Rapt up in Bilbies

So... from time to time my good friend Kate from Rapt! Upholstery has commented here on my work, and I've often admired hers.. she and I were at Upholstery School together, and she does fabulous work, which you can see on her blog:

Anyway, Kate has a showroom in Jamberoo, where you can select fabrics, have a look at finished works and generally bask in the loveliness that is upholstery, and she's offered to take house some Bilbies until their new owners wander in off the streets and take them home!

These happy guys have gone off today via Australia Post.  Kate and I were thinking of naming them the Travelling Bilbies, but nobody could agree on who was Tom Petty (I'm personally going with Mr Blue Spot Yellow Belly as Tom):

Do they look nervous to you, Gentle Readers?  I'm sure they'll be fine in their new home! But!  In case you want one, and you can't wait until the Mona Vale Christmas Market on 7th December, hint hint, you can order one from my Etsy shop.

More are being made as we speak - and because I worked from home today (gotta love that!), I was able to cut out another pink & grey masterpiece before 0800... and now?  Gotta sew!  Ciao!

Look, look, here's another one!!

I've been doing the FatMumSlim Picture a Day challenge over on the 'Gram (thank you, Millennium Housewife, for pointing out yet another aspect of a scene that completely passed me by (illicit pharmaceuticals...) because I was (and still am) so boring and straight when it comes to all that stuff...), and it's been ... interesting (the 'FMSPhotoaday Challenge, not being boring and straight!!), and I've had loads of "likes" from people from all over the world, which is lovely. 

My photo of the theme for yesterday, "Pet Peeve", wasn't very good (it was a very blurry shot of some filthy smoker's filthy droppings - yes, Gentle Readers, a cigarette butt.. and interestingly, my good friend Mr UBeaut58's sister (got that bit?) (with whom I went to school, but with whom I was not particularly friendly) even 'liked' my photo, which is a first for me!  

Today's theme was "mix", and I just took a photo of some of the boxes of fabric in the Room of Requirement, showing their labels.  I thought it was pretty nifty, but.. so far... only four likes.  Oh well.  Just goes to show you... not everybody has my excellent taste :-D

In Fabric Addiction news, I bought some nice Joel Dewberry fabric from lovely Ruth at SewLoveFabrics (she always has such as great selection):

So much for my no-buy July.  I'm thinking about "Ought-not-to-August", but it doesn't have quite the same ring.

In other news of fabulousness, I bought some beautiful midnight blue velvet and some grey polar fleece today.  What do these two fabrics have in common?  Well, Gentle Readers, I'm going to do the Christmas Market at Mona Vale (NSW), on 7th December [contingent on actually getting a stall!] and I've decided to make a huge Bilby to lure in the kiddies so their unsuspecting parents can buy lots of goodies from my stall... 

I went to Officeworks today & spent about $20 having the pattern sized up into ridiculousness, and tomorrow I'm hoping to cut out this monster... keep your fingers crossed that it doesn't fall off the worktable & crush me when I finally finish stuffing it.  I'm estimating three 1kg bags of wadding to fill it, but it could be more...I'm thinking of raffling it off, with proceeds going to Save the Bilby Fund... Thoughts?

Here's a picture of the bigger guys having some fun outside - don't you just love Mr Purple's pants?  What a groover...

And in getting out and about news, I've splashed out and I'm going to Urban Stitches in Sydney!  I'm pretty excited about this, because it should be such a fun day, and I'm hoping to come home with some lovely handmade stuff... I'm only doing the Saturday (it was $180 for one day), so if you're going, and you see a dumpy dark haired lunatic there by herself, that'll be me.  I'm thinking of wearing my "I'd rather be sewing' shirt from Erin at Dog Under My Desk, but would that be too ... obvious?  Possibly.

And that, Gentle Readers, is that.  I've finally finished removing my old presence from the old laptop, in preparation of its donation to Master E, and now I'm going to sit in front of the fire & gentle rub Mr Golightly's head.  It's as good for him as it is for me.  And with that disturbing thought firmly in your minds, I'm gone!

Ciao!

Day One - the excitement!

Well, Gentle Readers, we survived 14 hours on a plane with a screaming toddler... just.  AsyouknowBob, I am not that fond of small children ("Anyone who hates children and small dogs isn't all bad" (widely attributed to W C Fields but open to discussion), but it's the parents who are usually to blame.  They had four kids, three of whom didn't make a peep the entire flight, and the screaming monster.  Did they give the kid a dummy?  Did they F**k.  They just let him scream and scream and scream and scream... OMG.  All I can say is thank the ghods for noise eliminating earphones and Emirates'* excellent inflight entertainment system.

I watched 3 movies in an attempt to drown out the little shit.  Elysium (not bad, a bit too much crash bang wallop, and not enough Elysium, but it was lovely to see the always gorgeous Jodie Foster in action), About Time, which is a nice (and very English) film from the clever Richard Curtis, which reduced me to tears (in a good way), and The Butler, which was an interesting take on two of the sides of the American Civil Rights movement, and which had quite a good performance from some woman called Oprah Winfrey - apparently she has a show on TV in America so maybe she needed the money?**

Anyway, the 6 hours from Dubai to Rome was blessedly silent, mostly because I was crammed into a 17" wide sardine tin of a seat, mouth open and a stream of drool issuing forth as I slept.  Or so Mr G tells me.

We arrived two hours (two whole hours!) early, and our driver was there to meet us.  Honestly, Gentle Readers, before you look askance at each other and ask "Driver? Oooh" in that snarkey tone, just be aware that for Eu37, you too can be met at the airport by a well dressed man holding a sign with your name on it, have your bags taken from you, be ushered into the back of a spotlessly clean Mercedes Benz and driven right to your door, where the bags are then taken back out of the car.  Having rung the doorbell, said spotlessly dressed man waits until the door is answered, shakes your hand, takes your money and drives off into the night.   Yes, it's (only slightly) more expensive than the train & a taxi, but really, on a cold wet Sunday night, who cares?

And then, this morning, breakfast:

Eu5.  That's $A7.70 for two excellent coffees and two fresh, delicious cornetti (mine was chocolate, his was poppy seed).  You can buy two coffees in Sydney for $7.00 - in fact, in 2011 in Perth, at a particular hospital, a very ordinary coffee in a paper cup with nasty plastic stirrer was $4.50... so you see, Gentle Readers, even with a truly crap exchange rate, Europe is mostly cheap.  

Also, I now know where those amazing men who sell umbrellas come from - they pop up out of Churches:

We were crossing Corso Vittorio Emmanuel II on the way home from an excellent lunch (two beers, a glass of wine, two pizzas, a bottle of sparkling water, Eu37/$A57) when I spotted these guys.  I love Rome.

*Not a sponsored plug, but if anyone from Emirates is reading this & wants to upgrade us, feel free.

**