A ceramic pot from Margaret River W.A. artist, Helen Foster.

This beautiful sandy surface texture could be coastal or inland salt pan inspired, most of us have experienced and relate to at least one of those. (well most Aussies have, anyway)

This pic is of a vine we have always loved as it climbs around several houses in this area – and just this week planted one in our garden.

No, DH didn’t mangle it in the car while bringing it home, (as happened with a beautiful bougainvillea once when the car door blew shut on the top third of the plant!…it has now recoverd from the shock) The woman at the nursery picked a sample for him to look at more closely as they talked about it.

This one piece shows all the main stages of flowering:- the row of green bobbly things are actually the unopened flowers, next up, green tinged with yellow is young flowers,, which change colour to orange/mature after a while, and then finally the little cup things drop off – as per lower right corner. It is a vine, not a bottle brush, nor is it a eucalpyt, but reminds us of both. We are replacing a very uncooperative maracuya/passionfruit with this vine , and have resigned ourselves to buying passionfruit in the supermarket. NO, I’m not going floral in my quiltmaking, just including this on the basis of a thing of beauty being a joy for ever…

I didn’t really mean to cut off the face of this consumate artist, but it is the best one I have showing his nimble hands at work.

While all the families were here we rented a holiday cottage at Piriapolis, west of Montevideo but not so far as Punta del Este and far less crowded and, of course, quieter. For the various grandkids nephew and niece present it was wonderful to be an easy block’s walk from the safe beach which offered plenty of space for the patient digging of large holes to sit in, castles surrounded by moats, and the usual beach contructions that kids will engage in day after day, up to a certain age anyway. There was a lot of swimming and kicking around of the soccer ball. Some walked and gathered shells and stones of note…. and we spent many hours each day out in the well equipped parrilla area – perfect for a large number to breakfast together and cook bbq meals at other times. Cooler, too, than being inside the house until late most evenings.

On a particularly hot day we withdrew from the beach around 12.30 to a shady table on the sidewalk where we had lunch and many cool drinks, and, as it turned out, caught the very few breezes around on a day which we later learned had topped over 41C in the shade. It was so hot I slept out on the upstairs deck of the house that night until a cool change blew in with a rush around 3 am. We later learned that in one of our friend’s family a couple of people were treated for heatstroke and dehydration.

Anyway, weaver-sculptor Fernando here was one of the passing parade that day (which included a not-very-good-palm reader and some ladies selling kitchen knives, for some reason) Here he is shown making a spear fish from palm fronds – other creations he did were a turtle, several different flowers and fans. A couple of the kids and I were particularly fascinated and bought several of them.

I seem to have a reasonably regular reader who occasionally posts anonymous comments, which I don’t mind at all, but her comments always address me as “Judy” which of course is not my name , not even my middle name. What I think is, she is a blogger, named Judy, with an account but choosing to go Anoymous when commenting – but having to log in to publish her computer names her, anyway. I don’t know if there is a way round this but surely Judy has noticed and cares enough to not address me with her name, somehow? I just can’t believe that with the various ways my blog is named etc that she has me mixed up with another”Judy” quilter from Aus living in Montevideo….

One day last week I found myself on the beach at Carrasco, ie about 7 blocks down our street – on a windy afternoon with weak sunshine. I was not aware it had rained but clearly it had just there only a short time before I came along. The raindrops in the coarse sand produced a pattern that has me thinking … but maybe for after I finish the piece I am working on, with metallic leathers and metallic-waxcoated leathers applied as surface design onto a large piece of fabric, to then be quilted. I have had quite a few visitors this week and all have oohed and aahed encouragingly. The weather is becoming cold, rain threatening, ideal for hunkering down with a large quilt project to finish with some deadlines in view.

Saturday I had a visit from Graciela my new quilting friend who has produced bits of leather – this time she produced Inez and Soledad, two more quilters. Apart from sharing coffee and some books together we shared some freehand aka intuitive a piecing technique, and it will be interesting to see where they take this – as it has been with everyone who has leaned the simple steps. Already I could see that although she was interested it probably won’t go far in one set of hands – but I know it will in one of the others.

Editing the photo I included today was interesting – I cropped a bit and then turned it one way – it looked so very wrong and then the other way as it is now, it is just right. Seems to me it’s a light and shadow thing : but up in the northern hemisphere it would be round the right way – so would it still look wrong viewed from there ?