Using plants as inspiration

When we visited the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens, we saw lots of native Australian plants.
One thing that struck me was how some of the trees reminded me of the Grug books.  I have never been so forcibly struck by the imagery of the books and the actual trees.  I'll have to go and find some of the books and have another look. I always loved reading them to my classes, they were cute and quirky stories.
Apparently, the character is based on a burrawang tree

but I have always associated him with these sorts of trees (I don't know what they are, I will have to do some homework).  These are the ones that brought the books to mind so strongly.

Anyway, it was a good reminder that a creative person can use anything as inspiration for some great ideas.

Quilt exhibition at Cranbourne Botanical Gardens

I have been wanting to visit the Cranbourne Botanical Gardens for quite a while now but have never had the oomph to travel that far. (It's not really that far, it is just that you have to put aside a good part of the day to get there, enjoy the visit and then come home again.)
Today was the day. I had heard that there was a quilt exhibition, using some of the Australian quilting fabrics designed by Leesa Chandler.

The pictures below are of a painted parrot, by Helen Goddard, that was then free motion machine embroidered. It made me keen to keep doing my doodling! If only I could paint like that too.

There was a great variety of quilt techniques and I felt quite inspired to try some of them - at some stage. I am currently looking for some inspiration to get me going again. 

The gardens are wonderful too - and it was a nice cool day that made wandering around a pleasure. I took scads of photos of flowers and leaves in the hopes that I will be able to use them to come up with some designs.