Questions, questions

So, Gentle Readers, the very lovely and erudite AJ, aka Peppermint Penguin, has raised the thorny question about what I'm going to do when I finish this course, and, for that matter, when the course actually finishes.  It's a bit complicated, so if your eyes glaze over when people start talking about the multi-verse theory, or the parallel universe theory, it's time to go & get a cup of tea.

The Upholstery course I'm doing has the same content as a first year Apprenticeship course.  I'm not actually an Apprentice.  You have to sign away your life, a kidney, your first born and several year's wages to be one of those, (I believe the Guvnmnt has just offered up a $5500 bonus for those hard working souls who actually finish one, finally recognising that unless we train more plumbers and electricians, our toilets are going to go fizzpop and our lights will back up [or something])... and I don't have that much time.  So, this course goes for six months, or one academic semester, three days a week, and at the end of it, I will have learnt the same as an Apprentice who has turned up one day a week for a year.  And perhaps even more, but that's a whole 'nother topic.





Then, (and this is where it gets complicated...) I can either sign up to do Third Year next year [that's 2012), one day a week for the whole year, and then, in 2013, I can do Second Year, which is one day a week for six months (got that?), or, next semester, I can do second year (ditto), and then, in 2012, I can do the previously mentioned Third Year.    My preferred option would be to do Second Year next semester, and then Third Year in 2012, but of course, many things depend on this actually happening.


What are these things, I hear you say?  Well, seeing as you asked so nicely... Firstly, I have to find a job of some kind for four days a week so I can ease Mr Golightly's mind about the impending-ness of Debtor's Prison [probability?  zero]... but also I want to work using the skills I have so painfully just acquired - why wouldn't I?    So, the options are:


A) Work four days a week in Upholstery
B) Work four days a week in IT, doing some contract work until the end of 2012...
C) Work four days at week at the August Institution,
D) Start my own business 
E) Win the Lottery.


Obviously Option E) is really my first choice, but it's at the bottom because I don't want you to think I've completely lost touch with reality, Gentle Readers.


So, of course I either need to find somebody to take me on, preferably for four days a week, or two somebodies to take me on, two days or a week, or some combination that makes four... and because I have to notify the August Institution of my intentions by the end of May, that means I have to extract the digit PDQ.  Ouch.  Reality bites.


The other option, Starting my Own Business, sits there largely ignored. All those lovely souls who've offered up their old & lumpy furniture for me to work on have the absolutely right intent, but I think the outlay for the basic equipment to start myself off in business would be about 10,000 shekels.  I could probably sell the other kidney to raise it, but you did note, I trust, that this was not high on the list of options.


There is another option, which has been bandied around by the Three Musketeers at School (Nat, Caro and myself), which is to go into business together... any thoughts on that?  I have never worked for myself.  Mr Golightly has many, many sad and bitter thoughts to share on this topic (some other time, honest), and I'm wondering if (l'orrore) I might be [shudder] a bit too old to venture into self-employment?  I can't believe I just said that.


Anyway, that's where it's at.  And now, I'm off to have dinner and some quality televsion (joke).  Ciao!

It's the weather, you see

So, there's no excuse now, except for the slightly pathetic one that it's too cold in the study, where my big laptop lives, and it's too hard in the living room/loungeroom, because the keyboard on the small laptop is so small I can't type properly.  Oh, life is so hard.


Also, a busy few days had me rendered immobile by Saturday night (Sydney traffic, yum cha, Archibald Prize, more Sydney traffic, bed by 8.30pm)... Sunday was Mother's Day and we had a delicious lunch at Mr Golightly's elder sister's house, along with the nieces and nephews... Miss Cathy did try to talk us into a cat, but Mr Golightly demurred, saying they didn't really have enough flesh on them to warrant eating... I'm not sure if she believed she'd heard him correctly, but needless to say we didn't come home with a cat.


Upholstery continues apace.  Yesterday I got stuck in to stripping a drop-in seat which Miss Cathy had - I counted 60 old tacks, three lots of webbing, some very nasty looking flock and coconut fibre and some dodgy fabric... the frame is actually quite nice, with a lovely bevelled edge, but it needed an application of new glue, and I had a good time taking to the frame with the wire brush, redrilling  the holes and getting it into a stonking big clamp to leave until Thursday, when I intend to take to it with elastic webbing, vinyl, foam, linters and that evil of evils, calico (remember?  Calico has no stretch!), and finally, some fantastic fabric from KA International, which Miss Cathy has had tucked away in her magic storeroom for about five years - no pictures yet, but soon, I promise...


And speaking of other fabric:

I confess to buying 2 metres of the last fabric here - the other two did not quite meet the 'PrettyDog Test for Redness', which it needed to pass to be considered for the footstool I'm going to make for Az - however, the two fabrics I bought on Etsy also have failed the test, one is the same red as tomato soup with a can of half milk & half water in it (the usual Golightly tomato soup recipe), and the other one is just raspberry pink...

So I'm still looking...

