I know, I know...

Where the heck have I been?  Well, nowhere, of course!  I've been really really busy with "the day job", as one of my favourite writers refers to it, (Sharon Lee, if you must know, of Lee & Miller, and the Liaden Universe, fame), and I've been too pooped to drag this infernal machine out of its cocoon & write anything!


However, I have made solid progress on the wedding bunting:

so now you know what all the work is leading to - 72 6" X 9" rectangles cut out, 30 letters traced, cut out and appliqued onto the flags, 72 6" X 9" rectangles sorted into 3 sets of 12 ("melspaceandspaceurby"), carefully making sure that the same fabrics don't end up next to each other, the colours look okay and the letters are all the right way round... stitching, stitching, stitching, pressing, pressing, pressing... so all that's left now is to make the 'string', which is 8 feet of 2" binding cut by hand, per set, pressed (pressed, pressed) then carefully pinning the flags onto the 'string', and even more carefully stitching it together... phew.  Not that it hasn't been fun, but just quietly, I'll be very happy when it's finished.  Good thing the wedding isn't till September!


Other makings:


I bought some beautiful linen from Cottage Quiltworks, at Bilgola Plateau the other week, and the most gorgeous cotton print for the lining - and I made this, but I haven't worked out an infallible method of calculating where to put the applique (which you have to do first, so the stitching doesn't show inside the pouch) so that it's in the right place when you make the boxed corners.  Man, that's a sentence and a half... anyway:

And it's lined with this (excuse the crease!):

Gorgeous, and with this beautiful ribbon, also from Cottage Quiltworks:

Now, what to do with it?  Maybe an early birthday present for my friend Gill in Brighton (UK)?... hmmmm...


What else?  Well, I just spent a fruitless half hour searching the Lotteries site for MWH, who had a year and a half's worth of dead lottery tickets jammed into his beautiful Italian black leather ticket holder that I bought him at Rome Airport in 2003... mine (red, surprise surprise) is still its original size and shape, because I never use it for more than two or three bus tickets at any time - and his is about 1cm deep!  - and I found one lousy winner, for a whole $20.  Won't be going back to Italy any time soon on that, needless to say.   


Oh, and yes, I must shamefully admit to caving in and buying that beautiful red square handbag I have been coveting at Diane Van Ooi's gorgeous quirky shop in Newport, for some time... I got a large sum of money from the Guvinmint by taking in a bunch (and I do mean a bunch!) of doctor's receipts to Medicare, and I thought, well, why not?  I'm just doing my bit for the economy, honest.  And I can hear them trundling that guillotine down the road right now... ah, come on, there's just no such thing as 'too many red handbags'... is there?


And I just wanted to add that I love this woman's blog - even though she goes to church, she seems fairly sane in a completely insane kind of way, which proves, I guess, that religious beliefs don't turn everybody into nutcases, maybe just those who were already sliding down that slippery slope?  I had a funny religious moment of my own this week, with a bunch of religious orders and organisations having booths (stalls?  sheds?) in the main pedestrian plaza of this fair city - they were proselytising, which is a word I just love for the inherent complications of its pronunciation... it means "actively hustling for converts"... and as I was wondering up the hill towards "the day job", I overhead a trio of MIS* commenting that "they must be looking for recruits".  My comment?  "Where's the one for Jedi, that's what I want to know!".  Much assorted laughter, and a very amused "that's made my day" from one of the suits.  Mine too.  And so, gentle reader, here 'tis.  


And that, tonight, is it for me.  MWH is happy because his team has won its match, and I am glad to sitting here, burbling away, listening to beautiful Derek Bell harp music, and watching big men in maroon dance around each other... okay, stopping now.
*Men In Suits