Too many bottles....

We have just started another project, clearing out the brake van (another name for the guard's van on a train) which is not far from the house. At the moment it houses the generator and basically a lot of old junk.

The brake van before we did up the hothouse (wonky frame on right hand side).

The end of the brake van that we have started clearing.

One end of the brake van was filled with Vacola bottles of all shapes and sizes. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while you may remember a previous post about these bottles. One has to ask the question, how many preserving jars does one person need?

I have estimated that there are over 400 Vacola bottles of all different sizes in this van. Many of them still have preserves in them some of them dating back to 1990. Beetroot is not good after 25 years! We had cubed beetroot, shredded beetroot, liquified beetroot, powdered beetroot and everything in between. There are peaches, pears, cherries, pineapple, plum sauce, bolognaise sauce, more beetroot, etc, etc. Such a waste of energy for all this produce to have been grown, picked, peeled, sliced, bottled, cooked and kept for it all to be thrown away.

Anyway, we have cleared out the shelves on one wall and the shelves in the middle, taken the sliding door off the outside wall and wow what a difference it makes. The door will eventually go back on, but we have also exposed the window in the door, which was covered up with masonite, and it will still be much lighter inside. The door is extremely solid and heavy and difficult to move.

With the outside door off and the centre shelves still in place.

With the centre shelves removed and the floor cleaned.

The remaining bottles are mostly empty and upside down so they are not as dirty as the others. There are a few that need emptying but not too many.

We have thought of a few different options for using this space already, one of them being a place for me to set up my leadlighting bench.

These are just some of the bottles I have washed. Oh dear, I miss my dishwasher!!

Some of the bottles are sooo tiny I have no idea what they are for. However, I have found a new use for some of them and they look great!

They are the perfect size for tea light candles.

Mike has been busy cutting up all the trees that were cut down a couple of weeks ago. This is some of our stash, tucked away underneath the bench in the hothouse, drying out for future use. There are piles of wood everywhere, much of which needs splitting. We will need to hire a log splitter for this. It's a big job for another day.

I had a great day at sewing with Chris Jurd last Saturday. We started her scrappy sampler quilt and made our first foray into 'made fabric' which consists of sewing lots of random scraps together and then using this just as you would use normal fabric to cut out the desired shape. It was great fun and the day just flew by.

Mine is the one on the left and Sue's on the right. Chris put them up like this to show how you could use them to make a zig zag pattern. I have five more of these to make to complete the strip.

Looking forward to doing some 'homework' for my scrappy sampler this month so we can move on to the next strip pattern at the end of July.

Winter is here

A visiting mountain lowry in the bird feeder.

 It's been a bit chilly up here at Mt Victoria lately! The days are short and the temperature drops early in the afternoon but the house is warm and the log fire is great! Flickering flames in a glowing fire are much better entertainment than telly a lot of the time!

I have been trying to keep up the walking since it got cold and have been reasonably successful. I have come to the conclusion that as long as you wear the right clothes, and enough of them, its not that bad!

Frost on Mt York Road

Work has started again on the hothouse. Mike has been busy painting all the timbers which have never been painted before and have been out in the weather for decades. The roof is on and now we are deciding on the material for the walls. It will probably be glass as we have a lot of it hanging around the place which will just go to the tip otherwise. Also I would like to be able to see out of the hothouse and look at the view while I'm in there as it is in such a nice sunny spot.

It's not as much of a shambles as it looks in this photo!

A skylight diffuser that was in our house at Warrimoo has been repurposed as a wall in the hot house. It was just going to sit in the shed doing nothing so why not! I think it looks great and we have found some other old windows in the shed which we can fit in as well.

Here is a before and after shot of the window above. Very satisfying!

The new leadlight skylight diffuser is now in place in the lounge room at Warrimoo. I was very happy to see it slot in perfectly and not sag in the middle!

We have been burning some piles of leaves in the evenings as there is so much fuel on the ground. This is also a really nice thing to do. A glass of red standing by a glowing fire in the evening is good for the soul (as long as you have your coat and gloves on of course)!

The scrap quilt I am making for our daughter and her partner is progressing well. Not many more to go now. Its going to be huge!

I am really happy with the colours and think that it will look great when its finished. All of this fabric came from my stash. Needless to say, there is still plenty left. Some of the fabric combinations are not what I normally would have chosen, however, Erin loves things a bit different and I have had to try to step out of my comfort zone a bit. I guess we always find this challenging but I am surprised by how much the odd blocks are growing on me.

Our Rayburn stove has been getting a good workout lately. Its lovely to use on a cold day. It keeps the house warm and cooks dinner at the same time. We cooked up a storm for a curry night on the weekend which was really yummy.

That's my latest retro linen tea towel hanging in front of the stove. From the Gold Coast of course! I think Queensland is responsible for 75% of touristy tea towels in Australia. Another bargain for only $5.

Looking forward to visiting the Sydney Quilt Show in a couple of weeks. Can't wait to find some bargains and catch up with some of my quilty friends!

After an unplanned blog holiday I am back again.We have been busy with work around the house, finishing some projects, a little trip away up North and spending time with family. It's easy to spend a morning wasting time with a four month old!

Mike and Myles

Oli in his school uniform.

I have finally finished two of my patchwork projects. My very large 'Big Fat Flower Garden' is all done and now keeping us warm on these very cold Mt Vic nights.

