Grow Your Own Blog party

Once again I'm joining in this event which is hosted by Vicki at 2 Bags Full. The idea is that each blogger writes a post introducing themselves; their interests, reasons for blogging etc.

I am a retired primary (elementary) school teacher, who loves to knit, stitch, garden, read and travel. I am Australian and live in Queensland, a state on the east coast. I have a 'blended family' of a lovely DH, 2 daughters and 3 stepdaughters. DH and I are 'empty nesters' now but over the years, all of these young adults  have lived with us at one time or another.

When I retired I joined a knitting group that provides knitted, crocheted and sewn items to the needy in the community. Believe me, it is not just the homeless who are needy. Originally I knitted beanies, children's jumpers, throws etc for the group,but over the last few years I have volunteered to join up some of the thousands of squares that are donated to the group each year. This certainly keeps me busy! The photo shows a number of blankets made with donated squares that I've joined...

I also knit throws that I give away as gifts, or to groups to sell or raffle to raise funds. I try to do a few of these each year.

The photo above shows me working one evening on one of my 'signature' projects, a garter stitch chevron/ripple throw, using a variety of yarns. 

A throw knitted in mohair yarns for my DD2 to celebrate her 30th birthday...

Like a lot of crafters, I have far too much fabric and yarn in my stash...but I still find more that I 'can't do without' and purchase more :-) Like this Christmas fabric that friends were using last year...couldn't find any in Aussie stores, but finally tracked some down in an Etsy store in the US!

I enjoy blogging and even though there is no real theme to what I write about, I share my everyday adventures in living life to the full. 

Over the years, for me, 'writing' was all about the academic aspects of writing ....I wrote to inform...I wrote to persuade, but I rarely had the chance to write to entertain. With the latter role, I can be relaxed in both the style and the language used and that's what my blog has mainly become...to entertain but with some elements of 'informing'.
Last year I wrote posts while we travelled in the UK, France and Hong Kong.

A beautiful scene taken from high on the hill in Whitby, UK...

With my DH after the Dawn Service on ANZAC Day at the Australian War Memorial outside Villers Bretonneux, France...

The view from the window of our hotel room in Hong Kong...a quite swanky hotel overlooking some not quite so salubrious apartment blocks.

Later this year, we are planning to visit Canada, where DsD3 is living and working for 2 years.

My stepdaughter took this very Australian 'onesie' to Canada...oh and the neck support cushion! Lol

Many years ago I loved to embroider but had not worked on any such projects for quite a while. Through blogging, I have signed up for swaps that required stitching and once again I've discovered how much I enjoy it. 

I stitched this mini quilt in a Summer themed swap...

I have also 're-ignited' my love for English paper piecing (EPP) and always try to have a project on the go using that technique.

A Christmas 'ornie' made with small hexies...

A Dillybag (designer is Judy Newman) was a favourite project last year...also hexies!

 The next photo shows my current EPP project, a cushion cover for a friend's mother who is celebrating her 90th birthday. I still have a long way to go with this project!

As well as chronicling our travels, I also write about changes to the suburb that I live in. As the city grows, single houses in my suburb are being replaced by multiple townhouses...I have it all documented if it's in my street! lol

I could go on and on, but just one more thing about me...I love purple! :-)

Regular readers would know that I have just passed the 1000 posts' milestone, so somehow I've found lots to write about over the years:-).

In conjunction with the Grow Your Own Blog Party, I am having another small (but very nice) Giveaway. It's one of Gerhard's lovely fabric patches. 

I've used the photo from the NaturesFaceArt website so that I didn't have to take the patch out of its packaging. The design features masses of gum blossoms, framed by gum leaves with a beautiful butterfly in the centre. Gerhard's patches are suitable for all kinds of projects, especially patchwork. To enter, just leave a comment on this post...

Vicki, the organiser of the Grow Your Own Blog party has requested that all bloggers who run a Giveaway in conjunction with their post, that February 15 is the date to draw the winner's name. So lots of time for people to visit and leave a comment. 

Taking retirement very seriously and keeping busy :-)

 Last week DH and I went to the movies on 'cheap Tuesday'

The movie we went to see was 'Lincoln' and Daniel Day Lewis gave a brilliant performance. However it was a long and slow moving movie :-/

I've already written about my busy Wednesday, so the next mischief we got up to was having lunch with a former workmate of DH's and her husband. DH and I also worked with Bill, the husband, last year on the elections. The venue for the lunch was the Eatons Hill Tavern which is in a lovely park like setting. I was taken with this obviously, old tree as we walked to the entrance...

Note the large staghorns attached to the tree

After lunch we went back to our friends' house for coffee...

The cheeky butcher bird arrived for a 'hand out'...

Our friends. Bill's dad was the principal for 4 of my 5 years at high school. Note the passionfruit vine growing on the railing...but the fruit doesn't seem to 'set'.

Yes I know this is DH but on the right hand edge of the photo is one of 2 large trees left when the area was cleared for development...

Our local Target store closed today at 4pm. On Friday afternoon we went to the store to see if there were any items worth buying. I quickly saw that there was nothing that interested me, so I took some photos of the store which was already being dismantled.

The Loot store next door had 2 signs out the front...

On Saturday, DH went to friends' place for lunch. I took a rather blurry photo of some shelves in their media room...

My clever friend David had made these shelves out of the discarded floorboards from our old veranda. His wife Majella needs a mention too! She sanded all the timber ready for the boards to be used... a huge effort...but what a result!!

A friend's retirement...

Last month I was an invited guest at a friend's retirement function. This friend has already featured in some of my blog posts...Carmen.

