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Welcome to Spring... gosh it's the 1st September here Down Under & the weather is very changeable at the mo...
I have worked for 2 & half days putting photos up on my Flickr account for you to see all the wonderful crochet - ArtWork - in the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef... the display has now closed but I will never forget it with the photos that I have... Do pop on over here & have a look... I have two sets of photos one of the reefs & how they were set up & the other just shows you the wonderful colours & texture of the crochet & all... You will be surprised to see all the different fibres/stuff/things that were used to make this wonderful crocheted reef...

Thanks to the girls from In Stitches for your incredible work of setting the reefs up - I know there was a lot more work than that, what with collecting & sorting & & &... the list goes on & now the pulling down... very time consuming but do know we appreciate it & it was the most fabulous show - 10 days wasn't really long enough eh?
Please do have a look & if you recognise 'your' piece of coral, pop on up to the top left of the photo & add a note... drag the square to your lovely piece of coral or even if it's one you want to ask something or say something about... it would be just so wonderful to know you all & know what you all think of the installation... look forward to meetin' you there...
Enjoy your spring...

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Life is keeping me rather busy still - that is why I've not been on here with any updates...

My Mum is still waiting to go into a permanent aged care facility... the hold-up now being that she has now had to be re-accessed & is no longer 'low care' but 'high care'... not too good on her pins now so needs someone with her whenever she moves around & of course that's not much now. She is very sad & still quite crabby all the time but to cheer her up we keep taking some of her long-lost possessions that we are finding at her house so she can tell us the stories.

When we meet on Thursdays to do more on her house we can all share the stories she has told us so we are bonding again as grown-up children now collecting our valuable family history. Many are the things we are finding & ohhh so interesting... They[my parents] have had a wonderful life even if hard at times I think that makes for a more appreciative life.

Here is a drawing I had done of our old farm house some years back...

I have allotted myself to be the photo collector so have all the photos I can find so I can scan them & put them on USB sticks or discs to share with the family with names etc so it makes sense to the younger ones coming up the family ranks. You can't believe how many photos I have here to scan - I think every box of letters [some dating back to 1940] contained some photos - it will take me a month of Sundays for sure but I'll get there as they are too precious to lose. I guess this is the bane of photographers in the family....

In the meantime our eldest daughter got put into hospital with pneumonia so we had a quick dash to their home to help the family & spent a week there... Y. still wasn't the best when we left but there was just too much happening at home to be away longer...

Also been keeping my fingers busy with some crochet but need to concentrate on some items now as with-in 10days my sister & I are off to Japan to visit with her son & his family & I have presents I wish to complete to take with us. Sadly we have not had anytime to get organised or excited about this trip as Mum is filling all our thoughts, worrying about her welfare...

Thankfully we have now finished sorting the house... now it's time to get everyone to take what they want so we can see what is left... sad to see your old home in such a state of dishevelment as I lived there for a few years before going out & getting married myself, but my older sister & brother have never lived at this house so it doesn't have the same memories for them... A bit like our home here as we moved here since all our kids have made homes of their own so this home doesn't hold those special memories.

I did do something this week that I've had planned for sometime now & that was to fly to Sydney with my girlfriend Lucy to visit the Sydney PowerHouse Museum to see the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef. We only went for the day but it was so well worth it... I think between us we took something like 300 - 400 photos & we still didn't get everything. The lighting was very dramatic so it made it somewhat hard to focus on the coral & strangely we found the red coral very hard to photograph. I would say we loved it as we spent nearly 5 hours there & I did get to meet three other artists plus Michaela who was one of the organisers... The girls did a fabulous job of putting the display together & it was very exciting to see my name in lights on the wall along with the other 343 participants.

I have culled the photos down to about 200 so there are way too many photos to show here, I'm loading them into my flicker account so do pop on over & have a looksee. Please also check out the Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef set too... Please, let your friends know too... Here is the blog site as well...

This is me with my first piece that I found... it sure was a thrill to find one of my pieces up there, front & centre, on one of the displays & I recognised some other folks work as well - if only we could of all been there together to meet one another... can you imagine the hum-ding we would of made... lol This was a very BIG bright spot in my week... thanks Lucy for sharing it with me & always encouraging me to do my 'thing'...

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Gosh everywhere I look on the net lately I've come across someone, somewhere, read/learning/doing Hyperbolic Crochet... some even call it FreeForming crochet but, I really think it is a Crochet of it's own, this thing called Hyperbolic Crochet. Have you seen the video of Margaret Wertheim from the Institute for Figuring talking about Hyperbolic Crochet - Crocheting a Coral Reef...

Now I might not know too much about mathematics[even had to look up how to spell that correctly] but I do know about bringing awareness to our World Famous Coral Reef along the coastline of Queensland & northern NSW - the Great Barrier Reef and how we must protect it, even protecting it from ourselves, our rubbish etc... Our reef is precious to our country & I'm sure to other countries that have their own reef systems. So do go have a look see at this video... I'm sure like me you will want to see it a few times to really absorb it all & when you have the time also look at the gallery area of the Institute for Figuring.

Sydney is having it's own instillation of a Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef in August 09 & many people the world over are contributing too it as has been done in other countries. They are working hard to put it all together in time & are holding workshops each month - wish I lived closer.

I've been working on some Hyperbolic crochet myself... just hyperbolic crochet flowers at present, to show but I am also working on some crocheted coral reef matter as well... if you are into crochet why not make something & send it along... I guarantee, you will have lots of fun making crochet reefs... Go on, have a Go... I dare you too....

Angel Messages... from the book by Juan Nakamori

Today's Message... You are protected this very moment, always & forever.

Take comfort in this & live your life in harmony with your Higher Self.