The Nest Community INC...

Because I want my stash of yarn and fabrics to be all stowed away in the large cupboard in my sewing room, rather than boxes stacked on the floor, 'something had to be done'! So for a few weeks now, during the cool of the evenings, I've been reassessing/ rationalising/being ruthless with my dressmaking fabrics.

Asking myself questions such as for example, 'You bought this fabric 10 years ago. Every year you look at it, say you love it and that you must make that skirt/dress/blouse soon, and then put it away knowing you'll never get the mojo to even cut the garment out'. Tough talk eh? Well this time I 'listened' to myself and I soon had a rather large pile of beautiful fabrics. My first thought was that I would bag them up and place them in a Lifeline bin...but then I thought that the op shops probably get a lot of fabric and possibly some donations get rejected and dumped. 

And then I remembered The Nest Community Inc which is in my suburb. This is a place where young people can learn craft skills at workshops...and the not so young too! You can read about it here...

To raise funds the group has collected donations of craft supplies, including fabric, yarn and haberdashery and operate a shop 2 days a week. 

So I contacted them and asked them if they would like my fabric...they sure did! So on Saturday I dropped off  3 big bags (well they were rather heavy so DH did the lifting and carrying up the stairs). 

We didn't take photos of every room but just a few to show some of this beautiful old house.

Visitors/customers are encouraged to linger over a cuppa and there is a roster of baking volunteers who make goodies to have with the cuppa.

The verandah has all sorts of items for sale...

I've driven past this gracious old home for years and often wondered what views it would have...

Readers from overseas, this home is typical of the type of homes built in Queensland by modestly wealthy people in the years after World War 1...this one has been beautifully kept. And I might not want to buy any fabric, yarns, patterns etc, but I'm going back again to have a cuppa...that's for sure.

And best of all, I have heaps of shelf space in that cupboard now! 

Wool on Sundays...

Linking up again with Janine over at Rainbow Hare  blog for Wool on Sundays. Janine is celebrating 100 WoS posts and has included photos of some of the gorgeous projects she has done in those blog posts. 

Today I'm not writing about a project; more like a 'potential project' :-)

My friend Helen was recently in New Zealand and brought me back a skein of NZ wool. I love NZ yarns as they are always so soft and the colours are always wonderful.

And this lovely yarn gift is certainly soft and the colours are so pretty...my favourite colours too of course!

I have a few ideas of what I might make, so in a future Wool on Sunday this yarn will feature again. 

But for now, I'll fondle and stroke it occasionally like I always do with beautiful yarns! 

Janine is also having a Giveaway to celebrate 100 WoS posts...http://rainbowhare.com/about/

This year I couldn't Palm this off...

For a few years now, our parish has raised funds by making and selling Palm crosses ready to be handed out on Palm Sunday. ( the last Sunday before Easter) Our 'customers' are churches and church schools and it's a 'nice little earner' for the parish. I have never made a Palm cross previously as there had always been lots of others volunteering to do that.

But this year we had orders for just over 6500 crosses, so more volunteers were required. About 3 weeks before Easter there is a working bee to cut and tear Palm leaves into strips...this is some of the bundle of strips that I received.

Two strips are used to make the traditional cross...

Last Monday after work I sat down with the bag of strips and the directions saved on my iPad.

Well I was hopeless I'm afraid to say and put the strips of palm leaves aside (in the fridge) until the next night. I managed to just make 2 on Tuesday night but they looked a bit bodgy...what was happening? I couldn't follow a simple diagram for goodness sake!!!

It wasn't until my day off on Friday that I finally 'got it'...

So by this morning I had a bundle of crosses to hand in...phew! I was a bit worried there that I would be 'letting down the side' for a while!!! Lol

The organiser has said we now have enough crosses for our customers and our parish, so the job is done.

Missing...

Yep! I've certainly been missing from Blogland this last week or so as the pace at my temporary workplace has picked up a bit. 

This is the view from my spot at the front counter...

But this post is about what I 'got up to' last weekend.

On Saturday, DH, my brother and his partner and yours truly went out to lunch. It was our Christmas presents to each other for 2015. Let me explain that strange statement. We no longer give gifts to each other for Christmas. Instead the four of us do something special together and each couple pays for the other couple. We had decided to go out to a nice ( expensive) restaurant but finding a date to suit all of us had been a bit difficult, so finally March 6 was chosen.

We went to the Courthouse Restaurant at Cleveland...a lovely venue in an historic building. 

With a view out to sea...oops the tide was out though!

Later in the day there was going to be a wedding at The Courthouse, so it was all set up...

