Life returns to... normal

So, Gentle Readers, it appears that the sojourn will shortly be over.  Having spent a wonderful six months at home being 'wifely', I now have a real job.  Well, I will have on Monday.  I start work at a large August Institution (no, not the same one!), in town, with a small team (much smaller than my old team, which started as eight and morphed into 14 at the end) of three, working on what is euphemistically called "lights on", or, if you're old school like I is, "BAU".  Woot!!  I am so excited not to be working on Projects - they suck you dry, chew you up & spit you out, and I'm not willing or able, mentally or physically, to do that.

So.  Having managed three (or is it four?) posts in those six months, I suspect the flow may reduce to a trickle, but it may be that having interaction with other human beings, apart from Mr Golightly and a small, very select, band of friends, may result in an outpouring of observation.  Or not.

Anyway, I recall that I promised pictures of the finished Bilby...

Blue-Boy

Monkey-face

Gamera

Plus the other two which still have the slightly piggy face:

Bing

Round

Mr Golightly professes to like the little protuberance caused by having the gusset go right up to the chin, but I prefer the slimmer look.  

So, now that I've perfected the pattern, I need to sell them.  Any suggestions for price?  The small ones are fiddly, the big one takes a huge amount of stuffing, but they are all gorgeous.  I was thinking $20 for the little guy, but the only other thing in my shop for $20 is a doorstop and these guys are a lot more work than a doorstop. 

Would you pay $25 for one of those little cuties?  Come on now, I need to know!!

Ciao!

Where was I?

Oh yes, back to reality.  The very funny Antonia, from "Yetanotherbloomingblogspot", or 'Whoopee', has joined Facebook.  She swears, so if you suffer from delicate ears, be warned.  I have actually snorted coffee through my nose reading posts on her blog, and am extremely jealous that I am not as funny, erudite, rude or clever as she is.  But I know how to hammer in tacks, and she doesn't, so there.


Speaking of tacks, the very lovely Kate from Rapt! Upholstery, is in the the third year of the course I'm doing, and has her own blog, which is well worth a look - she's done some amazing things with furniture that was on its last legs.  We only see each other once a week, on a Monday, when the third years venture in with these huge bits of furniture they're all working on - enormous chaise lounges, wing chairs, whole Parker sofas - incredible, really.  Hopefully when my turn comes around next year I'll be able to find something equally fab to work on.


My Monday at Upholstery School was spent wrestling with red vinyl, and I managed to stab myself under the fingernail with a staple.  I swore like a navvy, it bled like a stuck pig, and of course the only comment that's made, by anybody, is "Don't get blood on the work".  Good thing I'm not the sensitive wilting flower some of us are, isn't it?


Anyway, here's some pictures of what I was trying to achieve, which was:


All the pleats in one direction;
All the pleats point towards the centre point;
All the pleats are the same size;
The start point for each pleat must be on the front, not on the top, of the arm.


Not sure if I succeeded:

Much soreness of fingers, after this lot.  Vinyl is a real pain to work with... nice for stool tops, but thank the Upholstery Gods that nobody wants their lounges covered in it!


Last night I made a doorstop for a nice man who bought it through my Etsy shop - I used the beautiful Echino linen, and it went just fine, but the problems I had filling it have resulted in sand all over the sewing room floor, and the bathroom floor.  Why the bathroom floor, I hear you ask?  I had a brainwave about drying out the sand using the hairdryer.  Aha, I hear you say.  Yes, Gentle Readers, Miss Incredibly-stupid Isabella got the hairdryer a bit too close to the sand and it flew everywhere.  Sadly, the finished result didn't even make a bit of difference to the bulk of the sand & it's still damp.  Next time I send the boys off to the hardware store for a bag of sand, remind me to specify I want the dry stuff.

And that, Gentle Readers, could be it for me today.  I have done the first slices into the Birthday quilt top, so I need to sew some sashing strips together so I can stitch the quilt top back up... I may emulate yesterday's effort by having a mid-afternoon nap, but my final set of Lumiere de Noel layer cake blocks arrived from Texas this morning, so I may be spending nap time thinking about how to make a double sided quilt...  Inspirational ideas welcome, of course!


Ciao!

Sneak Peek

Well, here's the fruits of our labours - that's me, My Best Friend & the Kidlets.  We stuffed, stitched, punched, cut, knotted, stamped, wrote and argued, mostly about the pricing.  I admit I have no idea how much to charge for things - I always worry that they're overpriced, but then I remember Lois McMaster Bujold in 'A Civil Campaign', where Kareen Koudelka tells Ekaterin "don't undervalue your own work, there's plenty out there who'll do it for you - what they pay for, they'll value".  So, I've gone with more than I would have, say, three months ago, and we shall see.

Fingers crossed!  I will report back on Sunday night, if I'm still alive.


Ciao!

On the wagon...

