Friday night too drunk

That's part of a movie title, you know, Gentle Readers.  I think it's an excellent title for this post, which explains quite a lot about my weekend.  I wasn't really too drunk, just pleasantly happy.  MBF Deb invited us up for homemade pizzas, and boy, were they delicious?  Yes, of course they were.  She's a fabbo cook, far more interested in the creation of beautiful meals than I'll ever be, and she knocked up the pizzas in about 20 minutes flat, making it all look so easy.  Mind you, there was a very small amount of pre-work eliminated, in that she used pre-made bases, but, hey?  Who cares?  Is there a pizza-base police in the house?  No indeedy.


I woke up on Saturday morning with a bit of a headache, easily fixed with two aspirin & a bowl of cereal (aspirin in a glass of water, not the cereal.  Things weren't that bad).  I spent a slightly uncomfortable half hour at the beautician, remembering all the while the story my mother used to tell me - when she was a girl, she had long, thick, beautiful hair, and one of her great-aunts, of whom there were a number, according to the family tree, used to comb it with a fine tooth comb, and say "you must suffer in the cause of beauty".   Ouch.  No wonder she wouldn't let us have long hair as children.


In other news, I got very inspired to make the cushion covers long promised to Miss Lyndsey. I threaded up the machine with white cotton, cut, pinned, stitched and got all the way to the final stitching of the side seams before it dawned on me that I needed to make buttonholes.  I whipped an empty bobbin out of my jar, filled it with lemon yellow thread and dragged the buttonhole foot out of the drawer, and off I went.  Well, kinda. 

Image courtesy of Paradeofapples.wordpress.com.  

First of all, the machine thread snapped.  Then the bobbin thread got tangled up in itself & I had to take the whole bobbin race out to get it clear.  Then it did it again.  And again.  Then the needle started making funny noises.  So I got a new 90 needle out of the magic box, and popped that in.  Nope.  I rethreaded the machine.  Nope.  I tried sewing something apart from buttonholes.  Nope.  Eventually, and ever so slowly, Gentle Readers, I thought, "perhaps this is not the right bobbin?".  Yep.  Took it out, moved all the thread to another bobbin and rather quickly tossed the old bobbin in the bin.  And guess what?  Sewing like a dream, aren't we?   


There's a lesson in this, Gentle Readers.  Rethread machine, change needle, rethread machine, check bobbin, rethread bobbin if necessary, toss bobbin if all else fails.  Actually, if all else fails, walk away & have a nap.  That's what I did.  Next blogtime, I promise pictures of the finished cushion cover.


That's it for me.  Work tomorrow, then Tuesday off - upholstery school Monday & Tuesday night, with Lucas.  Thank the Upholstery Ghods for good teachers.  We're starting on some cushion making, so I expect to learn where I went wrong with the one I haven't finished yet ;-p


And now, I think I might even go & finish it.  It's only 9.30pm & I'm not really watching the cricket, and now that I know what the problem is... who knows?  Maybe pics tonight?  Wow.  And... ciao!

That list again...

For those intrepid Gentle Readers still checking in to see if I'm alive, the rewards are all here.  An update on the list, a small exposition on the prospect of breaking rules now that I've turned *gasp* 50, and some gratuitous photographs.  What more could you ask for?


List Update:


1.  Pouch for Anne-Marie (18 months ago)
2.  Cushions for Mr Golightly's Big Sis (17 months ago)
3.  Cushions for Lyndsey (6 months ago)
4.  Seat covers for Mrs Autrey (at least 9 months ago) Finished, just waiting for the Post Office to re-open.
5.  Dog for Effie in Canada (only Monday) Cheated just slightly & sent her nephew the one featured on the blog.  Hope she doesn't mind!
6.  Pouch for MBF's children's piano teacher (3 months ago) Let off the hook, she'd forgotten too & bought something.
7.  Pouch for MBF's children's dance teacher (ditto)
8.  Cushion for MGF Kaz (who knows, so long ago I've forgotten)
9.  Dolls for the children of people in my team (2 months ago). Finished, see previous blog post.
10.  Christmas Scarf for Clare in the UK.  Started but nowhere near ready.
11.  Christmas Gift for Gill in the UK.  Not even started.
12.  Welcome gift for Mrs Autrey's baby (knitted but not wrapped or posted).  Wrapped & waiting for the post office to open.
13.  Welcome gift for Clare's baby (not even started).
14.  Kris Kringle gift for friend at lunch on Sunday*.  Lavender bags X 3.  Time?  20 minutes.  Easy.


