Our trip to Prince Edward County.

September 20th 2019

Our 51st wedding anniversary was Sept.7th and we decided to take a little trip to Prince Edward County. It was a lovely little break where I didn't have to think about meals. Unlike when we are at the trailer though it is a time away for R&R one still has to meal plan and cook.

The weather was good and we visited some friends we haven't seen in 8 years enroute to Prince Edward Co.  So the first night we stay at Coburg which us on Lake Ontario.

Then we went on to a lovely little AirB&B in Picton. Seeing it was early September after the school kids go back to school it was a little less crowded, as it is a very popular place in the summer. It has beautiful beaches, sand dunes and trees a very pretty area.

We visited with our friend and her son. Many years ago I babysat Carson, so it was nice to catch up with him. We often see in on City T .V. where he often talks about gardens and the outside. He has just opened a Garden and Market.

Our friend invited us to stay with her and we visited the area and of course Carson Garden Market. Another attraction was he had on loan three Alpacas and I was hoping to get some picture for future artwork.

I love how he has barn quilts painted on boards on his barn. All around Picton and Wellington, part of Prince Edward Co. one sees displays of quilt blocks. There is trail one can do and brochure that take you on the tour to see the quilt blocks.

Carson has written a book Vegetables, Chickens and Bees, it's a great book not only for the great gardeners but ideas for people like us that have sized down, to pots and boarders. He has a few receipes also. So I bought one and he signed for me. Here we are after we visited with the Alpacas.

This is one of the Alpacas, they certainly are characters. This one looks so aloof but I think they were more interested in the hay. Anyway watch these pages later as I hope to do a thread painting on him.

One thing I learnt, Carson says the fleece doesn't grow very quickly and so one shearing a year produces enough fleece for one sweater. Have you ever wondered  why a sweater made with soft Alpacas fleece is so expensive now you know why.  Also if you are allergic to wool you won't have this problem with Alpacas yarn as it doesn't contain lanolin like lambs wool.

Here are a few thread paintings I have finished since last I wrote, getting ready for the November show I am in.The first is a peacock butterfly photo taken by my brother, actually I have made two of these I gave one to Dave my brother and Karen on their 40th wedding anniversary, and the other kept for the show.

This last one I did I have called it "Sunset Over Lake Huron" .  Lake Huron is in Ontario and is part of the Great Lakes in Canada. I lived not far from there on Georgian Bay for 27 years and Georgian Bay flows into Lake Huron.  It is renown for its beautiful sunset which you can view over the water, so if you get the opportunity to visit it is worth seeing.

With this beautiful sunset I will leave you with this verse.

Psalm113 v 3

From the rising of the sun to its setting. 

The name of the Lord is to be praised.

After a long absence!

September 2nd

AFTER A LONG ABSENCE

I decided to try and get back into some activities that have been let slip as time has been taken up with physio and trying to get my shoulder unfrozen , it is coming. I had been pre warned it could take up to a year. After a time of being in one place ,I had to get it moving and now reaching 143deg and goal is 160deg so that is encouraging.

I have got back to my happy place and have been creating small pieces for the upcoming show in November, maybe not as much as I usually show but have to accept where I am at.

For those that don't follow me on my FB site Etched In Thread By Ally I will post a few of my thread paintings, over the next little while.

This is one I started in Australia while visiting my friend Barb, we had a afternoon of using our inktense pencils and blocks , then started on the thread painting. Needless to say it didn't get touch for a while as my shoulder was out of action.
It is a picture of Cornwall which reminds me of our time in UK when we celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary. There are lots of coves like this with the rugged coastline and crashing waves. I have a few more I would like to attempt, probably over the winter months when that white stuff is fluttering around!!

Here are a few smaller pieces that don't take quite as many hours to sew, so am able to sell in the shadow boxes at a reasonable price. All these will be at Christmas in Paris show in November.  These are made of a combination of fabric appliqué and threading with some hand embroidery as well.

We have a trailer at the lake and this year we have spent quite a bit of time there. With friends and family.
Where would summer be if we didn't spend it with our children and grandchildren.
Here are a couple of pictures of some of our activities.

Port Dover our little beach at the campground.

Great Wolf Lodge with 4 of the Grandsons.

                                              Nana Ally with all her grandsons.

THE GANG

We celebrated Luke's 16th birthday with the extended family what a great time we all had and the weather was perfect.

That's all for now. Hoping I can be more regular with my postings.

Enjoy the fall days.

Few more Pics of Austraila

April 12th 2019

Here is a Rosella they are very pretty birds and we saw quite a few of them. This particular one was quite tame and use to people being around. In fact a lady eating her French Fries often him one and he took it and flew back to the fence where he was just out of reach.

On a trip to the Quarantine Camp a few miles from Sorrento after the tour it was so hot we stopped for a ice cream at the tour centre and then walked down to the beach and looked what we saw struggling to get out of the in coming tide. Of course this old gal wasn't going anyway near but I got Paul to take a photo from above on the wall looking down on the beach. It must have been on the undergrowth on the wall and fall over the drop.

Here is another Wallaby which we saw in the undergrowth.

Enjoying our lunch at the little cafe around the corner from hotel, we really liked the hotel it was so close to the buses and train and underground for getting around. But it didn't have a restaurant no doubt because there was so many places one could eat around it.

