is with the cover over it ........  and it fits in the ute so it should work ...... we shall see in due time

You might notice its leaning against a "new" piece of furniture in the sewing room/ craft Dungeon ...... a pick up from a friend as we thought it might have worked in the lounge but nope ....... but it does work in the dungeon now I have moved the filing cabinets out ..... and it gives me extra counter area as you can see for projects

see Number 6 project laid out on it 

Here is said furniture piece .......

And above laid out on it is the project for the Chookshed Challenge this month .......Number 6 was pulled out ........ the pieces of signed fabric for Staceys long awaited Bridal Shower something ...... which I've now decided will be a wall hanging ...... unsure exactly how its going to go but its "under construction" at present ...... I'll show more later in the month

Here is my messy table with all the plotting, planning and various projects for current knitting and crochet ....... stay tuned!

Wish me luck as I head back to work tomorrow - 3 days this week so not full time, but oh how it interferes with life at home!!

Hugs

Sharm