Remember my name, fame...

I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly (high)... or something. I have never watched that movie, right up there with Thelma and Louise, and Pulp Fiction. Apparently this makes me some kind of social misfit, but I'm coping, trust me. The McVities Ginger Nuts are helping me cope... There's a couple of shops in the city called "Sweet Treats from Home" [I just had an ABC kind of moment, as in "Should I be doing advertising here?", and then I realised, "it's my party, I can cry if I want to..." or, I can say what I like without worrying about the perception of impartiality. If people don't like it, they don't have to read this... so...] and these shops sell food, drinks, some household items such as, get this, Fairy Liquid, and of course, McVities Biscuits, all from the UK and Ireland. I love McVities Plain Chocolate Digestives, which in the hemisphere I live in, is actually 'dark' chocolate. We can get those in the supermarket, mostly, but the Ginger Nuts are harder to come by. They are so good... dunked in tea, milk, old fashioned lemonade.. not so great in coffee, but still great to eat on their own. Yum.

Anyway, surprisingly, I have digressed... Oh yes, social misfittedness. No, Fame! That was it! One of my photographs has been selected to go into something called Schmap, which is an "online digital travel guide"... apparently they don't pay you, but you get kudos and people all over the world get to see your photos. There's a widget too, apparently, but I'm not going to include it - all the photos on my flickr page are shown on this blog anyway, under the "My World' thingy - the one that Schmap is including is right in there... so, small moment of Fame...

Other news: I've just made 3 more pouches, 2 for gifts & one more for the WMIL's easter gift parade, only 4 more to go for that. The gifts are for two of my favorite people who have February Birthdays, and although I had the gifts in good time, it's just taken a bit longer to get the pouches organised. I've fallen into a bit of analysis paralysis, where I can't make anything because I can't choose which fabric to use. On a brighter note, I have almost finished moving stuff from big boxes into smaller boxes, only the huge upholstery, curtain and remnant box to go.

How excited am I about doing that one? Not at all, really, but it's got to be done, then we can sacrifice the large, ugly, ungainly shelving unit to the garage, and my small but perfectly formed sewing room will look a lot bigger. Isn't it weird? MWH has built an L-shaped unit, with four low shelves & six high, and although it's taller, and wider, it makes the room look bigger. Maybe because it isn't that terrible orangey-red colour the other one went (we did stain & varnish it about 15 years ago, and I'm sure it wasn't quite so foul then, so I'm blaming the colour change on the varnish...) but rather a nice neutral pine colour.

Anyway, the other nice news is that my lovel DSSIL is coming for a visit tomorrow, to pick up her froggie, and to have a quick lesson on the sewing machine I'm gifting her - much fun ensuing tomorrow, and hopefully lots of fun sewing, and no dithering about which fabric to use... I've just ordered this, too, which I think is gorgeous, so we'll see what comes of it... maybe some birdies... maybe...

Message in a bottle

I was going to forgo the musical theme (what, you thought it was all a coincidence?) tonight because I've had two glasses of wine (normally I don't drink during the week) and didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything witty, but hey, Crowded House is always good. Ooops. I think it was Split Enz. See, I've had a glass of wine.

Anyway, for those who care, an update on the raffle - we've had so many neat donations that I'm now embarrassed & need to run around selling tickets like mad to make sure people win all the stuff! Thank you everybody : -)))

Sewing news - well, MWH worked late, really late, last night, and I made a box pouch, instead of having dinner, then I had a bowl of cerel at 10.00pm. See, having no kids means you can eat what you like when you like. Then I woke up in the middle of the night telling MWH that I knew how the guy was doing it [doing what?] but I just didn't know how - apparently I was convinced somebody was spying on us through the light fittings, and no, she says, pouring scorn on HWH, it wasn't an alien, it was a real guy... and no, I'm not asleep. Zzzzz. Wow. Weird or what? I remembered doing it this morning but not what triggered it.

Actually, I do know what caused this one - I was watching Stargate, the episode where Daniel is being interrogated by Osiris in his sleep & they capture her & remove the go'auld - I fell asleep in the middle of the episode & obviously it decided to play out in my subconscious...

When I was doing the last semester of my IT Diploma I used to sleepwalk downstairs to the front door & check it was shut. This was somewhat different but not hugely - stress is the trigger for me - and if the current project keeps going the way it has been, I may be doing the ironing whilst asleep before I know it... so if you hear of a house burning down because a woman was ironing whilst alseep, it's only me. Don't panic!

