Fame, remember my name(2)

Just wanted to say how excited I am about getting 'pinged' as we computer geeks say (what's the difference between a geek and a nerd, in computer terms anyway?) by Jo at Diary of a Sad Housewife - I made her list of her favourite 9 blogs - wow (this is me rendered speechless here).

Sometimes I wonder about the impact of the stuff I write, because I have been known to rant a bit about the injustices of life, you know, where corporate giants exploit people because they can, where people are selfish and thoughtless, where scumbag lawyers make bad situations even worse by not caring, that kind of thing... and then I'm glad I blog, because even though most days this is a brain dump for me, and nothing more, occasionally I do want to make a point (even though most days I have no idea if anybody even reads this stuff) and I want to make the world and the people in it, better. And today, Jo made me feel like I might have. Nice.

It's a bit like LA Law this week.

It's a bit like LA Law this week.

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Read this and weep. In the words of Pete Seeger, "oh when will they ever learn?"

Decisions, decisions...

So, I'm about to make the Wedding Clutch (see, the relative importance is noted by the presence of Capital Letters...) & I can't decide which pattern to use. I have three, all from Keyka Lou, and they're all great - and if anybody knows anything about me, they'll know I can't make decisions about the small stuff! New beds are easy, new cars (well, it was easy 5 years ago), sure, trade-in the husband? Sure... that's a decision I make all the time (not that I've done anything about it yet, the prospect of moving 16.5 years of accumulated junk puts me off everytime I get close [and maybe that's not the only reason, hmmm?])... but which handbag to make for the wedding? Phew. Too hard.

Don't get me wrong, the patterns are great, easy to follow, well written, good pictures, very logical, so there's no issue there. Just me.

Here's the possibilities:

Journal Clutch: I've made this & it's nice, a good size & it would be very useful... also it's a great shape for the black silk, because it's 'boxy'...

Easy Curvy Clutch - haven't made this yet, but can't see that it would be any harder than the other patterns in Michele's range...

Garden Party Wristlet - this is very cute, and it would be super useful with the strap, but it's hard to imagine it in any other colour and the pink is very girlie...

I do think the black silk would look better as a clutch rather than the Garden Party Wristlet, just because the fabric is quite 'firm', but it is a very useful style...maybe without the bow? I'm not much of a bow person anyway, (on me, anyway - on a victorian tea gown, or an afternoon dress they look spectacular)... but it would need some 'focus' object to finish it... hmmm.

Much thinking required here, methinks... oh well, off for breakfast. Then we'll see.

A little world surfing

Well, I just finished making a birthday gift for my good friend GMcD, aka Hanna Sutherland, who has a birthday on Tuesday, and something else I can't talk about just now, but will post about it when I know it's hit the other end.


So I thought I'd share some pictures I took a couple of years back, on our first trip to the UK together.  They were the last shots I took with my trusty Nikon film camera, before I converted to digital.  They have a certain something, don't they?

Chihuly glass at the V&A - magnificent

This is holding up the roof in a church somewhere - gorgeous...

Fantasy land - hard to believe this was taken in St James' Park, isn't it?

My all-time favourite.  The staircase in Queen Mary's House, at Greenwich.  Some days you just get lucky!

And on a slightly more cheery note...

I have to share this with you people out there! Sorry Kaz, if you didn't want it out there - it's too beautiful to leave unposted somewhere on the fancy young people's internet (thanks, Tony Squires...)


This is the label my lovely friends Kaz & Az are going to put on their wine this year - they normally sell all their grapes to these people, and have a few bottles kept aside for themselves prior to it being blended in with other quality grapes - and they've had a label in the past, but nothing as spectacular as this:

How could anybody resist? And it has two of my four favourite dogs in the whole wide world on it - just beautiful. It is slight, ever so slightly not quite but nearly geographically correct, but who's going to quibble? Everybody will be so taken by the gorgeous doggies that they won't even twig that the water is not really there... and who cares?

And, do I hear you say, what about the other two favourite dogs in the whole wide world? Well, seeing as I haven't done any sewing since Sunday (shame on me), and no material arrived in the mail (and what's that about?), it's down to the dogs - or is that "we've gone to the dogs"? Sorry. Couldn't help it, you know how I love a good pun...

This is Gus. He's a boy. Anybody who didn't notice needs to have their eyes checked very very soon. He was a pound puppy, can you believe it?

And this is Jarrah:

She has the sweetest nature, and puts up with all sorts of crap from Gus, who constantly teases her, chews her legs, flicks her ears, worries her tail... and she just happily sits there, until Gus goes just that little bit too far. Then she growls at him, he runs away and peace is restored. For about 10 minutes.


Love it. Love those dogs.

More than one kind of birthday...

Today is not only my 100th post, but also the first anniversary of my arrival at the day-job.What a year. Some of the rudest, meanest, bitchiest people I've ever worked with, which is quite impressive, considering I've been working for 30 years in December. Also, some of nicest, kindest, most thoughtful people, which kind of makes up for it.

Wow. 30 years of work. Lets see... Bank (different bank), Bookshop, Library, off to the UK, Temp, Library, back to Aus, Bank (different Bank), back to the UK, Oil Company (typing pool), back to Aus, Temp, Library (see a pattern here?), Temp, Typing Pool, University student (didn't last long at that, let me add!), Training Company (trainer), Insurance Company, 2nd job at same Insurance Company, another Insurance Company, working part time & studying, studying full time, IT Contractor, back at that Insurance Company again, IT

Consulting Company, IT Contractor, Bank (different Bank). I think that's it. Isn't that enough?

I've had some great jobs... some have been lots of fun - the typing pool in London was great, we used to have lots of fun whilst working our way through Exploration & Drilling reports. Plus we had state of the art technology, word processing machines with Hard Disks in them! Wow! (this was 1988, you know...) Ah, those were the days.

And what I really want to know is, why did it take me until I was over 40 before figuring out what I really really wanted to do with my life? Way too old to retrain again... and in way too deep with house, renovations and a mortgage to go back to uni... so I'm making do. I wanted to make costumes for films & theatre, but I've left it too late... now I spend my time making beautiful things out of beautiful fabric, wishing I wasn't pushing buttons & writing business requirements. Ah, happy freaking anniversary.

It's finished, it's finished!!!

The wedding bunting is officially finished.  I finally got off my assets and finished the binding, or the string, or whatever you want to call it, that this stuff is going to hang up from - and you know what?  It took me less than an hour.  Shame on me for letting it go on so long, but hey, it looks nice, I think, whaddya think?

What else?  Here's the other stuff I bought last week:

You can't see how beautiful the black silk is, with beading and sequins but it is gorgeous - and the others look pretty good too.  Next weekend, the clutch for sure.  I just bought this from Michelle at KeykaLou, her patterns are really good, easy to follow, with great instructions and good photos.  

Then this afternoon I made two more glasses cases for my WMIL* - these are a really pain to make, two tubes and a flap - if you cut the inside tube smaller to make it fit better when it's finished, it's hard to get the two to go round smoothly on the flap; I ended up with a tiny pleat on the outside of one of them - really really annoying - but I don't think you'll see it when it's all pressed up nicely... maybe:

And finally I was reading this blog and I wanted to do something for this woman - what a crap situation to be in - it's only when you read stuff like this you realise what absolute bastards are out there, putting decent people in impossible situations.  Jo, if you read this, mail me at isabellagolightly@gmail.com, because I'd like to do something to cheer you up.