skulls versus skills

This post is brought to you by the letter 'E' for effort, 'S' for skill, 'H' for hours of work and 'R' for repeated goes at getting this bloody thing right...

A cover for an eReader was requested by the lovely Miss Blue Lambb - she wanted something that could be closed over the reader, with elastic straps for the reader to slot into - so...

A pair of fabric pieces stitched together with the elastic between then, then quilted onto the matching lining piece, then quilt the outside piece onto the quilted calico inner liner, then add in a magnetic clasp, then make a strap, adding in the other piece of the magnetic clasp, stitch that onto the back of the cover, then stitch the lining and outer cover together... turn it all outside, topstitch it all to close the turning hole and ...
voila!

Now.  Did I mention that I had to make it twice?  I cut it out to the size of the measurements Miss BlueLamb gave me, then realised that it would be too small once it was made - so I made a pouch for her out of the leftovers...

In other news of unparalleled excitement, I've given up my day off once a fortnight, and now I'm working one day a week from home - apparently... so far it's only happened once in the last two weeks, but I'm making damn sure it's going to happen from now on.  

One of my colleagues is making me a little crazy, but I'm working on that... and I've been getting a bit of sleep, which is nice - and given that my colleague is making me crazy, it's probably just as well.

And now, back to old episodes of The Guardian.  Ciao!

Morecombe, Mumbai, Malden

Well, hello there!  I love seeing the list of cities and countries that pop up down the bottom of my blog - it's actual proof that there is life on other planets... 

I've been busy doing the usual frack, working, driving, sleeping... and yet more sleeping.  I've booked in for a sleep study on Tuesday, after seeing the specialist.  Lovely man, probably the nicest doctor I've ever dealt with.  You know sometimes they can be arrogant pricks?  Not this one.  He took a comprehensive history of my sleeping habits, the increasing need to sleep at weird and wonderful times, and the constant tiredness.  Words like 'snoring', 'loud vigorous snoring' and 'snorting' were discussed, along with the couple of times in my life when I've woken up feeling completely paralysed - it's a weird feeling - apparently you're actually not awake, you just think you are.  

Anyway, the word 'narcolepsy' was eventually raised, along with the doctor's eyebrows, especially when he heard about me having to have sleep in the carpark before starting work (lucky for me it's an underground carpark) because I've barely been able to keep my eyes open on the drive in...

I try to go to be in bed by 10.00pm most nights, and the alarm used to go off at 0530, and I'd be out the door by 0630.  Now, I can't even wake up till about 0620, and sometimes I go back to sleep and wake up at 0700, meaning I don't get to work until 0900.  It sucks. 

In other exciting news, I made a 1600 Quilt - using the very beautiful Lumiere De Noel fabrics from moda - one of my favourites.  I've left it at My Lovely Ma's, because I'm avoiding the 20 year long tradition of Festival of the Boot at The Boxes, and I'm going back to Perth for another long weekend, leaving Poor Mr Golightly behind.    Mixed blessings, hey?

And now, Gentle Readers, it's time for bed.  Buona notte!

Snoring's boring

Why am I up at this ungodly hour?   Mr Golightly is under the weather.  When I lived in England in the 1980's, probably before some of you lovely Gentle Readers were born, there was a columnist in one of the papers, called Jeffrey Bernard, who lived an interesting life, and his column was occasionally replaced by the line "Jeffrey Bernard is unwell".   


So, Mr Golightly is unwell, but not quite the same unwell as Jeffrey.  He has a cold (or maybe even a chest infection?), and, incredibly, came home from work early yesterday.  This is almost unheard of, but there he was, on the bus with me at 2.30pm.  I'd been into town to meet up with him at our bank, to talk about the effects of me not working (currently) on our finances, and to put some plans into place so we don't have to work until we're 80 .  Then I went off to have lunch, being unable to persuade Mr G to have a sandwich with me, and he went back to work.  At 2.00pm he was ready to go home, and BAM!  There we were on the bus, and once we got home, he went straight to bed.


