You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June, 2007.
We’ve just finished week one of the school holidays and…
…the troops are restless. Ali doesn’t really like school holidays much. She has fun for the first few days and then she’s ready to go back. My policy as a parent has always been to make life at home as boring as possible, then they WANT to go to school. It’s worked for us.
She and I have been sewing for a couple of days. First I made a Ginger Baby…
Then twins…
And Ali liked them and wanted some to match her clothes (but I wasn’t about to make a tartan mini kilt so they only got the tights). My Goth Baby has babies of her own 
The photos are a little dull - taken with the last few minutes of natural light. I’m wondering about selling these. You know, the whole etsy thing. Not sure. I really hate getting into that treadmill of production. Takes all the fun out of it.
More thinking is in order…
1. Corazón al cuadrado / Hearts x2, 2. Love Stamp Candy Tin, 3. kiss…, 4. The Kiss 07, 5. Untitled, 6. kiss me kiss me kiss me, 7. Couple Caught Kissing In Park, 8. <3 ILY <3, 9. Romantisme, 10. amore, 11. Kiss me …, 12. Kiss
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
Pete’s here for the weekend…
Outback Australia is like all wild places - very difficult to imagine. Impossible to understand unless you’ve been there. Kind of fascinating in a scary “glad I don’t live there” way. Oh yeah ! I DID live there! I would love to be able to paint word pictures for you, but I’m not the most articulate individual. What I would most like to be able to do is let you smell it. I know that sounds kind of kinky, but this is a place with a unique smell. I was talking to A Local about it one day. She told me that she loves that smell. To her it means Home. I hate that smell. It’s acrid, salty and to me it means, “Not this bloody place again.” I can see beauty out there, truly I can, but the glimpses I have aren’t enough to feed my soul day in and day out.
I would like to show you these pics, though. This place enthralls me.
It is the original hut on a property that belongs to a couple we are acquainted with. Until a few months ago when they moved a newer house on site, they lived in this hut (along with their three sons) whenever they were at the property to work. You can see the new house through the window of the hut.
While this may look third world, you need to understand the context. Queensland properties (farms, also called stations) can be wild and woolly places. Many of them are very remote and the land is not cultivated - it’s just expanses of scrubby bush that animals are grazed on. Like many property owners, these people own several parcels of land that are many hours travel time apart and they spend varying amounts of time on each property, as the work is required. Their sons go to boarding school.
This hut was built a looong time ago (nobody really knows when but it may be well over a hundred years old).
It has a (mostly) concrete floor, electricity (generator, I think) and running water, although those features are relatively new additions. This wood range was used for cooking and heating water. You can see that there are no glassed windows - just openings with prop-up shutters. It is surprisingly cool in there on a hot day.
While I find it fascinating, I couldn’t stand sleeping in there because it has, on a number of occasions, been known to house snakes. In fact, the owner told us that for a while they had a King Brown (a couple of metres long) living in the rafters that they found hard to budge. Every time they tried to get him, he would flatten himself into a crack and escape their efforts. And, yes, they are deadly poisonous! Eventually, one day, they caught him in the open and he was disposed of.
Interesting place. Wouldn’t want to live there 
I am constantly amazed by the generosity that bloggers have for one another! There seems to be a constant exchange of gifts around the world (I wonder if the Post Office has noticed and wonder what on earth is going on?!). It makes me think that blogging could be a vehicle for peace if we allowed it to be. Anything that encourages communication and friendship can only be good!
Today my mailbox was exciting - this was inside! Monica wrote in the card, “I was cleaning out my studio and these…called for you!”
My son said,”Wow! She got the colours right!” Not just the colours - Monica, I love every thing that you sent! Every. Thing. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness.
Just look at that little giraffe! And the floral fabric!!! And the mother of pearl buttons have little leaves on them!! Oh, I am in love 
Mosaic Monday makes me happy
The male bowerbird gathers things to decorate the nesting mound he builds for his hen. They have a particular passion for cobalt blue.
ps : I don’t know why the links aren’t here??? but please click on the photo and you will be able to follow the links to the original images.
Yesterday I had a great time teaching a machine applique class here in Townsville. I had one of the most competent groups of students I’ve ever had! Those ladies really know their way around a sewing machine. So it was a lovely relaxing day with yummy food and good company. These cushions were my class sample…
Today, however, is dull as dishwater - it’s pouring rain and cold. I have a jumper on! AND I’m working at the bank this afternoon. Blech.
Interesting to hear your thoughts on links. It’s made me think about other ways to do it and I’ve been thinking about maybe having a separate page for my links.