Wow.  See what you can produce if you don't have to go to work, Gentle Readers?  Although I've now been off for 11 days, it doesn't feel like I've achieved much, although I have sorted out a bunch of stuff which is going into the roof pending the re-opening of the local high school - apparently they're always looking for dressmaking fabric, and I have a bunch of stuff which is not good enough to keep, and certainly not bad enough to put in the recycling... so come February, that's where it's going.

School holidays, I hear you ask?  February?  For those Gentle Readers who live in the other half of the planet, I'm in the other other half.  This is the half where it's summer right now, albeit cold & rainy, and school holidays start towards mid-December and run until the end of January.  Just like you up there, we make our kids go to school when it's cold & wet :-))


In other news of no relevance, I had a birthday.  It ended in a zero.  I'm now officially middle-aged, although I quite like Cordelia Naismith's* version of middle age, which is "always 10 years older than you are".

That's what's left of my surprise dessert croquembouche, with vanilla bean ice-cream.  It was delicious, and having the whole restaurant singing along to "Happy Birthday" was lovely - it's a bit of a tradition in our local Italian Restaurant, everybody sings when a sparkler-encrusted dessert item wends its way out of the kitchen - that way we all get to join in the fun, if not the food.


Sadly, I had to drive home, so my intake of a fabulous Shiraz from 2003 was somewhat limited - it's sitting in a cool dark place waiting for another opportunity... which will be tonight, when we're zipping up to MBF's house for pizza - is it a crime against wine to drink a Gold Medal winning wine with pizza?  Hey, now that I'm 50, I'm breaking all the rules, not just the wine rules. White wine with beef, red wine with pizza, socks with sandals, sling-back heels with panty hose, high heels with trousers that are too short, sock with heels, black bras under white shirts, showing my bra straps... wow, can't you tell I'm old?  When I was a teenager (last century, no less), you were a real moll if you let your straps show.  Phew.  


Anyway, I'm going to put my lederhosen and wig on now, and go & watch India and Australia in the cricket.  Nicely multicultural, that's me.  Ciao!

*copyright Lois McMaster Bujold, some time ago.

Greetings from Conchita

Today, Gentle Readers, has been all about enjoying the coolish weather, the cricket and Conchita the Chicken.  Some of you may remember that Mr Golightly bought me "Sew It, Stuff It" for my birthday, and taken as I was by the Owl, I wanted to try making Conchita first, just to see how the patterns were.  


You know how it is, sometimes you jump into making something & it turns out the pattern is incredibly complicated, or it just doesn't work, no matter what you do - my first biased cut skirt was like that.  I had no idea that it would drop so much, or that it mattered that I left it to hang for the time specified - but it made me look like a sock money anyway, so it was consigned to the recycle bin PDQ.  


I did not want this to happen to Conchita, and it was pretty easy to make, but I didn't follow the directions exactly - he recommended 1.2 cm/12mm/1/2" seam allowances, which would be fine except the lace I was using on the top, for the Chicken's comb, would have been completely swallowed up by the seam allowance, so I changed that one to 1/4".  I cheated and filled the bottom with sand, so she could be used as a doorstop if required, and my hand embroidery round the eye is completely different to what was recommended in the book, but hey, it's all good.


