Annies Crazy World

Steve and family took Sam and dropped him at the ferry terminal so that he could get back to Magnetic Island for work this afternoon, V was at work and my nephew at school which left me and Joe with a quite day to catch up and reminice.

Joe told me a delightful story of this Red Finch building his nest, under the awning at their back door…Mr Red Finch was shy and fluttered off back into the trees if anyone was near the door, Mrs Red Finch was not shy at all and sat brazenly on the line chirping at him to come back and get on with building the nest, because of his hurry to place the straw and get away quickly his nest was not very neat and didn’t look terribly secure so my brother screwed on the green bottom so that the whole thing didn’t fall down on Mr Red Finch.

Photographing frogs can be a little tricky because they have a habit of jumping just as you are about to take the photo, so when I was taking this photo I was so focused on the frog that I didn’t notice the milo smeared mouth and fingers of the nephew that was holding the frog for me and I am glad that I didn’t notice at the time because I love the photo that resulted.

Thursday was mostly a family catchup day, part of which we did visit the Prawn Farm where Joe works…the photo above is one of the prawn ponds, the photo below is the pattern formed on the bottom of the pond when they are emptied to harvest the prawns.

We didn’t see any prawns but were greeted by Ostrichs

My son showed me how to catch a green ant and lick its tail to tast the bitter/sweet nector stored there.

Steve knowing what to look for spied a baby crocadile on the other side of the creek, I would never have seen it without having it pointed out to me.

Neither my brother nor my son can pass water without wanting to throw a fishing line in.

It was a brief overnight stay on the Island before we all headed off on the ferry back to the mainland and an hour and a halfs drive north to Macknade where my brother Joe and his family live.

Sugar Cane is one of the main industries in north Queensland and the drive took us past many kilometers of cane fields and the occassional cane train as it is harvesting season.

As we approached Macnade the Sun was setting.

Joe had a fire going in his front yard to burn out an old tree stump and we used it to enjoy some toasted marsh mellows.

I found this image and thought that it would be fun to share it…about 20 years ago brouches with a collection of beads, buttons and charms glued to them, were fashionable…At a retreat that I was attending a lady brought along her button tin and the makings for a brooch, I sat down beside her and started looking through her button tin which was one of those good ones that had lots of odd bits other thatn buttons in it and I started picking out the odd bits and suggesting to her that she use them on her brooch and when she kept rejecting my offerings I said in, a pretend huff, ‘well I will make my own’ and I found a big button and glued all the odd bits to it, they created a fun brooch that looked a lot better than I expected it to.

My flight left Canberra at 6.35 am, changed planes in Brisbane, arrived at Townsville at 10.30 am, picked up by brother Steve and his Family, who were also holidaying in Northern Queensland, a short drive to the ferry terminal were my son, Sam was waiting to accompany us over to Magnetic Island.

At this point I thought that a map would be helpful to explaining where I have visited.

The Ferry docks at Nelly Bay, where we were met by Sam’s friend who made 2 trips to take all of us and our bags up to Horseshoe Bay where they live.

The day was overcast and drizzling rain but not enough to dampen our spirits, actually it was lovely to see rain it is so long since it has rained in Canberra, and it did fine up so that we could head down to the beach…

We went to Bungalow Bay Backpackers, where my son works, for dinner and had a fun evening participating in there trivia night.

The bright red seaplane in this photo of Horseshoe Bay is The Red Baron, more about the Red Baron in a later post.

The image for the pink project is printed on a fabric sheet and to prepare it to stitch in the centre of the block I placed it right sides together with a piece of fine cotton with a layer of batting on the other side so that the image would be slightly padded…I stitched around the edge, clipped the corner and then put a diagonal cut in the cotton fabric to turn the image right side out…I can now just slip stitch it in place

My bags are packed and in about six hours time I will be flying north, Magnetic Island here I come.

I will have some access to the internet while I am away, I don’t know how much but I have my web urls, usernames and passwords so that I am ready to use it when I get an opportunity, In the meantime I have set a couple of posts to publish in the next couple of days.

And just to set the recorder straight…my posts over the last few weeks have a few people thinking that I am a very organized person, I admit that I can be organized and I love being organized but it is not always the case and in contrast the organization in my studio, below is the current state of my dining room which is not going to get cleaned up before I go.

2 sleeps till take off and I am getting very excited…I have been feeling a little bit panicky that I wouldn’t be ready to go but today I got everything but cloths ready to pack with a day to remember anything that I have missed.

As Part of todays packing I made myself up a buzy box…small bottles of paint, brushes, pens, sticky tape, glue…I have in mind keeping a decorated travel journal, wether it will happen or not is yet to be seen but I am prepared.

I have put in the box of tatting shuttles and my tin of beads for making beaded bears, you can see some of the bears here and here.

And the all important sewing notions together with a selection of pink threads, beads, laces, charms, buttons and silk ribbon so that I can continue to work on my pink project.

I am not going to have my pink project finished before I go but I did take time out from cleaning packing to do one more seam.

This seam is 2 overlapped rows of Feather stitch from TAST week 7 which I have trimmed with beads attached with 3 straight stitchs.

I am not going to get my pink project finished before I leave so I am packing it up with threads beads and other bits that I will need and will take it with me…Finding a few of the charms and a particular piece of braid, that I want to go around the top part of the photo, required some serious sorting to be done, the boxes on the left are the ones that needed to be sorted the boxes on the right ready to sort into.

I was picking my neice up from school again today so I left the sorting until she was here and after having a cup of tea and a lamington for afternoon tea we spent about an hour sorting what was in the boxes…we didn’t get through all of it but this lot is ready to be integrated into the storage draws, a job for when I get back from holidays…and I did find the charms and braid.

When we had put everything away for the afternoon we went for a walk in the garden, while out there she picked a red Camillia and presented it to me, I said I would float it in a dish and we went to look for one, it looked good in the one we found but needed more with it, and more and more, it grew into quite an arrangement and when I said to her that we should photograph it she arranged a whole setting for the photograph.