And an area inside, through the doors in the next photo, was being set up for the wedding reception meal...

We sat at a table out on this paved area and were looked after very well by our waiter...

This was my meal...it had been so hard to choose as everything on the menu sounded wonderful.

The food was delicious!

DH loves cauliflower au gratin, so he ordered the side dish to share with me...

Yummy too!

So that was Saturday's highlight...on Sunday I met up for morning tea with my friends 'The Newmarket Mums' ( we all met up in the 1980-90s and became friends when our children attended the same primary school) at a lovely cafe at a plant nursery, Eden's.

I tried a vegan slice...very little sugar in the cake but heaps in that icing/frosting. Oh well an occasional bit of sugar is okay. 

Then it was time for a walk around the nursery. I had wanted to buy a zucchini plant and another eggplant plant. But the nursery only had herbs, fruit trees and very few veggie seedlings or plants. But lying on the ground near the main path was this little fellow...

A wombat garden ornament. Just as well it was very heavy, otherwise I think he/she would have been put into my trolley, been taken to the checkout and then would have come home with me! I might have to take someone back to the nursery with me...someone who can lift heavy things! Lol

(Wombats are my favourite Aussie animal) 

Wool on Sundays

Once again I'm linking with Janine of the Rainbow Hare Blog for Wool on Sundays...

 Technically, it should be Cotton on Sundays as my project used Patons Cotton Blend.

Yes! I've finished the crib blanket that I started 2 1/2 weeks ago. The little blanket wouldn't 'cooperate' when I was trying to drape it over chairs to get a photo. Being so soft and 'drapey' it kept sliding down into a heap...so I draped it over DH, who was lying in n the lounge watching television...perfect! :-)

And this afternoon, DH delivered the blanket to its new home.

Optimism Personified??

In a suburb near ours there was a small shopping centre. It originally had a Coles supermarket ( later rebranded as a BiLo) , a number of smaller shops such as a chemist, bakery, fruit shop, snack bar etc and a Reception Lounge upstairs above the smaller shops. And all around these buildings was a huge car park. 

Well on January 31 this year, all the shops closed. The temporary fencing went up...

And the heavy machinery moved in and pretty soon the shopping centre looked like this...

As you can see, there IS no shopping centre any more! Lol

And even the other block of shops on the Samford Rd side of the shopping centre was demolished.

Now the temporary fencing is shrouded in mesh and the wording is rather interesting...

Here's a better view of that writing.

Soon? Just exactly what do they mean by soon??

I believe the new Coles development is due to open sometime next year! :-/

Back to work...

Yes, by the subject line you can see that I'm back working for a few weeks with that great boss, DH. Queenslanders go to the polls March 19; voting in Local Government elections as well as a Referendum on fixed four year terms for our state government. 

On behalf of his employers, DH rents temporary office accommodation and over the years, some places haven't been too 'flash'...no running water, bare concrete floors etc etc. But this time we've got a nice place...

Carpets!!!!

It's a former bank. From this office the running of the election is organised in this particular Council Ward. And for 2 weeks prior to March 19 it is a Prepoll centre where people can vote before 'the day'. 

The old information counter is where I will work from, when people come in to vote.

(The bank moved in May last year and people still come in to withdraw money from the ATM that USED to be in the lobby of the building, but on Friday a young woman came right inside to the counter and thrust her card at DH and said she just wanted some money. We directed her to the bank's new home across the street!)

The bank staff left this stuck this phone number stuck to the counter...it's my favourite local coffee shop too!!

Lots of offices in this place including these 'Customer Studios'. 

Lots of cardboard involved in this job...and those customer studios provide great storage. 

And the next two photos show just a few of the safes...this bank must have handled a LOT of money!

But I guess it wasn't worth their while to take them to their new, very small premises in the new shopping centre across the road...

This time I've got to do some different tasks to what I've done before as DH's assistant...

Folding cardboard into boxes...

Tying the string on the pencils that the voters use to mark the ballot papers...

As well as my more usual jobs of date stamping and counting envelopes. 

When the bank moved they may have taken all the money, but they left furniture and appliances...and this mug! Aussie readers will recognise the bank's symbol...

We have 2 levels in this building...upstairs is the kitchen, lunchroom and restrooms. And some meeting  rooms as well...so lots of room. And those stairs will keep us fit! 

I had been noticing feathers in the ladies restroom. The other day I heard pigeon cooing as I opened the door, and sure enough there were two pigeons fluttering about...I got a photo as the second one went to get out through the louvres.

Better than big spiders in the loo, I suppose. Lol