this is controversial... be warned

I just stopped reading a blog I've been following for a while; I was going to write a big fat post about why I stopped reading it, and then I thought, "why?"... tell the truth, I'm not a fan of hypocrites. I don't like people who put shit on other people but who can't take a little constructive criticism themselves... and I don't like whiners. If you have a roof, hot and cold running water, food in the fridge, pay-tv and access to the internet, you are better off than a billion other people who live on less than US$1.00 per day, and people in the richest country in the world are better off than most.

That is all. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Tasmania, so Beautiful

(How green your gardens are... is it some kind of blasphemy, do you think, to co-opt the tune of a slightly known number by Samuel A Ward...?

Tasmania is lovely, all green rolling hills, amazing mountains and fantastic gardens:

Does anybody know what these are? They grow into a bush, all purple & blue, like a big blueberry in the garden.

This somewhat large tree was in the Churchyard at Deloraine, with a rather interesting bunch of cast-iron frames around the graves...

We made some new friends:

And yes, the liver-coloured lovely is peeing. Talk about timing...

And we saw some beautiful flowers, and the occasional insect!

And we spent time looking at this (my personal favourite):

Oh yes, and there was craft:

And while I was away, these arrived:

Ah, joy. Holidays and fabric. Bliss.

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye...

Cheerio, I don't know, the next line...


We're off to The Tasmanian Craft Fair today, flying at lunchtime & coming back on Monday arvo, with Kaz & Az, and my lovely DSSIL* & DSB*.  I expect to have many tales to tell of the webbed-fingered folk who live on that fair isle, bring back much crafty booty to be ooh-ed and aah-ed over, and several 10Kg blocks of Cadbury's Chocolate to fill my arteries with cholesterol... I am telling you this,  Gentle Reader, because I will not be blogging for the entire time.


Agggggggggggggh.  Withdrawal.  But there will be many, many photos on my return.  Be warned.


Also, I'm going to attempt to smuggle bamboo knitting needles into my hand luggage, so if I get arrested, please be ready to put the hat around to bail me out.   I get very irritated by our govinmint's blind stupidity on this issue - I was reading YarnHarlot's blog where she posted about the 'Stitch & Bitch' row on her plane trip to somewhere, and thinking why, oh why, is our govinmint so paranoid?  Surely they've realised by now that knitters are more likely to be dangerous if they can't knit than if they can and are?  Bizarre.


And just to keep everybody involved in fabric porn happy, here's something I acquired yesterday at Tessuti:

So cheerful but I have to wait until Monday before I get the scissors out & make something with it!  Ah, torture.

As Daav yos'Phelium would say, "Until soon".  Gotta pack!

Counting down those days...

Any guesses where this is?

How about this?

Woo Hoo Holidays 2010!

Sunday Sunday...

Dah dah, da da dah... okay, I'll stop now.  I was thinking of Mama Cass singing "Monday Monday", actually, but that's still a whole 24 hours away, TG. I was singing in my head, too, because my poor WH has a sore throat & is quite the neanderthal, lying in bed watching bad Sunday morning TV (is there any other kind?) & whimpering from time to time.  In deference to his not-wellness, I will close the door on the small but perfectly formed room when I go in to start my (real) day, and as always, turn the music up really really loud... and remember what a great concert it was on Thursday night:

Today, whilst listening to Mr Costello, I will make a cover for Ms Scurvy, for her DS, using plain black fabric and these:

Apparently she has a bit of a skull fetish going on, and I've offered to make this into a pouch in return for her lovely Ma sewing this up for me:

which I've kniited in lots of glorious colour, but haven't sewn up - I hate the sewing up part, everything should be knittable in one piece as far as I'm concerned.  I'm sure there's a way...

Anyway, when I finally get around to knitting up the band & finishing it off, I promise I will post a picture.  Honest.

What else?  Oh yes, these arrived:

  and I'm going to make these because six of these wrapped in ribbon is a great christmas gift for colleagues, close acquaintances, you know, the kind of people who you want to give something to, but it doesn't need to be big or hugely expensive - and everybody loves handmade, right?

And this arrived too:

 and I have no idea what I'm going to do with these, except I love these fabrics, and one 10 X 10 square gives you four 5 X 5 squares - isn't that amazing?  Maths, who knew?  Not me, that's for sure.  I made quite a lot of jumbo lavender bags earlier this year with these, what with Miss Mandy having a hairdresser friend, and Kaz having a friend known as the Butterfly... and speaking of Lavender, there's a card from the Post Office telling me the newest shipment of lovely lavender from Ratho has arrived - but that too is a job for Monday (morning, around 6.15am)...

But for now, the small but perfectly formed room and Elvis Costello are calling my name!

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...

Yesterday upon the stair

I met a man who wasn't there... actually, today, I had a lovely email from one of my bloggie readers, "A Peppermint Penguin", who took the time to do my 'anonyblogger' challenge and posted successfully to my blog without having a google id or anything else...


It's every bloggers dream, you know, to actually have communication with people out in etherland, and I'm kind of envious of all those women in America who go to "BlogHer", except that I think they  might all be mid-western kind of white bread weirdos, completely unlike anybody I know.  Or not.  They might be all like Fluid Pudding, who is without a doubt one of the most original thinkers out there... she cracks me up.


So, here I am having cereal for dinner, (with a banana and low fat strawberry yoghurt, nothing unhealthy here), wondering why in Australia they say yo (rhymes with ho)-gurt, rather than yog (rhymes with jog)-urt.  Any answers?  


So, what does this weekend bring for the Golightly camp?  My lovely SIL is having a birthday, and she wants a shovel.  Much hilarity ensues, quotes from Ripping Yarns, and much discussion about the types and varieties of shovel... and she wants a bag for the shovel - I'm going to make a shoebag, and give it to her round the shovel - she did say she wanted a bag, and you know me, I just do what I'm told.  Well, kind of...


I'm thinking about using some of these:

Well, maybe not the zips, (I was going to make some pouches out of these, but shoe bags might be nicer...), but we'll see what comes out of the small but perfectly formed room tomorrow...