School holiday fun

We have had a lovely break in Victoria for the school holidays visiting family.  The weather was cold though and I have to get my head around the fact that 3 C overnight does not mean that I will be able to make a snowman in the morning!  Mind you we got home to Adelaide only to discover there had been a sprinkle of snow on Mt Lofty that morning!

Hand sewing was the order of the day, helping pass the long hours spent in the car.  I made most of these hexies three years ago and never sewed them together...because I got distracted and started Seven Sisters.  They are now destine to become a table runner, just a few more rows and it will be long enough. 

We enjoyed some shopping and new purchases were made, more reproductions!  I visited all three patchwork shops in Geelong, but still didn't find the Primitive Gatherings fabric I was looking for.  I didn't complain because DH normally avoids taking me to one shop, let alone all three!  These fabrics came from The Blanket Box in Newcomb.  I love shops that stock reproductions in fat 1/8's and they had a great selection. 

We had a lovely outing to the Werribee Zoo and we enjoyed visiting the gorillas, who are very quick and larger then you realise, when up close.  They came shooting out of their enclosure to find the food the keeper had hidden, but there were no surprises, they could smell tucker and quickly found it.

We nearly "ran" into the keeper taking the Serval for a "walk".  The keeper was great and answered all my questions (they are a jumping/leaping cat who kill birds mid flight up to 3 m in the air!) and also tried to give us a demo.  Alas the Serval wasn't up for performing tricks and waited for the meat to fall off the stick instead!

The first lot of hippos were enjoying a lazy day around the pool, the second lot were swimming and did a big impressive yawn for us, but unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the bus for a photo.  Definitely not tempted to get up close once you see how big their mouth is and the size of the teeth!

 The original wool shed for the Werribee Mansion is on the zoo grounds so we got to visit that.  Unfortunately there was no time to see the mansion as well (plus its a separate entrance fee), and two boys were tired from running around outside,

and in. Still there is always next time, as the gardens at Werribee Mansion are famous for their roses, so we will plan a visit when they are in full bloom.  Instead I found a teapot tree...which I wouldn't have know what it was (we were driving past), except I had seen one on Michelle Hills blog!

Happy to be home and to get back to some machine time, happy quilting, Sue SA.
PS just noted the watering cans "growing" in the bottom left of the picture!