A Bearii lovely Easter

Friday morning we hit the road and converged with every other Melbournian, their dog and trailer on the Hume Freeway and crawled at 30 km/hr for what seemed like an eternity.

We were off to Bearii (a 3 hour drive north) to spend a chill-out Easter with close friends who have a holiday home on a few acres close to the Murray River.

Don't you just love some of the place names along the way (and not so along the way - I even pulled out the Melways to find a few more goodies)? ... Puckapunyal ... Tallygaroopna ... Numurkah ... Poowong ... Koonoomoo ... Naringaningalook ... and the list goes on. I can't help but try and wrap my tongue around some of the more tricky ones - my attempts are a little better now we've been living here for a few years but it was a bit of a struggle at first.

We had one very happy Sophie with us, who spent the entire four days sniffing, exploring and running with her two best doggie friends - Jessie and Scamp.

We also visited the Cactus Country in Strathmerton which transported you into another time and place. Some of the cactii are 50 years old and even though they are not flowering at the moment it was still a very worthwhile visit ... and a definite "must do a return visit" during the flowering season.

There were the quintessential cactus images ...

   

... the 'Land of the Trifid' cactii

A giant asparagus??

This is a huge Ponytail!

... the ones that reminded me of other things

Coral

Mr Sock Monkey

A skein of wool

 ... and ones that just had lovely symmetry (some of my favourites)

I couldn't resist bringing a little piece of the Cactus Garden home, that I will do my best not to over water!!

Relaxing with ba'Nana Mouskouri

Sometimes it's nice to have a really relaxing weekend, especially when one of your sisters (Naomi) is visiting.

The following recipe was followed -

1. Stay in your PJ's as long as possible - Naomi managed 36+ hours straight ... I had leave the house to do something (I can't remember what though) so I opted for getting dressed 'cos a girl likes to be prepared for that just-in-case scenario. My reason for this - I have, one time only, accidentally driven into the back of a V8, near-new ute which was the pride & joy of the guy who was driving. It was just a minor dingle but it would have been even more embarrassing if I'd been in my nightie!
   
2. Spend most of the day lying down on one of the most comfortable couches around ...
   
3. while enjoying a few wines, accompanied by some junk food ...
   
4. then smearing a face mask on each other and leaving it to dry ...
   
5. waiting for the best bit when it begins to crack ...
   
6. then washing if off to reveal heavenly smooth, radiant skin!!

 The yellowy-green mask with our glasses on reminded me of ba'Nana Mouskouri.

And as we'd both prefer to remain incognito there are no post-mask photos.

Don't you think we should all do this relaxing thing a little more often?!!

'New kid on the block'

Here she is … a glamorous little number that will definitely be accompanying me either out to dinner or to the ballet next time I go … or … most probably both!

I really enjoyed making this purse and testing the newest pattern from Nicole Mallalieu Design (which will be available very soon). This is the gathered overlay version with a rouleaux handle that has a little loop feature where it attaches to the purse frame.

The overlay fabric is from Rathdowne Fabrics … and is actually a remnant originally used for making men’s ties. And the lining was from Nikki's 'free to a good home' basket of goodies.

I used medium weight wadding for the purse body which gave it just the right structure so that it's able to either stand up on its own or still be soft enough to flatten out if that’s the shape you prefer.There's an option in the pattern to include a base too but with this fabric/wadding combination the purse didn't need it.

Pinning the purse to the frame helped to make sure the purse was centered and that it stayed there while I sewed on the seed beads (oh, and if I'm being completely honest ... I really just wanted to see what it was going to look like)!

If you would like the opportunity to win a copy of the pattern when it is released head on over to Nikki's You SEW, girl! blog.

Edited to add - It's official ... she's called the 200mm 'Glam' purse! and is available in a kit or pattern only from Nicole Mallalieu Design.