Hello, Winter....

First day of winter here in Australia, and the weather has definitely changed in the last few weeks. Its cold, damp, and overcast. However, there are lots of little things going on in the garden!

The gorgeous creeper on our chimney turned a beautiful red and yellow, then dropped its leaves, leaving all the stems behind.

The spring bulbs have started to sprout from the ground.

The bottle brush is having a last flower before the cold.

And there is lots going on in the vegie garden; baby leeks, broccoli, winter greens, and apparently a pumpkin vine which appeared from the compost and has taken over, even though they are a summer plant...

Friday on my Mind

It's Friday, and I am...


Quilting Red Velvet


Baking bread

Admiring all the pretty flowers in the garden and enjoying the rain

Blooming

The beautiful weather continues here in Melbourne, and I just had to pop outside for more pictures of all the gorgeous flowers!



This is Scruffy; he is a stray that turned up on our doorstep about a year ago looking for food, and hasn't gone away. He lives in our front yard. He's an old boy, makes a lot of funny creaking noises instead of a proper meow, and likes to head-butt people. I don't think he particularly liked having his photo taken...And of course, my post would not be complete without a bit of fabric goodness. These will probably be my last purchase for a while, unless the Aussie dollar starts to head upwards again. The top two fabrics are for a Blossom charm quilt I'm planning on making sometime in the future, the yellow is for the back of the Sheep quilt, and the red is for the back of B's baby quilt...

Spring has Sprung!

3 days into spring, and it's certainly noticeable! All around the garden, there are little signs that the weather is warming up, and summer is approaching. It's nice to finally have some colour in the yard!

First, the ranunculus (I think...):

The nectarine tree I planted two winters ago; the quince is sprouting also, as are the peach and apricot:


Even my potatoes!

The cyclamens in their shady spot (notice the weeds!):


And some general garden colour:



Unfortunately, along with all the lovely flowers comes the increase in sneezing and general snuffiliness (is that even a word?)...


While I had the camera plugged in, I thought I'd better post a proper picture of the quilt that I gave my supervisor last week. This is the final product:


The quilt was made with two packs of Shangri-La charm packs, using the disappearing 9 patch method, which I initially discovered here. All I did was add a border to finish it off a little.