Remind me again

Why we're doing this? For this, in case you'd forgotten. So much fun, and they all have their own personalities. Sometimes it's really hard to send them away, and I miss the ones I didn't take pictures of - Miss Chloe, who is going to be the big sister of this guy, was one of those...

I'm sure, though, when I die, people are going to wade through my photo directory and go "what was she thinking?" ... but I don't care. It's creative, it's colourful, there's an amount of technical challenge, they smell nice, they have personality... what more could you ask?

Anyway, Miss Mandy, I admit I had my doubts about the colours being a bit dull, but sometimes it's nice to be wrong! Please let me know his name when he tells you.. I figure these guys are a bit like the dragons on Pern, who know their names when they hatch. Go, read, discover, worship at the altar of McCaffrey. She is probably a frog person too. Why wouldn't you be?

PS Anybody wanting their own froggie can contact me here.

And we'll have fun, fun, fun

Till they tell us to stop. Actually that's not how the song goes, but hey, you can't win them all. However, if you are lucky, you could work with me, and win this pair, which I made this afternoon. We're working on a plan to have 'fun at work', which imho is an oxy-moron. Now, I'm not saying you can't enjoy your job, and the company of the people you work with, but when management has to sit down & get everybody to think of ways to have fun, then you know you've got issues, man, serious issues.

Anyway, I was detomm (dumb enough to open my mouth), and suggested a raffle, with proceeds going to the bushfire appeal. So of course I get to organise it, collect the prizes, sell the tickets, hound people to buy the tickets, beg people to buy the tickets... actually I'm sure the purchasers are going to be very generous. The big cheese threw in a voucher for Red Balloon, which does a great job selling 'experiences', and somebody has anonymously donated a $50 Sanity Voucher (oh, that would be me... gotta put your money where your mouth is, after all), but until Friday, nothing else had turned up. Hopefully I will be inundated by donations tomorrow, and my small handmade contribution will go to a nice home!

Question for the panel - should I make more of these to sell? Upside - Easy to make, look fantastic, very useful - downside - market (well, Etsy, anyway) already has a bazillion of these for sale, people only need so many cosmetic/toilet bags (although the prototypes seem to be holding up nicely in my bathroom, that's for sure). Let me know what you think. Small prize available for the neatest, most correct entry.

Back to the small but perfectly formed room - MWH has just finished building me new shelves & I need to go & move things from really big bulky boxes into smaller boxes. I'm going to try & find some fabric to put on Etsy in a destash sale. Don't hold your breath!

Feelin' groovy....

Well, not quite. I still haven't quite recovered from my [apparently] jetlag induced lethargy from my lightning trip to Melbourne last Friday - Melbourne, Melbourne, I love Melbourne. It's the closest thing to Europe we have here in this country, and I love it. I love the lanes, the fact that a person of the female gender, on their own, can go out for a nice meal, get a good table at the front of the restaurant where she can see the nice man playing the guitar, watch the nice people having their passeggiata, eat nice food and drink nice wine, and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody hits on her, nobody bothers her, except the waiter to make sure she's got everything she needs, including the salad that wasn't on the menu but which they made specially for her... I love it. I left a fairly hefty tip, trust me.

I also did a spot of shopping whilst I was there, I gave in to my apparently re-growing devotion to all things red, and bought a nice light linen jacket with a very groovy shawl collar and three-quarter length sleeves, some seemingly randomly placed pieces of cotton twill tape for funk, and a thing at the back I can't think of the name of, that we last saw on safari suits and tweed jackets. Leave it with me, I'll dig out both editions of the my Fairchild's Dictionary of Fashion and look it up, or better yet, I'll ask my mother.

Her grandfather was a Master Tailor, and she'll know, because she knows all kinds of useful stuff like that. I saw a lounge suite (boy how old does that make me sound) at a garage sale once covered in some weird looking fabric which was part flat and part raised, in patterns, with the raised bit being made up of tiny weeny loops... she knew instantly I described it to her that it was called 'moquette'. Amazing. Even more amazing, she knew exactly what colour it was. Yucky olive green. Psychic powers or what?

I nearly succumbed to another red handbag, too, this morning - how many is too many? I already own five, four from Italy (Venice 1, Florence 1, Volterra 1, Rome 1) & one I got in the MLC Centre in Sydney, from the nice shoeshop man who is closing down very very soon - this newest one was very groovy, square, with links and a bar clasp going across the bag as the closure - it was also reversible, with camel coloured suede on the inside.. it was very nice, but my conscience stopped me... sadly.

