Mount Buffalo National Park

Paul and I went away for four nights to regional Victoria, and enjoyed a couple of hikes.  Our favourite was the one we did at Mount Buffalo National Park.  This hike wasn't particularly hard compared to a lot of hikes we have done recently, and the trail was well marked.  However, it had a lot of bang for your buck when it came to spectacular views. 

The hike started at Lake Catani which was gorgeous in the morning.  The water was so still there was a nearly perfect reflection.

We then hiked to the first lookout over Buckland Valley.  These are the stairs to the lookout point.

This is the view from the lookout.  As you can see the weather is perfect.

We continued along the plateau where there were several more lookouts with stunning views. This bench seat was in a perfect isolated spot and we decided to have lunch here.

My favourite photo taken after lunch.  I had just taken some photos and was standing there soaking it all in.

An interesting tree growing between the rocks.

Paul often takes photos of me taking photos without me knowing.

The map - you can see the detours off to the lookout points.

Tarrytown Stars and Octagon Quilt

This gorgeous quilt was designed and made by Michelle Yeo using her new fabric range Tarrytown.

The free downloadable pattern is available here.

I love how Michelle fussy cut the fabric for each star.  Even though it takes longer I decided to ditch stitch the stars to let the fabric shine.  If you look closely, I also emphasised the octagon shape around each star with straight lines, which unfortunately doesn't show up in the photo that well. 

The border fabric is so beautiful.  Originally I was going to quilt it more heavily, but decided to keep the quilting lighter to once again showcase the fabric.

101 Reds

Another one of my quilts.  The top I pieced in 2015, but I only got to quilting it this year.  To take photos of my quilts laid out at our new home I have to move all the lounge room furniture to make room to lay the quilt on the floor.

A friend's husband very kindly made the acrylic templates for me.  I sent her the templates made from plastic and then he made them in acrylic.  It made cutting out the quilt so much easier.

The quilt was entirely made of scraps and I used up a lot of little pieces of red fabric as well as quite a few small pieces of background fabric I had left over from other quilts.

I called the quilt '101 Reds' as there were 100 different red fabrics in the quilt top (yes I kept count), and one red fabric pieced into the back.  I forgot about the binding.  So really there are 102 red fabrics in the quilt.

I quilted it with two different patterns in the circles to make it more interesting.  The circles were 1/4 inched.

For the back I used up left over strips from where I fussy cut the fabric for this quilt.

Cute Teddy Bear Quilt

This cute teddy bear quilt was made by Julie and her daughter.  Whilst I am not taking custom quilting at the moment, Julie sent me a picture of this little quilt and gave me artistic freedom in the quilting.  It inspired me, so I agreed to quilt it for her.

I quilted each block with different background fills, matching the thread colour.  I used a total of twenty-six different thread colours in the quilt.

I had fun with the border adding zig zags to break up the area.

Old River Circuit - Lerderderg State Park

When planning for Easter we decided a hike sounded like a good idea and decided to go Good Friday.  Our sweet spot is grade three hikes between 15 to 20 kilometres.  But sometimes we like to challenge ourselves so we decided to do a grade four hike in Lerderderg State Park.  I chose the Old River Circuit as it sounded interesting and isolated as we wanted to really go bush.  

The hike was challenging, with very steep inclines into and out of the gorge, a lot of rock scrambling, and two river crossings. 

Also part of it was off trail which we had to navigate. But it was worth it as it was spectacularly beautiful. The weather, whilst a bit warmer than our ideal for a long hike, was not unpleasant as we were mostly shaded by the trees. 

Once in the gorge it was so peaceful.  The water levels were low and we were easily able to rock hop across the river even though we had brought water shoes so were prepared to get our feet wet.

We turned off from the main river up the old river bed which was mostly dry.

The climb out of the gorge was even steeper than coming in, and this is why the circuit is best done anti-clockwise.  At times you were almost crawling using your hands to help pull yourself up.  Obviously, no photos were taken during this part of the hike.  But I did take a photo of the marker before we started the last ascent - which reads that we have 3 kilometres with an estimated 2.5 hours to complete the hike.  It didn't take us quite that long, but this gives you an indication of how gruelling the hike was.

We were almost back at the car when we were rewarded with the sight of a Wallaby amongst the trees.

The map.  As you can see the first several kilometres were easy.  Then we crossed a ridge with some spectacular views before the first sharp descent into the gorge.  We then followed the old river bed before going off trail to climb out of the gorge and cross to another trail.  We descended back down again to cross the river to climb out one last time and back to the car.

Provincial Garden

I am posting some of my quilts that I have made in the past few years but never got around to organising the photos.  This one is called 'Provincial Garden'.  I made the top in 2015, and quilted it in 2018.

I loved the floral fabric, and designed a quilt to feature it.  

I broke up the setting triangles to create more interest.

On the back I used up the strips of the main fabric that were left over.