kangaroos

One of my favourite things about Hill End is how pretty it is



We can see these guys out our kitchen window every day



It makes washing up during the day so much easier when you can watch a group of kangaroos eat and lounge around.

Orange

A sunny day in Orange at the Art gallery and library

Foggy mornings

Swaps can be great fun

Earlier in the year I signed up for a needle work swap on Flickr in the Phat Quarter group.
It's a great way to get involved and you end up with a wonderful piece of art for your wall. It's fun, if a little nerve wracking, to create something for everyone else.

The theme was Blinded By Science.
My assignment was to create an embroidery for Mooshee. I love their embroidery, especially their plus sized pin ups so I decided to mix that with science.




I was happy with how it turned out.

The most exciting thing though was getting this amazingly, gorgeous embroidery in the post from Sarah Hennessey. My photos can't do it justice. The stitching is so precise and beautiful.





Sarah's photo of the piece shows some more of the wonderful details.

You can find a similar design along with a whole botanicals series at her Etsy shop Sometimes I swirl.

 

Art prints

Some of the postcard photography prints that will be available at the October long weekend markets in Hill End

A little reminder of Autum in Winter

One of the things I love about living in Hill End is Autumn. On the coast it's never much of a season. Summer runs late and then it's Winter. Here we get golden leaves and wood smoke and deliciously cool evenings.

Roses

One think I love most about photography is that flowers can last forvever.

Shawl

Ruth had picked up this gorgeous 2ply colour-way at Spotlight and decided she wanted to knit a shawl with it.

It's mostly acrylic but has some wool content.

It's not been blocked yet, which should open up the lace.  The pattern is the Aeolian Shawl from Knitty

The Garden

A couple of months ago Ruth's Step Dad came up to help us get a vegetable garden going. Things sort of spiraled far from our original request but we do have vegetables growing now so we are happy.

The jonquils came out early this year. It's been a funny year so far. Summer was awful hot and dry and this winter has been really mild. Much colder than the coast but a lot warmer than our previous winters here.

Thanks to Ta clearing out all the garden beds we may get a lot more bulbs coming up this year. For a long time they were covered in Morning Glory.

Here is a photo of the garden bed once the seeds started to sprout. Things have got bigger since then and as soon as I can find the card reader for my camera I'll post an update.

Newtown Part 3 and BuzzzBar

While waiting for the NRMA guys to come and get the car started we needed to find some food. We were not far from BuzzzBar so we dropped in there



It really is a gorgeous cafe







I wish I'd got photos of the art on the walls inside so I could share it. It was really gorgeous and at great prices. I'd have loved to have bought some.





By this point though I was struggling with nausea and heart burn as it had been too long since I'd eaten and my meds are not kind to my stomach.





Unfortunately their gluten free selection was really poor and the waitress didn't seem to be very helpful. We were told to pick something from the menu and they would tell me if they could make it gluten free but when we chose a couple of things they were not certain about them so we gave up and ordered a flat white and a piece of carrot cake.



The coffee that we got was a strong macchiato in a tiny cup and really not a flat white (and so I couldn't drink it while my stomach was as bad as it was) and the carrot cake was pretty tasteless. Our friends who didn't have to eat gluten free seemed to enjoy their meal though. It's a beautiful cafe with great atmosphere but, if you have to eat gluten free, there are many other, much better places in Newtown.