Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

Art Doll - Wilma Simmons  Happy Australia Day... Although there is some controversy over when "Australia Day" should be celebrated. ( see this ABC commentary ) , for this year, Australia Day remains 26 January, with its official holiday tomorrow, 28 January.  Generally, I am fairly politically outspoken, but on this matter, I am still undecided. However, like many Australians, I am leaning towards the movement for changing the date...  I feel for indigenous Australians for whom this date is very hurtful. Whatever the date, we will most likely celebrate Australia Day in our usual way -  very quietly - either doing something in our community or just enjoying our native garden.  Anigozanthus Big Red - Kangaroo Paw  Grevillea juniperina - Pink Lady  Corymbia ficifolia -Summer Red  Syzygium ( possibly Resilience)  Chamaelaucium uncinatu - Gerladton Wax 

Today is Australia Day. I chose a photo of some Lilly Pilly berries as a celebratory image for this national day. Lilly Pilly is  a common name for a plant, Syzygium smithii which grows mostly in Eastern Australia, from the northern  rain forests of Queensland, throughout NSW to the southern Wilson's Promontory in Victoria. In New Zealand it is called "monkey apple, but other names used in Australia, besides lilly pilly, are Eungella Gum and Coast Satinash. The largest Lilly Pilly recorded was found in Dingo Creek Flora Reserve, near Tenterfield where I once lived.  The tree now growing in my garden was once a small seedling which I was gifted when I left Woolgoolga, a small coastal town in northern NSW. Its name  is said to come from the Aboriginal word 'weelgoolga' describing the lilly pilly which grows in profusion there. It is probably no surprise that the lilly pilly berries are edible as bush tucker, and make a beautiful jam or jelly. I have even seen re...

I love a sunburnt country,  A land of sweeping plains,  Of ragged mountain ranges,  Of droughts and flooding rains.  I love her far horizons,  I love her jewel-sea,  Her beauty and her terror  The wide brown land for me!  ( Dorothea Mackellar) 

Photo - our neighbourhood    26  January  - the date of the official national day in Australia. This day marks the anniversary of the British  landing of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove in 1788. In contemporary Australia, its significance has become more inclusive, recognizing  and celebrating the diversity of our community. It is the day many become new citizens of Australia and we are all asked to reaffirm our citizenship.   As an Australian citizen I affirm my loyalty to Australia and its people, whose democratic beliefs I share, whose rights and liberties I respect, and whose laws I uphold and obey. To mark this special day, here are some images of past favourite tags with an Australian flavour - flashback from my work in early 2013.  Eucalypt leaves - sun sensitive paint on cotton fabric.  Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' :  flower  print on fabric, with additional  colour - felt tip pen & pencil  ...

 Happy Australia Day… to celebrate, I made a koala plushie. I bought a fabric panel of an owl and a koala at the Wallsend Community markets last month, so thought today was the right day to make this Aussie icon. Australia Day was a rather lazy day. . A morning walk and then we retreated quickly back inside to escape the heat. I put a small indoors thermometer outside to test it out – it gave up! Obviously over 40degrees! We only went outside because we had to. We celebrated Australia day tonight by cooking, taking and sharing a slow cooked lamb dinner with my friend and my sister-in-law, both patients in hospital. Much better we’re told than hospital food! Here's a special thought for Australia Day: "Close your eyes... and think of the land that gave you life and breath, and think of all the reasons you are glad to be there, with the people you know, with the people you love."  from The Double Comfort Safari Club by Alexander McCall Smith. This week has been a slow c...

Happy Australia Day and Happy Chinese New Year - Year of the Ox Here is my husband , Jim, resplendent in his Chinese coat (a traditional garment worn by dong ba, Chinese scholars from the Na xi ethnic Chinese group) and Brandon, our oldest grandson in his trendy Aussie T-shirt. We have quite a few family celebrations happening this week - all featuring lots of great food, of course. Our son and daughter and their families are both hosting parties this weekend, so there has even been cooking here in our kitchen. Brandon has been learning to take photos with my digital camera, and here is one of his images of Chinese New Year - he took many photos of food from various angles in various stages of preparation. This week I have been trying to catch up with the work from the online class I am taking from the Thread Studio - I have been working so furiously that I broke one of the felting needles in the embellisher machine. The "underwater" sample (left) is not quite finished - a fe...