Sick. I'm fully sick. Really.

Actually, in some cultures, Gentle Readers, that actually means "I am unwell".  Amusingly I had a phone call from Miss BlueLambb this afternoon enquiring if I was actually still employed by the August Institution, as I haven't been there for a week (Thursday was the Australia Day Holiday, Friday was swapped for my regular Tuesday off, as we had a half-day offsite thingy scheduled for our whole team & my lovely Boss wanted me there), and today is apparently Wednesday.  So.  

I have acquired some stinky virus, which has given me a nasty wheezy cough, which is happily producing **TMI ALERT** yellow-greeny slime, a headache, pounding sinuses and lethargy.  That's definitely the highlight.  I'm still in my PJ's, (not too unusual, I hear you say...) for the third day running (that's the unusual bit - how did I get to the Doctor?) apart from a brief sojourn in real clothes so I could go to the doctor, get anti-biotics for the (wait.  Is that hyphenated?  Antibiotics.  Anti-biotics.  Who cares, really?) chest infection, and ... oh bugger, I've lost the thread.  I'm sick, y'know.

Anyway, before all this happened, we spent a lovely relaxing weekend in the Hunter, and MGF Kaz and I took some nice pics.

Kaz's Sunday morning sunrise:

 Strawberry?

Sit up nicely!

Who, me?  On the furniture?

Gimme five!

On Saturday morning these guys were pictured having a bit of a sleep in, in next door's paddock.  Quietly, oh so quietly, I tiptoed round the verandah in my LLBean slides so I could get a quick pic... obviously not quietly enough.

Hello?

Did you hear something?

Quick, let's go...

On another note, I took absolutely no sewing with me, which was a bit silly in hindsight, because I'd promised Master H that I would make a pouch for his mother's birthday (29th January, oops) - you can tell I'm sick, can't you?  I just split that infinitive right down the middle.  I promised Master H that for his mother's birthday, I'd make a particular pouch.  It's still on the sewing machine.  I started it before we went to the Hunter & tried to finish it when we got back from the Hunter, but due to an earlier-than-usual dinner start time, and the incipient virus, it's still sitting there.  Very soon now, honest.  Mr Golightly pointed out two rules of sewing that I broke trying to get it finished in time - measure thrice, cut once; and, don't sew when you're sick/tired.  Very nasty.

Anyway, if only I'd taken it all with me, I could have had it made before I got sick, I wouldn't have let Master H down, and he could have given it to his mother for her birthday (29th January, did I mention that?  Oh yes.  I'm sick, you know.)

So, no sewing, no work, no fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark.  Anybody recognise that?  Me neither.  I'm sick.  Ciao!

PS Thanks to the Peppermint Penguin & the Chairy Godmother for the moral support.  I'm still here, for now!

That list again...

For those intrepid Gentle Readers still checking in to see if I'm alive, the rewards are all here.  An update on the list, a small exposition on the prospect of breaking rules now that I've turned *gasp* 50, and some gratuitous photographs.  What more could you ask for?


List Update:


1.  Pouch for Anne-Marie (18 months ago)
2.  Cushions for Mr Golightly's Big Sis (17 months ago)
3.  Cushions for Lyndsey (6 months ago)
4.  Seat covers for Mrs Autrey (at least 9 months ago) Finished, just waiting for the Post Office to re-open.
5.  Dog for Effie in Canada (only Monday) Cheated just slightly & sent her nephew the one featured on the blog.  Hope she doesn't mind!
6.  Pouch for MBF's children's piano teacher (3 months ago) Let off the hook, she'd forgotten too & bought something.
7.  Pouch for MBF's children's dance teacher (ditto)
8.  Cushion for MGF Kaz (who knows, so long ago I've forgotten)
9.  Dolls for the children of people in my team (2 months ago). Finished, see previous blog post.
10.  Christmas Scarf for Clare in the UK.  Started but nowhere near ready.
11.  Christmas Gift for Gill in the UK.  Not even started.
12.  Welcome gift for Mrs Autrey's baby (knitted but not wrapped or posted).  Wrapped & waiting for the post office to open.
13.  Welcome gift for Clare's baby (not even started).
14.  Kris Kringle gift for friend at lunch on Sunday*.  Lavender bags X 3.  Time?  20 minutes.  Easy.


