Home again home again jiggity jig

Who remembers that children's rhyme?  Apparently it has three verses!  Who knew!


Whilst I was at my lovely Ma's, she got a disk of photos from her cousin, who lives in England, with some lovely old black & white pictures of the family.  Some of these date right back to the beginning of the 19th Century, and they're fascinating.  My other great-grandmother (not Isabella) is pictured here, and she was a beauty:

Except I'm somewhat glad I didn't get the nose.  It's a bit of a honker, isn't it?  She was born in 1872 & her name was Edith Fanny Thomas.    Not quite the same zing as Isabella Golightly, but as we have no photos of Izzy, I think we should pay Edith some homage!


Here she is in 1938 or 1939 (at the beach!), with a newspaper showing a defiant pre-war headline.

Don't you just love that beach-going outfit?  Sensible shoes, a dress, some sort of capey-coaty thing, an extremely stylish hat... gorgeous.


And here she is in the 1940's, when my great-grandparents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary:

My lovely Ma is right at the back, with her head slightly tilted.  Happy days.


In other crafty news, Gentle Readers, I am going to attempt an English Wedding Quilt with my pile of Moda's beautiful Lumiere De Noel, and I will provide photos as I progress.  I need to go to Cottage Quiltworks today to find a centre panel for the English Wedding Quilt, and I am also picking up Miss Nelly's quilt, which has returned from being quilted.  Photos, I promise.  


I have an order to make up for a lovely person in St Louis, Missouri (another one (person, that is, not order), and that will be my day today, apart from sewing the binding on Miss Nelly's quilt, which I estimate will take the rest of my life.  I had several lessons from my Lovely Ma whilst in Perth, and I think I have the mighty corners* down pat, but joining the binding?  We shall see.  Expect tears, stamping of the feet and random bouts of swearing.


And finally, it's about 21°C today and cloudy.  Just beautiful.  We've even had some rain, but the garden still looks a bit sad & dry, and one of the Callicomas is looking very distressed, so a bucket or two of water will be applied there.


And now I need to apply water to myself so I can go out in public and not get arrested.  And I can wear jeans!  Bliss!


Ciao!


*Mighty Corners - also known in some sewing circles as 'Mitred Corners'.  Go Tractor Jo!

Gone to...

Sunbury, Victoria and Doonan, Queensland, that's where.  The second lot of lavender bags sold in about 2 hours, which is really nice, and today, Gentle Readers, I will be whipping them up & sending off via Australia Post.  And I may even put another lot in the Disaster Relief Shop.


In other news, a few days of stinky humid weather has left me feeling tired, but the ceiling fan is doing its work at night, except last night, when I was clammy and restless - but I think that's more to do with the ear thingy - did I mention the ear thingy, Gentle Readers?  Yes, I did.  Yesterday, finally, after much procrastination, I got to the doctor. 


After exclaiming over the sand-fly bite scars on my arms and legs (worst she's seen, apparently), she told me I have a Eustachian Tube dysfunction, which is an infection not in the ear itself, but in the Eustachian Tube, and what I've been hearing is the movement of air in the Tube, trying to equalise itself.  Sounds terrible, doesn't it?  No pun intended.  


Anyway, antibiotics for the ear, antibiotic eye drops for the impacted eye and no flying for a week or so.  Simon, cancel the jet for Tahiti*.


In crafty news, I went to Cottage Quiltworks yesterday & chose backing fabric & binding for Miss Nelly's quilt, spending an inordinate amount of money, but it will look fantastic when it's done.  The quilting turnaround takes about six weeks, but is, apparently, usually quicker - I've left it to the discretion of the quilting lady, but with the caveat that the quilt owner is 11 years old & definitely not too girlie - so hopefully it will come back a masterpiece.  Pictures, I promise.