What else - I'm learning more about what a pain in the arm vinyl is to work with, having made absolutely no progress on this from last week:

and how much fun traditional method upholstery is - a sprung footstool, with coconut fibre and flock - very dusty, prickly, irritating, but very satisfying...

And the class is shrinking, we had a whole five people on Monday, considerably down from our original 11.   Madam Late is apparently quite unwell with previously undiagnosed gall stones.  Having had my own gallbladder out some five or so years ago, I don't quite understand how you can have them and not know - I only had to look at a piece of blue cheese for mine to start howling from the rooftops, but then... 

In other news of unparalleled excitement, the doorstop man didn't leave any feedback on Etsy to say he'd got it - hopefully it turned up OK.  The postage on a 900g/1.9lb doorstop was, surprisingly, $10.00 - is this good, do you think?  Oh yes, and I'm making good progress on the surprise (for he who cannot be named), but more on that later.

And now, Gentle Readers (and hello to the lovely Peppermint Penguin, who has escaped the tangles of Ravelry to catch up on the ultra-thrilling world of the Golightly household, and also to my other new followers - I'm very happy to see you on my list, hope you're not too disappointed by the reality of it all...) I'm going to bed.  I've got a lot happening tomorrow, but more on that... later!  Yes, you guessed it.  Later.

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!

Royal Wedding Fun

My lovely neighbours, Lyn & Eric, went to a Royal Wedding Party.   Whoever was giving the party had a great sense of humour, because everybody had a title, and everybody had to come in character.  Lyn was the Arch-Duchess, Eric was the Admiral.  Lots of inspiration, and Lyn found the perfect dress, which was bottle green something, maybe rayon? with a velvet bodice - this is the closest approximation of the style I could find:

Except the bodice on Lyn's dress was velvet... and a bit tight.  Lyn is.. quite well endowed... shall we say, in that department?  Anyway, she popped around for inspiration on how to get the dress to fit a bit better (read:  looser), so I set to with the seam ripper on the lining, and gave her another couple of centimetres.  Then I had a stroke of inspiration, and whipped out the two lovely rhinestone brooches I just bought (I've fallen in love with Rhinestones, did I tell you that (although if you look up Etsy Treasuries made by me, you'll figure it out pretty quick!)?

So, the Rhinestone brooches were going on the dress as decorations, a la other Royal occasions:

 

They look so similar, don't they?  Then there's this one:

 

Emeralds, Sapphires.. Rhinestones.  I think the finished result was like this - not sure she could borrow the tiara though!

And then I lent The Admiral a sash, so he could pin his own decorations and medals (purchased from the Warriewood Two Dollar Shop) onto his uniform.  I'm sure he looked just like this:

Except for the chair, of course.


I, personally, hopped into my jammies & put the electric blanket on, then watched it from my lovely warm bed.  Mr G was out on the town celebrating the impending wedding of one of his boys (as we call the poor sods who slave under him in the IT mines all day), so I had no reason to hide my desire to watch it.  I loved her dress, classic, simple, chic.  

So, you see, it is possible to enjoy Royalty - but only until the Revolution!

Ciao!

Too much of nothing happening...

And yet, not.  I feel very guilty that I haven't written anything for your delectation since the 26th April... I haven't really been doing anything much except a spot of socialising, a smidgen of sewing, a crumb or two of craft, a something of upholstery... nothing to keep me from writing another thrilling post about it all... but, as I get started, I realise I could have written three posts - one about the Royal Wedding Party my lovely neighbour Lyn went to, one about Upholstery School, and one about the rest of this rubbish...


So, let's see.


I finished Kaz's dressing gown & she sent me a picture - I think she was happy with it, apparently she wore it to a Royal Wedding party:

There was nothing particularly hard about it, the sleeves were a bit tedious because I was trying to do a piped cuff, but my brain would not go where I wanted it to, so I ended up just sewing the bands straight on.  I think it looks OK.  I also cheated a bit & used fabric glue to stick the mitred corners of the hem down, next time I'm up in the Hunter I'll stitch them in place, but I wanted to make sure it got to Kaz by Friday, and if I stitched them, it wouldn't have.  I did do a fabulous blind hem, so I'm sure the transgression of fabric glue will be forgiven.  Don't want anything to hold up my beatification...


I made a cushion for Kaz on Sunday to go with Archie's chair - I found some sew-in piping I've had for a few years, tucked in a drawer - I dragged the drawer out when my lovely neighbour Lyn came by seeking aid for her Royal Wedding Party outfit (but more on that in the second post for today!) - and thought to myself, as you do, you know, "Oh!  Cushion!"... anyway, Kaz wanted brown birds on one side & green spots on the other, so here 'tis:

I think the brown piping just finishes it nicely.  And I worked out how to put the zip in at the top, with the piping.  Quite easy, really [quick tute:  sew the piping all the way round one side first.  Then put the zip in as normal, using the sandwich method, then, before you sew up the side seams, make the flap - about 1/2 centimetre (5 ml/.1968"), pin it into place & top stitch it down.  Then sew up the side & bottom seams.  Easy!  Drop me a line if you get stuck, isabellagolightly[at]gmail.com]...

