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!