I also bought a nice maroon & green (no, really!) fat quarter to make up for the lady from Victoria who bought one of the sets of lavender bags, she was very happy to oblige with a suggestion, and the Queensland lady wanted earthy tones, so that was pretty easy.  I also slashed the second quilt (being extremely careful to line up the seams) again, and here 'tis, just waiting to be sashed:

which I'm hoping to do today, after I return from my outing to Town (Aussie readers may remember that ad for Spray Fresh, where the farming family goes to town about twice a year and they all have a shower or bath before going?  It was called "Don't waste a wash" - but the key part was the whole family going "Town?  Town!"... sorry.  Seniors moment there...) with My Best Friend and the Kidlets - and so, Gentle Readers, I must away to the bathroom, make myself respectable and find suitable clothing.  


It's going to be 25°C today, and the sky is grey, but I'm sure it's going to be hotter than that once the sun warms up and burns all the clouds off - so... shorts, t-shirt?  Linen 3/4 pants & shirt?  Pants & shirt?  Oh, decisions, decisions.  Maybe I'll just go naked.  Easy.


Ciao!








*Another ad from the '70's, for Imperial Leather soap.  Try YouTube.

OMG, I've finished it!

The top, that is.  Not the quilting or the binding, just the top.  Needless to say there were a number of hiccups along the way, one of which was to discover I had inadvertently left off an entire set of 6 blocks, so I had to make individual sashing, slice them up some & reattach them to the sashing - it does look a teeny bit odd that one of the horizontal sets of sashing is a single piece, rather than the sliced up bits the rest of them are, but hey, will Miss 11-today* care?  I doubt it.


I have sewn on the borders, and on Saturday I will take it to the lovely ladies at Cottage Quiltworks, and they will send it onwards to the 'quilter lady', and she will turn it into a masterpiece.  Then I will get it back, stitch the binding on & it can go to its new home* looking like a quilt, instead of piles of fabric.  


So, Gentle Readers, were there any Lessons learnt?  As MBF used to say, "you bet your sweet bippy" there were.  No, I don't know what a bippy is either.  Don't ask, don't tell.

1. Don't try to cut the sashing by eye.  Use a ruler!
2. Don't try to cut the sashing in batches - find a big space & cut it in one go, even if it means paying to use a table at the quilting fabric shop for 3 hours.
3. Measure everything.  The biggest mistake was not checking that all the blocks were the same size, so I ended up having to insert another row of sashing to make it fit, because I'd left 1/2" on the end of a block.
4. Learn to count.  If I'd been able to count past 6 I could have saved myself lots of work this morning.
5. Check your bobbin periodically.  Nothing more frustrating than sewing on the sashing for the third time only to find the bobbin ran out 1" after you started (suggestion:  buy a machine that beeps when the bobbin is almost empty?)
6. Don't sew when you're tired.  It never works.

Oh, you want a picture?  OK.

This is what we started with:

And this is how it came out:

Of course you can see where it's wonky, and if you count up to the fourth row on the left, you can see where I had to insert another piece of sashing to get it to meet - the culprit was the previous row of blocks, which were all 1/2" longer than they really should have been.  Measure, measure, measure.  "Measure thrice, cut once".  Nag nag nag.  Blah blah blah.

Anyway, once it's been quilted, I will give you an update.  Apart from the wonky sashing, I'd quite like to do it again with different colours - remember these?

They're still sitting in my sewing room, dustbound... hmm.  Maybe after Christmas?  And, for those of you who just hang on my every word of domestic wonderfulness, I swept the floor in the sewing room.  Again.  Yes, I know.  Sickening, isn't it?  Here's the proof:

And now, Gentle Readers, my beautician has invited me to meet Dr Ho, who is going to talk about Chemical Peels.  I am off to enjoy a glass of champagne and good company, and come home with my original skin.  Some clever soul could come up with a pun based entirely around the concept of original skin, but today, it is not I.  

Ciao!

*PS Happy Birthday Nelly!

And then there were six...

I finished the last tree & then discovered that it wasn't quite big enough to be in the centre of the beautician's window - so I had to make another one, which I got the photocopier guy to make A2 size - then I had to make an emergency dash to the lovely ladies at Cottage Quiltworks to get some more fabrics, just in case.  This one is the same fabric front & back, but without the decorations - instead I just attached a bunch of bells, all over the tree & one on each branch - it's going to jingle every time the door opens, the breeze blows, the reindeer land on the roof...