A photo of us helping out in the kitchen at the Christmas Markets

We met 35 years ago when Carmen was my 'prac' student. She was the first 'mature age' student teacher that I'd met; I was 24 and she was 27! During the 4 week practicum session Carmen taught lessons in my Year 7 classroom. That was interesting in itself as she was an 'Early Childhood' major :-/. She indicated to me early in the block that she was worried about working with the older children. After a week or so she then wondered whether she did actually want to specialise in Early Childhood! lol  When Carmen graduated she went to a local school. For her first 3 years there, she taught Year 1. From then on, for the next 31 years, she taught older children. Yes! she was at the same school for 34 years and had become a much loved part of that school community.

From that 'prac block' Carmen and I became good friends, through thick and thin. I was one of 2 invited guests at the retirement function, from the 'early days'...the other was a lecturer from her college days. Many former students and their parents attended as well as quite a few former colleagues of Carmen's...plus the whole present day school population. A number of her students, past and present, made speeches. So many of them alluded to the fact that Carmen would keep tadpoles in the classroom so her students could document their turning into frogs. Funny they should say that because I knew I had a photo taken on a parish camp many years ago with Carmen catching tadpoles near Lake Maroon :-)

The function was so big  that it was held on the school oval!  Here are some photos from that wonderful afternoon last month...

The guest of honour was driven down on to the oval in an Impala :-)

The car was borrowed from someone in the school community and  driven by the deputy  principal, David.

After getting out of the car, the guest of honour had to walk through a guard of honour formed by the Year 7 cohort

Lots of speeches...

One of the gifts given by the school community

Another painting presented to Carmen by her former college art lecturer  (he was mine too in my second year)

The cake that was cut later in the school hall

The school noticeboard on Old Northern Rd

Now Carmen can relax and enjoy a wonderful retirement knowing how much she gave to this school community.

A lovely send off...

Earlier in the month I was privileged to attend a Farewell Afternoon Tea at my former workplace. The food was delicious and the company was wonderful. There were lots of surprises for me when former workmates, who had moved on, returned especially for the celebrations for my retirement. Allan, gave the most beautiful speech as he talked about my years at the school.

Elke on the left was the organiser and Allan was the speechmaker!

Firstly I was handed a beautiful bunch of flowers; the bunch consisted of Australian 'native' flowers which are just so striking in their beauty. Then I was given a retirement gift...all eyes were on me as I reached in the gift bag and drew out a small box. I opened the box and lifted out the piece of packing. Nestled in the box was the most beautiful Swarovski crystal flower ornament...in my favourite colour, purple! In 2008, DH and I visited the Swarovski store in Lucerne. It was 3 floors of the most beautiful items but we didn't buy anything...just admired.

The photos don't do justice to the actual beauty of the flower

So now I have a beautiful memento of my time at Stafford Heights given to me by this lovely group of friends. Also in the bag was an IOU for a Swarovski pen as a purple one wasn't available at the time so one was ordered. So I was really spoiled! Eventually it was time to go home and as we headed through the door I had another surprise...a former colleague who had been held up because of a long staff meeting at her school, arrived. So naturally many of us  lingered around the library entrance to catch up with this latecomer...I'm so glad she decided to come.

The ladies in the running shoes are the wonderful cleaners and the other lady is Janis who was the marvellous teacher aide who worked with me and also my class of course

Chatting with Tracey, holding the beautiful bunch of flowers

The days are filling up fast....

This morning I went to Desley, my Bowen Therapist, for my 'monthly overhaul'! My neck, shoulders, forearms, wrists and fingers have been sore recently which makes any crafts' work quite uncomfortable. Hopefully in the next few days I'll feel the benefit of the session.

This afternoon I went to my first session of 'Sisters of Stitch' at the Chermside library. (Why do other suburbs have better public libraries than my local area???) This is a group of ladies who enjoy a diverse range of crafts who meet twice a month to share ideas and to work on craft projects brought from home. There is a table which had magazines and fabrics for the taking, as well tea and coffee and a show and tell session. At my table people were hand quilting, embroidering, doing hardanger, knitting and working on large tapestries. I took some knitting today as it was already organised from when I was in the day hospital last Thursday. I'm still working on my 'quadrilateral' shapes' project which I mentioned here but in tandem with that I have been working on a project using up my scraps of mohair yarn. I'm making a throw which consists of squares but I knit a 'scarf' length of squares all joined together as I knit. Saves so much tiresome sewing at the completion of the project.


Some of my 'scarves'

I have knitted plain squares and in order to use up really little amounts of left-over yarn, I've interspersed the plain ones with patterned squares. It can be a bit of a challenge using just the left-overs and odd balls but I enjoy 'making something out of virtually nothing'.

I use favourite slipstitch patterns. they are so easy as only one colour is used in each row. When I work on a project like this, I always try to find and use some slipstitch patterns I haven't used before. The Harmony books of knitting stitches that I own are old but serve me well!

In this photo, I have tacked 4 rows together at the junction of each new square. The strip still on the needles is now completed and last night I started a 6th strip and that's the one I took this afternoon.

I was thrilled to meet someone I knew there this afternoon but made sure I also chatted with other ladies so that I can get to know them. This is a group who endeavours to help others. Some of the ladies make 'Blankets of love' for the stillborn babies at the hospitals, others are making and/or collecting items needed by those who were made homeless by the floods and cyclones.
Yes I think I can say that I'm really getting into this retirement thing. I enjoyed myself at the 'Sisters of Sew'.
Today I got a payslip which, because I'm taking pay at half rate for my LSL, reflects what I will draw from my super later this year. Even though it seems a big cut I know I can manage quite well. The 'old Maria' always worried that there would not be enough money in retirement but I know it will be fine and I will have enough for my needs and more besides so I can continue to help others.