a big sky

We've been away.

Its almost funny really. I was so stressed when we left - thinking of all the things I needed to do, to pack, to clean. Bills to pay, emails to write, clothes to wash, food to buy, packages to send.

Nothing like a long horizon to put things in to perspective. Time with family, a cup of tea, some home made cake, home made marmalade. Talk. Walking through the still of the bush, the smile on the dog's face as she dives in the creek. More talk. Camp oven dinner round the fire with grown up nephews, burning sticks and gazing transfixed into the coals. Old photo albums and finishing my book.

And the sky! So amazing on the dark winter afternoon we headed west into the sunset. The morning clouds a hundred storeys high the day we left, painting the sky a million shades of grey and white.

I've got a few more pics from my time away I'll post them tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone who commented on our little Peppermint ad :-) I keep meaning to say here how much I truly love to receive all your comments. Thank you! I love to reply too when I have time so if you don't have your email address in your blogger profile (its easy to do) why don't you leave it in your comment or email it to me separately so I can get in touch.

peppermint

My lovely Down Under Street Team of Australian Etsy sellers, DUST, were given an Etsy advertising grant earlier this year. And so it was decided that interested Dusters would join together and pay a little extra to take out an ad in the fantastic Peppermint mag "the new green fashion magazine, covering eco and ethical style in a positive, uplifting and forward-thinking manner".
We held a competition to choose which items would be featured and I was lucky enough to be chosen, see my little tea towel! Yesterday I picked up the magazine and here is the ad full of talented Dusters, Peppermint readers can use a special discount code on checkout with all the participating Dust members, there are quite a few of us. These wonderful sellers are featured on a special webpage where you can see their products and discounts. We'd love it if you wanted to support Peppermint and Dust by buying an issue and using this great discount.

cheating

Last week I told you I'd been playing around with more spots and I teased that they were headed somewhere fun. Today I can reveal that I ending putting some of them together to make a cheater quilt top for the latest Spoonflower design comp, whose theme is Cheater Quilt. The contest is up today, I just got the email (with my design on it!) and you can vote on it now!

One of the things I like about the Spoonflower contests is that you can VOTE for as many or as few designs as you like. There are eight pages all up and you can click on each one you like as you go through and then vote at the end.

I'd love it if you have time to go and vote - for me!! whoops, no I mean for your favourites ;-). There are some great designs in there and some interesting ideas.

The designs are designed and previewed over one yard of fabric, which I think would make a great quick and inexpensive baby quilt, I like to think mine is not too girly and would match a range of contemporary colour schemes.  I've ordered a test swatch to check colours (I'll show you when it arrives) and then I intend to order at least one yard to keep in my stash for the next girl baby that comes along. I think it would look lovely backed in pink flannel with some straight line quilting between the squares.

Each of the squares in my cheater is a repeat so I'm uploading my favourites to Spoonflower too. I think they would be great to sew matching accessories like bibs and baby shoes. And most of them work for boys or girls too.