Friday 29 August 2014

A Day Out



Thought I would sandwich the sunset from 2 nights ago between the progress on the crochet spoke flowers. Such a beautiful calm evening, a prelude for spring!

Today has been an exceptionally busy day. Three months ago I booked in for a tour of the new South Australian Medical Health Research Institute (SAMHRI) and I showed you photos of the building here i took lots of photos of the external structure but today had the opportunity to see the inner workings


Three pods form part of the lower aspect of the building and the front foyer to the main pod is spacious. The  extremely large void  appears to house an inner building - the main functioning work space. A total of 1400 windows encase the building and give a very light infused and open feeling to the building. the cheese grater effect on the external building are designed to move to accommodate air flow and make the building environmentally friendly.
The building is built on aboriginal land and its use of colour were given by the aboriginal elders to represent earth sea and sky. Colour glimpse through the windowed panels and as part of the upper foyer area

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Looking down from the eight floor into the void of the foyer and the colours dedicated by the aboriginal elders seen through the many panels of glass and representative of each floor



Now I apologise in advance for so many photos of a staircase, but i love form and function and think that the structural beauty of this staircase speaks for itself. It just depends on which perspective you look at it!

Like a big corks screw the staircase is central and is designed to draw all layers/ levels of the building together in the ideal of collaboration and openness.

It just depends on which way you look at it!



Also of interest is the supporting structure of the building. The guide referred to these structures as flowers. The beams radiate throughout the building, with the angle becoming wider as the building grow upwards and are the support framework of the whole building.

Aboriginal artwork in area designated to aboriginal health research

One of the lab spaces visible on the tour.


The building supports over 600 researchers/ collaborators yet only offers only 20 carparks in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint.  The bike rack outside the building is well utilised, the tram runs past the door on one side of the building and the railway on the other




After my tour I walked to the botanic gardens and had lunch under this palm type tree. I would never had paid attention to it except for one of the branches had been pulled from the tree and was laying on the ground below. Then I got carried away with my camera , But I forgot to snap the name of the plant.






An arbour reflecting nature and a beautiful blue sky.

On to the Amazon  Lily room




 And some iron work panels one of the park entrances

A quick trip to the art gallery- these guys nailed it!



And to finish off - a rainbow of colour in the mineral room at the museum.





Wednesday 27 August 2014

Floral Abundance





A posy of colour coming your way today. After hooking the hottie cover with tapestry wools I decided to pull out the rest of the wool and make something a little more colourful.After producing a few spoked flowers I realised that I just didn't have the volume or variety of colour that I wanted and needed. I could have headed off to Spotlight to purchase balls of wool, but to get the variety in colour  it would have cost a small fortune. I have plenty of acrylic color in bright assortment of colour but prefer the feel of wool (especially if the item  to be made is to be worn in the vicinity of the neck and shoulders). So I toddled off to the op shop where i purchased the green and blue tapestry wools at a reasonably cheap price and basically bought up every colour they had that was bright. 45 skeins of brightly coloured yarns for floral inspiration Yeh! I dropped in to a few of the other thrift shops and also purchased the jug I had spied the other day but didn't buy because I felt I had spent enough money....I still liked it and today couldn't resist.




The spoked wheel flower (as I am calling it) is partially from a vogue pattern for the giant motif shawl that I have made in the past. I decided to utilize the central motif and then try to hook it up as I produced each flower wheel  -  low and behold it works


I also purchased some chrysanthemums and carnations to pop into my new vase. They have really long stems and in the end I didn't have the heart to cut them right down to fit in the vase. Over the next couple of days as I trim them and they become shorter I will plonk them in the vase to enjoy both flowers and jug





Love my delicious "new":  Johnston Jug!
Cheers and blessings xx



Monday 25 August 2014

Hottie Cover


My recent collection of tapestry skeins  whilst op shopping has compelled me to make a hot water bottle cover. I think that my thinking had been influenced by Kate at Foxes Lane with her hot water bottle hook along. Anyway I must have purchased these tapestry colours with this in mind as the very next day after purchase I proceeded to become absorbed in my little hooky project.
Sometimes I think I become so consumed with the desire to complete something that I ignore all else and  tend to enjoy hiding in my bedroom whiling away the hours quietly (or sitting in the sunshine as I did on Saturday)


I became a little more flamboyant with the use  of colour towards the end.. grabbing whatever thread was large enough to make a few rounds around the neck of the bottle as I was getting low on threads by then. The flowers were a last minute addition and a nod to spring .


I have found a bag full of colourful bright tapestry threads in my cupboard and think a bright cover might be underway.

Friday 22 August 2014


Been a while since I've bothered to write, but haven't really done anything spectacular.
I bought the above craftwood heart from the sale table at craft and painted it white. I chopped off the bottom stand  and then macramed a hanger for it. It now hangs outside with my wooden birdcage  and sways in the breeze.

I've been making slow progress on the neutrals blanket and have completed 102 squares so far. Its my  take in the car project and gets worked on every now and then.


Today was op shopping day. In total we went to 17 shops.. a record for us. That being said I really didn't find that much that I wanted to buy.

Cotton reels at 20 cents each.. a bargain

Tapestry wool skeins 3 for $1. I bought these to make a granny hot water bottle something like  Jules of Little Wooly has made.- Correction----Kate at  FOXES LANE


A cheap pottery bowl

Some milkware for my sister

and another leg egg cup to ass to my collection. This one is missing some paint but I bought him all the same

And yet another jar to put my jam into (I dropped the other one I bought the first day I used it...BooHoo)

So thats it ...pretty boring really but a fun day shopping all the same