Lilian's Tree

Another early start, with a cuppa and then a short stroll around the area. This is the BBQ area, with the High wires course above it. A Tepee. Interesting. A close up of my pincushion. Jo and her mum, Shirley made them. Beautiful. My next project. Each strip had a half hexagon cut from it and the pile of offcuts, top right corner, grew, vey quickly. As I didn't have a triangle template I couldn't make the blocks, sooooooo. I turned the pile of offcuts into this. Nine rows, with ten offcuts in each. It looks like becoming a mug bag, for when I need to take a mug away.   Lunch of cold meats and salad and more fines. I was hit again, as I was observed pulling a push door! Each fine is 20cents, or what you want to give. Before lunch, Margaret did a count and we had reached $60! We must have been very naughty girls! All the money raised goes to charity.   The retreat was the best I had been to. There was a challenge, if you wanted to do it, no pr...

My day started around 5.00am, with a locked bathroom! A knife soon made it unlocked. One of my roomies had locked the door and closed it when she came out, not a good idea. Up and dressed, Lorraine and I hit the sewing with gusto. But only after coffee for her and a cuppa for me. A chorus of kookaburras heralded the dawn.   After sewing for a while Lola and I went for a walk. Our aim was the lookout but we were thwarted by the path being so very muddy that gumboots were needed.    We were treated to beautiful scenery, along the way. This is the Chapel, nestled in the bush. Inside. Our dose of cuteness, Puppy #5.         My morning was very productive, with this being the result of the half hexagons, in Friday's photo. I'm going to trim the edges, pad it with wadding and raw edge applique it to a dark purple background. This quilt also caused me to be fined, as I broke a needle and then had the thread brea...

Up early and got myself organised to head of to Quilt Retreat, at lunchtime. After walk down the street, with my darling husband for coffee and cake, then getting the mail, I packed the car and I was away. I did get an exciting email, just before I left, about the book, so it will be printed, soon. First stop was Waterfall and I transferred my stuff into Lorraine's car and our weekend of fun began. Travelling down the M1 or Princes Highway, for those of use who remember it's name, we took the Picton Road exit. Our aim was to join the M5 or the Hume Highway but a strange thing happened to the car as we neared the turnoff! It went straight ahead and we ended up in the car park of Picton Patchwork shop!  (no vehicle was hurt in this manoeuvre but our wallets were.) Picton Patchwork shop is a dream and Robyn and her husband are great. I needed a acrylic template of a certain size, so I could sew a couple of small quilts, not only was he able to cut it for me but he also cut ...

I have had an interesting week. I have started trying to design a cover for THE BOOK, with some success. I have purchased my won ISBN and bar code and have found that Lulu won't let me use them as I'm not doing a perfect bound book but a saddle stitched book. Strange and I have an email query in to them and am waiting for a reply.  I am now considering a publisher/printer in Goulburn but this will require me to purchase books and then send them to people. Meanwhile I have twice gone to the book to get details, rather than turn the computer on and gone Noooo. Both times things needed to be changed. The first one was adding a date and the second was changing the number of children. Simple changes that my wonderful editor, Jennie has done, for me. Wednesday saw me attend my first luncheon of The Women's Pioneer Society of Australasia Inc. As Charlotte Chasmar arrived in the Colony of New South Wales in 1839, I am eligible to join. It was lovely and I was made very welcom...

This week we celebrated out youngest child's birthday. It is hard to figure out where the past 38 years have gone. It was wonderful to mind our youngest granddaughter,  Hannah, while her mum and dad took James to the doctors. I was able to ice the birthday cake and when Hannah saw it she wanted cake. I gave her a muffin and when she had finished, she went down for a nap. Vicki loved her birthday cake and so did the children. It was lovely to have lunch with them. We had a lovely lazy, quiet Easter. I spent time on Friday, enjoying the warm weather by sitting in the sun and reading. I do have assignments to do but they will still be there, later.  Sunday was a family lunch and Easter Egg Hunt. Little Miss Hannah has mastered the art of unwrapping an egg and then splitting it along the seam. Not bad for a 20 month old!  James unwrapped his and took a big bite of each end. Well my book arrived back in my email folder, last night and it looks amazing! Jennie did a ...

How I love modern technology. Last night 21 pages of my book came 'home' to me, edited, so I could make the changes. No waiting for the postman, just an email and it was here. Some of the changes I hadn't thought about, (useful ones), some were the correct way to present things and some where the spelling and grammar ones I had missed. These are now done and I await the next batch of pages. It has been really great to see how an editor, edits and I know it will improve my writing. Below is an article I found in a Scottish magazine called People's Friend about 2013/2014, called Advice to Writer 1897. Bye for now, Lilian. (copyright is not mine but this is how my photo program makes my photos.)

I found these during the week. The first one is; http://www.oldmapsonline.com      Worldwide,  this will be very useful when trying to find exactly where our ancestors lived. I discovered that Regent Street, Camperdown, NSW has it's name changed to Probert Street, Camperdown, NSW, just by using this site. I'm going to have fun playing around on it. The second one is called SnagIt. it is for capturing images etc. as a screen shot. https://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.html   I've got a 15 day free trial and will be purchasing it as it is so easy to use. Hope you find them useful. Bye for now, Lilian.

The State Library of NSW holds Scholarly Musings on the first Tuesday of each month and I've decided to book into a couple of them. This month's was Sydney's Early Cemeteries by Dr Lisa Murray. (You might remember my blog about her book, Sydney Cemeteries, A Field Guide. A Useful Book, 20/02/2017.) Lisa gave a very interesting talk that covered a range of topics, from the overcrowding of the first cemeteries, how the churches didn't want to hand over the control of burials, to the setting up of Rookwood Cemetery. I learnt that St John's Cemetery at Parramatta is the oldest undisturbed colonial cemetery in Sydney. When you consider that The Old Sydney Burial Ground, Devonshire Street and several others were removed to make way for buildings, this is good to know. She spoke of how the residents and shop keepers, near the Camperdown Cemetery would complain on the mist and vapours emanating from the cemetery, especially the pauper grave, as it was often left ope...

Saturday April 1 and I seem to have misplaced the past week. Well not really. After the weather of the previous week, sunshine was very welcome. Coffee with girlfriends on Monday was a great way to start the week. We set the world to rights and laugh. Tuesday I had physio on a very sore hip and shown a heap of exercises to do. They are working. We also had dinner at the local pub with friends, good to catch-up. Wednesday we went and saw our darling grandies. Hannah came running and I had a wonderful cuddle, then it was Granddad's turn. James then discovered that we had arrived and so the cuddles were repeated. There is something special about a grandchild's hug. Vicki was making scones, so I took James for a walk. His little hand in mine was wonderful and he chattered about all different things. For his little legs we walked a good distance, saw cows and cockies, leaves and flowers and all manner of cars. I asked him what a word was, on a car, (thinking he would say Fo...