Pickle me grandmother!

Does anybody except me remember Ted Bullpit?  Not that I ever watched Kingswood Country, you understand, Gentle Readers, as I believe it was on TV at a time when I didn't own one (and didn't miss it either, I might add) ... the most memorable thing about it was the way Ted treated his son-in-law, who, in real life, was Greek, but who played an Italian in the show.  Apparently the producers thought nobody would notice or care...


Anyhoo..., I have been somewhat unwell today, and yesterday, in fact, and spent most of the past 24 hours prone, in the dark, bucket close to hand.  Got up at 4.00pm to make some cushions (as you do), and to try out this little demon:

which snuck into the house after the craft show.  1100 stitches a minute makes it perfectly suitable to use for upholstery and the best part?  It's the same size as a normal machine, so I can make cushions & stuff without having to find a new house for something this size, 1.25 metres long, 60cm deep, 90cm high (read: needs a large space)... 

Anyway, I whipped out some Amy Butler home dec fabric I've had lying round for quite a while, which MGF Kaz waits patiently for me to make into cushions for her, and thought "oh, why not?"

So, here we are.

I had to fiddle a bit to get the tension right, but I think she'll like them.  Now, what's next?

Ciao!

So gorgeous...

So, just before we went to Perth for a power-free weekend, I may have previously mentioned that we went to the Hunter - and I took the best ever photo of Zozie Pozie - also known as Pozella - what a cutie...

I also took some pics when I was in Perth:

There has been so much rain at my lovely Ma's - the first time we've ever been there & seen heavy rain and wind - not quite a storm, but certainly grey and miserable - and then the next day, the sun came out, and the warmth made some of the trees steam - the rays of the sun coming through the trees was absolutely beautiful...

Here's Mr Golightly doing what he does best - keep the dogs in order:

And making Generalissimo Gus behave, in anticipation of a piece of that chocolate brownie he has in his hands...

And here's Jarrah sticking her nose into my camera, thinking that I might be offering up chocolate brownie: 

And here's lovely Hank, lugging more wood into the house - ably watched by Mr G.

I've never gone without power for more than a few hours before, so having 24 hours with no power made me realise how lucky we are now... imagine what it would have been like, even in the early 20th century, with no source of light except an oil lamp (smelly) or gas lamp to work by - no sewing machine, no computer, no fridge, no oven, no frozen food... oh my.  At least we had the fire, thanks to Hank's hard slog...

And now, three episodes of Star Trek Next Gen later, I need to go to bed.  It's late, and I have to pretend to be excited about going to work tomorrow... Ciao! 

New boots and panties...

Don't ask why I've given this post that title, I have no idea myself.  Maybe because it's  pi**ing down outside, freezing cold and was pitch dark at 5.00pm.  This, Gentle Readers, is unusual for us.  Our winters are often balmy, dry, modest affairs, devoid of rain or wind.  Not this year.  We seem to have had more than our fair share of rain (note previous pics), interesting wind-type events, catastropic (sic) happenings (not to us, thank the goddess) all round.  I personally blame the Transit of Venus.  Interestingly, when I tried to type that just now, it came out as "the transit of venue".  Yeah, that too.  


The last time we had the Transit of Venue (sic) was in 1769, when James Cook travelled to the southern hemisphere and "discovered" Australia.  That's what I was taught, as a young whipper-snipper (sic) in my first heady encounter with Australian history at my first Australian school. Hmm.


I also had the windows cleaned today, so of course it rained.  The nice man comes by whenever you need him, by arrangement.  He cleans the screens, all the inside glass, up inside the skylights, the mirrors, and all the windows.  Well worth the money, I think.  I hate cleaning ... windows.  


In other news, we had a lovely weekend in the Hunter, spending a pair of days doing absolutely nothing.  There was some fabulous wildlife:

Some fantastic winter colour:

A smidgen of cloud:

And some fantastic iceberg roses:

Not to mention prawn and fresh asparagus pasta for Friday night dinner, delicious home made pizzas for Saturday night dinner, Farmers breakfast on Sunday morning, freshly made scones for morning tea, home made chicken and corn soup, and finally, spring rolls, all made from scratch by the chef of the house.  Isn't it strange how the rain brings out the creative thingy in some chefs, and the urge to eat it all, in some guests???

Now, back to the fridge!  


Ciao!

Doncha just love it when...

You make a treasury, and nearly everything in it sells?  I love that.


Here's one I prepared earlier:

But what I don't get is where do the rest of the pictures go?


Rhinestone heaven?

Epic craft fail!

So, Gentle Readers, I've been reading my favourite blogs, waiting impatiently for the updates, cursing the authors when they don't update often enough, and it dawned on me this morning that I, perhaps, might be causing the same amount of angst for you - it's been ages since I wrote a post... but so much has happened (not really)...


I had an epic craft fail - I asked my lovely Ma what she wanted for Mother's Day, and she wanted, weirdly enough, padded coathangers.  OK, easy enough.  I start out with beautiful red japanese fabric, piped with red, quilted and looking fab:

But the idiot seamstress forgot that the coathanger has to go over the whole hanger, not just the narrow end.  Hmm..

So then, having used up all my beautiful Japanese cotton, I dug out some nice cream & brown, and repeated my mistake with a skinnier coathanger:

And then, I did it all over again with a slightly larger coathanger!