In case you were going to say "Five handbags isn't many", That's five red ones. I own a bundle more than five... I was going to list them all but decided that probably isn't a good idea. I don't them trundling the guillotine into my front yard just yet, thanks.

Anyway, my wonderful mother-in-law (henceforth known as WMIL) has asked me to make 8 small pouches to give to her tapestry group for easter - she's going to fill them with eggs & a tiny chicken [toy], and then they can use them for whatever... and I've already made two, plus the two I made today trying to get the sizes right. These two are going up to Etsy for sale... if everybody isn't already pouched out. I sold my third Miss Muffett to a lady in Mexico, and there's only the orange one left. Didn't really think I'd sell that, but hey, it was worth a try. I'm delighted that I even had the opportunity to help the bushfire appeal by selling the ones I did. Anyway, pictures upcoming, and so, to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open, which is, hopefully, a good sign!

Night night!

Another one bites the dust...

Does anybody except me see a theme here? Oh well, never mind. I sold what I privately considered to be the nicest of the jewellery pouches today, to a lovely woman in Grose Wold. That's in NSW, Australia, rather than some 'other worlde- sci-fi' place. Sounds great, doesn't it? I'm going to look it up in a minute so I can pay homage to it (and my very generous buyer) just like I did for Conyers.

Anyway, picture attached, then off to bed. My goal here is to get to bed tonight before 11.00pm, the day starts at 6.30am & it's way way too long to be still trying to write coherently at 10:42pm.

However, a small rant, before I go: If I said to you "we are going to be doing away with a surplus of something, and here is the document which deals with the disposition", would you know I didn't mean "as in 'sunny'"??? Sometimes I despair of my colleagues. I'm going to buy a thesaurus for the office (oh, sorry, that's a big book full of hard words, for the benefit of the overpaid professionals with the vocabularies of 7 year olds, with whom I work...) & see if having a "hard word of the week" helps out. Rant over. Although, she says, not being able to contain herself even that much, did you notice how I couldn't help myself & had to work hard not to end that sentence with a preposition, did ya, did ya, huh, huh? Man. Go to BED!

Bed, sleep, dream, snore, bed, bed...

A big thank you to Conyers, Georgia!

Where the hell is Conyers, Georgia, anyway? I had to go & look it up, and now I know. It's in the north-west of Georgia, near Atlanta. And why, I hear you ask yourself, do we need to know where it is? Because Elizabeth D from Conyers, Georgia bought the toilette bag I donated to the Bushfire Appeal shop on Etsy , and I posted it off to her this morning. I love the idea that somebody halfway across the world can buy something I made (and for a good cause too, that's the best bit!)... I have to confess that I sent out some "good cause spam", something I would otherwise never do, to all the people in my Contacts list I consider approachable, and also to some of my Etsy suppliers, asking for a little "pay it forward", I s'pose, by way of "I have a listing, it's a good cause, go & look" kind of thing.

Interestingly it appears to have worked, albeit on a bigger scale than I was imagining. My friend Kaz, who lives in the beautiful Hunter Valley bought four, yep, four things, although two of them were already destined for her house anyway. The other two were a bit of a surprise, so my gallant efforts to fight off the Jetlag Lethargy that gripped me on Saturday, by sewing madly were nearly all for naught. Well, kind of. The whole point is for people to buy what you've made, so stop whining.

Anyway, I had made Bruce the Twin Bro', to go with the beautiful Blue Boy I made a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of other nice pouches apart from the ones already going to the Baptist Ladies Auxiliary Sewing Circle & House of Good Work, or whatever it's called, and poof! All gone. So I set to & made a gorgeous box pouch using some of that lovely Sandi Henderson Ginger Blossom range - and poof! Again! Sold to my good friend Mary. Man, I need to give up IT & do this all the time. Really.

I also donated three of those Miss Muffett Pouches Mum & I made when she was here - I thought $8.00US was okay, they're all nicely made but not of particularly exciting fabrics, except for one. Unless you're a fan of orange, of course. Check em out here.

And the earrings arrived right at the front door - Angela left me a nice note to say thanks for the mention in my blog, but really, they are so gorgeous her shop deserve lots of advertising, and when the other niece has her birthday, I'm sure I'll be raving again!

