On my mind...some of the good things in life such as knitting yarns! lol

This photo was in an email that I received this morning

Today I'm joining in with Rhonda's Friday Feature as I usually do on a Friday.
This year I've made a number of new friends through the knitting group Knitting for Brisbane's Needy. Some, I regularly see in person and others I communicate with through either the Forum or the Facebook page of the group. I have a rather large stash of knitting yarns but I still get quite excited when one of the ladies tells of a new source of yarn on the forum page. Yesterday Yvette mentioned that she had bought herself a Christmas present of some Caron Mill ends from her source in Michigan....gasp...she bought 28 skeins altogether in  4, 1lb lots. The pound lots are around $5USD...gasp gasp. Now postage is a lot, Yvette said but when you divide the total by the number of skeins, it is very economical.

So guess who has put a bid on 2 of the one lb lots...a black and a vivid mid blue? This yarn is a soft acrylic and my stash has mainly pure wool and therefore not suitable for charity knitting. I plan to make a throw similar to the one in my banner for K4BN and will use the black acrylic as the main colour which requires 300g of that yarn.
I'm going to sort through the craft items stashed in the wardrobe in my sewing room...see what I can despatch to a charity bin...items that I know I'll never use! And that will make room in case I win these items :-) (well I'm hoping to clear some space...that IS my intention!)
In Yvette's email there was the  photo above that epitomises so many things that I value and love.

Graduations...

Yesterday I was honoured to attend the two functions associated with the year 7s at my former posting. I was greedy...I not only taught these students when they were in year 4, I also taught them last year in Year 6. Last year I saw them grow in confidence and maturity as the HOC (Head of Curriculum) and I put them through a Leadership Training program.

In the 1970s and part of the 1980s I was a Year 7 teacher. In my state Year 7 is the final year of primary school. In those days we would have a big class party on the last day and usually a trip to a local pool as a treat...and that was it. By the time my daughters were in Year 7 in the 1990s things had changed. At their school, students and parents went to an outside venue, usually a function room at a local club, where there were presentations of awards and graduation certificates and a catered dinner. The students dressed in their 'Sunday best' of course.
My last posting had a slightly different approach to Year 7 graduation. A ceremony was held at school on the Wednesday morning of the last week in which awards and graduation certificates were handed out. The school band and the choir always performed as well. If parental work commitments meant that a parent/s couldn't attend they just missed out which I always thought was sad. On the Wednesday night there was a dinner and disco but it was just for the students and any teachers who had been invited. Naturally I didn't get an invitation the first few years I was there as I hadn't taught any of the year 7s and I waited patiently for my first class (a 3/4) to get to Year 7. I actually got an invitation the year before that when the graduating class decided they wanted to invite all teachers not just the ones who had taught them.

Just before the graduation ceremony

The choir

This young man used to be a lot shorter than me...and his voice has broken too!

One thing I noticed that was different from my children's graduations, was the attire of the graduates...it was amazing! The girls wore dresses similar to what older girls wear to nightclubs! And the high heels that some of them teetered around in...there were lots of suits and ties being worn by the boys...not just a nice shirt and long trousers. The dresses and suits etc at the dinner I went to last night would have cost parents a fair bit in my estimation. Some of the younger female teachers were saying that they would wear some of the dresses, they were so nice (and glamorous)! One of the young teachers asked the school captain where her lovely green dress came from...she replied that her parents had bought it in Melbourne and I would guess it is a designer frock...sigh...well at least none of the Year 7s arrived in a stretch limo!!! lol

A latecomer with a family member, goes through the welcoming archway

My hairdresser's son

Last night was a return to having the dinner at school. This meant that a small group of parents worked very hard to decorate the hall and tables and to organise the food. They did a great job; it was much better than the last 2 years where the dinner was held at a Football Club small function room, especially the food!

Christmas in Blogland...

I got so involved with finishing my Kris Kringle item that I forgot that as well as giving an item away, I would also get an item in the mail from someone!
Last week my surprise arrived from Nicole who lives in the state of Victoria. What a lovely little ornament for my tree.

Hmmm....blogger keeps uploading the photo on its side!

Then on Saturday I got another parcel and this one came from Claudia, a fellow blogger, who lives in North Carolina. Claudia knows that I love to knit... This is what she sent to me....

A knitting needle case roll

Look at all those colourful felt flowers! On the top lefthand side Claudia has embroidered a little cat as she knows that I love cats!

What a delightful touch! Claudia has embroidered my initials :-)

And there was a lovely pair of bamboo needles in the case

And a lovely handmade card was included

I feel so fortunate to receive these lovely gifts...Claudia has to wait another week or so for her parcel from me...as I've only just posted it. It involves the colour green and is a knitting project....no other clues as Claudia reads this blog! lol

The wonder of Nature...

Remember the crepe myrtle trees at the side of my home in Spring? The bare trees were covered with tiny new leaves...

Then, remember those trees in early October...

Then a few weeks later....

And now just yesterday...

Already the trees are giving us some shade from the hot sun in the morning and screening us from the neighbours :-)  .

Another Christmas 'get together'...