Wow.  See what you can produce if you don't have to go to work, Gentle Readers?  Although I've now been off for 11 days, it doesn't feel like I've achieved much, although I have sorted out a bunch of stuff which is going into the roof pending the re-opening of the local high school - apparently they're always looking for dressmaking fabric, and I have a bunch of stuff which is not good enough to keep, and certainly not bad enough to put in the recycling... so come February, that's where it's going.

School holidays, I hear you ask?  February?  For those Gentle Readers who live in the other half of the planet, I'm in the other other half.  This is the half where it's summer right now, albeit cold & rainy, and school holidays start towards mid-December and run until the end of January.  Just like you up there, we make our kids go to school when it's cold & wet :-))


In other news of no relevance, I had a birthday.  It ended in a zero.  I'm now officially middle-aged, although I quite like Cordelia Naismith's* version of middle age, which is "always 10 years older than you are".

That's what's left of my surprise dessert croquembouche, with vanilla bean ice-cream.  It was delicious, and having the whole restaurant singing along to "Happy Birthday" was lovely - it's a bit of a tradition in our local Italian Restaurant, everybody sings when a sparkler-encrusted dessert item wends its way out of the kitchen - that way we all get to join in the fun, if not the food.


Sadly, I had to drive home, so my intake of a fabulous Shiraz from 2003 was somewhat limited - it's sitting in a cool dark place waiting for another opportunity... which will be tonight, when we're zipping up to MBF's house for pizza - is it a crime against wine to drink a Gold Medal winning wine with pizza?  Hey, now that I'm 50, I'm breaking all the rules, not just the wine rules. White wine with beef, red wine with pizza, socks with sandals, sling-back heels with panty hose, high heels with trousers that are too short, sock with heels, black bras under white shirts, showing my bra straps... wow, can't you tell I'm old?  When I was a teenager (last century, no less), you were a real moll if you let your straps show.  Phew.  


Anyway, I'm going to put my lederhosen and wig on now, and go & watch India and Australia in the cricket.  Nicely multicultural, that's me.  Ciao!

*copyright Lois McMaster Bujold, some time ago.

Up with the lark...

Or, more accurately, up with the cold.  Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!  TMI Moment approaching!  I woke up with that horrible sensation of something needing to remove itself from my lungs, and rather than wake the soundly-sleeping Mr G, I (being completely awake, you understand), decided to get up.


So, it's now 5.01am.  I've put all the pictures on both cameras into Picasa, and I'm about to make a food collage for MGF* Kaz, who kindly sent me the pictures she took yesterday.  So, I hear you ask, where did you go yesterday?  Well, Gentle Readers, MBF* Deb kindly took Mr G & I up to Palm Beach, where we got on the ferry to Patonga, a little community which is  reachable by car, but is a very long hour and 41 minutes away... whereas via the ferry?  30 minutes.  Hard to resist, especially with views like this along the way:

And we were then picked up by the excellent folk at Pearls on the Beach, a lovely restaurant set in an old weatherboard building, on the edge of the water, where we ate and drank mightily, and I have to say not being constrained by the obligation to drive was extremely pleasant...


And now, sadly, it's 5.30am, and I have to get up - small, very small, joke there - but I will share the picture of the beautiful food with you, before I rush off to make a very ordinary ham & avocado sandwich for lunch and throw myself into Upholstery School today:

As to the occasion?  More, later.  I promise!


Ciao!

Oh Canada!

Do you remember, Gentle Readers, how dubious I was when I first put that Feedjit thingy on the bottom of my blog, yes, yes, it's still there, tracking how many times I go & re-read my own stuff to make sure I haven't put 'decorted' in there again (prize available for first person to spot it & report back when I did it...), but it also tracks other people who come to visit!  And (sentence starts with preposition, must be important), Gentle Readers, it does!  I've had some visitors from Canada!  And America!  And London!  And Sydney!  


Hello!  Welcome!  Come in, sit down, no, not there, no, that's my chair, sorry, that's actually my chair, would you mind not sitting in my chair, get out of my chair, fuck off, go on, get out, go home.  Ooops.


Hello!  I don't know who you are but you're very welcome.  No, really.  I don't care where you sit.  If you're lucky, you'll find a seat not covered in magazines, or fabric, or 3-day old cereal bowls, or old newspapers.  Some days.  Good thing we don't have a cat, isn't it?


