By sion, on November 24th, 2009%
even in the appalling heat of late … I just don’t seem tohave a lot to show for it! Some gifts, so you won’t be seeing those for a while, some random stuff, some xmas stuff, and other than that it’s been experiments (some failed, many worked – so far – but are stage 1 of 3 or something) and doing some mini postcard workshops and the quilters newsletters and working on the website and so on. I made some gorgeous silk fusion and not-silk fusion (hemp, paperbark, pima cotton, soy silk, wool, etc) to be used for some small works, but I don’t have pics of any of it yet (not sure there’s much point … silk fusion doesn’t look nearly as awesome in pics as it does in real life, and you’ve all seen it before). I’ve done quite a bit of hand stitching – nothing spectacular, but certainly enjoyable.
I was totally head down bum up getting work finished for the upcoming exhibition, until Judypaint rang me to say “um, er, um, I’m an idiot, I booked the gallery for NEXT year not this” … I was so very glad I hadn’t gone ahead and ordered the roll of batting and other stuff I’d procrastinated on that day! lol So now I get a whole year to finish what I started and also do some work that I had wanted to include but knew wouldn’t get done by deadline. Yesterday I dyed two of at least 4 pieces of fabric for a series that’s been percolating for quite a while and finally got sketched and annotated recently; am hanging out to get started on those. I also got stuck into the official website, which is painful given that I’ve forgotten more than I remember about php and so on … then I had to stop that to concentrate on the newsletter and dyeing orders and a workshop, so I didn’t get very far on my modifications :p Have I mentioned before how bad I am at juggling? Bad. I am not the kind of woman people point to as proof of that theory about women and multitasking. I am a bury-myself-in-it girl, which is not at all possible with kids and dogs and phones and so on, and the older I get the less able I am to get back on track. I’ve been thinking about talking to the doc about my meds, see if there’s any chance trying something different might de-fog my brain. I did used to be sort of smart and even quick-witted at times, believe it or not!
Here are a few glimpses of the WIP in the workroom …
By sion, on October 16th, 2009%
 I got sick, got a puppy, changed meds brand, and somewhere amongst all that got some of my old energy back. Everything still hurts, but at least I don’t want to sleep all day. Not sure the energy is related to any of the above happenings, but I figured I should take advantage of it while I could and got stuck in. I was going to maintain radio silence as part of my efforts to keep the momentum up, but I’m feeling a bit lonely so here are some sneak peeks at what I’ve been up to. Sorting through lots of fabric, picking out pieces I lovelovelove, letting it talk to me, sewing, changing direction, going with the flow, experimenting, saying “what the hell, why not?”, thinking/daydreaming/remembering in that mindful meditation way that makes art exhilarating and sometimes therapeutic, handstitching in front of the teev, sketching and writing notes to myself, going nuts looking for the needles/thread/fabric I just HAD a moment ago dammit …
 
 I also did the newsletter and had a houseguest and hosted a few of our allegedly-elite sewing days and have been doing show committee stuff and guild stuff (actually chaired my very first meeting the other day, which is pretty freaking amazing for someone who normally loses her voice – for real – if forced to do anything like public speaking). And of course I’ve also been yelling a lot at the insanely wilful squealy child and the cluelessly eager chewy-bitey puppy, because this is me we’re talking about after all. If any of my neighbours have stumbled upon this blog, I sincerely apologise for the screechy girlchild, barky pup and bellowy mum. She really is the most delightful child in some ways, but OMG so headstrong and so screamy. I’m pretty much over the school holidays, I tellyouwhat lol
FTR, the above are all roughly FQ-sized, and the below are F16ths (from the same FQ, actually, so you can see how hopeless my camera is colourwise!)
  
By sion, on September 11th, 2009%
I feel like that guy on the xkcd comic, the most boring [edit - least interesting, sorry] guy you’ll ever meet:
… okay, so I’ve got more than four posts, but I feel a bit like all I do is apologise for not posting more, lately (and now I have a complex about how boring I am; THANKS SO MUCH XKCD!)
