Wednesday 18 July 2012

Making it right...

Here's a record, Gentle Readers, three in one day.  What's the connection?  Not at work, I'm thinking, and therefore not knackered, and able to think of other things.  I even cooked dinner last night using fresh vegies.  Wow.


Anyway, you know that I might have been feeling just a tad, a really small tad, guilty about the purchase of the Singer Heavy Duty machine before I sold the Industrial machine, but then, on Sunday night (note:  still feeling crap, but I said I'd deliver, so I had to deliver), I got to use The Seaminator (maybe I should just call him Arnie, and the other one Danny?) to fix MBF Deb's work pants, and all my guilt fled.


I hate doing repairs, Gentle Readers, it's one of those things my mother drilled into me at a very young age - don't admit to being able to do repairs, or people will be bringing their crappy jeans from far and wide, and you'll never get to make anything you want to:



Anyway, Deb's lovely Ma, the gorgeous Clare, did a patch on this particular pair of crappy jeans some time ago, but it was starting to show its age... Could I help?  

Well, it was a good test of both my skill, and the capacity of the machine.  After a bit of thinking, I decided the safest way to do it would be to split the side seam, fix the patch, then restitch the side seam.  Easy!









Good as new.  That'll be $60, thanks.

That's it for now.  I can feel a nap coming on, before I get started on tonight's dinner, sausage and mash with pumpkin.  Mr Golightly doesn't know what's hit him.  

Ciao!

What is that smell?

Here we go, I'm on a roll.  You know how it is in our house, nothing happens for a very long time, Gentle Readers, and then wham!  Everything happens.  I sold the industrial sewing machine.  Yay!  I advertised it in a free online shopping forum whose name is not dissimilar to Bumtree, and a lovely lady called Michelle came round on Saturday morning (note:  me not showered, feeling crap, and not in a very good humour) & wanted it immediately, for the asking price.  Well.  How could I say no?  I couldn't.  


After dicking around for about half an hour trying to decide if we could carry it down the front steps (read:  not bloody likely), Lovely Michelle very smartly noticed that our french doors at the back connect almost seamlessly to the side path, and so Mr Golightly and I wheeled it down the path, and the five of us (Michelle's sister, daughter, Michelle, Mr Golightly and poor sick me) hoisted it into her van, and off she went.  Hooray!


So that's good.  What's the downside, I hear you asking.  Well, Gentle Readers, as we were outside (where we haven't really been for a fortnight, given that we spent last weekend in Perth), a particular smell wafted over towards us.  Something had, most inconsiderately, died in our garden, close enough to the house to smell it.  Ick.  Even if my snot-infested nose, I could smell it.  


Anyway, after disposing of the happy purchaser and her happy family, we returned to the back of the house to find this:


**Warning** If you're squeamish, don't look!!




It's a very dead brushtail possum.  Under our barbeque.  Ick.  Mr Golightly got the shovel, and gave the poor thing a decent burial.  We have no idea how long it had been there, but summer's acoming, and I'm pretty sure our first summer lunch outside does not require the addition of eau-de-dead-possum.

Ciao!



Rein, deer?

So, Gentle Readers, I am unwell.  I can distinctly remember the last time I had five full days off work; it was in 2006, and we had just finished moving back into our beautifully renovated house, my lovely Ma and Hank were visiting, and I got a chest infection.  Not just any old chest infection, you understand, but the sort that fills you so full of sticky green slime that when friends ring up to find out where you are, you can't even talk to them, because your airways are full of said sticky green slime.  It was truly disgusting.


Anyway, I have fallen victim to one of the three or four viruses doing the rounds of the office, which started with just a light head cold, many thanks to Mr Golightly for passing that to the whole household, but unlike him, I didn't take to my bed for 24 hours; I just kept going to work & blowing my germs all over the office.  On Friday last week, I even went along to our Annual Christmas In July lunch at a hotel in town; anything less festive I have yet to experience, but a lot of food was consumed, and no small amount of alcohol, but I left at 3.00pm, heading for bed.


Saturday was the worst day, Sunday not much better, Monday I thought "this is ridiculous" and rang the Doctor.  First available appointment:  10.00am yesterday.  Lucky it was my 9-day fortnight day, and I wasn't going into work anyway.  Lovely woman that she is, my doctor took one look at me, listened to my chest, looked down my throat and in my ears, and banished me to bed for the rest of the week.  Well, strictly speaking, she said "stay at home", so I'm still feeling pretty crap, but I'm in the sewing room, and that's got to be a good thing (for me, and possibly even for you!)...


Some fabric has been purchased since we last spoke:











I found a new shop in Mona Vale, called Patchwork on Pittwater, and I went a bit nuts with bits and pieces of all of these - I think the Amy Butler might end up as a cushion, because it is rather gorgeous... 


In other news of somewhat more importance than feeding my fabric addiction, Mr Golightly's lovely niece Emma F-G is very soon going to have her baby, and I, somewhat fruitlessly, I might add, scoured through my books yesterday looking for something I could make for the baby, truly unnamed, but known to some of us as Linus.  That's a bit like the artist formerly known as Prince, isn't it?  Maybe he needs to become Prince Linus?  Oooh, I like that.


Anyway, I found a pattern for a reindeer (yes, a reindeer - didn't you know they're going to be the next big thing after monkeys, owls and talking cats...) in this book.  Hers was all white fleecy, graceful embroidery and felt.  Mine is .... not.







Cute, yes?  Those antlers were a bugger, let me tell you.


Ciao!