Remember my name, fame...

I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly (high)... or something. I have never watched that movie, right up there with Thelma and Louise, and Pulp Fiction. Apparently this makes me some kind of social misfit, but I'm coping, trust me. The McVities Ginger Nuts are helping me cope... There's a couple of shops in the city called "Sweet Treats from Home" [I just had an ABC kind of moment, as in "Should I be doing advertising here?", and then I realised, "it's my party, I can cry if I want to..." or, I can say what I like without worrying about the perception of impartiality. If people don't like it, they don't have to read this... so...] and these shops sell food, drinks, some household items such as, get this, Fairy Liquid, and of course, McVities Biscuits, all from the UK and Ireland. I love McVities Plain Chocolate Digestives, which in the hemisphere I live in, is actually 'dark' chocolate. We can get those in the supermarket, mostly, but the Ginger Nuts are harder to come by. They are so good... dunked in tea, milk, old fashioned lemonade.. not so great in coffee, but still great to eat on their own. Yum.

Anyway, surprisingly, I have digressed... Oh yes, social misfittedness. No, Fame! That was it! One of my photographs has been selected to go into something called Schmap, which is an "online digital travel guide"... apparently they don't pay you, but you get kudos and people all over the world get to see your photos. There's a widget too, apparently, but I'm not going to include it - all the photos on my flickr page are shown on this blog anyway, under the "My World' thingy - the one that Schmap is including is right in there... so, small moment of Fame...

Other news: I've just made 3 more pouches, 2 for gifts & one more for the WMIL's easter gift parade, only 4 more to go for that. The gifts are for two of my favorite people who have February Birthdays, and although I had the gifts in good time, it's just taken a bit longer to get the pouches organised. I've fallen into a bit of analysis paralysis, where I can't make anything because I can't choose which fabric to use. On a brighter note, I have almost finished moving stuff from big boxes into smaller boxes, only the huge upholstery, curtain and remnant box to go.

How excited am I about doing that one? Not at all, really, but it's got to be done, then we can sacrifice the large, ugly, ungainly shelving unit to the garage, and my small but perfectly formed sewing room will look a lot bigger. Isn't it weird? MWH has built an L-shaped unit, with four low shelves & six high, and although it's taller, and wider, it makes the room look bigger. Maybe because it isn't that terrible orangey-red colour the other one went (we did stain & varnish it about 15 years ago, and I'm sure it wasn't quite so foul then, so I'm blaming the colour change on the varnish...) but rather a nice neutral pine colour.

Anyway, the other nice news is that my lovel DSSIL is coming for a visit tomorrow, to pick up her froggie, and to have a quick lesson on the sewing machine I'm gifting her - much fun ensuing tomorrow, and hopefully lots of fun sewing, and no dithering about which fabric to use... I've just ordered this, too, which I think is gorgeous, so we'll see what comes of it... maybe some birdies... maybe...

Message in a bottle

I was going to forgo the musical theme (what, you thought it was all a coincidence?) tonight because I've had two glasses of wine (normally I don't drink during the week) and didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything witty, but hey, Crowded House is always good. Ooops. I think it was Split Enz. See, I've had a glass of wine.

Anyway, for those who care, an update on the raffle - we've had so many neat donations that I'm now embarrassed & need to run around selling tickets like mad to make sure people win all the stuff! Thank you everybody : -)))

Sewing news - well, MWH worked late, really late, last night, and I made a box pouch, instead of having dinner, then I had a bowl of cerel at 10.00pm. See, having no kids means you can eat what you like when you like. Then I woke up in the middle of the night telling MWH that I knew how the guy was doing it [doing what?] but I just didn't know how - apparently I was convinced somebody was spying on us through the light fittings, and no, she says, pouring scorn on HWH, it wasn't an alien, it was a real guy... and no, I'm not asleep. Zzzzz. Wow. Weird or what? I remembered doing it this morning but not what triggered it.

Actually, I do know what caused this one - I was watching Stargate, the episode where Daniel is being interrogated by Osiris in his sleep & they capture her & remove the go'auld - I fell asleep in the middle of the episode & obviously it decided to play out in my subconscious...

When I was doing the last semester of my IT Diploma I used to sleepwalk downstairs to the front door & check it was shut. This was somewhat different but not hugely - stress is the trigger for me - and if the current project keeps going the way it has been, I may be doing the ironing whilst asleep before I know it... so if you hear of a house burning down because a woman was ironing whilst alseep, it's only me. Don't panic!

Remind me again

Why we're doing this? For this, in case you'd forgotten. So much fun, and they all have their own personalities. Sometimes it's really hard to send them away, and I miss the ones I didn't take pictures of - Miss Chloe, who is going to be the big sister of this guy, was one of those...

