Drawing a raffle prize

is on the agenda this morning. I am pedalling over to an aged care complex not too far from here to get it done.

One of the staff there has just contacted me to inform me that J...., my one hundred and one year old celebrity, is "still keen to do it". It makes me a very happy cat. I am purring gently as I write this. 

It has been a long road to this point. We started the project before the pandemic. It was the year they had the bushfires, not the pandemic. Somehow it seems a very long time ago indeed.

What happened? Well there was a major bushfire on an island we lived on a long time ago. The Senior Cat was in charge of the biggest school there, a school with many problems. The island had many problems. It was not the tourist destination it is now. Getting there was much more difficult too. Parts of it were very remote indeed, perhaps still are.

But the island also had the bees, those all important Ligurian bees. Those bees are now very, very important indeed. When the fires wiped out so much of the vegetation the bees use and many of the hives it could have been catastrophic. Something needed to be done. The islanders do not give up easily and their Wildlife Network has been working steadily to restore the flora as well as the fauna ever since. 

There is not much urban dwellers can do to help in a practical sense so Handicrafts people at our state show decided to try and raise some money instead. It would not be much but we wanted to alert people to the problem so they would be more willing to help in other ways when asked. 

And then of course there were two years with no Show for the state - all because of the pandemic. We went on making blanket squares and putting them together. There was one special blanket, designed by yours truly, with themed squares. There was another beautifully embroidered with wild flowers. There were more plainer blankets. Last year we  raffled off the embroidered blanket. We saved the themed blanket and took it to the Fibrefeast event two weeks ago. In between S....,who did the embroidery, has sold more tickets and made sure both the themed one and the second prize (also put together by her) were packaged nicely. They are ready to go to their new owners. I will know who they are a little later this morning.

We have raised another $402. From a one-day event plus a little here and there that's almost as much as we raised over a week at the Showground last year. (I think we might have raised much more if last year's had been displayed differently.) Am I pleased? I think so. If the truth is told I am relieved. We did what we set out to do. It was a lot of work. I am grateful for the support we had from the people who run the Fibrefeast. I am grateful to everyone involved, especially S.... for her work in putting together and embroidering the squares which needed "something".

It is the end of a big project but.... I have ideas. I hate, loathe and detest pattern writing but I might just make my patterns into a proper booklet and then.... 

I think I will go and see J.... and get this finished.