 Anyway … erm. Have been a little busy. Sewing, shows and show prep, trying to get two new patterns ready for sale (finished <– this one tonight. It needs blocking, can you tell? lol), so on & so forth. Oh, that’s right, and messing around with the club newsletter, and dyeing SO very much fabric (and good golly miss molly is some of it to die for. I like it when my own fabric makes my mouth water! *G*) and trying very hard not to freak right the hell out about having agreed to participate in a month-long exhibition with 3 other textile artists. There, cat’s out of the bag, now I HAVE to do it! lol
Off to bed. Doing a mini workshop/demo thing tomorrow, sat & sun at the Coffs quilt exhibition (at the racecourse, near the airport, if you’re in the vicinity) … don’t ask me how I ended up being first every day; Wendy Martin doesn’t know me very well hey ;) Bleh I’m nervous.
By sion, on August 7th, 2009%
 Heads up!
I got home from dropping the kidlet at school this morning to find a parcel on my doorstep. “Who’s that from?” I thought. “I’ve only ordered dye lately, and surely that won’t be here yet”. Nothing on the sender details. I tore it open to find a large, flat red box with Australia Post blazoned on it here & there. “Ooh”, thinks I; “I’ve won something for filling in those surveys they send out!”. Opened it up, and realised that no, it’s from Click and Send.
If you live in oz and send parcels overseas (ebay sellers etc, I’m looking at you), go sign up. I joined last week – I’m not sure I’ll end up using it (the price it came up with for sending some patterns to Florida was nearly double what I was quoted at the actual PO, no idea why), BUT! I scored a free set of electronic scales (the hanging sort) for signing up, along with a mousepad and some invoice pockets and the usual literature. Totally unexpected. No guarantee everybody who signs up will get a package of goodies, but it’s worth a shot! I figure the scales will be handy for weighing bags too (20kg weight limit), should I ever have opportunity to set foot on a plane again …
By sion, on June 26th, 2009%
I’ve been busy and nonbloggy lately at least partly because this morning’s grand events were looming on the horizon – I’m a gramma!
Carter James was born 11:19am on June 26 weighing 3125 gram (6 pound 14 ounces) at 52cm (20.5″) long. He has very dark hair with a shock of surfie blonde top left side of his head (it’s so cute, can’t wait to see if it stays). He’s even more placid and unflappable than Boofhead was, took being passed around to everybody with perfect equanimity and surprising alertness – I’ve never seen a baby who focuses on faces & follows movement & voices at a couple of hours old. He’s just beautiful.
Carter:
proud daddy boofhead:
auntie pook, gramma me and daddyboof:
eeeeeee. Seriously, eeee, right? EEEEEE:
check the blonde streak!
By sion, on May 22nd, 2009%
 I rather fell off the blogging wagon there, didn’t I? Seems to have been one thing after another for nearly two months now, and I sit down in front of the computer with about enough brainpower to play a mindless facebook game or two. Birthdays, visits, two shows, I woke up one morning to my laptop giving a very good impersonation of an expensive doorstop and while it’s come good I expect it to be cactus any day now, my usual panicky rush re deadlineblah blah blah, and then to top it all off mumble suddenly started giving a distressingly convincing impersonation of a cat dying of old age and I had to butch up & take her to the vet. I buried her next to Black Cat over at mum & dad’s place. She was super old and was definitely OLD for the last couple of months so it wasn’t unexpected, but it’s definitely a bit sad and it’s very weird having no critters at all. Anywhere. Aaron & Stacey took birdiegirl back, and even Boris is off with Ross & Lisa, so there’s not even a stupid nephewdog to pat. It feels wrong – I can’t think of the last time I didn’t own a pet, even if my accommodations meant it was temporarily housed elsewhere.The idea of getting another critter so soon after mumble’s departure also feels wrong though, so I guess I’m putting up with wrong for a while.
Anyway, so, bah. Miss E is sick, and we’re having weather of biblical proportions AGAIN, and my house looks like a special kind of bomb – maybe the opposite of those smart bombs that only take out people? – hit it, so I’ve been cheering myself up a little with some lairy fishes. No idea what I’m going to do with them – the main idea was to showcase our fabric for shows – but there’ll probably be patterns/kits for sale once I figure it out. I’m not sure whether it’s ok to post a pic of the challenge entry, so I won’t for now.