Anyway, I've been reading some new blogs, and leaving comments, as you do, and I suspect these lovely visitors, who aren't sitting in my chair, are from there.  It's a nice incestuous world, the blog world.  Everybody seems to know everybody else.  I went from Gerald Gee, who puts the most fantastic 1930's music & fashion on his blog, to Tooting Squared, to Mr London Street, to Whoopee, to Meetzorp.  I feel like I've made a whole new bunch of friends.  Which is not, of course, to say that you lot are on notice, oh no, not really.  The people who let you into their lives via their blogs are the best kind of friends, because, for the most part, you never meet them in the flesh, so they can't find out really how uninteresting you are  I am.  


Anyway, in keeping with the vain attempt to link this blog to some crafty stuff, which was one of the reasons for its existence, here's some pics of how I've spent most of Tuesday & Wednesday:

The journal cover was custom made to fit the journal I bought from this absolutely fantastic new shop in Mona Vale, Little Paper Lane.  I also bought beautiful wrapping paper, ribbon and card, for Miss Nelly's birthday, which was Tuesday, but which I won't be celebrating with her until Friday - she's the lucky recipient of the Quilt, but I also made her the bird, which is stuffed full of lavender... here's the birthday pile:

Beautiful, huh?  I love how LIttle Paper Lane's signature colour (almost duck-egg blue, almost turquoise) is the same as Miss Nelly's.  


And, Gentle Readers, I promise the next post will be the tutorial on how to make the journal cover to fit any size journal... and now, it's raining, so I'm hopeful of having Miss Nelly's mother, My Best Friend, round for coffee because she doesn't work in the rain, and you know what?  I'll even clear off my chair for her.  


Ciao!

Flying high

So, Gentle Readers, here I am in the Qantas lounge at Sydney Airport, learning why my flights cost so much money - they've got whizbang new Apple terminal thingys here, free internet, all manner of reading material and even free plastic things full of hunny.  Can't beat that, really. 

I'm winging my way westward today, to be in Perth for my lovely Ma's birthday, which is next Tuesday.  From our house, it's about an hour and 20 minutes on a good day to the Airport.  Of course, my flight being at 10.00am meant I could leave home at 8.00am and come pretty close to missing it, or leave home at 6.30am and spend some quality time *snort* by myself in the lounge, eating stale bread & hunny and reading the paper.  Or creating a delight of the written kind for you to enjoy... so of course, here it is.

I was a bit disturbed to learn that Qantas has removed all check-in desks of any kind from the departure terminal - now you have to check yourself in (again), print out your own bag sticker, wrestle with that sticker to get it onto your suitcase so that it won't fall off, remember to peel off the two little stickers, one for your boarding pass, and one for your suitcase, so that when that suspicious person tries to run off with your suitcase, you can prove its yours because the stickers match - then you have to wheel it over to the conveyer belt, and then check it in again, do all the declaration thingys again, and then watch as it disappears off into the Ether, never to be seen again.  At least when you had a person do it for you, you could always go back & say "but Dierdre put it on the conveyer for me"...

I did wonder what happened to the jobs of all those people who used to do all this stuff for us - like so many other jobs, swept away by the advances of technology, I guess.  Think about it - typesetters, ledger clerks, car builders, hand knitters, lace makers, textile weavers... what's left?  The jobs that can't yet be replaced by machines - the thinking kinds, those that require analysis, deep thought, interaction with humans (doctors?), fine motor skills (mechanics, plumbers, cabinet makers) and brute force, but the careful kind.  Is that any oxymoron?

Anyway, I did promise a post about big words, but for now I'm letting it percolate in my backbrain - I haven't forgotten, honest.  Also, I have photos to post of my recent adventures in pouch-making land, and perhaps more Hunter Valley photos, if you aren't bored with them yet...

Here's one I made earlier:

And that's it for now.  I'm sure that as the week progresses there will be New! and Exciting! things to report, but for now, think of me stuck in the tin box that flies for the next four and a half hours.

Ciao!

So many vodkas, so little lime

Well, actually, it was more like one Gin & Tonic on Wednesday night when Mr Golightly & I took his lovely mother out for dinner for her birthday.  


There were also bubbles, which I had for lunch on Friday - the first long lunch I've had for a while, closely followed by a trip out of the office to get a new battery in my watch, and then, at 4.00pm, just as the buzz from the bubbles was wearing off, I went home.  Hah.  I was in bed by 8.10pm, and asleep by about 8.30pm.  Bliss.