Hope she wasn't put off by the spiders & things growing round our front door - MWH & I are firm believers in letting spiders do their thing, especially when it comes to eating mosquitoes... except when the Mummy Huntsman comes into the house & lays her babies in our pantry/laundry room. Then they're all over the ceiling, in the sink, on the ironing board, in the pantry... man. They're tiny though, about half the size of your little fingernail, and spidery. Of course, there's nothing (much) for them to eat in our house, so they're all going to die... I don't know why she does it, this is the third time she's come inside to have her babies. First time was one NYE when we were having people over to stay the night & I had to run around like a crazy woman with the vacuum cleaner trying to suck them all of the ceiling... then it was my bathroom, where I just left them to fall into the bath. I will just sweep these guys up as they fall prey to Nature... because who really knows what baby huntsmen eat?

And finally, it's my lovely friend Clare's birthday, check out her blog here. Happy BIrthday Clare!

All pouched up & ready to go...

So they're done, finished, packed, sealed & waiting to be posted. I must admit to some indolence yesterday, I bought MWH the first series of Stargate Atlantis as a Valentines present (after both swearing and declaring that neither of us would buy gifts, of course, Valentines Day being up there with Mothers, Fathers, Ugly Sister and The Pumpkin Coach Association Day as simply opportunities for 'Greetings Card Manufacturers' to make money...) and then promptly sat down to watch it myself.

It's good, I have to say. I like the idea that they have access to interstellar ships which will fit through the gate (I could never work out why SG-1 didn't just rock up on quad bikes, y'know?), so they aren't stuck on their little rock, but can also explore the surrounding galaxy. I like the fact that the person in charge is a woman. I like the fact that the woman in the team is kick-ass tough, and her hair is that amazing colour, Titian. I like the fact that Dr Rodney McKay is Canadian and doesn't feel obliged to say "zee pee em" but can say "zed", like the rest of us in the English speaking world. That's 'UK-English' or 'Australian-English', or, in his case, 'Canadian-English'.

I like the fact that either J P Rowling or the makers of Stargate Atlantis borrowed the bad guy's hair from each other - maybe Draco Malfoy was a wraith in another life? Hmmm.

Anyway, I spent an inordinate amount of time watching TV yesterday, which is not really something I do normally, but hey, it was cold, raining and I was jet-lagged. That trip from Melbourne can be a stinker, y'know? More on that later.

But, in between episodes, I made these two, and yes, I know I said I was going to use up that blue & white swiss cotton, but it's a bit, oh, I don't know, dull. So I went Amy Butler instead. No dull there, that's for sure. Also, I found these on Etsy, and promptly bought them for my niece's upcoming birthday. Check out Angela's store, she has beautiful work (and the best thing - she lives right round the corner from me. Small world, huh?).

I also sent an item to the Etsy Down Under Street Team for inclusion in their OzBushfireAppeal shop - if you have some spare cash, please check these guys out & purchase something - all shipping is free & all proceeds go to the Australian Red Cross's Bushfire Appeal.

How can we help?

I've been very reluctant to post these past few days because I usually try to ignore what's going on outside, in the big world, because most of it is so horrible. Sometimes, however, things happen that you can't ignore, no matter how self-absorbed or disinterested you are. This is one of those times.

I've already made a monetary donation, in keeping with the fact that we make enough money for me to feed my obsession with yarn-related products (spun or woven, I'm not fussy) and to give us a very comfortable life. But my lovely defacto step-sister-in-law (got that?) sent me a very prescient powerpoint the other day, full of comments like "isn't it amazing how we're so asset-rich but time-poor"... anyway, fitting squarely into that category means that every time I sit down at the sewing machine, I'm doing something important, because of all the other things I leave undone (like ironing, cleaning, darning ), for example. Does anybody darn anymore?.... So, making something for the Bushfire victims means that donation has a lot more worth than the money I've already given.

And, as is often the way, my mother was the source of this good idea - she belongs to a patchwork group, in a community group run by the Baptist Church, on the other side of the country. Now, Mum and I are both atheists of the completely sceptical kind, but I have a sneaking admiration for these ladies - they charge a fee to attend their group, classes, quilt show etc etc & the money raised goes to buy sewing machines for women in India who would otherwise be destitute, enabling these women to earn a living by sewing. I think that's the kind of work that anybody interested in practical help for the underprivileged would approve of.

