This is a photo of me with Len Quon, founder of the Millennium Dragon as we wait to join in the Moomba procession. Moomba is held each Labour Day. In Len's hand is the Pearl of Wisdom which he waves in front of the dragon to entice him to follow.

Here I am standing in front of the banner which always leads the parade.

If you want to see how big the Millennium Dragon is, you can visit him at the Chinese Museum in Melbourne.

http://www.chinesemuseum.com.au/whatson.html

I haven’t made a patchwork quilt since my daughter was a baby. It was heaps of work and in the end, I only made a quilt the size of  a cot.

The other day, while I was walking my dog in the park, I went inside a shop that sold everything related to patchwork. I only went in to browse, but my eye was drawn to a shelf in the corner of the shop where rows of gorgeous Japanese prints were lined up. They were sumptuous. I would even call them delicious – like looking at a plateful of the most beautiful chocolates. I wanted to buy them all.

I came out of the shop with a meter each of my  6  favourite patterns, a new pair of scissors, a reel of cotton, a sheet of plastic to make a template, and lots of inspiration.

I plunged in headfirst, like I do when I write a novel, without any overall plan. After several days of trial and error I came up with the squares that you see in the photos below. Once all the squares are sewn together, I will put batting inside, then a backing material. After that comes the quilting where you stitch through all the layers of fabric.

The individual squares laid in a similar way to how the finished quilt will look.

The beautiful material I will use for the back of my quilt.

Since having kids, I’ve learnt that being highly organised is the only way I can cope with my two passions – my children and my writing. When they were small, I would try and have most of the dinner cooked before I took them to school. Then I could devote my day to my stories until school pickup. For some reason, this simple act gave me such a liberating feeling.

It is 1.20 in the afternoon and I’ve been preparing coriander chicken for dinner which got me thinking about this blog. Even though my kids are now university students who come and go as they please, I still try to organise my day like this. Tonight I have life drawing class, and once dinner is cooked, I can happily write until it’s time to go.

Being organised helps me stay calm, and keeps my head clear for my stories.