I’ve noticed something strange in the past few weeks. Lots of the blogs that I read have suddenly removed ALL of their links. I don’t get it. For me blogging is largely about communicating with other people and networking. So when someone links me, I usually link them back. And when I feel like meeting new people I often do it by following the links on my friends’ blogs. So why are people not showing links anymore? Am I out of some loop that says that links are passe?? Or does the number of bloggers that one person can keep up with eventually reach critical mass and require a shutdown of some kind?
Amongst the newer blogs that I’ve been reading lately are
the lovely Flo (I know Tracey and I always call her the ‘lovely’ Flo or the ‘beautiful’ Flo, but she just IS!) at Red Slippers
Crafty Mum (Stomper Girl’s next door neighbour)
Tanya, who has a brain and isn’t afraid to use it
Sussanah’s mate Jennifer is at Precious Pink Pumps
and, finally, I think I’ve read every post at Trauma Queen over the last few days! I have had many rides in ambulances with my son, James, and this fascinating blog is written by an ambulance officer in Edinburgh. He is funny, gentle of spirit and has compassion in bucketloads. One of those truly loving people that you really need around you when your world is caving in!
I’ve been tagged by Jade to list my Top 5 Eating Spots. After Tracey’s post about Top Ten Lists, it will be a challenge to stick to five so I’m limiting myself to eateries in four places I’ve lived.
1. Fifteen years ago Pete and I went to The Walnut Room in Brisbane. I am STILL talking about it. It rates as the absolute-no-competition-alltime-best restaurant I have ever eaten at! The food was good, but the service was outstanding. We had our own exclusive waiter and he was so discreet that he managed to refill my glass without me even noticing. Superb.
2. In Townsville we like to eat breakfast at a cafe called C-bar. The food is nice/average but we like it because we can walk there and it is right on the sea. There is nothing between us and the water. Here’s a photo that Katja blogged a while ago. Wouldn’t you love it too?
New Zealand is FULL of excellent restaurants! I’m not kidding. If you love good food, then you need to book a holiday in New Zealand NOW and go on a restaurant crawl.
3. Palmerston North is not a big place but it is chock full of great places to eat. My favourite is Bella’s. The menu is good, the food is fantastic but, again, what makes the place extra good is the service - it’s one of those lovely places where you feel truly welcomed.
4.Hamilton (my home town) is also overloaded with choice. You can’t beat Scotts Epicurean for breakfast. They make amazing homemade crumpets (nothing like the supermarket kind!) and salmon that I’d walk a hundred miles for (mind you, I seldom meet a salmon I don’t adore).
5. And a few doors down is Metropolis which is practically a Hamilton Institution. And so it should be! It’s impossible not to love the place.
If Peter and I had every dollar we have eaten in restaurants over the years, we would be able to laugh about my dying car!! But we do love a good meal
Where do you like to eat??
We had one of those discount book travelling road shows come to town this week. The ones that have the TV ads where they scream SAVE SAVE SAVE NOTHING OVER$5 SAVE SAVE ONLY ONE WEEK SAVE SAVE SAVE at you. Usually I ignore them, but I was curious. And hopeful.
Two hours poking through endless miles of trestle tables piled with books, full of hope that I would strike gold - I came home with four books that I expect to be good and three that might be good.
They also had CD’s but they were no cheaper than regular stores, I thought, and mostly rubbish. But I did get this one which makes my heart flutter for ten bucks. (if you want to hear her sing try this link for Duo des Fleurs from Lakme)
After churning through my scrap basket for busy prints for the Log Cabin challenge blocks, I realised that I still had a heap of plainer bright fabrics that had been there for quite some time. I am a typical quilter when it comes to scraps. I don’t throw anything bigger than my thumbnail away! So I end up with gazillions of scrappy, thready, frayed, crappy looking bits of rag stuffed in the basket.
Recently I had this idea for using them up. We need new cushion covers for the throw cushions on the sofa (who decided that silk was a good fabric for cushion covers? They only lasted six months before they got really ratty and nasty). So I combined the scraps with some really lovely Japanese fabric and made these.I just cut strips from the scraps and joined them end on end (I also cut some discarded blocks into strips and included them). It’s surprising jut how much fabric it used - I wasn’t expecting to make all that much of a dent in the pile. The one that looks gray is really a taupe colour.
And this is a large single bed quilt top.
Again, it’s more taupe than gray. It’s also got a small herringbone pattern to the weave. Because it was experimental and I needed five metres of fabric, I found this brushed cotton in a chuck-out bin for $3 a metre. I’ll never use brushed cotton for a quilt top again - every damn loose thread, fabric snipping and dust bunny from here to Africa is stuck to that quilt top!! At least it’s the same colour as a dust bunny anyway.