So, these guys are putting some care packages together for the Bushfire victims, and Mum has asked me for a Toilette Bag, for her to fill with the really useful things you don't miss until you don't have them - nail file, nail clippers, little scissors, sewing thread, needles, that kind of thing. So I will be making two today, one from her & one from me, and I will be using these:

Weather thou goest...

Hot. Too hot. Too horrible to comment. Roll on July.

How do you go about your normal routine in the face of something like this? I was going to write a buzzy, chirpy page about all the sewing I did today on my new machine and I just can't do it, it's like singing "Nearer My God to Thee" as the boat goes down. Some stern words about people denying the effects of global warming on our planet are appropriate here, but that isn't going to bring back the people who've lost their lives down in Victoria.

Anyway, pictures of the day's work follow... hopefully the southerly tonight will bring some rain...

Guilty as charged...

That's better, the font-y thing appears to have restored itself to "normal" so somewhere along the line I must have run into the "Drink Me" label...

Anyway, I bought a new sewing machine today. Now, note well that there's nothing actually wrong with the other one I had, but I wanted a better one. I guess I was a bit jealous of my mother who has one of those (actually, she has 2 sewing machines, a quilting machine and an overlocker/serger all on the go at the same time, so there's absolutely no contest there [and don't even get me started on the custom-built sewing room in her yard]) fabulous whiz-bang ones that just start stitching when you put the material up to the presser foot... no pedal or anything. Whew.

Anyway, my Brother Super Ace III has served me well for 4 years (how time flies when you're having fun!) but I saw this one & thought aha! Also, the health fund which has been happily taking our money for the last 10 years has been bought by a competitor, and thanks to the rules surrounding mutual funds, a large cheque came my way last week. So, the planets were obviously aligned, and it was meant to be. Not that I believe in fate, or anything, you understand, but it did seem a bit propitious that the two things happened in the same phase of the moon... so today I went out in the heat, 34.5ºC, thanks for asking, up to the shopping centre which houses not one but two of the three haberdashery, fabric and yarn suppliers round where I live, (the other one being the fabulous Fenners, at Mona Vale, Hello Mr Fenner) to check it out.

My mother did recommend the Brother Quilters edition, but I have to say, I wasn't that taken with the very busy look of the thing - all the stitches were shown on the front of the machine in pink, and it did have a lot of them, and it made it look quite cluttered (who needs all that distraction, honestly? We're just trying to get our seams straight here...) and where the thread spool sits was under this really tacky looking opaque plastic pink cover - why, oh why, do manufacturers think they need to make things PINK to attract women. Sorry for shouting. It makes me so mad - "let's make it pink & the girlies will love it". Well, actually, they won't.

Anyway, I bought the Singer Quantum 9940, instead. Reasons to be cheerful, part 3:

1. It was $100 cheaper than the Brother.

2. It has a reasonably good-sized LCD display which allows you to adjust choose stitches, and adjust stitch width & length without having to slide or turn or jog or do anything much except press 1 button (allowing for excellent accuracy), and you can save words or phrases you use a lot (like "Handmade by Isabella Golightly").

3. It had a really plain front, with nothing but 3 buttons (needle up/down, reverse & slow speed) on the front, & all the rest controlled by the 'compass rose' next to the LED screen.

Reasons not to be so cheerful:

1. New bobbins. Why, oh why, can't manufacturers of technology agree on standard 'anything'? I also note phone chargers, memory cards for cameras and phones, and camera batteries as things which could be standardised without too much trouble, except that it would make less money for manufacturers.

2. Feet are mostly plastic, with some metal ones. I like the solidity of the Brother's feet, which, although they are the 'drop off the bottom' kind, are all metal. Plus I have yet to see if the Brother's feet will feet on the Singer. Anybody want to have a small wager with me? Prize: 3 lavender pyramids for the first respondant who correctly predicts if they will or won't...

3. I now have to find a new home for the Brother

4. I bought something I didn't really need.

Which of course brings us right back to conspicuous consumption. To assuage my guilt somewhat, I'm going to find a charity program with absolutely no religious affiliation and donate my other sewing machine to them. My lovely defacto step-sister in law (got that?) is going to take the Brother off my hands, I believe. What other sewing machine, I hear you say? Ah. Yes, well, up in the roof is a Bernette something or other, which I bought in 1994, just after the urge to create bit me. So this is actually my 4th sewing machine, just not all being used at the same time (see note about Mother, above). The first one I bought at a garage sale in 1993 when the urge first really bit me, for $60. It was very old, and the needles had to go in sideways, a fact I only discovered after I broke an entire packet trying to get it to work. I think I donated that one to charity, so the pattern has been set.