By sion, on April 9th, 2009%
Sorry I’m being boring and/or absent lately. I’ve been spending heaps of time at kindy, absolutely fascinated by all those little minds fairly VACUUMING up all the knowledge you can throw at them. Bugger the sponge analogy; these kids are veritable Dysons! Really awesome to watch; seems to be the intellectual equivalent of a the physical development fast track babies are on. I guess there have been a few stages like that, but you don’t usually get to see a whole bunch of them doing it at once and inspiring each other to new heights. Unless you’re a teacher, I guess. Which I’m not interested in being, since I’m absolutely knackered by lunchtime and besides I have a really hard time not saying shit (or worse) in front of the whole class and then there’s all those weird snippy notes the more peculiar parents send in …
anyhow, lest you think there’s no textiley sort of stuff at all going on, I would like to enter these into evidence:
 
These being 1) some very inexpert hand quilting/embroidery I’m doing on a piece of fabric whose colour hasn’t got the zing its pattern does, which E has dibsed for a cushion cover, and 2) some felt in need of fulling, made at the end of a demo by Dianne at the guild last Tuesday. Tres fun. Tres hard work, the fulling part; works a set of muscles in my forearms that I obviously don’t use for anything else. Not sure I’ll do very much of it (apart from anything else, wool makes me crazy itchy), but if it’s fun to stitch on I could be tempted.
Right now it’s just going to sit there waiting for Easter, two birthdays, 3 separate sets of houseguests and one 6 yr old’s birthday party to be over.
By sion, on March 22nd, 2009%
Glenny is having a 600th-post giveaway and she wants more entries, so please go visit and leave a comment on this post or this one. The bags look pretty groovy to me!
Ol’ Warty (I do wish you’d give yourself a nick that resonated more with your personality, girl!) has dinged me with this:
The rules are as follow:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received your award.
I’m kind of going to cheat by saying that she’s on my list, and by also totally not caring whether somebody has already been gonged before. I’m also going to say that I don’t expect the people I ding to follow the above rules, since they’re all busy doing awesome things. So, I’m going to put down the immediately-springs-to-mind names for now (these are also, probably not coincidentally, people whose work I would – in some cases do, even if only by way of an exhibition postcard – totally hang/display/wear) … there are actually more who deserve a gong, but I need to get off my bum & move some furniture.
- Warty Mammal because she makes me laugh and her work is inspiring and because if she lived within cooee we could totally hang in the studio pretending not to hear our nutso kids jump on each other’s heads.
- Kathy Nida, because she makes me laugh and because she works so hard and because I envy her talent and because I wish she lived near enough to have a coffee & a bitch with on a regular basis.
- June because she’s lovely and steady and brave enough to move in an entirely new direction, and even though I’d have loved her to keep making crows and dragons quilts until I could afford to buy one *G*
- Susan Lenz because her grave rubbings are beautiful and the Cyber Fyber postcard exhibition was inspired and CF#2 could be even more exciting.
- Melody Johnson because she’s generous with her techniques and she’s such a great colourist her work literally makes my mouth water and because she contributed to my getting the hell over myself re fusibles.
- I was predisposed to like joanie san chirico because of the name (de chirico being one of my favourite artists and one whose symbols I’ve played with a fair bit), but it turns out her work is just luminous (man, I would kill for that triptych she did a year or so ago), so she gets a gong for that. And because she is apparently awesome at promoting herself and scoring commissions, probably because for starters she spends far more time working than yabbering about stuff, which I really should emulate.
- Ruth de Vos, whose work I’ve only recently discovered. I’m just awed by all that piecing and the beautiful transparency effects she accomplishes.
- Susan M Hinckley‘s blog is terrific and her work ain’t half bad either. Another overachiever.
- PamDora because, well, you all know exactly how groovy her stuff is. Another one who mostly just does the work. I sense a theme developing here …
- Jane Davila because not only does she make gorgeous art, she builds her own studio furniture and stuff, and while I’m a DIYer I’m more of a DIY-bodger than a DIY-legend. My grandma could make furniture, and my dad can, but until they figure out a kind of wood that lets you fudge like fabric does, I can’t.
