How can we help?

I've been very reluctant to post these past few days because I usually try to ignore what's going on outside, in the big world, because most of it is so horrible. Sometimes, however, things happen that you can't ignore, no matter how self-absorbed or disinterested you are. This is one of those times.

I've already made a monetary donation, in keeping with the fact that we make enough money for me to feed my obsession with yarn-related products (spun or woven, I'm not fussy) and to give us a very comfortable life. But my lovely defacto step-sister-in-law (got that?) sent me a very prescient powerpoint the other day, full of comments like "isn't it amazing how we're so asset-rich but time-poor"... anyway, fitting squarely into that category means that every time I sit down at the sewing machine, I'm doing something important, because of all the other things I leave undone (like ironing, cleaning, darning ), for example. Does anybody darn anymore?.... So, making something for the Bushfire victims means that donation has a lot more worth than the money I've already given.

And, as is often the way, my mother was the source of this good idea - she belongs to a patchwork group, in a community group run by the Baptist Church, on the other side of the country. Now, Mum and I are both atheists of the completely sceptical kind, but I have a sneaking admiration for these ladies - they charge a fee to attend their group, classes, quilt show etc etc & the money raised goes to buy sewing machines for women in India who would otherwise be destitute, enabling these women to earn a living by sewing. I think that's the kind of work that anybody interested in practical help for the underprivileged would approve of.

So, these guys are putting some care packages together for the Bushfire victims, and Mum has asked me for a Toilette Bag, for her to fill with the really useful things you don't miss until you don't have them - nail file, nail clippers, little scissors, sewing thread, needles, that kind of thing. So I will be making two today, one from her & one from me, and I will be using these:

Weather thou goest...

Hot. Too hot. Too horrible to comment. Roll on July.

How do you go about your normal routine in the face of something like this? I was going to write a buzzy, chirpy page about all the sewing I did today on my new machine and I just can't do it, it's like singing "Nearer My God to Thee" as the boat goes down. Some stern words about people denying the effects of global warming on our planet are appropriate here, but that isn't going to bring back the people who've lost their lives down in Victoria.

Anyway, pictures of the day's work follow... hopefully the southerly tonight will bring some rain...

Guilty as charged...

That's better, the font-y thing appears to have restored itself to "normal" so somewhere along the line I must have run into the "Drink Me" label...

Anyway, I bought a new sewing machine today. Now, note well that there's nothing actually wrong with the other one I had, but I wanted a better one. I guess I was a bit jealous of my mother who has one of those (actually, she has 2 sewing machines, a quilting machine and an overlocker/serger all on the go at the same time, so there's absolutely no contest there [and don't even get me started on the custom-built sewing room in her yard]) fabulous whiz-bang ones that just start stitching when you put the material up to the presser foot... no pedal or anything. Whew.

Anyway, my Brother Super Ace III has served me well for 4 years (how time flies when you're having fun!) but I saw this one & thought aha! Also, the health fund which has been happily taking our money for the last 10 years has been bought by a competitor, and thanks to the rules surrounding mutual funds, a large cheque came my way last week. So, the planets were obviously aligned, and it was meant to be. Not that I believe in fate, or anything, you understand, but it did seem a bit propitious that the two things happened in the same phase of the moon... so today I went out in the heat, 34.5ºC, thanks for asking, up to the shopping centre which houses not one but two of the three haberdashery, fabric and yarn suppliers round where I live, (the other one being the fabulous Fenners, at Mona Vale, Hello Mr Fenner) to check it out.

My mother did recommend the Brother Quilters edition, but I have to say, I wasn't that taken with the very busy look of the thing - all the stitches were shown on the front of the machine in pink, and it did have a lot of them, and it made it look quite cluttered (who needs all that distraction, honestly? We're just trying to get our seams straight here...) and where the thread spool sits was under this really tacky looking opaque plastic pink cover - why, oh why, do manufacturers think they need to make things PINK to attract women. Sorry for shouting. It makes me so mad - "let's make it pink & the girlies will love it". Well, actually, they won't.

