I'm still alive...

Here we are, Gentle Readers, in Perth, visiting my lovely Ma and Hank for the Queen's birthday long weekend. 


There's still no progress on having our router fixed, but Mr Golightly advises it has escalated to our national carrier, who are, theoretically, responsible for the provision of the copper wire upon which all our broadband signals are run.  I am so very sick of the whole issue, having bought & failed to successfully use not one but two mobile broadband sticks... the reception in the back of our house is terrible... and the router just keeps going up down up down up down up down...


Anyway, the chair continues apace:

And all that's left to do is:


Make a circle of the piping, fit it to the box, sew it to the skirt, put the skirt on, cover the bottom of the chair, attach the box to the chair, cover the box in calico and handstitch the back down.  Not much work, really.  


Miss Natalie has finished her chair already, partly as a response to the suggestion of the Head Teacher that she's too old to successfully continue next semester in the day class... me too, and also Miss Caro, who is 4 years younger than Miss Nat.  I'm 10 years older than Nat, and 14 years older than Miss Caro.  That makes us geriatrics, and unemployable, to boot, apparently. 


I think that the Head Teacher could have handled the situation a little differently - apparently the number of vacancies for the day-class was fewer than he thought he would have, and so he chose the youngest class members to continue in the day class.  It would have been nice if he'd checked with them first, but he didn't... to cut a long story short, after he'd gone round & checked with the rest of the class, he found out that he could actually fit us oldies in because the youngsters didn't actually want to do the day class.  Don't you love the methodology?

This is the back of the chair, waiting to be hand sewn...


I promise I'll be back after we return from Perth... and hopefully the line will be fixed by then... 


Ciao!  

I can't believe...

Gentle Readers, that I went to IKEA yesterday.  Mr Golightly's sister (who, in fact, I knew before Mr Golightly, and who actually introduced me to Mr Golightly, in a very roundabout way), had a day off yesterday, and together with Daughter/Niece Miss Milly-Melly-Mel, the beautiful blushing bride of last year, who is a teacher, and therefore on holidays, we traipsed out to Rhodes.  No, not the Greek island, but the suburb of Sydney which is in close proximity to my temporarily former office...


I got to Mr Golightly's sister's house at 10.09am, we picked up Miss Milly-Melly-Mel at 11.00 from her residence in Glebe and we were at Rhodes by 11.30am.  We did not leave until 5.00pm, and I arrived home at 7.09pm.  Phew.


And, I hear you wondering, why couldn't you believe you were going to IKEA?  Well, Gentle Readers, because I usually hate going - it's packed with people with no goal in mind, no lists, no idea - and a zillion screaming children.  Even though it's school holidays, and raining, yesterday was actually bearable.  We managed to avoid all those 'no idea' people by arriving at lunch time, waiting until 2.00pm to have our own lunch, and ducking out periodically for coffee.  Much more bearable.


And what, pray tell, I hear you asking, did I purchase?


Well, I had my eyes on a few big things:

But purchasing this would have required re-organisation of our whole living room, as it's currently configured to have the other sofa/couch/lounge at right angles on the RHS - so that wouldn't work - it would leave our guests sitting looking at the piano, rather than out at the garden, as you would want, particularly when it's looking so nice and green:

Looking North(ish)

All their other lounges have low backs, which I hate - I want to be able to put my head on the cushions when I lean back - and our house is not particularly modern in style - way too much clutter to be fashionable - so it needs to be 'cottage-y' without being twee - any suggestions?  I did look at the Moran range, and although the fabric on this one makes me want to roll on the floor foaming at the mouth, I did quite like the general shape and size, but I think I'd have to sell a kidney or two to get it and a matching two seater... maybe I should just have the old ones reupholstered & recushioned (again)?

I was also interested in TV stands, the perennial quest for a television stand that isn't completely f*ugly goes on and on - they're all either too modern or too chunky - and I think I'm going to have to give in & pay somebody to make me one.  

In other fascinating news, I bought a square wastepaper basket to store my christmas/birthday/gift wrapping paper, as per Chez Larsson, a new washing-up brush (see, told you it was fascinating), 12 tumblers (six medium size, six large) (at a huge $6.99 for a pack of six, that's $1.00 per glass, people), two packs of square cork mats (those are invaluable for protecting the Jarrah bench in the kitchen, which Mr G gets all thingy about, a water bottle so I can put cold water in the fridge, and finally, a 35c carrier bag.  It's huge and perfect for the sewing room rubbish.

My trusty companions purchased things along the same lines, but Mr Golightly's sister came across a bargain in the 'As-Is' section - an Expedit four section shelving unit for a bargain price, which, because I had my handy-dandy tape measure with me, we figured out we could get in the car & take home - and to loud and increasingly annoyed cries of "you won't be able to shut the boot" from both companions, I closed the boot on it quite happily, leaving Sister-in-law and Niece standing open-mouthed in awe of my spatial acuity.   Ah, sometimes it's good to be King.

Ciao!

Spending the day in your pyjamas is...

very enjoyable, actually.  Sunday, it was cold & rainy.  Fascinating details of my day follow, so you may want to tune out here & come back some other time...


I got up early (7.00am), had breakfast, read Saturday's paper, did a bit of pottering to clean up from Saturday night's dinner with Nephew (and friend), went back to bed & read a bit, then got up again & tidied the Small But Perfectly Formed room - there's a limit to the amount of mess I can stand, y'know?  I can live with it for a while, but then, BAM!  I have to clean up.  I bought a bunch of magazine boxes (what are those things actually called, anyway?) from Ikea a while ago & started to sift through the two large piles of magazines on the living room floor, I moved all the crap off my sewing table, I even shifted some fabric around to make room here and there for the accumulated Holiday treasure...


Then I sewed.  I made the previously discussed pouch for Miss Jerry, using this from here:

And this, from here:

with a co-ordinating blue zip, and blue ribbon, just to keep it from being too 'dark'.  She's only seven!

And then I took it to work for the lovely buyer, without taking any photos.  Oh well, you get the idea.

I also cut out two flat pouches from this, which I love:

 oh, now, see, blogger is doing that stupid thing again where it won't put the pictures in the middle.  I hate this. 

Anyway, I'm lining the pouches with this, from here:

, which, amazingly, is the exact colour of the turquoise on the linen.  Nice, huh?  Pictures, I promise. 

And now, gentle readers, because it is 2.57AM, and I have to be up at 5.30AM, I'm going back to bed, for another attempt at sleep.  Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye... 

Triptease III

Stuck!