She came out OK, I think:

As for the Cricket, I got all inspired to make an Etsy Treasury about the Cricket, given that us Aussies are well represented in the Etsy world, but after finding a disappointing number of '"Rare" Cricket Cages', fabric with the word 'Cricket' in the name, or toy crickets, I've given it up as a bad job.  Nobody outside the Commonwealth really cares anyway!


In other Cricketing News, Mr G is very lucky to be going off to the SCG Members Stand tomorrow to compete in the Paddington Gift for Day Three of the Sydney Test.  He's a bit peeved because you have to wear long pants & a collared shirt to sit in the Member's Stand, but I think he's quite happy about being able to ignore the Mexican Wave, in traditional Member's style.  If any of you lovely Gentle Readers from non-Commonwealth Countries want a translation, let me know.  Also, I'll let you know if he gets arrested.  And if I bail him out.


And finally, the other thing I found today was this, which I've printed out & I think I'm going to make some up as a birthday garland for My Best Friend, whose birthday is in late January, and I might try enlarging some non-copyrighted letters to make some to sell - I usually get my fonts from AlphabetPatterns & they don't appear to have any copyright or usage restrictions... please correct me if I'm wrong here. 


And that, Gentle Readers, has been my day.  I also got in a bit of tidying up, reading, ran the dishwasher, removed the colony of ants that appeared to have taken up residence in said dishwasher whilst we were away, and I am about to prepare fabulous food for Az, who is going to the Cricket with Mr Golightly tomorrow.  I apparently volunteered to drive them in at 7.00am, so they could get good seats (see reference to Paddington Gift, above).  What was I thinking?  


Ciao!

Doc Rosie and the Pencil Cases

That, to me, gentle reader, sounds like a much more interesting title for a book than "Little Kev hides his head in the sand about Asylum Seekers", or whatever it was called, but what would I know?


Anyway, I had a lovely visit with my very good friend Doc Rosie, who just happens to be the mother of the very lovely Clare, the brains and talent behind Lulu Carter.  And said lovely Clare hadn't been to the Golightly house since we rescued it from Pinkdom, and I think she liked it.  She was taken with the small but perfectly formed room, that's for sure (well, the contents, anyway!)...


Anyway, she stayed for a drink or two and some nibbles, we had a fabulous chat about craft, fabric, the ownership of 'original' ideas, who are the evil sisters and the wicked step-mother in the Cinderella world of craft, then she whisked young Master Carter away from the Frigits, and we had a fabulous time, eating, drinking and talking, and this time, we managed to stay away from this, which is good, because the last time we got together we polished off half a bottle, and I had a nasty encounter the next morning with pineapple juice that ended up with me chucking up said pineapple juice over the lawn.  You really wanted to know that, didn't you?  


Then I had the almost obligatory Sunday afternoon nap (these ten hour working days are really starting to take a toll, y'know?), and then sat down to make pencil cases, using Spotlight's best floral cotton drill.  When the recipients are five and three, I'm not going to use my best French linen, sorry!


For Tehya:

And for Kyla:

I love the Matryoshka lining fabric, which Mr Golightly's lovely niece Emma bought home from Amsterdam. 

And now, gentle reader, the cricket calls, and it's early to bed, early to rise makes Isabella less tired and grumpy than she is now!


Ciao!

Some kind of irony

Does anybody but me see some kind of weird irony in being asked to make a toy dog, less than a week after The Best Dog In The World has gone to Doggy Heaven?  Goodness me but life is weird.


Anyway, Mr Golightly's nephew, Master E, has a friend, Master L, who is having a birthday, and "could Aunty Golightly make a dog like mine, only for the Cronulla Sharks?"... Last year I made a dog for Master E in the colours of his favourite Football team (or a close, Joel Dewberry-type approximation thereof).  