In the intervening time, I've forgotten quite a few things that have happened - the very lovely Felicity from All Toile and No Reward sent me a fabulous Australiana Tea Towel as a souvenir of her sojourn in Kununurra,  [isn't sojourn a funny word - I must look up the origins in my Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, which is a fascinating book, so good in fact that I'm torn between keeping it beside my bed to read at night, and taking it to the office to bore my colleagues rigid.  Guess I'll leave it at home.] which has fabulous pictures of the Red Northwest... and my lovely mother-in-law bought me one back from her sojourn to Townsville - it's got pictures of those well-known North Queensland native flowers, Garlic and Lavender, and a few more I can't remember without getting up out of my chair in front of the fire... all too hard.


I've made my lovely MIL a couple of things for the family Birthday lunch tomorrow:

Lightly padded coathangers, two with lace, one without.  Only because I didn't have enough lace for all three - and three little birdies filled with the tail end of my lavender.  The new delivery is waiting for me at the post-office, which, frustratingly, I can't get to until Monday night, so I can't finish stuffing the last 20 lavender bags.  I really wanted to be able to post those today (we are lucky enough to have an Post Office open on Saturday mornings just 20 minutes down the road) for my customer, but I guess Tuesday will do just as well.   


How long do you think it's going to take Australia Post to realise that not everybody can get to the Post Office between 9.00am and 5.00pm Monday-Friday, and make all Post Offices open on Saturdays?  They will let you pick up M-F after 6.00am, but that doesn't suit everybody either - I know, how about staggered hours?  Six days a week, 7.00am to 7.00pm?  God, what a revelation that would be.  And a revolution...


And this, to celebrate us being locked out of our house on the night of our return from the West:

"Over East" had so much rain whilst we were away that our new(ish) screen door swelled up, and we couldn't get the damn thing open.  Mr G had (of course) shut the garage door before we could get the screen door open, so we couldn't get back to the car to drive to WMIL's* house to get the spare back door key.  We have a spare key hidden in a Very Secret Pebble in the garden, but of course, it's for the front door.  


Anyway, we rang WMIL* & she very kindly drove over to our house (lucky it's only 15 minutes each way) with her spare key, which turned out to be... for the front door.  She also very kindly sat around and waited for the $150 emergency locksmith to come so we could be warm and dry.  So... I figured the least I could do would be to make her a fabulous keyring to go with the complete set of housekeys we're giving her.


And what else?


I made a froggie today, named "Julia", of course, but forgot to take a photo of her.  What a dope.  Hopefully the lucky recipient, Doc Rosie, will be kind enough to take one for me... 


And now, I'm going to bed.  It's 9.59pm and I've been up since 6.50am.  Flannelette jammies, ah, luxury.  Ciao!

OMG, somebody pour me onto the couch...

Sound familiar?  Well, the birthday party for MWH was a big success, but I feel like I need a week of sleep... I had Friday off & picked up my friend Kaz from the nearest railway station at 9.00am, then we didn't stop until about 9.30pm that night.  Then we started again the next morning at 7.00am, and poured the last guests down the driveway that night at about 11.00pm... 


MWH got some lovely gifts...

about 5 pairs of thongs - that's about a pair a year for him.  Also about 6 different varieties of beer, some wine and a bottle of, get this, Green Fairy Absinthe... thongs may also be known as 'flip flops' to some of you, and maybe 'Jandals' to others... some of our more classy friends left the price tag on - $6.97 for a pair of nasty rubber black things that have a really bad rubbery smell for the first six months of their lives... and he loves them.

And in the interim, I had about 5 parcels arrive, including 5 yards of this:

 which I think I'm going to turn into a tablecloth & napkins...

Also this, from here:

in the red, the brown & the green - can't wait to do something with it, and this:

which is a pattern for the perfect monogram - I could make one of these for just about everybody I know, as the perfect custom-made gift - from here.

But now, I have to go off & finish the christmas tree decorations I'm making for my friend Deb - she just gave me a Christmas Tree shaped dish, which I've used as the template for Christmas tree shaped decorations - filled mostly with wadding, but with some cloves for that nice northern hemisphere Christmas smell you never get in Australia!

And, because it's only 4 nights before Christmas, I thought a little animal festivity might be nice as an incentive to get the Decorations finished!

"Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
"On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!

"To the sewing machine! Stay away from the Mall!
"Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!*

Although, we are in the midst of summer, so this might be a better option - I dare you to go there!

*Unsurprisingly, not the original lyics.

Ouch!