Anyway, I bought the Singer Quantum 9940, instead. Reasons to be cheerful, part 3:

1. It was $100 cheaper than the Brother.

2. It has a reasonably good-sized LCD display which allows you to adjust choose stitches, and adjust stitch width & length without having to slide or turn or jog or do anything much except press 1 button (allowing for excellent accuracy), and you can save words or phrases you use a lot (like "Handmade by Isabella Golightly").

3. It had a really plain front, with nothing but 3 buttons (needle up/down, reverse & slow speed) on the front, & all the rest controlled by the 'compass rose' next to the LED screen.

Reasons not to be so cheerful:

1. New bobbins. Why, oh why, can't manufacturers of technology agree on standard 'anything'? I also note phone chargers, memory cards for cameras and phones, and camera batteries as things which could be standardised without too much trouble, except that it would make less money for manufacturers.

2. Feet are mostly plastic, with some metal ones. I like the solidity of the Brother's feet, which, although they are the 'drop off the bottom' kind, are all metal. Plus I have yet to see if the Brother's feet will feet on the Singer. Anybody want to have a small wager with me? Prize: 3 lavender pyramids for the first respondant who correctly predicts if they will or won't...

3. I now have to find a new home for the Brother

4. I bought something I didn't really need.

Which of course brings us right back to conspicuous consumption. To assuage my guilt somewhat, I'm going to find a charity program with absolutely no religious affiliation and donate my other sewing machine to them. My lovely defacto step-sister in law (got that?) is going to take the Brother off my hands, I believe. What other sewing machine, I hear you say? Ah. Yes, well, up in the roof is a Bernette something or other, which I bought in 1994, just after the urge to create bit me. So this is actually my 4th sewing machine, just not all being used at the same time (see note about Mother, above). The first one I bought at a garage sale in 1993 when the urge first really bit me, for $60. It was very old, and the needles had to go in sideways, a fact I only discovered after I broke an entire packet trying to get it to work. I think I donated that one to charity, so the pattern has been set.

Now, after that little conscience clearing effort, I'm off to the sewing room. It's cooled down a bit now & I got some lovely fabric from here in the week, and I can feel a box pouch coming on. Oh yes, and I finished the DUST Craft Swap thingies, check 'em out! The theme was 'lurve' (did I mention the Barry White moment? Oh yes, I'm sure I did), hence the hearts, hand appliqued. Hope she likes em!

Love Cole Porter

According to the Kinsey report, ev'ry average man you know
much prefers to play his favorite sport
when the temperature is low
but when the thermometer goes way up and the weather is sizzling hot
Mister GOB for his squab,
a marine for his queen
a G.I. for his cutie-pie is not
Cause it's too too too darn hot
It's too darn hot
Lyrics by Cole Porter, 1948.
It's too darn hot... in the sewing room...

Now don't get me wrong... hey, what's going on here with blogger? I can't find my usual san serif font & I feel like I've drunk from the "shrink me" bottle..

Anyway, in addition to being an extra on the Reality TV Show "Alice in WonderBlog", I finally sat down in my small but beautifully formed sewing room to make things for my craft swap partner, who is the lovely Angelene & who has a shop on Etsy... she and I are both happy members of the Down Under Street Team, aka DUST, which is made up of some of the Aussie contingent who've found their way onto Etsy.

(Warning: 70's Barry White moment about to hit...) We're doing a "lurve" theme for February, so I'm wracking my brains & I've decided to make her some pyramids in her favorite colours, with hand appliqued hearts on them - and I've put this off for a few days (about 10, actually) because I can't bear to go into aforesaid small but beautifully formed sewing room because it's too darned hot!!!