The pattern is in a magazine/book called 'Old Quilts Made New' and is called Pansy Patch by Carolyn Davis. It's hand paper pieced and hand quilted in large stitches with Pearl 8 cotton thread. You can see the quilting better in the pics below.

It took me ages to make but I am very happy with the result. It's the first quilt I have hand pieced and quilted.

At the other end of the size scale I also finished this little number. It's only 13" by 13" but has over 320 pieces.

It's a Kerulea design from a pattern I bought about 15 years ago. It's foundation pieced onto thin fabric so that you don't have to remove the paper once it's been sewn. I now have it on my sewing room wall.

I also finished a lead light skylight diffuser with a gum leaf design. I found the design on the net then expanded it and adjusted it a bit freehand to make it fit the required measurements.  It's not installed yet but I think it will look much better than the fake lead light that is there at the moment.

Mike has been busy moving soil from our driveway to the back of the house as during the last lot of rain we had the driveway turned into a quagmire. Mud was everywhere. The driveway is now much flatter and has a rocky base so we will see what happens the next time it rains and decide whether further gravel is required.

The driveway in front of the house.

The back of the house showing all the soil Mike has moved from the driveway.

He has also exposed the back of the brake van by removing a huge amount of tangled vines. Underneath was a lovely stone wall that my brother must have built many years ago.

We now have some new garden beds to plant out and the hot house to restore and make productive. Mike was originally just intending to cut away the vines on the side of the hothouse and then fix it up but one thing leads to another .........Finishing the hot house is still some way off yet but there's no rush. We have found that if you identify one job to be done here, you have to do three other jobs in order to be able to do the job you originally identified!

Life at Mt Vic is very easy. Mike has settled into retirement without any regrets and is not missing getting up at 4.30 every day and travelling in to the Opera House. Now that it is getting cold we have the Rayburn going in the kitchen and I am getting used to its ways. It warms the house really well and has a great stove top, oven and warming oven. It's a shame the water heating part is not working but hopefully it can be fixed one day. Right now though the gas hot water is fine and on demand. No fire lighting required to have a shower!!

We have also started doing some bush walks as we are surrounded by many tracks and stunning views nearby. We have walked down Lockyers Track and back up the Cox's Road at the end of Mt York Road. That was about 10km and quite steep at the end. Then we did another one going down Lawson's Long Alley to Hartley Vale and back up Lockyers Track. That was 11.3km and we were quite exhausted when we got back to the car. On Monday we walked from Govetts Leap to Evans Lookout in Blackheath and back again. The views of the Grose Valley were spectacular. It took about 2.5 hours return and we both had jelly legs by the end due to the steps but it was well worth it.

We also went to Perry's Lookdown (by car!) and the views were equally spectacular and of course it was a beautiful day too.

We are so lucky to have all this natural beauty at our doorstep!

A big month

Its been quite a while since my last post due to us moving house. Its been a hectic few weeks but we are just about there. Just one room left with some boxes to sort out and a few things to tidy up at our old house and we are done. The storage unit is full, the house is full and we have made quite a few trips to the op shop. I have sworn off op shops and garage sales and any kind of unnecessary shopping since moving. I cannot believe how much stuff we have and I have to admit that most of it is down to me!

We have finally had a new door installed with my first leadlight window in situ and I am delighted with the result.

It even looks quite good with the screen door closed behind it as the pattern shows through and looks quite effective.

I have sorted out my new sewing room which is a tad smaller than the old one but still big enough. Its nice a light and everything fits in. It was a very dull day when I took this photo.

It's nice to have my machine right under a window, even if all I can see is a sandstone wall. I think I might plant some colourful flowers out there to improve the view.

We have replaced the guttering along the front of the house so now the covered area between the house and the retaining wall doesn't flood every time it rains. This is a major breakthrough! 

As we were moving our neighbour offered us this beautiful dresser for free. His mum did all the leadlighting in it and there was no way I was going to pass it up, even though we are overloaded with furniture. I decided it would be a perfect storage space for my stash.

The leadlighting is so very well done and the cupboard has a light in the top of it so that the windows can be illuminated. Just waiting for the resident electrician to install a new power point behind it for me so I can show it off.

The cupboard needs a bit of work, but for now its just fine. The beautiful windows hide my stash really well!

It is already two weeks since the Oberon steam fair and as promised here are some photos of our engine on the day. We lead the traction engines in the parade and towed a wagon with large logs on it. Our grandson was up there with us too. Mike was the official photographer. It was a really fun day. I have to say though that traction engines are not built for passengers and I thought my teeth were going to fall out from the vibrations! It was also really noisy. Small children covered their ears as we went past!!!

There were some beautiful vintage cars at the festival as well as many other historical vehicles. This one took our eye. We have the same vehicle in our shed, a 1938 Dodge, in need of restoration. My brother restored it when he was about 25 but unfortunately it has deteriorated again due to many years out in the weather. Maybe one day we might restore it to its former glory, as has been done with this beauty.

I am really enjoying living so close to our daughter and grandsons. Walking Oli to school in the mornings is a delight. He is so excited to have started kindergarten and really looks forward to going each morning. I dont go every day but its a good hike for me down to Erin's place so I will try to keep it up a few days a week. We have settled in pretty well really considering we spent 29 years in our last house. It sure has been a big month.