For those of you out there not completely au fait with the NRL (oh, you too?), the colours are apparently blue, grey and white.  So, one did ones best, as they say somewhere else:

To be named, somewhat appropriately, "Sharkey".  I'm a bit cross with myself because I forgot to make him a collar, but as Master E's mother so wisely said "he'll never know".  Well, yes, but I will.  Next time, too, I will dig out the florist's wire & make the ears a bit more standy-uppy, but I quite like floppy-eared dogs.  Why wouldn't you?


And now, back to the disaster that is Australia Vs Pakistan.  Mr Golightly is off getting wet & miserable at the Cricket Ground today and very shortly I'm going to do the good wifey thing & make spaghetti for dinner.  He'll need something to cheer him up after Australia's performance today! 

Ham, anyone?

Not to be too 'scroogely' about it, but this year we didn't inflate the tree.  We didn't spend money on a real tree, we didn't go to the shops & buy a fake one.  We didn't string tinsel or lights, or sparkly baubles.  I did put two holly leaves & a berry onto the leg of the froggie doorknocker, just to get into the spirit of the thing, and I made these


[insert picture here].


Damn, the pictures are still on the camera.  Which is at the Boxes.  Where we were on Boxes Day, and where we will be on Friday night to celebrate NYE, very quietly.  Our tradition, for at least the last five years, has been to spend the evening with Dr & Mrs Box, eating, drinking & playing something wild like Scrabble, or Monopoly, or even Anti-Monopoly, having a 'relatively' early night, then going out somewhere really nice for lunch the next day:

And so it shall be in 2010.


Also, I can't believe we're still eating ham.  And we weren't even the originators of the ham.  That privilege went to my lovely SIL, who certainly made the business requirement of 'supply too much ham at Christmas' achievable.


I got some lovely gifts, MWH* outdid himself this year, aided by the wonderful 'wish list' facilities at various online retailers.  This particular gift has been pilloried by friends and family alike, and I can't work out why - it's fantastic for people who travel a lot, and who don't want to drag phone and camera battery chargers around with them wherever they go:

And then there were the books:

  

All guaranteed to keep me busy for a while... but I have made a solemn vow that I am doing absolutely no sewing of any kind until I go through the small but perfectly formed room and find some things to put into the 'Destash Sale from Hell (IIBIHWID*) - the sight of piles of fabric on the floor of the SBPFR have made me realise that, sadly, it's not like the TARDIS, and I can't keep shoving fabric in it without it starting to bulge at the seams... so, the sale.

I'm only going to get rid of dress-making fabric, though, I have no desire to make clothes for myself anymore - I'd be happy to make stuff for the little kids though, although Miss A is now 12 & no longer interested in homemade anything - although she's not actually overt about it, she was quite happy that the pencil case I gave her for Christmas came from Kinokuniya, and not from my own fair hands... 

Master E, on the other hand, was quite happy to finally get his hands on these:

 

which is pretty good, considering he also had one of those new-fangled skateboards with only two wheels to occupy him for most of the day!

And now, gentle reader, the cricket has adjourned for tea, and I am off to make myself a ham-free lunch!

*If I believed in Hell, which I don't

Cricket, anybody?

Well, I don't know about you people but I'm really enjoying the colour and zing the latest South African cricket team has brought to this summer - from being a people who had segregated toilets based on your skin colour to being able to be photographed wearing the girliest of colours, pink, in honour of Jane McGrath & the McGrath Foundation, and also having people of different coloured skin and religious beliefs in their team - well, all I can say is, we've got a long way to go, baby.

In their honour, I have made this little darling; he's got the most fabulous variegated floral front, and stripes of many colours on the back, and of course I have named him Protea. What else?

I also made these, out of some gorgeous silk twill I bought years ago at the late, lamented Home Yardage store in York Street; I wish I'd bought the whole bolt, it was so beautiful and the first time I (gently, by hand) washed the blouse I made, it ran everywhere, leaving a pale imitation of itself. Ick. These are a bit wonky, so I'm selling them cheap. I do have a bit left, if anybody wants some non-wonky ones made. Just yell!