Leaving, on a jet plane

I'm off to Perth, Gentle Readers, to visit my lovely Ma.  I have left you with something delectable to look at over in the Divine Treasury, and I don't know when I'll be posting again, but don't fret.  I'll definitely be at it this week.  No, not that, Mr Golightly is not coming along.

I've left him a six-serving pot of spaghetti sauce, so hopefully I won't return home after a week to find him surrounded by empty pizza boxes, or worse, being eaten alive by some of the insects which have found their way into the cool of our house this week...

It's going to be 31C in Perth today, much nicer than Sydney, and of course it almost never rains over there, so I'll feel right at home.  How weird is this weather?  Of course, Climate Change is a myth.  Just ask the people in Tully.

And now, Gentle Readers, I must make the most of my annual QANTAS club membership by guzzling another glass of apple juice before my flight.  Ah, the glamour.

Stay safe in the weather.

Ciao!

What was I thinking?

Well, apart from the social obligations, Gentle Readers, sometimes it's nice to get completely out of your comfort zone and go to somewhere you've never been and will probably never go again, just to have lunch with somebody.  My good friend KP is working out at somewhere I consider to be a true AEON*, took me an hour to get there, four motorway/freeway tolls and a deepening conviction that everybody who lives out there is completely nuts.  Here's a picture of the Google Maps directions from Newport (Point A) to my destination (Point B):

That's further than I've been on holidays, some years.  Of course it wasn't the distance (70km each way) that makes me think they're all nuts, it's the temperature.  It was 38.5°C/101.3°F out there, with a hot wind blowing right off the desert, at 2.00pm.  No sea breeze, no prospect of a coastal southerly to cool them down.  OMG.  


So, needless to say, I was very glad to get home & ventilate the house, and joy oh joy, a cool(ish) breeze whipped through about 5.00pm.  Some sleep is in order tonight, I hope.  I also got up into the roof (don't even ask me what the temperature was up there, please!) to get the other fan down, which is noisy but effective - but the way we've been sleeping this week, I'm quite sure the sound won't be keeping us awake.


In other news, I was delighted to see a whole gaggle of visitors from foreign climes (not foreign as in 'strange', but foreign as in 'not living in Orstraya'... hello to all you lovely lurking Gentle Readers in Oxfordshire UK, Garfield, NJ USA, Southsea, Hampshire UK, Philadelphia The City of Lurve, Pennsylvania USA, Hockworthy, Somerset UK, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (or Tronno, as we say here), and good old Wenty, somebody from Wentworthville, NSW, who drops in from time to time but never delurks, that I know of anyway.


I'm wondering if my visitor from Hockworthy, Somerset, is the lovely LucyWithaY from one of my favourite blogs, Lives By The Woods?  Come on, 'fess up if it is you.  You know you want a froggie.


In other, makery type news, I have today found out what a comprehensive PITA** it is to sew PUL***, but how much easier it is with a walking foot - first time I've used it on this machine, and after having to get the book out to work out how to put it on the machine, it was dead easy.  That stuff is so sticky, it gummed up the rotary cutter something fierce, so that's another trap for young players...  anyway, I, who am the master of the boxed-bottom pouch decided that it was a bit disgraceful to keep going on visits with a toilet/cosmetic pouch held together with a safety-pin, so I made myself a new one.  I used that gorgeous Echino Birdsong linen, and kept the nice purple bit at the bottom to match up to the zip.  Shame I couldn't find a zip that colour, but hey, it's close enough.

Also, I found out that if you're careful enough, you can put a zip in using a walking foot.  No zip foot required at all - the topstitching is a little bit close for my taste, but the pouch opens & closes without any dramas.  Also, the label is in the wrong place.  I still can't work out exactly where to put them to avoid them being swallowed up by the box-bottom, but again, it's only for me, so who cares.  It was a bit of a conceit putting the label on it anyway, but you never know what may come of it... commissions from Ma's friends?  Stranger things have happened!


So.  Pics?  You can just see the label there at the bottom left.  Bah.

The absolutely best part is that I can get all the crap I need for a week's visit to my lovely Ma, with room left over - 

And hopefully the PUL lining will keep it nice & clean.  I'm tempted to offer them for sale, 
but suspect the market is flooded already (no pun intended).  What pun?  It's a waterproof lining.  Honestly.  Anyway, any thoughts on the viability of selling them, very welcome, as always.