I also helped My Best Friend's Kidlets to make some more fridge magnets, and I made a set for Christmas, which are in the shop:

the book is, somewhat ironically, Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  Deliberately chosen, of course... I have the whole set, which were a constant presence in the house when I was growing up.  They were originally published in the 1930's and they aren't worth very much, but I wouldn't part with them for all the money in the world.


What else?  I spent some quality time showing my WMIL* how to start a blog for her Strata Plan, we had a lovely family dinner to welcome back Mr Golightly's nephew & his partner from The Biggest Smoke (London) on Friday night, and I made a small pouch, also destined for the shop:

And now, Gentle Readers, the sound of the rain falling on my back roof is so loud that I can't think, so I'm going to trundle off to bed!


Ciao!

Busy, busy

Today I swept the floor in the Small But Perfectly Formed Room.  Not a common occurrence, as it's only only me who goes in there (or more importantly, cares what it's like), and this is what I turned up:

Disgraceful.


Oh well.  I didn't even bother salvaging the pins or that peg.  Straight into the dustpan & into the bin.


Then, I made a doorstop, from this nice book:

Interestingly, it's huge.  I don't what where Emma Hardy lives, but maybe the doors in her house are ginormous?  

It's about the size of four house bricks stacked two on two, and her recommended filling is doll-stuffing, then dried beans.  Hmm.  I quite like the fabric combo:

and clever use of accenting ric-rak, but I don't need something that big.  You can tell that I got bored with trying to fill it up with wadding about 1/3 of the way through.  Shame on me.  Seemed a bit wasteful, I thought.  I made a calico bag & filled it with washed sand for the weight, then realised that I'd only left a turning hole, so I had to unpick the whole seam to shove the f****ing thing in there.  Much swearing ensued.  Anyway, it was an interesting experience, trying to hold up the weight, line up the sewing machine & stitch all at the same time.  Where is my other arm, anyway?

Remember how I said I wanted a challenge?  Some weeks I was in Cottage Quiltworks, trawling, as you do, for fabric, and  they had a finished version of an amazing quilt hanging up in the store, but the pattern wasn't available unless you were doing the class.  You know, those really accessible classes that run Monday to Friday?  

Bah, humbug.  Anyway, when I was back in there on Saturday, trawling for fabric, as you still do, I saw the pattern for sale.    I have decided to make this my first patchwork quilt.  OMG.  Be careful what you wish for, young Luke.  Hmmm.  This is the pattern:

And of course, I've decided to make 72 different quarter-pies, rather than do it simply & cut out a whole square, then but it into four, then cut off the curly bit.  This way, though, I get to use 72 of my favourite fabrics, and here's some combos (by no means finalised, so don't be falling over with shock!):

Anyway, there's a common theme, and there's a prize of 3 lavender bags for the first person to correctly comment what it is... although having a quick review of these photos makes me realise it might be hard to get.  However, perseverance is rewarded, so have a bash!

And that, for me, is it for now. I have to go & listen to the hypocrisy of politicians now on the news.  Hah!

Happy (early) Birthday to you...

Well, after no posting for 2 weeks (was it really that long?, I'm now posting like a mad woman.  Of course, being tucked up in bed at 11.00am will do that for you, it's a good way to ward off the boredom, although I just bought a copy of this:





which has some very beautiful lace knitting patterns in it, just the thing for somebody with a short attention span...


Oh, you want to know why I'm in bed?  Well, the cough which has been lurking in my chest for the past week is trying to get a foothold in my lungs & I'm determined not to let it... so at the insistance of MWH, I am staying in bed & keeping warm.   I will be up later to go & make some more stuff, I've got those orders from MWMIL to make, and although I made one small box pouch yesterday (without taking any photos, shame on me), I want to get the others made & off my list.  


The other thing I made yesterday was a small version of that nice linen & floral print flat pouch with the hand appliqued flower on it, and I have packaged them up nicely to go off to Gill in Brighton... was much happier with the applique results on the smaller pouch, but of course I forgot to take a close up of it... but the pair look really nice together:

I did a little French knot in the middle of the flower, and some stitching round the orange blobs in the middle... they looked so nice I was tempted to go up the hill to Cottage Quiltworks and show them (because I got the fabric from them) , but I'm sure they would have looked at me like I was a crazy woman...


