The Aussie alphabet: O is for Opera House

How could O be for anything else?

The Opera House, normally:

Photo credit: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/about/media/photo_gallery.aspx

Bonus: the Harbour Bridge in the background!

You can see more pictures of it if you click on that link just above, and read about the history, the construction, etc. etc. if you want. Fun fact: the architect - Danish!

The Opera House, during Vivid Sydney 2014:

Photo credit: me.

The building is beautiful and, of course, iconic. Never actually made it to a performance within the walls, but really, that's okay.

Now that I think of it: O can be for one other thing: 

This is an opal in the rough - still embedded in the rock it formed in.

Credit: http://www.johnbetts-fineminerals.com/jhbnyc/mineralmuseum/picshow.php?id=25867

And this is a fire opal ready to be set into a piece of jewelry. These guys are super expensive, when they are solid - (this one isn't, it's on Etsy!) and stunning.

Read all about them here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opal

The Rainbow quilt top is done

A little history: This top came from a kit I bought in California about 10 years ago.

The shop was in Fullerton, or somewhere near there. I just fell in love with the colours. Then it sat around for ages while I made other quilts. Finally last year - no, late in 2013 - I got it out and started putting it together. Then I was interrupted by the need to piece and finish a thank-you quilt before we left Oz. While that one was being quilted, I finished this top, minus the borders. I finished the borders working on it for parts of the past 3 days.

I was going to look for someone to quilt it for me, because it's too big to quilt on my home machine. But a shop in the area rents time on long-arm machines and they have a sit-down machine that is a bit less intimidating than the ginormous stand-up ones but that I think is still big enough to do the job. So I'm going to go out there next week and see if I can get started doing it myself. Also plan to put a real label on this one, not just write on it like I usually do.