I must say, I’m pretty impressed with how these turned out. I’m not going to quilt the cushion covers, but the quilt will just have lines of quilting parallel to the pieced sections. Easy.
Thanks for all the supportive comments about my Terminally Ill car I still haven’t decided what to do. At this point we are just hoping it will last until September when Peter will be here and we will relinquish the second car. I think that these days having two cars is a true luxury and no longer necessary for our family. Maybe I can kid myself that it was My Idea all along because I’m doing My Bit for the planet.
My car is old. And somewhat crappy. It’s probably worth about $4000.00 on a good day. That doesn’t bother me. I don’t particularly value cars and as long as the thing starts when I want it to and doesn’t break down I’m happy.
BUT… (you knew that was coming)
Last week, new tires $600.00
This week, new idle bearings $370.00
Oh and the following quote from the repair dude:
Fix airconditioning system $1200.00 (non-urgent)
New cooling system $1100.00 (URGENT!!! FIX NOW OR ENGINE MAY SEIZE!!!!!)
I think I’m going to get a bus timetable tomorrow.
I thought when I left Blogger behind that that would be the end of my Issues with it. Not a bloody chance. It’s still causing me grief!! Am I the only person out there who has problems signing in to google/blogger? EVERYTIME I try to sign in it refuses my password and/or tells me that my email address doesn’t exist. When I try to get a “reset password” email it sends the email (to my non-existent email address!!) with a link to reset the password. The link takes me to the reset page which sends me and email with a link which sends me to the reset page which sends me an email with a link which sends me to the reset page which…makes me scream and swear and curse and yell, “THIS is why I hate you, blogger/google!! THIS is why I abandoned you!”
So why, you ask, am I still trying to sign in? Because some of my favourite bloggers use Bloody Blogger and have their comment options set so that I can only comment if I am signed in to that WHACKED BLOODY SYSTEM.
If you are one of those bloggers, know that I try. Most days I try to leave a comment on one of these blogs. Most days I scream and yell. I am about to give up. But know that I DO love you and if you had your “anonymous comments allowed” option selected I would be able to tell you in person.
I’ve never been a big fan of the taste of pears -too sweet and not sharp enough for me - but they are very beautiful.
You have to look at this blog. I just wasted about half an hour trying not to pee myself laughing and being grateful that a) I never went flatting and b) I don’t work in one of those big, sucky offices anymore.
Having recently written a note to all of my neighbours about garbage disposal (the maggots in the bins finally got to me), it felt so close to home! It’s always such a comfort to know that one is not alone and there are other petty passive-aggressives out there. The only note I’ve ever actually left was on the window of a car that had parked about 5 mm behind me (that ISN’T an exaggeration) so that the only reason I could get out of the park was that I have Super Driver of Doom Skillz. The note said “Next time try getting CLOSER”. I’m so witty.
This is my favourite - it’s the ” That’s an excellent start” line that gets me.
All you kiwis out there are going to be ashamed of me. I’M ashamed of me. I have become a wuss. This morning at 8:15 a.m., in fact.
I stepped outside to take my daughter to school and immediately said, “Brrrr! It’s cold!!”
I had goosebumps and wanted a jumper.
It is 17 Degrees Celsius.
I think I have acclimatised to a tropical climate.
Sometimes I try to be a Woman of Few Words (as if that will ever be possible) and end up just confusing people.
In answer to the questions about the 365 quilt - no, it won’t be huge. The little blocks are only 3″ square and I’m making the quilt 20×20 blocks, so before I put the borders on it will only be 60″ square. The extra 35 squares (20 x 20 = 400 - 365 days = 35!!) will be little pieced blocks, or have something appliqued on them or just be a piece of some yummy fabric.
I’m writing on the fabric with a Micron pigma pen which you can buy at just about any quilt shop. There are other fabric-safe pens around, too.
While I’m housekeeping, FELICIA and MARGIE (hope they heard me), I have been trying to reply to both of you but my emails bounce every time!!
Leanne threw down the gauntlet a while ago - a journal quilt that records a year of life. After I’d made a group of blocks I wasn’t sure that I wanted to keep going. But now that there are a couple of rows done, I’m starting to find it more and more appealing aesthetically.
Never have been known for my stickability. I wonder if I’ll get to 365?
Breakfast Sunday is a flickr group that Shula started. I think I have the worst breakfasts in the group. Curse you, healthy people!! And pass the whipped cream…
I have officially been a T.I.T. for long enough!! (that’s “Tyrant-in-Training”) Today I am Guest Despot on Soozadoo. All visitors will not only be up to date with the new rules (and therefore avoid the Accidental Gaffe) but will also be declared Friends of Kirstadoo and Pretty.