This was the morning before my dreaded accident.

Here are few photos of mine that I am hoping to make into cards and also may try and do a thread painting of them.
Hope you have enjoy the pictures.

Animals and Birds of Australia.

March 14th 2019.

On our travels we saw many colourful birds. And we went searching for the Koala , though many call them Koala Bears in fact they are not bears at all. They are so cute to look at but apparently you have to watch if you hold them as their claws are really sharp.

The Koala loves to sit in the branches of the gum and Eucalyptus trees. They eat the leaves of the Eucalyptus trees. They are very sleepy creatures so it was good to see them looking around and not sleeping.

On our travels we didn't see any Kangaroo's on the roadside but we did see a few Wallaby's on the road side grazing. They like the Kangaroo are very unpredictable and can jump out at you any time so when driving and you see the warning signs you need your eyes on the road. We saw these mob of Kangaroos on the side of a golf course.

Here are a few birds we saw on our travels.  This cockatoo was high in the trees on our nieces and husbands property, he took me out with my camera and pointed them out to me. He did name them but I have forgotten their particular name as some have yellow crest and some don't. But they are very noisy very much like our squeaky Blue Jays.

Here is a Kookaburra sitting on a cut down tree trunk, they have quite the cackle laugh.

Here is a Lotus Pod after it has stopped flowering, I took quite a few pictures at the Lotus and Lily Farm. It was a great pity as it started to rain and so the pictures I took didn't do the flowers justices.

Here are a few more lily and lotus flowers.

Hope you enjoyed the photos of the animals, birds and flowers of Australia. I have a few more that I will post at a later date.

A few have asked how my arm was coming along. Just started into Physio and I know that with a lot of hard work it will come back. But at times it is very painful especially at night the pain wakes me up so I am still on pain meds. The muscles are telling me that I am working them and when I relax at night they seem to want to contract. They tell me it is not going to happen overnight, but a bit at a time. At the moment I can only just touch my nose with my finger but that is more than I could two weeks ago. My hand and wrist and elbow is moving so hoping to see what I can do to in the way of hand sewing.

During those wakeful hours in the dark of the night when everyone else is sleeping these words come to me, from Psalm 23 v. 2-3 may these words uplift you too.

i am back!

March 7th 2019

As you can see I am back, my apologies for the absence.  The outcome was I had to have a op on the 16th Feb with a plate and screws. So now the staples are out, physio begins.
So now I am beginning to feel I can get on the computer so the days won't seem so long. It is painful at times but not quite as it was in the beginning. I know from my first physio there is going to be a lot of hard work ahead. But my goal is to get back to my art work and thread painting.

How about coming on our travels around Australia, sit back in your chair and enjoy!

One of the places we wanted to revisit was The Great Ocean Road, Victoria. We had visited before but had travelled on our way back from our niece putting us on the wrong side of the road making it hard to pull over and see the vistas, so this time we stopped many times to take in the grandeur of the sea scape's.

This is called the twelve apostles, though  the weather was hot it is always windy there.

Here are some more beautiful views along the great ocean road.

I was amazed how many shades of blue the ocean had, such grandeur .

I am going to leave with a beautiful lily which I think you may see me at a later date attempt to thread paint.

Next blog I will share with you some of the Australian animals and birds we saw.

Until next time.

Omissions.

Sorry about that folks, it is not easy to get back in here to proof read and set right, and obviously knock Barb pic off.  Then my I pad wouldn't let me go further to to edit.
So here is Barb pic and please forgive the grammar errors that I couldn't correct.
Maybe next time I will try on my laptop.

Also I notice I couldn't open the video. Maybe it was too big with other photo's
So I will put it on again.

Hope this works now.

Australia trip.Wi

February3rd.2019

This is our 5th day back home. And glad to say the temps are better than the day we arrived back. The snow banks outside the house are deminishing the sun is out and it looks quite Cherri.
I have an appointment at the fracture clinic on Wednesday, so I think I will stay put inside until then. But what can one do when they are right handed and can't even chop veggie for the big pot of chicken soup Paul is going to make.

So thought I would add to the blog, there will be more pics when I get the pics downloaded from my camera.

Here is a picture of us taken at the Grampian mountains, yes they have them in Australia too, the others are in Scotland.

The last time we went here was with our niece Gill and we came to the railing and could see nothing as it was so foggy, so we asked if we could go again and what a wonderful vistas we saw. Mick, Gill Maddie their daughter we all went and had a picnic lunch, listened and watched the colourful birds sing, as we ate.

While in Australia my friend Barb who got me interested into thread painting over ten years ago, had a day when we played with our threads.
Here is a couple of pictures of us though Barb wasn't keen to have a closeup, so Paul took one of her as she worked.

Here is another item Barb and I experimented with, it is a leaf we stitched on solable stabilizer once washed away leaves you with a leaf or whatever you design and sewed on the machine.

Going post another photo of the work of Amanda Hartland at Amanda Hartland Textiles you can check her work out. It really appeals to me it is thread sketching and she paints the sketch work and it really makes it pop. I love ER work as she uses every say scenes that we all take for granted, this really reminisce as it is so British and also my brothers first car was a black Morris Minor.

I will try and get more of the Aussie pictures downloaded for my next blog.

Bye for now.