Grandma was a real doer. Bit of all sorts of very cool stuff; carpentry, lapidary, rockhunting, travelling, stone carving, embroidery (OMG the embroidery), sewing, etc & so on. I keep saying I need to do less yabbering & thinking and just MAKE more work – ie do more making, as against make more (house)work that I will then whine about & avoid, which appears to be the chief skill both my daughter and I possess – so i won’t say it again.
I’ll just think it. And envy those people to whom the just-do-it seems to come naturally, or who at least figured out how to make a habit of it.
oh, sod it, one more. Just because she is the funniest blogger I’ve ever read, and rude in the exactly proper way to make me absolutely roar, and I can’t really share her most hilarious posts with anyone I know in real life because they’re all a bit too old to have peed themselves listening to Derek & Clive. She probably thinks these award things are totally dicky but tough titties: I give you Antonia.
By sion, on March 9th, 2009%
I always forget how much I love the dyeing when I haven’t done any for a while. Absolute heaven, if you discount the stupid mozzies and sweltering and occasional bastard bloody march fly. Yesterday I rediscovered, with the help of a very peculiar yellow that Batik Oetoro sent us by mistake last year, an absolutely stunning range of rich, warm browns. Toffee, butterscotch, burnt sienna, burnt umber, rust, mahogany; those sort of colours. So yum, especially with hints of greens and golds and magenta/violet. I was just going ooh brown, brown, brown, let’s have some more brown! I didn’t get any pics of those or the bits I experimented on using paintbrushes, but I thought I’d share a couple I took while I was still clean enough to handle electronics. They’re cropped to detail level because despite being overcast good grief it was a BRIGHT day and the camera just could not cope with the shadows & lights, not even with the flash on. I toyed with the idea of taking a supplemental pic of the really groovy fake varicose veins I somehow gave myself, but decided to spare you the sight of my ungroomed extremities. Since they didn’t get dry enough to bring home with me, Mum finished up the washing & ironing (how unusual … not) and I gather now I might have to fight her for my favourite piece. I obviously need to make more so we can bear to part with some (Judy said today “you know you are supposed to actually sell it, right?” heh).
in other news, how lucky am I? I’ve been geeking out a bit lately trying to set up Ken’s new computer and wipe the laptop so he can pass it on to the next NSAA secretary, and they bought me Jane Davila & Elin Waterston’s Art Quilts At Play. So stoked. I rarely buy books, but I had decided I was going to get that particular one, so how cool is that?
(PS Matt, I emailed you, so if it disappears into the spamfilter abyss let me know)
By sion, on March 7th, 2009%
 How do grandparents avoid going completely bankrupt? Every time I go to the shops there’s something else so damn adorable I find myself squeeing. Actual out loud squeaking “oh my god how cute it that!” and I’m not actually a squealy kind of person. Sorta the opposite of a squealy kind of person actually. It’s lucky they’re not expecting a girl, or I’d be in even more trouble. It’s also lucky I’ve completely forgotten how big babies’ feet are and stuff, or I wouldn’t have been able to resist the little camo baby tennies or checkerboard pseudo-vans. So much deadly cute stuff now that wasn’t available in oz even 5 years ago. So far I’ve resisted the fake fur vests and stuff because I realise that my particular weird for fur is not everybody’s, but I REALLY had to struggle not to buy the teeny tiny little lumberjacket because OMG. Teeny little lumberjackets, and teeny little flannies. I actually went “eeee!” And then kind of hid around the corner from the deadly cute in case anyone heard me, how embarrassment (BTW, I can actually speak the Queen’s properly, we just play sillybuggers with words in my family. I ain’t that particular kind of stoopit, sorry if it irritates anyone). Anyway, so I resisted mightily and just grabbed a few cuties that were on sale –> I don’t know why I have a thing about camo, but I do. Also about overalls, and stripes. How cute are those overalls going to be over the striped T?
since I haven’t done anything exciting, I’ll leave you with a couple of examples of my daughter’s drawings on this week’s homework. I love the glimpses into her noggin … salad and (making a nutella) sandwich for S are a long way from easy subjects, and the candle-blowing profile blew me away. Seems like only yesterday she was still drawing stick-figures with lollipop heads, you know?
