Flowers and marbling fabrics

The kids have been busy today. Jessica and Ben put together a new shop. This time it's flowers and fantastic bark curls they've found in grandma and grandpa's garden. Then they marbled some fabrics.

Bark curls from around mum's garden.



The kids' arrangement of flowers from the garden.



Today's rock shop

Ben and his cousin Jessica went up the hill at the back of grandma and grandpa's house today, and found lots of mica and quartz. They set up a rock shop after the herb shop.

Here's the dish of mica.

Today's herb shop.

Ben and Jess's herb shop.

Herbal tea

The herb "treats" on offer!

Clay pan

I just loved this clay pan. It looked like no one had ever walked on it. Lots of rocks and the occasional little plant. Nothing else. I wonder if this is what they call a gibber desert?

Ewaninga rock carvings

We went out south of Alice today, to some ancient rock carvings. We could pick kangaroo tracks carved in the rock, and the circle within a circle that Aboriginal people still use to denote a meeting place.

Mum's design wall

Now that I'm in Alice, I can use mum's design wall, and have a good look at my spiderweb quilt. And I love mum's material collection. She has it sorted out so well. She's a great party planner (dad's birthday last night) and fabric planner!

Dad's party

We spent much of the day setting up for dad's party. He's 70. Then my camera died just as people started arriving!!

Rocks

Mookaite Jasper, only found on a WA station called Mookai.

Aragonite, looks like a Sputnik.

We're in Alice Springs, visiting my family. We bought some rocks for Ben at the markets, and then Ben saw this huge amythest. It's one of those egg-shaped ones, split in half. Just amazing. Ben says he wants to be a geologist.

Mum's 70th birthday quilt

Happy birthday mum!!

Now that I'm in Alice, I could finally give mum her birthday present.

Kangaroo outside my bedroom window

Mark brought me a cup of tea in bed this morning and said - there's a kangaroo outside the window. It's quite a big one. As you'll see, there's not much grass for the poor thing. We're just coming out of a drought, and we're not allowed to water our lawns.

Looking for rivers

Today's paper said the rivers are flowing, and to head out to Namadji National Park. It said there are 10 year old kids here, who've never seen a Canberra river flowing like they are now. It said to take your time and sit by the bank and listen to the water. It sounded wonderful, it's only minutes from home, but we didn't find any rivers! Probably would have helped to stop at the visitors centre. The boys and I had fun walking all over the old Honeysuckle Creek tracking station - which helped track the Apollo missions and men walking on the moon. The boys' grandad used to work there.



Andrew on a rock at Namadji.



Ben's invention

Ben spent Saturday making an invention. He found some good-sized sticks in the yard and some tins in the recycling. He's put it in the front yard. It's funny to watch people's heads swivel to look at it as they drive past!!

Ben's student card

Andrew has a student identity card now because he's technically in highschool. Ben's taken careful note of this, and he's made himself a student card too. I wanted to record it before it ends up being lost or thrown out. I think it's so cute that he's written that his hobby is codes, and that he's tried to draw himself. Priceless, as they say in the ads!

Spiderweb block

Spiderweb block
Originally uploaded by Linseed2010

Made this weekend. I'm using lots of selvedges that I've been saving for a year or so. The tutorial is here. http://alamodefabric.blogspot.com/2010/06/spider-web-quilt-block-tutorial.html
and here http://www.quiltville.com/spiderweb.shtml

Peacock!

Peacock!
Originally uploaded by Ramona Burke

Ramona in my quilt group has also made a bird block for Jules. This one is just fantastic. Love her free motion stitching to catch all the tail feathers.