In other Etsy related news, my lovely Toile lavender bags have been featured in a treasury, again (so excited!), so if you're bored & want something lovely to look at, check this out.  I love treasuries, I really do.  There is some absolutely amazing stuff for sale on Etsy, it never ceases to amaze me what you can find.  I think that might be the theme for my next one!  


And that's it, for me today.  Mr Golightly is wending his weary way home from another very long day, and the dinner sits in the fridge, staying cool.  I hope that wherever you are, you're safe, and the weather is kind to you.

Ciao!








*Arse end of nowhere
**Pain in the arse
***PolyUrethane Laminate(d Polyester).  Dunno why they don't just call it 'PULP'. 

Too darn hot

I keep trying to find the energy to write a post but it's just too hot.  Yesterday was worse, about 38°C/104°F, no breeze, nuthin'.  Today, not quite so bad, at least there's a breeze.


Anyway, not much to report here, because heat-driven apathy has got me in its evil grip - but I did get some lovely pics from MGF Kaz of the bed made up with the pillowcases I made, to show you:

I made the square, lighter ones, too, about six months or so ago - from a pair of table napkins - they've got red backs too.  Not bad, really.


I also finished the tablecloth yesterday, too.  It looks really nice, but I think I should have checked how big her table was first!

I also made some Birthday Bunting for the Birthday Girl's house:

Came out really nice, but I've got to work on the perfect colour for those letters... the green is Jay McCarroll Woodland Wonderland:

which I love because it's so... weird.


In other news:  Queensland is preparing for the worst cyclone in living memory, and our entreaties to the weather gods go their way... Check this out if you want to be really scared... I'm very much looking forward to the end of February, I have to say, when Summer will be over and we only have 16°C days to worry about.


Also, the poor sods in Missouri are facing the worst ice storm in decades, and our thoughts are with everybody there, but especially the Pudding family.  Keep safe & stay warm, Mrs Pudding.


Ciao for now!

Oops..

For some reason I forgot to update the page with this lovely treasury I made late last week - asyouknowBob, I was born in another country and only came here sometimes in the 1420's - and so I have lots of memories of that other place... not sure why I felt like I needed to make this, but I like it!


Anyway, the only reason I'm telling you this is so you can enjoy it before I replace it with the buggy one I'm about to make.  Enjoy indeed, soon all will be creeping and crawling and things that crawl up your nose in the night.


Enjoy, Gentle Readers!


Ciao.

Creepy Crawly Alert

I thought I'd put the non-bug type news first, so the faint-hearted amongst you can avoid it if you don't want to see what goes on in our garden.

I've finally dug out the beautiful fabric I bought in 2009 from here to make a tablecloth for My Best Friend, whose birthday was yesterday - Happy Birthday Deb! and I'm busy sewing french seams on the cloth:

 (Sometimes I hate blogger.  Why won't it put these in the middle?)

I really like these materials & hope MBF does too!  The first print is for the cloth, and the second print is for the border - there was much swearing yesterday when I was trying to work out what size to cut the border to acommodate the whole length (108" X 2 + 43" X 2) but I think I've got it.  I think.

OK, bug alert.  Stop reading now if you don't want to see spiders, half-eaten beetles and insect wars.


We tend not to call them 'critters', down here. They're just the local wildlife. We have an inordinate number of them, see here for details.  But don't look if you're faint-hearted.  We have the White-tail, Wolf, St Andrew's Cross, Redback and Huntsman in our garden, and the daddy-long-legs in our house.  Of all of them, it's the daddy-long-legs that annoy me the most - they make webs in the house, which attract - shock horror - dust.  And then we have cobwebs.  Once you've got them, too, it's almost impossible to get rid of them.  When we were first married, way back in the 17th Century, we didn't have them, then we moved into a rental apartment (which I hated, but that's a whole 'nother story) which had them, and bang!  We had them.  And we've had them ever since.  


Anyway, yesterday morning, Gentle Readers, I was hanging washing out in the garden, as we do here in Australia.  Out in the sunshine, as you will see from the photos.  The St Andrew's Cross spiders have started making their amazing multi-dimensional webs, and there's one right on the clothesline.  I don't mind this at all, because they catch flies and mosquitos, and as I'm still scarred from the sandfly plague, any help I can get from Mother Nature is fine with me.  I don't much like walking into the webs at night, particularly when they try & run over your face to get away.. but I digress.


The St Andrew's Cross spider had just shed its skin.  I didn't even know they did that.  But there it was, an empty skin, and a newly limp spider, just... hanging... there, waiting to warm up, or cool down, or whatever it is they do.  So I whipped back inside to get the camera.


