Where did that go again?

Well, the new job is in full swing.  Amazingly nice people, full of all the flaws of people everywhere, but the atmosphere is so much nicer than ...that other place... even with the normal stresses and strains of work...

And here's the view from the building:

And on a good day, we get to see this:

which was really spectacular, but shows a bit of reflection of the office interior, if you look too closely, so don't, OK?

It's going swimmingly, so far.  I like my colleagues, my boss, the work.  I love not having to drive to work, but I'd forgotten how annoying the general public can be, especially with things like moving to the back of the bus, taking your backpack off so you don't clobber everybody with it on the way through, turning your headphones down so the leakage doesn't drive everybody nuts... and not covering your face when you cough or sneeze.  Ick.

I really love that the post office has parcel lockers under our building, and I've registered to use them (it's free!) and all my etsy purchases turn up there now.  I've brought home some amazing parcels and I think my new colleagues think I'm a bit whacky... 

Hmmm, what else?  My lovely nephew and niece-in-law (heh?) had their baby and I'm a great-aunt - it's probably just as well - my sewing room was starting to get a bit full of toys for the baby:

I can count seven here...the giraffes and the red bilbies all went off to Miss EE when we were first introduced.  The Turtle is still here, but the other bilby went off to Master IPL for his second birthday; it's in the same fabrics as the quilt I made him for his first:

This was one cute Bilby, too:

and by all accounts he was quite pleased.  I also sent one off to London, for Miss A, who was turning 3:

Don't you just love the flowers?

And in completely unrelated news, we just came back from a fabulous weekend in the beautiful Hunter Valley, getting some canine therapy, and doing what we do best - I made cushion covers:

Plus two other yellow ones, including one with piping, to go with the quilt I bound - I don't have a picture of quilt with binding, but I'm pretty sure MGF Kaz will provide one if I ask nicely.  She's good like that.

And I photographed a couple of things for the FatMumSlim PhotoADay Challenge, which I'm doing for August, over on the 'Gram (that's Instagram, for you older peeps - I'm IsabellaGolightly26, and I'd love you to come on over & have a look at my pics.

Today's theme was "In the Middle".  

Isn't it fantastic?  The whole display is just gorgeous... but the photo was taken with the phone, so it's not great.  Plus the smell of a tonne of moo poo was making my eyes water a bit.  Mr Golightly & Az spent a lovely morning doing what they do best, shovelling it all over the garden.  You gotta love the countryside.

What was that?  You want to know about the baby?  Oh!!!  She was 49cm, 3kg and looked like a blob.  That's official, from her extremely proud father.  We saw her at a week old, and she slept happily in my arms for 2 hours.  That's a first for me, I can assure you.  We're hoping to catch up with the delighted parents very soon, so more news as it comes to hand (I know, I can't believe it either - I'm excited about a baby!!).  And so, amidst all this excitement, it's off to bed.  Ciao!

Life returns to... normal

So, Gentle Readers, it appears that the sojourn will shortly be over.  Having spent a wonderful six months at home being 'wifely', I now have a real job.  Well, I will have on Monday.  I start work at a large August Institution (no, not the same one!), in town, with a small team (much smaller than my old team, which started as eight and morphed into 14 at the end) of three, working on what is euphemistically called "lights on", or, if you're old school like I is, "BAU".  Woot!!  I am so excited not to be working on Projects - they suck you dry, chew you up & spit you out, and I'm not willing or able, mentally or physically, to do that.

So.  Having managed three (or is it four?) posts in those six months, I suspect the flow may reduce to a trickle, but it may be that having interaction with other human beings, apart from Mr Golightly and a small, very select, band of friends, may result in an outpouring of observation.  Or not.

Anyway, I recall that I promised pictures of the finished Bilby...

Blue-Boy

Monkey-face

Gamera

Plus the other two which still have the slightly piggy face:

Bing

Round

Mr Golightly professes to like the little protuberance caused by having the gusset go right up to the chin, but I prefer the slimmer look.  

So, now that I've perfected the pattern, I need to sell them.  Any suggestions for price?  The small ones are fiddly, the big one takes a huge amount of stuffing, but they are all gorgeous.  I was thinking $20 for the little guy, but the only other thing in my shop for $20 is a doorstop and these guys are a lot more work than a doorstop. 

Would you pay $25 for one of those little cuties?  Come on now, I need to know!!

Ciao!

Copy, right?

So, Gentle Readers, where have I been?  I have been making something.  When I say "making" something, I mean, from scratch.  Well, I don't mean that in the 'growing the cotton' kind of way, but more of a "I want to make one of these and there's no pattern on the market, so I'm going to make my own".  That's not strictly true - there are a couple of patterns out there, but they are both for the furry jointed doll kind of thing, which I didn't want to make at all.  I wanted one I could make in cotton, stitch together on the machine, fill with fibre-fill and be extremely cute.

What was I thinking?

My first attempt was based on a line drawing I found on the internet, which looked like this:

But ended up looking like this:

Which, as you can clearly see, is more mutant than marsupial.  Where's the front legs?

Anyway, I left it for a couple of years (you know how life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans, thanks for the reminder, John Lennon), and then I saw a rabbit in a fabulous clothing shop in Avalon, which is just up the coast (about 10 minutes by car) from me.  Anyway, this rabbit was nothing special to look at, but I had a sticky* at how they'd made the ears, and thought "oooh, I can use that!!", so I paid my $20, confessed to the woman in the store that I was going to cut it up, and wondered off.

Anyway, after doing this to the rabbit:

and making these:

Ugliest thing I've ever made.  Seriously.

Weirdest looking thing I've ever made.

I decided that I needed to go back to the original shape idea:

and it was so close, but the front legs were all wrong.  The Bilby sits on its haunches and feeds itself with its front paws, rather than looking like a dog with a very long nose & huge ears, so I persevered:

I have very long ears but no tail

None of these guys got a tail...

This little guy was the closest I came to being happy with it before discarding his alterations & starting again.  Big mistake:

It's not a tumor!!

This guy looks like he has a huge tumor (it's not a tumor!!) at the top of his legs, but the arms are so close...

And you can see I was nearly there, but I couldn't figure out how to get the arms right... then it popped into my head in the night.  Seriously, as if there isn't enough crap going on in my head at night without Bilby gussets making an appearance:

This is almost the finished model.  I need to stop the gusset from going up into the chin, because it looks a bit piggy, so I've made another one this morning, with the umpteenth alteration of the pattern, which returns the head to its original size.  Once he's made, I will post a picture, I promise.

And after all this, I can understand why makers of patterns get so cross when people breach their copyright and just rip off the patterns.. there are hours and hours of work in this - every single alteration was made into a model - I have a bag full of fabric discards, and a bag full of pattern discards too.  Anyway, they're going in the shop, and we shall just take our chances with the rip-off artists.  At least we know I was first, right?

Riiiight.  Ciao!

PS The Etsy Treasury Code Generator doesn't work any more, so you'll have to pop over to Etsy to see the Bilby Love Treasury I made - it's fabulous!!

*Sticky - sticky beak - Aussie slang for a quick look, possibly rhyming slang for a peek.