However, tonight he is snoring.  This too is almost unheard of, because usually I check at least once a night to make sure he's still alive, he sleeps so quietly.  Not like me.  I'm all snuffles and snorts, lots of talking to the aliens in the ceiling and the light fitting.  I toss and turn, I need to flip my pillow over to the cool side.  I occasionally wake up laughing.  That's pretty weird, especially when it's a great joke but you can't remember it once you've woken up...


So, Gentle Readers, here I am at 5.15am, tired and wishing he would just shut up before I get that cool pillow and hold it down over his face.  Poor soul.  


In other slightly more cheerful and less mariticidal news, Mr Golightly's lovely niece, The Bride, has her birthday today, and I have yummy gifts for her:

She has a small orange fetish (hah!), so when I saw these, I thought, well, why not?

They are gorgeous, and hopefully she'll love them.  They came from here, and Kathryn was absolutely delightful to deal with - the packaging they came in was so nice I can just pop the entire box in the post with a birthday card & it's all done.  Can't ask for more than.  Except for some sleep!  Now, back to bed!

Sonno felice!

Feelin' groovy....

Well, not quite. I still haven't quite recovered from my [apparently] jetlag induced lethargy from my lightning trip to Melbourne last Friday - Melbourne, Melbourne, I love Melbourne. It's the closest thing to Europe we have here in this country, and I love it. I love the lanes, the fact that a person of the female gender, on their own, can go out for a nice meal, get a good table at the front of the restaurant where she can see the nice man playing the guitar, watch the nice people having their passeggiata, eat nice food and drink nice wine, and nobody bats an eyelid. Nobody hits on her, nobody bothers her, except the waiter to make sure she's got everything she needs, including the salad that wasn't on the menu but which they made specially for her... I love it. I left a fairly hefty tip, trust me.

I also did a spot of shopping whilst I was there, I gave in to my apparently re-growing devotion to all things red, and bought a nice light linen jacket with a very groovy shawl collar and three-quarter length sleeves, some seemingly randomly placed pieces of cotton twill tape for funk, and a thing at the back I can't think of the name of, that we last saw on safari suits and tweed jackets. Leave it with me, I'll dig out both editions of the my Fairchild's Dictionary of Fashion and look it up, or better yet, I'll ask my mother.

Her grandfather was a Master Tailor, and she'll know, because she knows all kinds of useful stuff like that. I saw a lounge suite (boy how old does that make me sound) at a garage sale once covered in some weird looking fabric which was part flat and part raised, in patterns, with the raised bit being made up of tiny weeny loops... she knew instantly I described it to her that it was called 'moquette'. Amazing. Even more amazing, she knew exactly what colour it was. Yucky olive green. Psychic powers or what?

I nearly succumbed to another red handbag, too, this morning - how many is too many? I already own five, four from Italy (Venice 1, Florence 1, Volterra 1, Rome 1) & one I got in the MLC Centre in Sydney, from the nice shoeshop man who is closing down very very soon - this newest one was very groovy, square, with links and a bar clasp going across the bag as the closure - it was also reversible, with camel coloured suede on the inside.. it was very nice, but my conscience stopped me... sadly.

In case you were going to say "Five handbags isn't many", That's five red ones. I own a bundle more than five... I was going to list them all but decided that probably isn't a good idea. I don't them trundling the guillotine into my front yard just yet, thanks.

Anyway, my wonderful mother-in-law (henceforth known as WMIL) has asked me to make 8 small pouches to give to her tapestry group for easter - she's going to fill them with eggs & a tiny chicken [toy], and then they can use them for whatever... and I've already made two, plus the two I made today trying to get the sizes right. These two are going up to Etsy for sale... if everybody isn't already pouched out. I sold my third Miss Muffett to a lady in Mexico, and there's only the orange one left. Didn't really think I'd sell that, but hey, it was worth a try. I'm delighted that I even had the opportunity to help the bushfire appeal by selling the ones I did. Anyway, pictures upcoming, and so, to bed. I can hardly keep my eyes open, which is, hopefully, a good sign!

Night night!