I'm sure, though, when I die, people are going to wade through my photo directory and go "what was she thinking?" ... but I don't care. It's creative, it's colourful, there's an amount of technical challenge, they smell nice, they have personality... what more could you ask?

Anyway, Miss Mandy, I admit I had my doubts about the colours being a bit dull, but sometimes it's nice to be wrong! Please let me know his name when he tells you.. I figure these guys are a bit like the dragons on Pern, who know their names when they hatch. Go, read, discover, worship at the altar of McCaffrey. She is probably a frog person too. Why wouldn't you be?

PS Anybody wanting their own froggie can contact me here.

And we'll have fun, fun, fun

Till they tell us to stop. Actually that's not how the song goes, but hey, you can't win them all. However, if you are lucky, you could work with me, and win this pair, which I made this afternoon. We're working on a plan to have 'fun at work', which imho is an oxy-moron. Now, I'm not saying you can't enjoy your job, and the company of the people you work with, but when management has to sit down & get everybody to think of ways to have fun, then you know you've got issues, man, serious issues.

Anyway, I was detomm (dumb enough to open my mouth), and suggested a raffle, with proceeds going to the bushfire appeal. So of course I get to organise it, collect the prizes, sell the tickets, hound people to buy the tickets, beg people to buy the tickets... actually I'm sure the purchasers are going to be very generous. The big cheese threw in a voucher for Red Balloon, which does a great job selling 'experiences', and somebody has anonymously donated a $50 Sanity Voucher (oh, that would be me... gotta put your money where your mouth is, after all), but until Friday, nothing else had turned up. Hopefully I will be inundated by donations tomorrow, and my small handmade contribution will go to a nice home!

Question for the panel - should I make more of these to sell? Upside - Easy to make, look fantastic, very useful - downside - market (well, Etsy, anyway) already has a bazillion of these for sale, people only need so many cosmetic/toilet bags (although the prototypes seem to be holding up nicely in my bathroom, that's for sure). Let me know what you think. Small prize available for the neatest, most correct entry.

Back to the small but perfectly formed room - MWH has just finished building me new shelves & I need to go & move things from really big bulky boxes into smaller boxes. I'm going to try & find some fabric to put on Etsy in a destash sale. Don't hold your breath!

Feelin' groovy....

Well, not quite. I still haven't quite recovered from my [apparently] jetlag induced lethargy from my lightning trip to Melbourne last Friday - Melbourne, Melbourne, I love Melbourne. It's the closest thing to Europe we have here in this country, and I love it. I love the lanes, the fact that a person of the female gender, on their own, can go out for a nice meal, get a good table at the front of the restaurant where she can see the nice man playing the guitar, watch the nice people having their passeggiata, eat nice food and drink nice wine, and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody hits on her, nobody bothers her, except the waiter to make sure she's got everything she needs, including the salad that wasn't on the menu but which they made specially for her... I love it. I left a fairly hefty tip, trust me.

I also did a spot of shopping whilst I was there, I gave in to my apparently re-growing devotion to all things red, and bought a nice light linen jacket with a very groovy shawl collar and three-quarter length sleeves, some seemingly randomly placed pieces of cotton twill tape for funk, and a thing at the back I can't think of the name of, that we last saw on safari suits and tweed jackets. Leave it with me, I'll dig out both editions of the my Fairchild's Dictionary of Fashion and look it up, or better yet, I'll ask my mother.

Her grandfather was a Master Tailor, and she'll know, because she knows all kinds of useful stuff like that. I saw a lounge suite (boy how old does that make me sound) at a garage sale once covered in some weird looking fabric which was part flat and part raised, in patterns, with the raised bit being made up of tiny weeny loops... she knew instantly I described it to her that it was called 'moquette'. Amazing. Even more amazing, she knew exactly what colour it was. Yucky olive green. Psychic powers or what?

I nearly succumbed to another red handbag, too, this morning - how many is too many? I already own five, four from Italy (Venice 1, Florence 1, Volterra 1, Rome 1) & one I got in the MLC Centre in Sydney, from the nice shoeshop man who is closing down very very soon - this newest one was very groovy, square, with links and a bar clasp going across the bag as the closure - it was also reversible, with camel coloured suede on the inside.. it was very nice, but my conscience stopped me... sadly.

In case you were going to say "Five handbags isn't many", That's five red ones. I own a bundle more than five... I was going to list them all but decided that probably isn't a good idea. I don't them trundling the guillotine into my front yard just yet, thanks.