I really, truely loath summer. It's not a new thing, I've hated every minute of it since I first arrived in this fair land, some 392 years ago (well, it feels that long).. and discovered this thing called "humidity"... when I lived in England as an adult, I had smooth shiny hair. I only have to step outside here in summer to have my hair transformed into something that resembles a sheepdog, only not so well looked after. Frizz, frizz and more frizz. Not only that, but my face gets red in the heat.... and we're talking 'Rudolph' here, not just a gentle Post Box red...

My grandmother, who was a lady of quality, thank you very much, told me when I was about 8 or 9, that horses sweat, men perspire and ladies glow prettily. Well, mine isn't so much as glowing prettily as lighting up a whole city... ick. I hate it. I have drawers full of clothes suitable for Autumn, Winter and Spring. I love wearing socks, and my favourite LL Bean suede clogs (with other clothes, rudey...). I love wearing my favourite 'Maui' hoodie that I got on my honeymoon 375 years ago, and I love being able to feel the weight of not one, not two, not three, but four beautiful patchwork quilts on my bed... I'm living in the wrong hemisphere, I know. Global warming will likely be the death of me... actually, it may be the death of all of us.

Anyway, enough whining. I've got them cut out, the applique is done & they're pressed & waiting to be sewn up tomorrow, then stuffed to the gills with lovely lavender. Pictures to follow, promise!

Who needs

the old boy network, when you've got the old-girl network happening? My lovely friend rose w's fabulously talented daughter, Clare, whose gorgeous work actually inspired me to get my act into gear & onto Etsy, has been kind enough to mention my (aw shucks) little blog & shop on her fabulously well connected blog (see what I mean about that old-girl network?)... along with a picture of gorgeous Petronella posing in my sewing basket, and, even better, she said nice things about me! Whew! I'm not excited enough to burn ginger biscuits, but I was excited enough to interrupt MWH whilst he was watching Star Trek (the original series, can you believe it?) on TV, to tell him. That takes some cojones, let me tell you. Good thing they're disguised as pin cushions in Amy Butler fabric!

Speaking of nice fabric, I'm about to put the first box pouch up for sale on my shop. Now that I'm kinda famous, we'll see if they take off... but in the meantime, I am so delighted about Clare & her blog that I can't stop grinning like a loon. There's nothing like a little mutual backslapping to get you in the mood for the office. Ooooh. Nasty.

And, finally, before I go off to bed, I forgot to mention the absolutely most exciting thing of all, I sold those two gorgeous toilette bags to a nice lady in Hawaii. Man, that's so neat (I think she was taken by my explanation about the "T" word...). Off, pillow, doona, sleep, sleep...

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!

He's baaaaack...

I went to visit Rusty at his foster home this weekend (we had an extra day off to celebrate the arrival of the first load of convicts from Britain in 1788) and guess what? His foster mother has returned him to my care, in exchange for a new and more beautiful child. I think some conversations with DOCS (our equivalent of Social Services or DHSS) might be in order here. Anway, I'm very happy to have him home & gracing my sewing room once again - and here he is, waving happily!

I'm also thinking of making an froggie tribute to the US Presidential family, and I had some fun on the weekend picking out the fabrics - bit of an off-beat challenge there. I hope our friends in the US don't think it's offensive... are there laws in the States against that kind of thing? Oh well, we'll see if they sell, or if I get a nasty letter from the White House.

I also picked up orders for three more frogs, birthday gifts all, so I'm going to be busy sewing over the next few nights. I also had a major breakthrough with the lined box pouches, figuring out that if you cut the corners whilst it's all inside out, you can also stitch the corners & when you turn it all right sides out, it all looks fine. I made two, one after the other which prove this theory, one of which I will post as soon as I go & pay some bills, and order a pizza, which consititutes healthy eating today. It was about 35C in the Hunter Valley, that's 95F & it was sticky, so the motivation to cook is zero. Plus the cricket is on TV, and it's an Australian tradition to spend Australia Day eating junk & watching the cricket, so that's it for me!