 
By sion, on March 4th, 2009%
I’ve been struggling this week with the whatever-it-is that wipes me out semi-regularly, so not a great deal accomplished. I’ve had a headache for over a week now, really giving me the pip. I think it’s my old friend the sinus boogeyman, and given the occasional stabbing possibly his friend the inner ear greeblie, and I’m waiting to see if it resolves on its own. I’m pretty over that feeling of having been punched in the eye from inside, I tellya. Anyway, so this week’s kind of been a bust so far … Monday I spent at Judy’s fiddling with computers and eating barbecued roast, yesterday was quilters and I actually made it along (I get a bit hesitant about going if I’ve got a cold or anything, given the number of antique attendees – I’d hate to be responsible for killing off our old dears!). The gang from Quilters World was there doing a talk & selling some stuff, which turned out to be as entertaining as it was expensive. Pauline & Sue both bought some of our fabric – Mum was uncharacteristically disorganised and in a dither about it, so I hope they were impressed enough by what they bought to overlook the lapse in professionalism *G* – and then we spent a bit more than we made on an assortment of products (12″ nonslip ruler, 1/4″ seam ruler, gloves, ceramic marker, glue, special paper, a new teflon mat, and I can’t remember what else). Pauline did say she’d know where to send people now for beautiful hand-dyes, so let’s hope, hey!
Mother got her convergence top done, so you can have a photo of that:
 Scuse wonkiness; it’s in the camera, not the quilt top. She’s not sure what she’s going to do sashing/border-wise yet, but I think it’s going to look awesome. She’s making noises like she’s going to quilt it herself, too – usually she tells me I have to quilt things when she’s finished, but she bought those fawncy quilting gloves and mumbled something about Judy telling her she has to do some quilting …
By sion, on February 28th, 2009%
 we had our second gathering at my place today, and it went swimmingly. Rosemary got most of a top done, which boggled my tiny mind – I think it was for the bushfire drives. Wendy got a big pile of gorgeous fan blocks organised (with Miss E’s opinionated help) and stitched together, and I roughed an alternate gingko leaf for her to sashiko into the corners. Laurel spent most of the day sewing away on one of the many quilts she’s wading into, Judy was doing something I missed down in the corner (as well as a bit of teaching/helping, which nobody was surprised by heh), Trish spent most of the morning discussing & planning a new project, Margaret sewed umpty bazillion fleece squares together for yet another camp quality quilt, and Mum got a convergence top more than halfway done. Plus we had fun! I only took a few pics unfortunately, when ma had reached a cool point in her top, but I’ll try to do better next time.
 
  In amongst putzing around on the computer (showing people interesting quilts etc, looking for a wholesale source for vliesofix, looking at Vic Textiles’ batting options, finding an open gingko leaf pic, blah blah etc) and dealing with her highness (who was actually being pretty charming and wonderful, which was great given what a total monster she’s been all week) I was working on the giraffe.
By “working” I mostly mean agonising over fabric choices. This or that, wish this was bigger, wish that was stronger, not sure about the other, etc. In the end I went back to one of the fabrics I’d been drawn to from the word go and decided to just deal with the difficulties of using a fat quarter when what you need is a 30cm full-width strip. I’m pretty damn happy at how it’s looking so far, so I’m glad I decided to just bite the bullet and cut into this long-hoarded piece of holy fabric.
Then tonight sis gave me a turtle necklace she brought home from Costa Rica, which made me want to do the turtle tonight. Luckily I’d brought the cartoon and an assortment of fabrics over with me, so I did:
Yes, I know what it looks like the fabric tortoise and the sketch are doing. No, it wasn’t intentional.
My apologies if any of the above is gobbledegook; I am asleep in my chair. A sane person would wait til tomorrow to post, but I’m living dangerously, doods …
By sion, on February 25th, 2009%
This is the kind of week I’m having.