Oh my.  Good thing I made up for it with some fabulous alien-type sewing:

And some hearts:

Ha.  In other, slightly less exciting news, I have given up attempting to write my blog on my tablet.  It's really frustrating that I can't make formatting changes easily, and I don't have all my photos on the tablet, so I'm using Dropbox to move stuff between devices - not the most effective way to do things... ah, technology.

What else?  Work is ticking over, I've had two more trips across this wide brown land to see my lovely Ma, who is also ticking over, and that's about it.  It's now 0757 on Saturday, this post having taken two whole weeks from start to finish, and I'm about to go & have hot wax applied to various body parts.  Betcha really wanted to know that, hey?

Ciao!

In which Mr Golightly goes back to work...

And I put the sofa bed back, washed the sheets and pillow cases, and attempted to return the house to some semblance of 'tidy'.  Hah.  What a joke.  I'm sure I've alluded previously, Gentle Readers, that Mr Golightly is a hoarder.  Bank statements from the 1980's, essays from the '70's, school prizes from the '60's.... our house is not quite bursting at the seams with stuff, but the rooms where the stuff goes are looking a little full.  I've determined that I can get rid of a lot of it by taking it to work, loading it into the photocopier and scanning it, so that it appears in my inbox as a .PDF file, which means I can recycle the paper.  After all, who is ever going to look at those Bank Statements again?   Not Mr G, he just wants to have them.

Anyway, our dining table (which, I must confess, is rarely used for dining) is still completely covered with trip stuff.  Three hats, my raincoat, a bag full of ephemera, which we always keep, god knows why, various presents for people, not yet handed over... you get the picture.  And if you don't:






Yes, suitcases, a chair seat, a bag full of sheets, umpteen key rings... What else?  Oh yes, Mr Golightly chose to visit his office of employment today.  If I'd somebody fiddling down where he had somebody fiddling, I'd be staying at home as long as I could, waiting for the pain & swelling to go away completely.  Some interesting effects - the crackle of bubbles of gas under his skin, where they inflated his abdomen to they could get in to fix the problem...  


And I took a photo of the rain previously mentioned:

I'm not sure if you can see, Gentle Readers, the corner where the water is flowing down like a waterfall... our walls are not normally black, they're sort of a sandy yellow colour - but we've had so much rain they've gone black.  Time for the Karcher, I think.


And in other, crafty, news, I'm still working on the three-dimensional Bilby - it's testing my brain, not being a natural three-dimensional thinker, but I think I've got it now:

Not that you can tell from this that she's three-dimensional, but trust me.  Once I've got the hump out of her back, the legs a bit longer & the neck sorted, she'll look fabby.  Isn't it typical that I made the prototype out of my favourite fabrics?  I guess this means I have to keep her!


And so, with that, it's time for me to stop messing around with this box and go & do some sewing.  Ciao!

04:06:00

Hello lovely Gentle Readers.  It's been a while, I know, and it's also been a while since I woke up at 0340, wide awake, ready to get up and go to work.  Not really.  I've had a very disturbed few days, with various things happening, including trundling Mr Golightly off to hospital to have his (very small) double hernias fixed, and the spare head off his back (don't ask...).  He's at home now, sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room (close to the TV, doncha know), having some very bloated bits, and some very shrink-ed bits, some shaved bits and some bits covered in waterproof sticky plaster.  He's taking pain killers.  Amazing.  As long as I've known the man, he's never taken so much as an aspirin, and yet, here he is, popping Digesic like they're smarties.  Very sensible.

In other exciting news... well, there isn't any really.  We had a fabulous Easter in the Hunter, where it was by turns, warm, windy, warm, rainy, and I took some pictures (I think)... we ate some fabulous food here, probably one of the most enjoyable meals I've had in a long time (including Italy!) - we sat outside in the sun, Az brought amazing wines from the cellar, and we chose the 'A Tavola' option, which means "let us cook you stuff" - and it was fabulous.  We ate and drank for what seemed like days, but I'm sure was only 3 hours or so, and then crawled home for a nap (well, I napped)... 

Actually, I lied about the exciting news.  I rescued the house from floating away down the street today - we had a tiny weeny little bit of rain (around 80mm in an hour, that's quite a bit [there's 25mm to an inch]), and the drain on the patio became blocked - and of course, Mr Golightly had oh so conveniently incapacitated himself, so I had to roll up my pants and doff my shoes to go wading out onto the patio - it was lapping at the back door, Gentle Readers, and I very seriously considered getting the inflatable boat out... till I finally found the drain, stuck my hand in and cleaned out various piles of leaves, muck, wet spiders, and other assorted crap.  It drained pretty quickly, but I shudder to think what would have happened if I hadn't been home - we have two doors that open onto the patio, so presumably, the water would have seeped in & met somewhere in the middle of the living room????  Right where all those electrical cables are for Mr Golightly's pet project???  Short circuit, sparks, fire, no house?  Ick.

And now, Gentle Readers, I am going back to sleep.  I'm working from town tomorrow, so I don't have to be up at Sparrow's to miss the traffic, I can actually do the civilised thing and get the bus into work, so I won't be getting up until 0630, and leaving at 0730 (wow!)... and so... ciao!