pink...

This is nice (and I made it) - my friend Kaz just sent me some pictures of the journal cover I made her (well, I made it as an experiment & it just so happened to fit her journal) - it looks quite nice, I think...

And this is the pattern I'm going to use to make the black & orange silk clutch. I'm going to make it with some loopy things on the side to hang a strap of some kind, probably black cord or rat tail, because it is a cocktail reception & there's nothing worse than trying to juggle a baby spring roll, a glass of sparkling something and a handbag, now is there?

Somebody stop me (again)...

Has anybody else seen Stargate SG-1 Children of the Gods?  Boy, do I feel ripped off.  I bought it thinking that it was going to be something new and interesting in the Stargate world, although I must admit that I am enjoying Season Three of Stargate Atlantis... and we sat through it last night and the night before, in two chunks because I was so exhausted I fell asleep in the middle of it at the first go... and I spent the entire time waiting for something else to happen, that I hadn't seen before.


So, apart from the editing out of the gratuitous nudity scene (showing the lovely Vaitiare Bandera in all her glory), so they could get a PG rating, and chucking in a bit of extra scenery of Chulak, there was absolutely nothing I hadn't seen before.   I feel really ripped off.  


So, to assuage my disappointment, I popped into one of my favourite fabric stores today & bought the following:


One half metre of japanese black & orange cotton
One half metre of orange & pink shot silk
One half metre of black silk with sequins
One half metre of thickish orange & yellow striped cotton


And what am I going to do with it, I hear you ask?  Well, I know exactly what I'm going to do with the black & orange stuff - I'm going to make a clutch bag to take to the wedding of MWH's niece in September - using the orange silk as the lining... but the rest of it... well, we'll see.


I'll post some photos in the next couple of days... honest.... but for now, some general cheeriness:

Is too much fabric ever enough?

and we're still counting...

My lovely friend Kaz in the HV just sent me the most gorgeous photo of some snowdrops & daffodils from her garden, elegantly draped around the bag I made her on the weekend:

Isn't that gorgeous?


Also, I got these last week, and shamefully neglected to show you!

Aren't they beautiful?  Home Decorator (or furnishing fabrics in this hemisphere) weight & perfect to make pencil cases & other boy kind of stuff - my lovely DSSIL* asked me to make her a pencil case & sketchbook bag for her nephew, & I'm wondering if these might do, hmm, Miss Mandy?

Countdown!

Who remembers Countdown from the '70's?  Oh, the anticipation of Sunday night at (was it 6.00pm or 6.30pm?) [insert magic time here], waiting for JPY to come on with those incredibly tight satin trousers, all those guys with the bad hair, just hanging on for 20 years waiting for hair product to be invented & but doing amazing things with hairspray and lard (honest, I'm sure I read that somewhere...) while they were waiting, and then, Molly, poor sad Molly, trying to be so serious, so deep, so meaningful, and nobody wanted to listen to him, he used to make me cringe when I saw him with 'real' rock stars (ie, not home grown) & you could see how they were looking at him going "who is this guy again?".  Ah, the memories.  Sherbert, Hush, Dragon, JPY, Skyhooks, Ted Mulry Gang... 


And why, you are asking, is she rambling on about Countdown?  Because, gentle readers, I am on the slippery slide down to 100 posts, the magic number when special secret secret special things happen, for you, out there.  Of course, it won't quite be like the joke my husband told me about West Virginia (he lived in the US for a couple of years & has some interesting stories...), the punchline is "oh, just you and me"... it'll be much classier than that, and it will involve one of these:

Made just for you, named, of course, Centurian.  Unless you think 'Count Down' is better.  Oh, that's quite clever, really.  Sometimes I surprise even myself.  

And of course, instead of the 'A' (for Aster, see previous posts if you really must absolutely have to can't live without knowing), it'll be a 'C'.  

And now, the real reason for this post (as my lovely wobbly friend over at Fluid Pudding says, the best bit is always at the bottom, you have to show real dedication & devotion to get here) (and of course the reward is sooooooooooo worth it) is that the shop name for me at www.madeit.com.au is not IsabellaG (that's just my username, apparently) but is - wait for it "Isabella Golightly".  Whoda thunk?  Go, browse, enjoy.  And if you note the amazing resemblance of some items to some other items currently listed in some other online store, well, keep it to yourself, will you?


Ciao! 

Madeit!I

I just found Madeit & have registered for a shop - sadly the shop names are limited to 9 characters (why is that?) - so I had to make do with IsabellaG - but I'm sure those who want to find me will be able to!


I've listed just a couple of things, and may move away from Etsy if it works out - not that I have anything against Etsy, but it is so Americentric, and they have some policies I'm not that happy about - but I hadn't seen an acceptable alternative until now - anyway, if you have spare cash & want to purchase some of my beautiful products :-)), give MadeIt a go & let me know what you think...


And these turned up today, after 6 weeks - I'm really happy with the quality and the price (100 zips for US$25 (works out about 33 cents per zip, a real bargain) but boy, six weeks is a long time to wait!

That's it for me, having escaped from the office at 6.00pm for the first time in 3 weeks, I'm going to have an early night.  Yay!

Heads up...

for a full house (yes, I know, it's "eyes down"), but sometimes you need to keep your head up so people can't see things they shouldn't...


And I say this because my lovely friend Romy just sent me an email about her hair - sorry reply not longer looked in a shop mirror today. roots! arrghhh. big time. no time to get to hairdressers, teach tomorrow (head down, talking), fight with management thursday (head down, negotiating), uni event friday evening in ballina - unknown people, probably all tall and looking down on my head.

so, ooops, look, dripping hair colour on desk...

Funny.  

I think we should all stop colouring our hair in Movember, you know, when the men grow their moustaches.  We could raise a lot of money for Beyond Blue, I reckon, with people paying us to do the dyeing deed.  Why is it that your hair always goes grey in the wrong places?   I want to be like Mary Kostakidis, who has the most gorgeous silver streak in her hair, and instead I look like Pepe La Pu's feral girlfriend Penelope.  Ah well...

We had a fabulous long weekend in the Hunter Valley, beautiful weather, great wines, some neat sewing stuff, plenty of quality dog time... and the cheekiest kangaroos I have ever seen!

And this is Bruce; he's the boss and he's about 6' 10" and very very scary - my friend Kaz says he sometimes turns up outside their shed at dusk - imagine if you ran into him putting out the garbage (and look at him facing me off - very glad I was 100 metres away!)...

Then we did a bit of sewing - the original of these came from Country Road, and it was a simple enough exercise to measure up that one & make another one in lovely apple & spot linen from here:

And then we made another, longer one for the bigger wallet...

in the gorgeous Eiffel tower material, also from here, and then I made this gorgeous (imho) pouch for Clara - who is la francaise herself...

and I had a bit of a glitch with the label - I wanted to put it in the bottom left hand corner, it just seems to be the most aesthetically pleasing there, but I still haven't come up with a foolproof way of calculating where it needs to go to allow for the boxing of the corners - and so I had to take it off & hand-stitch it on afterwards - but it doesn't look too bad, does it?

And then I persuaded Kaz to resurrect her blog, which was a brilliant move, again imho, because she has some beautiful photos & should be sharing them with the world - Post more piccies, Kaz!

She's baaaack!

My lovely friend Kaz, at Prettydog Vineyard, has resurrected her blog!