Item 1:
I scanned the drawing of the giraffe so I could scale it up on the computer & print it out. The printer was fine the other day when I scaled the zebras down a little, but the desktop’s really on its last legs so I didn’t really want to start it up unnecessarily. Sigh.
Fine. I took the laptop in there, plugged it in directly … and, it didn’t work. Drivers are there, it can see the printer, just won’t print.
Fine. I searched for, found, downloaded and installed new drivers and tried again … and it didn’t work.
FINE. I plugged it into a different USB port … and it didn’t work.
Sodding … [deep breaths] … okay. I turned the printer off for 30 seconds, checked all the cords, back on again, reinstalled, and tried again … and it didn’t work.
ALLRIGHTY THEN.
I opened the image on the old desktop, plugged the printer back in, and tried to print from there … and windows explorer shagged itself.
Um … kay, let’s try that again. Oh look, it did it again!
You might be surprised at how stubbornly I can test the hypothesis that there’s something in particular about sending THIS document to THAT printer that makes THAT computer barf so politely and consistently. It did it again and again and again, after cable changes and reboots and deleting files in case it’s a memory issue … it didn’t work.
O. Kay. Back to the laptop. Let’s see if I can print over the network since I know the desktop was happily talking to the printer TWO DAYS AGO DAMMIT … and Corel barfed.
Okay, what the hell? Try again … haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang.
Do a whole bunch of backups and deletions that the poor lappy really needs, try again … and it doesn’t work; Corel sits there flapping away desperately until I kill it.
SIGH.
FINE. The universe obviously just wants me to set up the schminky “new” computer with the enormous monitor NOW, even though I kinda wanted to wait until I had the computer room/el’s room swapped over. So. I hook it all up in a corner of the alleged shop room, make sure it’s all working. Go to the laptop and download the latest versions of Avast, Comodo, Firefox & Thunderbird. Burn to DVD along with a bunch of other utils & useful files. Install Avast & Comodo, figure out there’s no wireless card in the box, steal the dongle from the old desktop & install. Hold breath … it works. Download windows critical updates. Download noncritical but important updates. Do virus scan. Try not to lose temper with Comodo’s pestering. Plug in printer, install printer driver, do test print … and it doesn’t work.
Okay no way is this going to beat me now. What. The. Hell. is going on? I check all the cables again. Power cable isn’t properly seated; maybe that was causing dodgy behaviour? Try to print test page again … and it doesn’t work.
Plug in to laptop again, try to print test page … it doesn’t work.
UNINSTALL stupid freaking printer (from desktop), except that it won’t do that either.
Stomp off in search of the original install disk, because maybe this new driver is a piece o’ crap. Wonder of wonders, actually find it. Install it, let it overwrite the newer driver, try to print test page … and it doesn’t work.
Pore through user manual looking for hints on a self-test or test page that can be run from the console. No luck. Search online. No luck.
Realise at about this point that the USB lead I’ve been changing from port to port (in my defence, only on the desktop) is actually the one attached to the dongle, not the printer. Explains why the internet connection has been a bit dodgy. Hrm.
Plug CORRECT USB cable into different port on the desktop box. Ignore instructions from manual and let windows install detected printer after I’ve run the Kyocera setup disc … and bugger me if a test page didn’t print.
I printed another one to make sure. I whooped. I did, for serious, go WOOHOO! With a little bit of “oh yeah, ahuh, oh yeah” chairdancing thrown in.
Then I printed the sodding giraffe before it could change its bloody mind.
Item 2:
I managed to forget all about this until I was talking to my sister a little while ago. The girl & I went to the supermarket this afternoon, and scored the best parking spot in the place, underneath next to the steps. When we got back downstairs an hour or so later, I kinda wigged … what the hell is my car doing in the middle of the road/lane (whatever you call it in a parking lot)? Shit, did someone try to steal it? Shit, did they break a window? Shit, are they still in it? Did someone crash into it? WTF, WTF, WTF OMG!
Um, it’s still locked. It kind of looks like it rolled out … did someone push it? Nobody was around, nobody was inside … what the hell?? No visible damage … is this Candid Camera?