Well, Gentle Readers, much excitement for me this weekend - first of all the Treasury thingy (and did ANY of you get the gratuitous Ferengi reference on my beautiful Treasury description, or am I shouting into the wind here with the sci-fi stuff, hmmm?), and now, my lovely Beautician, Kerry, has invited me to put some stuff onto her table at the Newport Market Day, which is being held on Sunday 14th November.  

I have had numerous invitations to do markets, and I have investigated the effort required (huge, no, really) to have a stall at St Ives Heritage Craft Markets, and I'm sad to say I'm pretty much too lazy to do all that humping, lifting & carrying (actually, my back is so bad I get a backache just looking at lifting the groceries out of the car!).  The sewing part is easy, but the thought of having to get a table, tablecloth, tent, chair, float, display thingys, arrange the stock, keep a supply of food & drink, not go to the toilet all day and be jolly and welcoming to all prospective browsers or those who just want to rub their dirty sticky fingers on my beautiful lavender bags, frogs, doorstops etc etc etc, just put me right off.    

So this is ideal, the lazy person's market stall.  Her table will be selling all those products required to keep us looking beautiful, and I will be selling things you don't really need but which make nice souvenirs, or nice christmas gifts, or hostess gifts [question without notice - is that an {shudder} Americanism????] or teacher gifts, at very reasonable prices.  

If you don't have any plans, and it's a nice day (because, let's face it, who wants to go out in the rain???), pop on down & say hello.  We'll be outside Rapport Beauty, on Barrenjoey Road. I'm the tall dumpy one.  

And of course the other reason for me telling you all this useless information (well, let's face it, if you're in Bahrain, like the very lovely Felicity from "All Toile and no Reward", one of my favourite reads, you are not going to wander down to Newport, now are you?) is that I will be trying very very hard not to post any more this week, until I have made the doorstops, Christmas trees, pouches, sets of lavender bags, sets of clove bags, fridge magnets and Christmas badges, and packaged them all up, and priced them, and have something to show you.  So, please come back on Friday, when all will be revealed!


Ciao!

OK, so maybe it was TMI?

However, remaining Gentle Readers, I felt that your loyalty should be rewarded with a deeply personal detail of my life - I keep so much from you in so many other ways that I thought you might enjoy this information overload... obviously I was deluded from the Giardia, and now that I'm not quite as sick, I realise that I was completely wrong.  Nobody wants to read about somebody else's gastrointestinal problems.  Honestly.  What was I thinking?


Also, I'm now constipated.  Meh ha ha ha ha...


Ahem.


I made three sets of birdies today, for lovely Yvette at work.  It's weird, isn't it, that I know two women called Yvette?  I never knew a single one before I started work at this August Institution, and now I know two.  Weird.  Also?  They couldn't be more different.  Anyway, the lovely 2nd Yvette requested three sets of birds, one for her in pink:

A set for either her mother or mother-in-law in blue:

and a set for either her mother or her mother-in-law in black:

Shake shake your tail feather!

And a doorstop for young Hogan, who wanted floral, but not too girly:

Hopefully this will fit the bill.  Back to work tomorrow, hopefully with things more... ordered.  That is all.

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!

I love this blog!

I stumbled across this blog entirely by accident, but I do love it - this guy finds the most amazing places that are part of New York but a part which is slowly disappearing - it's a city I've never visited, but would love to one day - maybe after the US gets a little less paranoid & stops finding would-be terrorists in every visitor - even the ones who are trying to get out...


I've had a really busy couple of weeks, with early Christless with my Ma & Lovely Hank (that's "christmas" for the religious, or "saturnalia", for the pagans amongst you), plenty of birthdays in November & December, orders from the UK & US, and an exciting invitation - MWH's sister's son's girlfriend's mother (got that?) in the UK is apparently opening a shop & liked the look of the pouch I made for her daughter for one of those late November birthdays... but which I completely forgot to take a photo of (d'oh!) so I can't impress the crap out of you with it... but I digress -she wanted to know if I'd be interested in putting some stock in her 'soon-to-be-opened' shop (seriously?) - all I need is the time to make some stuff!


I went to a 10 year old's birthday party (and MWH & I are still having the argument of the ethics of posting even a pixellated picture of the girls in their bathing suits here, so I haven't)...


and I made the birthday girl this pencil case for her birthday - Happy Birthday Nellie!

and we had the annual lunch with a bunch of ex-colleagues, at one of the nicest venues Sydney has on offer:

and we saw a bit of these guys:

This picture was taken by Adrian, age 4. He did a self-portrait, too:

Cute, huh?


I made something for my WMIL*, who has moved in to a new apartment & wanted a better way to keep the doors open than by stapling the cat to the floor. Ooops. That was my idea. These were hers:

Filled with washed sand, they weigh a ton. Which is, I suppose, the point! I love this fabric, too, which is Amy Butler's Wood Fern Silver, from here.


Oh, and here's the cat:

Is that an evil look or what?