One of my colleagues is going to Brighton for a conference in August, and she has very kindly offered to hand-carry the parcel for me - nice!   I I love Brighton, it's one of my favourite places on the planet ...

What's not to love?


Ciao!

I know, I know...

Where the heck have I been?  Well, nowhere, of course!  I've been really really busy with "the day job", as one of my favourite writers refers to it, (Sharon Lee, if you must know, of Lee & Miller, and the Liaden Universe, fame), and I've been too pooped to drag this infernal machine out of its cocoon & write anything!


However, I have made solid progress on the wedding bunting:

so now you know what all the work is leading to - 72 6" X 9" rectangles cut out, 30 letters traced, cut out and appliqued onto the flags, 72 6" X 9" rectangles sorted into 3 sets of 12 ("melspaceandspaceurby"), carefully making sure that the same fabrics don't end up next to each other, the colours look okay and the letters are all the right way round... stitching, stitching, stitching, pressing, pressing, pressing... so all that's left now is to make the 'string', which is 8 feet of 2" binding cut by hand, per set, pressed (pressed, pressed) then carefully pinning the flags onto the 'string', and even more carefully stitching it together... phew.  Not that it hasn't been fun, but just quietly, I'll be very happy when it's finished.  Good thing the wedding isn't till September!


Other makings:


I bought some beautiful linen from Cottage Quiltworks, at Bilgola Plateau the other week, and the most gorgeous cotton print for the lining - and I made this, but I haven't worked out an infallible method of calculating where to put the applique (which you have to do first, so the stitching doesn't show inside the pouch) so that it's in the right place when you make the boxed corners.  Man, that's a sentence and a half... anyway:

And it's lined with this (excuse the crease!):

Gorgeous, and with this beautiful ribbon, also from Cottage Quiltworks:

Now, what to do with it?  Maybe an early birthday present for my friend Gill in Brighton (UK)?... hmmmm...


What else?  Well, I just spent a fruitless half hour searching the Lotteries site for MWH, who had a year and a half's worth of dead lottery tickets jammed into his beautiful Italian black leather ticket holder that I bought him at Rome Airport in 2003... mine (red, surprise surprise) is still its original size and shape, because I never use it for more than two or three bus tickets at any time - and his is about 1cm deep!  - and I found one lousy winner, for a whole $20.  Won't be going back to Italy any time soon on that, needless to say.   


Oh, and yes, I must shamefully admit to caving in and buying that beautiful red square handbag I have been coveting at Diane Van Ooi's gorgeous quirky shop in Newport, for some time... I got a large sum of money from the Guvinmint by taking in a bunch (and I do mean a bunch!) of doctor's receipts to Medicare, and I thought, well, why not?  I'm just doing my bit for the economy, honest.  And I can hear them trundling that guillotine down the road right now... ah, come on, there's just no such thing as 'too many red handbags'... is there?


And I just wanted to add that I love this woman's blog - even though she goes to church, she seems fairly sane in a completely insane kind of way, which proves, I guess, that religious beliefs don't turn everybody into nutcases, maybe just those who were already sliding down that slippery slope?  I had a funny religious moment of my own this week, with a bunch of religious orders and organisations having booths (stalls?  sheds?) in the main pedestrian plaza of this fair city - they were proselytising, which is a word I just love for the inherent complications of its pronunciation... it means "actively hustling for converts"... and as I was wondering up the hill towards "the day job", I overhead a trio of MIS* commenting that "they must be looking for recruits".  My comment?  "Where's the one for Jedi, that's what I want to know!".  Much assorted laughter, and a very amused "that's made my day" from one of the suits.  Mine too.  And so, gentle reader, here 'tis.  


And that, tonight, is it for me.  MWH is happy because his team has won its match, and I am glad to sitting here, burbling away, listening to beautiful Derek Bell harp music, and watching big men in maroon dance around each other... okay, stopping now.
*Men In Suits