I unlocked the door & looked inside, and not only had I somehow forgotten to put the handbrake on, I hadn’t even put it in park. So it HAD rolled, all by itself, out to the middle of the main lane, pretty effectively blocking (or at least complicating) access to half of the lot & exit from the other half. Luckily it was late and the lot was nearly empty, but I was surprised that nobody had done anything about it.
I put the handbrake on and got El settled, and while I was loading groceries it slowly dawned on me that all the announcements I’d heard in the supermarket for Fiona from the bread car reg #blahblah and Fiona from the Bedford reg #blah blah please come to the service desk were actually for me.
Me, the owner of a red Ford reg #blah blah.
By sion, on February 22nd, 2009%
One zebra ready to go on his block, not sure which end yet. We’ll see once the other one is finished.
 
Apropos of nothing, when we were messing around with the camera the other day, I finally got a shot of my daughter’s eyes that comes close to showing their true colours. They’re a deep steely blue, darker toward the outside, but there’s a green-gold ring around the pupil that quite often pushes them toward green, and it’s an incredibly hard colour to capture.
okay, time for the zzzz part of the evening.
By sion, on February 22nd, 2009%
I’ve got the theme song from Kimba stuck in my head. You needed to know that, right? Right.
I had a bit of a splurge yesterday on the Expected Grandson, because two shops that I went into had sales, and well, it’s almost obligatory then, isn’t it? Got these:
 
and an FP bath I’m not at all sure they’ll like. It’s got a support sling for newborns which I thought looked very useful for two people who have sod all experience with babies, given that even the fairly experienced worry about dropping the slippery wriggly buggers sometimes, but it is most emphatically not earthy-toned. We’ll see. Anyway, I was trying ever so hard to go for the neutrals and beiges she expressed a preference for, but I ask you, who could resist those zebra & giraffe suits? Or that deliciously – you have no idea how deliciously, I think I want one myself – soft zebra blanket, or those funky toys? I got a range of sizes, and hopefully I’ll get a few pics to share when the time comes.
still working on the quilt, but there’s not a lot to show for it when you’re tracing off bits for applique. Just lots of bits of baking paper, since I’m using gossamer fuse instead of vliesofix. I did get started putting some zebras together, tonight:
I decided to use a piece of very pale white-beige hand-dye for them because I think white would be way too stark. And because I like being able to get some shadows & lights from the fabric itself. After cutting a few strips of black to make stripes with and imagining how irritatingly frayish they’d be when I start sewing, I also decided that I’d be far better off drawing the stripes. So that’s what I’m doing, with my trusty Fabrico pens. I got about this far when I had to give up & admit that I really don’t remember how zebra stripes go:
and, since I get really irritated when things are glaringly wrong, I came to google zebras. In case you need to know, it turns out their stripes go like this:
So now I’ll do some more before I go to bed.
By sion, on February 14th, 2009%
 yay, done. Pity it doesn’t look markedly better in the pic than the “semi-before” pics (it does in the flesh!). Oh well. I was thinking at some stage I might have to paint or cover those black tables, and I might do something about the poor old kitchen cutting table while I’m at it. First though I need to get the design wall stuff up. But not now. Right now I’m going to bed, and I refuse to care that the rest of the house is a bomb site …
ETA … that blue is unbelievably obnoxious in photos. Not nearly as overpowering in person, but even so, I wonder if the landlord will let me paint it all white? White would be good.