Now, after that little conscience clearing effort, I'm off to the sewing room. It's cooled down a bit now & I got some lovely fabric from here in the week, and I can feel a box pouch coming on. Oh yes, and I finished the DUST Craft Swap thingies, check 'em out! The theme was 'lurve' (did I mention the Barry White moment? Oh yes, I'm sure I did), hence the hearts, hand appliqued. Hope she likes em!

Love Cole Porter

According to the Kinsey report, ev'ry average man you know
much prefers to play his favorite sport
when the temperature is low
but when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzling hot
Mister GOB for his squab,
a marine for his queen
a G.I. for his cutie-pie is not
Cause it's too too too darn hot
It's too darn hot
Lyrics by Cole Porter, 1948.
It's too darn hot... in the sewing room...

Now don't get me wrong... hey, what's going on here with blogger? I can't find my usual san serif font & I feel like I've drunk from the "shrink me" bottle..

Anyway, in addition to being an extra on the Reality TV Show "Alice in WonderBlog", I finally sat down in my small but beautifully formed sewing room to make things for my craft swap partner, who is the lovely Angelene & who has a shop on Etsy... she and I are both happy members of the Down Under Street Team, aka DUST, which is made up of some of the Aussie contingent who've found their way onto Etsy.

(Warning: 70's Barry White moment about to hit...) We're doing a "lurve" theme for February, so I'm wracking my brains & I've decided to make her some pyramids in her favorite colours, with hand appliqued hearts on them - and I've put this off for a few days (about 10, actually) because I can't bear to go into aforesaid small but beautifully formed sewing room because it's too darned hot!!!

I really, truely loath summer. It's not a new thing, I've hated every minute of it since I first arrived in this fair land, some 392 years ago (well, it feels that long).. and discovered this thing called "humidity"... when I lived in England as an adult, I had smooth shiny hair. I only have to step outside here in summer to have my hair transformed into something that resembles a sheepdog, only not so well looked after. Frizz, frizz and more frizz. Not only that, but my face gets red in the heat.... and we're talking 'Rudolph' here, not just a gentle Post Box red...

My grandmother, who was a lady of quality, thank you very much, told me when I was about 8 or 9, that horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow prettily. Well, mine isn't so much as glowing prettily as lighting up a whole city... ick. I hate it. I have drawers full of clothes suitable for Autumn, Winter and Spring. I love wearing socks, and my favourite LL Bean suede clogs (with other clothes, rudey...). I love wearing my favourite 'Maui' hoodie that I got on my honeymoon 375 years ago, and I love being able to feel the weight of not one, not two, not three, but four beautiful patchwork quilts on my bed... I'm living in the wrong hemisphere, I know. Global warming will likely be the death of me... actually, it may be the death of all of us.

Anyway, enough whining. I've got them cut out, the applique is done & they're pressed & waiting to be sewn up tomorrow, then stuffed to the gills with lovely lavender. Pictures to follow, promise!

Who needs

the old boy network, when you've got the old-girl network happening? My lovely friend rose w's fabulously talented daughter, Clare, whose gorgeous work actually inspired me to get my act into gear & onto Etsy, has been kind enough to mention my (aw shucks) little blog & shop on her fabulously well connected blog (see what I mean about that old-girl network?)... along with a picture of gorgeous Petronella posing in my sewing basket, and, even better, she said nice things about me! Whew! I'm not excited enough to burn ginger biscuits, but I was excited enough to interrupt MWH whilst he was watching Star Trek (the original series, can you believe it?) on TV, to tell him. That takes some cojones, let me tell you. Good thing they're disguised as pin cushions in Amy Butler fabric!

Speaking of nice fabric, I'm about to put the first box pouch up for sale on my shop. Now that I'm kinda famous, we'll see if they take off... but in the meantime, I am so delighted about Clare & her blog that I can't stop grinning like a loon. There's nothing like a little mutual backslapping to get you in the mood for the office. Ooooh. Nasty.

And, finally, before I go off to bed, I forgot to mention the absolutely most exciting thing of all, I sold those two gorgeous toilette bags to a nice lady in Hawaii. Man, that's so neat (I think she was taken by my explanation about the "T" word...). Off, pillow, doona, sleep, sleep...