Red tweed vest

This is the current project. It'll work as either a vest or a singlet, or so I hope. It has been growing quickly while spending time sitting and chatting with extended family.

Bloody good Paella

Helen cooked a couple of fabulous paella dishes for a special lunch at the weekend. The Woody Pointer excelled herself!

Supermarket shopping at Mudgeereeba

Neil and Di live in Mudgeereeba which although is on the Gold Coast, still has a village atmosphere. Which was confirmed on Saturday when a local lad rode up, bareback, and tied up his horse outside the local Coles supermarket.

Must be a regular - the fruit and vege man came out with some carrots.

The Woody Pointer's local

Helen (our Woody Pointer) lives in an amazing spot at Woody Point just north of Brisbane. To get there from the city you cross Australia's longest bridge. Actually, this weekend a new bridge was offically opened. Woody Point itself is surrounded by sea - the Pine River inlet to the west and Pumicestone Passage to the east. It is a lovely spot.

From the Feel Goodz cafe you look out to the Woody Point jetty -- and the coffee is great too.

New look, old friends

On impluse I had my hair straightened, and amazingly, it worked. What is IN those chemicals?

I have started knitting a vest. In a old-fashioned shop in Redcliffe I found some Sirdar Donegal Tweed that was heavily discounted.

So there we were, the old library ladies, Janet, Helen and me, at the local Woody Point pub on Friday night. Two of us drinking cocktails and one knitting. All I'll say is, my project gained many inches.

Textile Arts Expo, Brisbane

The workshops were a bit patchy. Helen attended a workshop on making a felted tea cosy. Here's her creation, with it's rasta tassels. Love it! I did two workshops, one on shibori dying and one where we experimented with a free-form screen-printing technique using Procion dyes, run by Louise Snook from WA. She ran out of dyes soon into the workshop which was a bit frustrating. I was tired by the end of the afternoon and didn't get as much from the session as I had hoped. One to try later, in my own time.

Coming to you from Malany

Sorry about the gap! Have been too distracted to update this blog. This post comes to you live from Maleny, up in the hills back of the Sunshine Coast. A little internet cafe in the main street, a pot of tea, and a piece of almond barfi from the shop over the road where I just bought indian block-printed sheets and pillow/cushion covers for the van. They are Anhoki block printed fabrics, imported from India. I do want to visit them in Jaipur, they have a textile museum. I was just looking at a very heavy (as in weight) book on Indian handcrafts - Handmade in India. I could do a road-trip following all the block printing and embroidery clusters. Meantime, just pottering around on the Sunshine Coast, staying at Coolum for a few days.