So, in the wars this afternoon, or what? MWH* has been very busy making me a return for my sewing table in the small but perfectly formed room, and I very carelessly caught my knuckle right on the bone on the stainless steel ruler than is set into the desk, on the edge.. ouch ouch ouch, a small cut but it bled mightily. Then, as part of investigation into how the new return for my desk was attached to the desk, I landed the tip of my middle finger right onto the sticky-outy stainless steel runner bit, drawing more blood. Man, what's going to be third?

I believe these things do come along in threes, probably because the first time you're careless, the second time you're in shock from the first time and the third time you're distracted by the pain & shock of the first two!

Anyway, here's a terrible picture of the new return:

My very clever WH is going to make another piece which still stand on rubber feet to sit on the top of the return, to bring it level with the top of my sewing table - and making it an ideal place to lose store flat items, like the cutting out boards, which seem to be proliferating at an alarming rate...

Also, I made a shoe bag for my lovely friend Lulu Carter's sister, who lives in London - her birthday is tomorrow (or is it today, oops!) - last year I made her this:

so this year I wanted to make her something different - and given that shoe bags are the flavour of the day, this seemed like a good way to go:

and I used more of that beautiful Joel Dewberry Deer Valley to line it, and hand-appliqued the name of the bag ('shoes') on the bag - that is so time-consuming, but it does look nice, I think:

Whereas yesterday I just added the word to the bag I made for Cathy's birthday:

She did seem to enjoy the humour. Eh by gum...

Happy Birthday to a wonderful person

My very lovely DSSIL* has just had a birthday, which, to my everlasting shame, I missed, but if you read the previous long & winding road, you will understand why. The venue for the course I was on, on the days when I would normally have whipped out to the Post Office in order to get the parcel in the post in time for the birthday (phew) has no post office. No shops, except food shops, and only a shuttle bus to take you to the nearest shopping centre but not in the 30 nanoseconds the evil twins running the course allocated for lunch. Sorry, Katy & Jackie, you know I love you, smooch, smoooch.

So, I couldn't post it, but anyway, it's gone - and apparently she loves it! Interestingly, I had not made pouches out of silk before, and it's hard, because the material is so stiff, and it frays like crazy - I think I need to get some fraystop, or something similar, and disappointingly, I embroidered an initial on the bottom of the squarer one, and it got eaten up by the corners. Need to practice that a bit, I think. They looked nice though. Hope she can find a use!

*de-facto step-sister-in-law (my mother lives with her husband's father).

Happy Birthday Deb!

Thursday was the birthday of my oldest friend in this country; we met when we were about 9, and my family moved to the small town where hers had lived for generations.... we weren't always friends, and we haven't always been friends since, but I like to think people move in & out of your life as you need them. She has two gorgeous children who I like very much (and that's saying a lot for me, as some of you may know...), and her friendship is very important to me, so I wanted to make her something, rather than buying her something. Anybody can buy stuff, but very special people make things. Or so I'm told by people who know - I just read a magazine article about Amy Butler where she says how fantastic it is that people don't look down on handmade stuff anymore - and I think so too. I love it that people appreciate how wonderful it is to be given something somebody spent time making, especially these days when we're all so time poor... my favourite quote is by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, who have absolutely nothing to do with sewing, but instead write some rather fabulous science fiction - they talk of "the precious irregularities of hand sewing", like it was rubies and diamonds, rather than the slightly off-perpendicular corners of a (beautifully lined) box pouch...

Anyway, enough burbling. Pictures of the gorgeous (IMHO!) froggie, pouch and lavender pyramids here...

Happy Birthday Deb!

Gone, all gone

So, my friend Kaz rings me and says "bring up all your stock of lavender bags, and all your frogs". And lo, they're all sold. Well, both the frogs have gone, Mr Rusty and Ms Spring Fresh, and some of the lavender bags, and also I had a request to make more lavender bags, another orange set, the set of Ava Rose in blue (which I had given to a friend & which I therefore had to make from scratch) and a set of something completely different. Whew.

Lucky I had some beautiful black & white stuff my mum gave me for my birthday (which was Saturday, btw, thanks for asking) so I made a set of 3X5" squares in the long rectangle style, with nice little black spotty buttons for emphasis. I haven't taken pictures yet but I will, soon. Also, I made Miss Chloe Frog, for Miss Mandy, as a christmas gift and didn't get to photograph her either (damn it) before she went off to Charlestown. So, no pictures, and a nearly empty shop! Off, off to the sewing machine. Is that an echo I hear????