Empress Wu Designs with Wilma

  A few days ago, I read an opinion piece about the absurdity of portraying a white Christmas  with carols about snow related activities in Australia. I thought that it was worth checking if any of our postage stamps have an Australian theme - happily there are quite a few - surfing Santas, Madonna and Child amongst Australian wildflowers and this one - drawn by Kylie Courtney aged 6 in 1988. This koala in a Santa hat looks rather content to be celebrating in the bush on a sunny summery day.  On this card, I have stitched a paper collage to hint of the bush where koalas may celebrate Christmas happily.  

After making a tag for Tag Tuesday's theme Bunnies and Butterflies and changing the theme to suit myself to Bilby and Butterfly, I decided to make a few more as I had the fabric out on my work table. ...  So here is another bilby friend and a possum - still chasing butterflies.  And not being able to stop there , I took out some more fabric from my stash to add a couple of koala friends, delighting  in their playtime with butterflies.  You could also try making some fun tags as gifts for friends - just cut out some motifs from print fabric and use iron on double sided adhesive to the fabric and attach in layers to the cardboard tag.  These tags are available in my Etsy shop - free postage within Australia.

 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...