Anyway, my wonderful mother-in-law (henceforth known as WMIL) has asked me to make 8 small pouches to give to her tapestry group for easter - she's going to fill them with eggs & a tiny chicken [toy], and then they can use them for whatever... and I've already made two, plus the two I made today trying to get the sizes right. These two are going up to Etsy for sale... if everybody isn't already pouched out. I sold my third Miss Muffett to a lady in Mexico, and there's only the orange one left. Didn't really think I'd sell that, but hey, it was worth a try. I'm delighted that I even had the opportunity to help the bushfire appeal by selling the ones I did. Anyway, pictures upcoming, and so, to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open, which is, hopefully, a good sign!

Night night!

Another one bites the dust...

Does anybody except me see a theme here? Oh well, never mind. I sold what I privately considered to be the nicest of the jewellery pouches today, to a lovely woman in Grose Wold. That's in NSW, Australia, rather than some 'other worlde- sci-fi' place. Sounds great, doesn't it? I'm going to look it up in a minute so I can pay homage to it (and my very generous buyer) just like I did for Conyers.

Anyway, picture attached, then off to bed. My goal here is to get to bed tonight before 11.00pm, the day starts at 6.30am & it's way way too long to be still trying to write coherently at 10:42pm.

However, a small rant, before I go: If I said to you "we are going to be doing away with a surplus of something, and here is the document which deals with the disposition", would you know I didn't mean "as in 'sunny'"??? Sometimes I despair of my colleagues. I'm going to buy a thesaurus for the office (oh, sorry, that's a big book full of hard words, for the benefit of the overpaid professionals with the vocabularies of 7 year olds, with whom I work...) & see if having a "hard word of the week" helps out. Rant over. Although, she says, not being able to contain herself even that much, did you notice how I couldn't help myself & had to work hard not to end that sentence with a preposition, did ya, did ya, huh, huh? Man. Go to BED!

Bed, sleep, dream, snore, bed, bed...

A big thank you to Conyers, Georgia!

Where the hell is Conyers, Georgia, anyway? I had to go & look it up, and now I know. It's in the north-west of Georgia, near Atlanta. And why, I hear you ask yourself, do we need to know where it is? Because Elizabeth D from Conyers, Georgia bought the toilette bag I donated to the Bushfire Appeal shop on Etsy , and I posted it off to her this morning. I love the idea that somebody halfway across the world can buy something I made (and for a good cause too, that's the best bit!)... I have to confess that I sent out some "good cause spam", something I would otherwise never do, to all the people in my Contacts list I consider approachable, and also to some of my Etsy suppliers, asking for a little "pay it forward", I s'pose, by way of "I have a listing, it's a good cause, go & look" kind of thing.

Interestingly it appears to have worked, albeit on a bigger scale than I was imagining. My friend Kaz, who lives in the beautiful Hunter Valley bought four, yep, four things, although two of them were already destined for her house anyway. The other two were a bit of a surprise, so my gallant efforts to fight off the Jetlag Lethargy that gripped me on Saturday, by sewing madly were nearly all for naught. Well, kind of. The whole point is for people to buy what you've made, so stop whining.

Anyway, I had made Bruce the Twin Bro', to go with the beautiful Blue Boy I made a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of other nice pouches apart from the ones already going to the Baptist Ladies Auxiliary Sewing Circle & House of Good Work, or whatever it's called, and poof! All gone. So I set to & made a gorgeous box pouch using some of that lovely Sandi Henderson Ginger Blossom range - and poof! Again! Sold to my good friend Mary. Man, I need to give up IT & do this all the time. Really.

I also donated three of those Miss Muffett Pouches Mum & I made when she was here - I thought $8.00US was okay, they're all nicely made but not of particularly exciting fabrics, except for one. Unless you're a fan of orange, of course. Check em out here.

And the earrings arrived right at the front door - Angela left me a nice note to say thanks for the mention in my blog, but really, they are so gorgeous her shop deserve lots of advertising, and when the other niece has her birthday, I'm sure I'll be raving again!

Hope she wasn't put off by the spiders & things growing round our front door - MWH & I are firm believers in letting spiders do their thing, especially when it comes to eating mosquitoes... except when the Mummy Huntsman comes into the house & lays her babies in our pantry/laundry room. Then they're all over the ceiling, in the sink, on the ironing board, in the pantry... man. They're tiny though, about half the size of your little fingernail, and spidery. Of course, there's nothing (much) for them to eat in our house, so they're all going to die... I don't know why she does it, this is the third time she's come inside to have her babies. First time was one NYE when we were having people over to stay the night & I had to run around like a crazy woman with the vacuum cleaner trying to suck them all of the ceiling... then it was my bathroom, where I just left them to fall into the bath. I will just sweep these guys up as they fall prey to Nature... because who really knows what baby huntsmen eat?

And finally, it's my lovely friend Clare's birthday, check out her blog here. Happy BIrthday Clare!