Out with the old and in with the new

Or at least, a new blog space under my very own domain. Welcome! Let me know what you think of the “new look” which I have endeavoured to more closely align (and integrate) with my Serendipity Patchwork & Quilting website.

Migrating my blog across from www.serendipitypatchwork.blogspot.com has presented a few challenges. You will see that I am still going through the laborious process of manually inserting author links on the transferred comments and categorising my posts. Also, through some technical/time zone quirk, my historical posts are time and date stamped several hours behind Copacabana time (as they appear on Blogger) but I have decided against trying to fix this up.

I will continue to tweak my side bar (including trying to fix up the crazy author details on the “Recent Comments” section) but it’s safe for you to reset your Bloglines (or equivalent) feeds to this new address: www.serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog For your assistance, I have inserted some subscription buttons in my side bar.

Have a great New Year’s Eve!

A little exercise

After the excesses of festive dining, a little exercise was in order. Off to the National Park where the angophoras grace the canopy:

And the flannel flowers bloom on the forest floor:

The Great Migration

I am in the process of transferring my blog to Wordpress. This may take a while. In the meantime, you can find my blog at www.serendipitypatchwork.blogspot.com

A Farewell Quilt

I don’t know about you, but I find the rhythms of quiltmaking to be wonderfully therapeutic; a sense of wellbeing envelopes me when I am at one with my sewing machine and there are few things more satisfying than knowing that your quilt is destined for an appreciative home.

When my quilting friend Monica announced at the end of November that she was returning to America to take up her dream job at a university in Michigan, I knew that she would need a real Aussie quilt (not a UFO) instilled with plenty of good vibes to keep her warm so far away. I also knew her other quilting friends would want to contribute but the logistics were challenging as the festive season was upon us. Yet, just look at what we accomplished! At the guild meeting in early December, I surreptitiously collected signed circles and others arrived in the post. A quick rustle through my stash yielded a rainbow of background squares onto which I fused and machine blanket stitched the circles:

I found a suitably cheery border and backing fabric on sale (please excuse the crooked photo):

And Erica attended to personal delivery to a very surprised and delighted Monica today:

PS:  I have categorised this post under “Celebrations” in celebration of friendship.

We Just Dyed

Here are the results of our dyeing day:

Can you tell that we are sisters?

And I am inching ever closer to my new blog as Liz kindly referred me to this Wordpress thread which in turn linked me to this clever solution which allowed me to transfer the majority of my posts, images and comments from new Blogger to Wordpress.

Puzzles

The surf was too rough today for safe swimming so Delia and I did a spot of dyeing (photos tomorrow). The family is now working on jigsaw puzzles, concentrating on shapes and colours.

On the subject of puzzles, my new year’s resolution to migrate my blogspot blog to Wordpress (tied to one of my websites) has suffered a slight setback. I have searched a number of support forums but it seems that no one has yet developed a tool for importing posts from new/beta Blogger into Wordpress. Of course, I only found this out after I had converted my blogspot blog from “old” to “new” blogger. Sigh.

Anyway, if anyone has a reasonably straightforward solution, please let me know as part of the reason for the proposed move is to keep control over my own content and I would like to get my blogging history (250+ posts) onto my own domain.

Christmas Festivities

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve. Delia brought her guitar,Rowan brought up a new adaptor for my digital piano and Mum brought over my repaired clarinet from high school band so we had our very own Christmas music. An unexpected power outage around 9.30pm fortunately did not interrupt our dinner but did defer our viewing of Holiday Inn. Some of Santa’s elves were a little sleepy this morning:

Julian and Tracey love their wedding quilt - an autumn-toned version of my Synchronicity pattern:

And David made me a new sign for outside my studio:

A Kiwi Touch

Those of you in New Zealand, or readers of Dale’s blog, will be familiar with the distinctive red pohutukawa blooms that line the North Island coast at this time of year. It’s something I miss in Australia so I ordered this platter from Morris & James pottery and Mum played courier:

The pottery is close to the town where I grew up in New Zealand but they do mail order. Judging by the packaging on this platter, there is little risk of goods breaking in transit. Eagle-eyed readers will notice that this platter has a very similar palette to the tulip urn that we have to the right of the fireplace in our living area. One of my most favourite things!

A Christmas Wedding

Christmas is a time for gathering of family and weddings also bring people together. Combine the two and you have the makings of a real celebration. Yesterday I went to the wedding of a friend from Auckland law school. We both reside in Australia these days and the wedding was held in the quintessentially Sydney setting of Jonah’s overlooking Whale Beach. It was a very joyful occasion. If you click to enlarge this map, you will see that our home at Copacabana is quite close to the Northern Beaches of Sydney. However, since my car is not amphibious and is not capable of traversing the Hawkesbury River, we took the long way around - a thankfully event-free journey despite holiday traffic.

My brother and sister in law arrived from Queensland yesterday and more family are due to arrive today. To everyone travelling at this busy time, keep safe.

Continuing Consumer Tales

When my parcel didn’t arrive yesterday, I called Kodak back; went through all the silly prompts; went through my plaintive “help, help, help,supervisor, help, help, help, service!, help, help help” spiel and eventually got to talk to a more helpful supervisor. Incidentally, on the Kodak phone system “customer service representative” are apparently the magic words to bypass the prompts and get through to a real person. Not that the representative that I spoke to on Wednesday could tell me that. What do they think we are, mind readers?!

Distribution is the downfall of many e-commerce enterprises and I understand things go astray but unresponsive telephone service channels just add insult to injury. Anyway, Jonathan conceded that my parcel appeared to be lost and so I arranged for my order to be reprocessed which means David may get his Christmas present by New Year’s, all going well:-( I’ve also received various refunds, vouchers and credits should I ever feel the urge to purchase Kodak products again…

On a brighter note, my Electric Quilt 6 upgrade arrived in the mail yesterday (posted from the US on 13 December so delivery within a week or so by regular air mail is certainly possible even at this time of the year). Installation and registration went through without any glitches so I’m ready to start designing a medallion quilt for my mother. I have also made some super lime shortbread using the recipe from rooruu’s blog AND I have transferred this blog onto new Blogger (due to its size, it took an hour but that’s OK).