If I was making another one, I'd also top-stitch the green side, just to make sure it didn't flop open, but as it's going to have the bejezus stretched out of it by a cushion insert, I don't think it'll matter.


What else?  I made pencil cases for my colleagues at Upholstery School, did I mention those previously?  Yes, I think I did.  Actually, I've just checked and I didn't.  Here's some pics:

Brown for me, green for Caro, white for Nat.  


What else?  I started on the quilt for somebody I can't mention, and I'm doing the same pattern as the one I did for Nelly, the Cathedral Window one:

The fabrics are really nice, gender neutral, (I think), but I've had a bit of a headache putting them together in pleasing combinations - unlike the blocks above, there are only five colours for 36 blocks (cream, white, blue, coffee & brown), so it's been very tricky to make a 6 X 6 pattern which doesn't duplicate any of the pattern/colour combinations - and although I've stitched all the blocks together in 1 X 6 strips, I'm not sure I've got it right:

That's my task for today, to get the quilt top made.  Dinner is sorted (last night's lamb curry, good thing Mr Golightly loves leftovers), the washing will get done in dribs & drabs, my upholstery school assignments are up to date (but more on that in the third & final post for today), so, in theory, nothing will stop me.  

So, Gentle Readers, I must go away now & put a load of washing on, then I can come back with a semi-clear conscience to tell you all about Isabella Golightly's Adventures at the Royal Wedding.  Betcha can't wait!!


Ciao!

Home again home again jiggity jig II

Well, Gentle Readers, it would appear that half the population of Sydney decided to return to the Big Smoke at the same time as we did - we got half an hour into our journey on Sunday night and realised that because of the volume of traffic, it was probably going to take us 5 hours or so to get home - a trip that normally takes 2.5 hours... so we turned around.  Lucky for us Kaz & Az are pretty laid back, and we hadn't worn out our welcome.  Monday morning came & 8.08am saw us on the road - we were home by 10.20am.  


What did we do?  Well, as usual, Mr Golightly toiled mightily in the vineyard, winding up wire, splitting wood and help Az build some raised vegie beds, and I worked on Kaz's dressing gown, getting it 98% done, with the only bit remaining the really fiddly bit, which is to put the piping on the sleeves.  Being the fussy creature that I am, I want to use a method which will allow me to have only one visible seam, but I want the outside fabric to show on the inside of the sleeves too - I believe Vogue Sewing has the answers, so I'll be checking that out today, especially as it appears Autumn has hit with vengeance, and it's going to be cold and rainy all day... perfect for sewing!


For the first time in ages I didn't take any photos with my actual camera, only one rather nice piccie of Mr G with the pooch, her in her favourite spot, ie, right on top of Mr G, with her ears up, waiting for him to move so she can lick him into immobility... she's such a softie... although when the people on bicycles rode down the driveway & sat down to have their picnic, she set up such a barking & carrying on that it dawned on them that the land wasn't actually a park, despite the close resemblance, and scurried back up the driveway, with a "sorry" floating back our way.  Didn't do much to stop the dog from barking, but it did give us all a bit of a chuckle...

I have ordered some fabric, to make Az a footstool - I took my project up for show & tell, and he was so impressed he wants one.  Now all I have to do is find time to squeeze it in - I'm sure I'll manage!  This is what Kaz & I found trawling through upholstery fabric on Etsy:

and this one, which is also fantastic:

which I am just waiting for the owner to make me a custom listing so I can buy it & then Madam Kaz can choose her favourite.  I think they would both be amazing, but we shall see.


And now, given that I've been awake since 0430, I think I'm going to crawl back into bed and thank the Guvnmnt for my extra day off.  Enjoy it, Gentle Readers, I'm going to!


Ciao!

Heavenly Hunter

Hooray Gentle Readers, we're off to the Heavenly Hunter Valley for Easter.  It's always lovely to go & spend quality time with the Dog, the Chef, the Maker of Big Fat Fluffy Beds and the Mountains, and I'm taking the Chair (finally) - and also the footstool so she can see my skills in action...


I'm also taking the sewing machine, so I can make dressing gowns for the Chef and the Maker of Big Fat Fluffy Beds, and also a cushion for the chair, and whatever else pops up.


I got some fabric in the mail today:

This has quite a bit more yellow than I was expecting, but it's still very nice.

And this also arrived:

Which I love, and which I think will become the slipper chair cover, and this:

Which I think will be the tub chair, depending, of course, on the teacher's advice.

My lovely neighbour Lyn popped in to ask questions about how to renovate her op-shop frock for a Royal wedding party (what?  who?).  She was very impressed with the chair and suggested I try hawking it round the children's wear shops on the peninsular, especially to those shops where parents with more money than sense shop - which I think is a great idea (the chair, not the parents)... I might see if I can upholster another one in the spare time I have at Upholstery School... 

And that, Gentle Readers, is it for me, as I have to shower, dress, wash up, pack, chivvy Mr Golightly into action (although he has already mowed the back lawn, showered, dressed, packed and is now eating.  It's only 11.53am - he must be on holidays!)

Ciao (and have a fabulous Eostre, all of you!).