Today DH and I went to the early church service so that he could go to golf mid morning and I could meet my friends for lunch at a Yum Cha Restaurant. (I wished I had my camera or phone with me as the church looked beautiful with all the purple Advent banners)

These ladies have been my friends for many years; 2 of them started school with me in 1957, one other lady came to my primary school in about Grade 5 and the others started high school with myself and my other friends in 1964. For many years we have been out of touch but in the last few years we've drifted back in touch...Facebook has been very helpful in this contact. My friend Jane organised today and she invited quite a few people who live locally. Unfortunately it's a busy time for most people so we ended up just a group of 7. But we had a great time recalling stories from our school days...including a scandal when we were in Grade 8, involving the Deputy principal...tsk tsk!  His replacement as DP was a teacher called Ray Massie...we recalled how Mr Massie had a 'chook farm' (poultry farm) and each year he would bring in bins of chook manure and they would spread this over the school oval to fertilise the grass. It would stink a bit but the thing that we remembered was that there would be little white featehers in the manure. When the wind would blow, these feathers would 'dance' around the surface of the oval....aah memories! With OH and S today this wouldn't happen!
One of our number has just separated from her husband and she told us of the dramas of starting life anew and her plans so she doesn't have to work until she is 70 :-(. The majority of us around that table have personal experience of such a situation so we were certainly a sympathetic audience.

When we have get togethers like this it's really weird that all those years just seem to melt away....it's just like our school days were just 'yesterday', not nearly 50 years ago. I was the odd one out today...all the other 'girls' today were in the class 10C1 (we called it a commercial class...today it might be called business studies), I was in the class 10A2D which was a combination of Academic and Domestic Science stream. We (the academic)  didn't do typing and bookkeeping, instead we did an extra science subject and maths subject. Memories...

On my mind...at last it's ready to post!

Today I'm joining in with the feature at Rhonda's blog 'On my mind...'  For a few weeks now I've been making a gift for a ' Handmade Kris Kringle'. I showed a photo of the project on this blog just after I started and have been stitching away ever since. Some of my plans for retirement were to try new things but also I wanted to 'revisit' some craft activities that I used to enjoy but haven't done for ages. One of these was English paper piecing where I originally started in patchwork in the 1970s. It all 'fell into place' when a friend drafted up a page of 'long hexagons' for me and I decided to make a Christmas table runner for the Kris Kringle project...later amended to a table centre rather than the much longer runner! lol I used scraps of Christmas fabrics I already had but many of my fabrics had too much green in them as the theme was 'Red and white'. I still had a reasonable number of different fabrics to use and there were just some little patches of green.

At the beginning

It's been one big learning experience in these last 2 weeks or so. Firstly my eyesight is different since I last did paper piecing about 9 years ago. Since I had an eye operation in 2009, I have become very long sighted instead of short sighted and I now just wear reading glasses with a magnification of 2.5. I've had to experiment with finding the best way to hold my work so that I can both see it and be comfortable with stitching in that position. I used to hold my work about 30cm away or rest it on a table...now I have to work with the fabric on my lap...and this small project has enabled me to get used to that position. It hasn't always been easy to change the habit of a lifetime.

With some of the Christmassy items I've already got out of storage

And secondly, it is about 24 years since I've handquilted anything and boy! haven't I got out of the 'rhythm' of that! But the 8 star shapes I quilted were good practice and I felt the 'stirrings' of interest and the good memories of how relaxing a bit of hand quilting can be.

So after lunch I'm heading off the the post office to send the table centre to Renae in Croydon South, Victoria. And now I can turn my crafting attention to something else... :-)

Bits and pieces...

Last night DH and I ate the last of our potato crop as the topping on a 'Shepherd's Pie'. I will certainly grow potatoes again next year but will start in autumn (March) and plant a new batch each month until October. The dreaded mildew is affecting the cucumbers, pumpkins and the zucchinis and I'll probably have to remove those plants. I think they are too far gone to try some remedies such as spraying with 'comfrey tea' , or full cream milk solution or neem oil and detergent.

My neighbour let her grandson water the veggie garden while we were away and late afternoon suited them not mornings. He was very enthusiastic but he's only 7 and some items were left unwatered or, in the case of the zucchinis and cucumbers he sprayed the leaves not the soil. So unfortunately the mildew spores had perfect conditions to spread. Never mind, I'm going to plant some more eggplants, capsicums and lots of sweet potato cuttings; all plants that don't mind hot and humid conditions.

Today DH and I went out to lunch at the local hotel. We went with some women who used to work for DH in the Electoral Commission. Spouses were invited too and we had a good time catching up. When we arrived at the dining area I told the hostess that DH and I had brought some people whom she would know. You see, she (Gail) has also worked for DH during elections and she always 'looks after us so well' when we dine at the hotel.

Gail chatting while she clears the table

At various times today I have worked on my 'Kris kringle' gift which must be posted to the recipient by Dec 6. I should finish it tonight so it will be the 'On my mind' feature that I join in most Fridays.
It is now quite cool after a number of hot and humid days. We had a storm here this afternoon but it just gave us some rain...no winds or loud thunder and lightning. The gardens need the rain! :-)