It took me a few goes to get the camera to focus on the spiders and not the roof, the garden, the sky, but I finally achieved it:

Garden

Roof

More Garden

Yet more garden and finally...

Spiders.  Before and after!

Weird, huh?


Then, in another entomological moment, a beetle bit the dust just outside our back door, and made the ants happy for about 300 ant years:

This morning, there's only this left:

And the ants valiantly trying to drag an anntennae down the hole to their nest:

And last night, the battle of the bush spider versus the hornet - I'm not too fond of these little flying orange bundles of nasty, so I try to avoid them at all costs - which is why this was taken from behind my screen door (I'm not that brave!):

The poor paralysed spider is just outside my front door, being eaten alive by ants.  Ick.

And now, Gentle Readers, I must go & get in the shower (11.40am, just about time) & work on the tablecloth!

Have a wonderful (bug-free) Sunday.  Ciao!

Meet me in St Louis?

A much better day today, and thank the Maker for that.  I would have just curled up & cried if that weather had gone on for much longer.  I didn't want to trouble you with TMI, but honestly, yesterday morning I was standing in the kitchen peeling lychees with sweat running down my face.  Actual beads of moisture.  Not just the gentle glow that ladies get, Gentle Readers, the full-blown sweaty globules of sweat that horses, navvies and road workers get.  Like the proverbial pig.


Ahem.  I finished the quilt top today, after the remainder of the cleaning up, and here 'tis:

Ready and waiting to be quilted.


In other news, Gentle Readers, I got a mention from the very lovely Angela Pudding.  Mrs Pudding writes one of the funniest blogs I've read, and she's taken pity on me because we don't have Chipotles in adobo sauce here in Australia.  As I'd never heard of either, she's undertaken to come over & make them for me, served with fish tacos.  I think fish tacos sound just fine.  I'd like to go to St Louis, but I'm sure we could meet somewhere in the middle.  Hawaii?  Sure.  Fish tacos with chipotles and pineapple, anybody?


I had a very encouraging conversation with the man who runs the Upholstery department at our local (well, not quite local, but not quite St Louis either) Technical School, and tomorrow am popping over there to talk about the possibilities.  See, there is hope.


And I made a flat-pack pouch for the aforementioned Angela Pudding, the type I've raved about before, and which you can find in the shop.  She's my first Etsy sale for the New Year, and as mentioned, all proceeds will be donated to the Premier's Flood Appeal.  It's a great cause.


And now, Gentle Readers, I'm going to bed. My brain has stopped churning, it's raining and I'm very happy.  


Sleep well - I will.


Ciao!

Life

Sucks sometimes, doesn't it?  It's 4.42am.  We had people round yesterday (12 adults, seven children), it was so hot (hottest Australia Day in 20 years, apparently) & humid I felt like a damp rag all day, I couldn't even stand the thought of earrings (and if you know me, you'll know how serious that is) and I changed clothes twice before the guests arrived because I was a damp and floppy mess.


So, the thing is that I'm really tired - all the prep required to feed 19 people, the organisation, getting everybody to eat some salad (go Ryan!), the cleanup... but they were all gone by 6.30pm, mostly because today is a work day (for nearly everybody) & I fell asleep on the sofa afterwards until the cricket finished (we lost) and Mr Golightly dragged me to bed (by the hair, whoo hoo).  


So, if I'm so tired, why am I up at 4.46am?  I'm up at 4.46am because somebody said something thoughtless to me (no, not one of my guests) and it's churning rounding in my brain, and stopping me from sleeping.  It's one of those things that you can't bring up with the thoughtless person to discuss, because that will just cause angst and unpleasantness, at a time when those two are definitely unwelcome in our houses.  It's one of those things you just have to leave churning, wait for your brain to process it, and catch up on your sleep later in the day.  


Also, there are times when trying to explain or clarify just makes you look defensive, and when the person you love most in the world assures you that it wasn't your doing, you realise you don't have to defend or explain.  You just have to let it go.  And that's hard, sometimes.  Especially when you thought you'd reached a place where the thoughtless remark would no longer occur.  And that's why life sucks.  Because no matter what lengths you go to, what extremes, how much you put your own life on hold, how selfless you are, the thoughtless remark will always do its evil work and reduce you back to the role of 'not quite good enough'.


And that's why I'm awake at 4.58am, still trying to be good enough.  Now, back to bed, Gentle Readers and try to sleep. 


Buona notte.