By sion, on February 13th, 2009%
Why no, I’m not avoiding more sorting/moving/tidying/tossing in the workroom by editing & posting pics of same, not at all …
I didn’t get any “before” shots, because … well, many reasons. Basically I kind of forgot until I’d already started moving things around, so instead of “before” shots I’ll show you the “OMG is this job ever going to end?” shots from the day before yesterday – ie, sort of in the middle (and about when I HOPED I’d actually be finished!). Boxes and piles everywhere, SO much stuff that used to be jammed in behind & under those annoying hairdresser sinks, plus umpteen of the green grocery bags that inevitably end up being used to transport non-grocery items full to the brim with various projects or categories of stuff or whatever. In order, one end, t’other end, and my worktable:
  
Dreadful, isn’t it? I’m ashamed to say my worktable is quite often in a similar state, ditto the cutting table (I’m also a messy cook; my mother said at xmas “no wonder you hate cleaning up, I’ve never SEEN anyone make such a mess cooking a cake”), so it’s obviously just how I’m wired. I like nesting. Surrounding myself with piles of Stuff makes me happy – which is fine, until you either can’t find anything you need or until you need to share your space with someone else who needs a few square inches to put their own Stuff. Anyway, so a lot of the mess in these pics is because I’ve finally been sorting out umpteen boxes and containers and bags that have only been rifled through desperately in search of something since I moved what, 4 or 5 months ago? Can’t rush these things … all my threads are now organised properly, laces & ribbons & zips & cords & so on have their own homes, I have two drawers of assorted sewing-related stuff that didn’t warrant separate categories, one of paper/fabric embellishment thingies, and stamps etc in the bottom drawer. There are two 100L containers of fancy fabrics, one of kid quilty fabrics, and one of yarns. There are ~55L containers of kid dress fabrics, bagmaking fabric & accessories & patterns, dollmaking stuff, xmas fabrics, furnishing fabrics, hand-dye scraps, and one that has all sorts in that I won’t sort through until next week sometime. There are two boxes of silk stuff & other embellisher goodies, and for the first time ever I have a single box dedicated to hand embroidery thread.
In amongst all that mess are not only most of those containers but several drawers (mostly emptied now) that need to go downstairs into the desk they belong in, at least two boxes of rubbish, and two boxes of stuff that belongs elsewhere in the house (your guess is as good as mine re why there were computer cords, kiddie card games, a plastic frog, a couple of xmas ornaments, a no-longer-missing cordless phone, assorted batteries of questionable use, a pinecone and a floating candle in amongst my sewing gear). I moved the big cutting table down to the end with the stupid sinks, and it proved my “duh” moment about it being a much better use of space right. I stuck the bookcase on top to store the irons and interfacing and small pieces of batting and drawing/painting supplies etc. Magazines on top, pins and cutters and so on in the drawers, a couple of large containers underneath but far enough back that there’s plenty of footroom if we need the table for sewers.
 I moved my sewing table down under the side window (which gives me a much nicer view), put a single-person table next to it (currently home to the embellisher), and put another of the long tables along the side wall – at least 6 people can fit along there now. Moved the aircon up next to the staircase wall. Put several of the containers in the corner behind the sinks, so I can get to the undersink shelves and the wall shelves – I’m hoping to build a top for the sinks that will work as an ironing surface, so I’m not crowding out that space any more. Mum’s boxes o crap are in the other corner down there – and if she ends up taking them home the boxes under my desk can go down there :) My other fabric is still in the front room, but it will be coming out here under the dining room window or against the staircase wall.
Meanwhile, I’ve got people coming tomorrow and the other end still looks like this:
… so that’d better enough slacking off for today :)
By sion, on February 12th, 2009%
guess what arrived today?
it’s gorgeous and comfy and makes me feel pretty (and hey, pretending is good for the soul <G&rt;) … thanks SO much, Vickie. I totally, totally love it.
By sion, on January 31st, 2009%
I’m being very boring at the moment because I’ve been reorganising my workroom. And the front (“shop”) room along with it, as well as trying to put Missy’s room in some sort of order. Naturally, as soon as I got everything pulled out and crap spread all over the house (and I mean ALL over, because I’m trying to organise properly, which means emptying drawers & containers & sorting things by category before putting groups back into their allotted storage) so it’s as messy as it’s ever been, the hot water system shagged itself. It’s been a things shagging themselves kind of month, really – first my laptop power supply (and hey, dealsdirect, where the hell is my replacement?? Move it already!), then this poor old dinosaur of a computer, now the stupid hot water system. So I had to stop organising at least long enough to clear a path through the chaos, because the plumber (when he shows up!) will probably need to go through from the inside at least the first time (after that he can come & go through the side gate & back door.
Picking now, in the middle of a fairly brutal heatwave, probably wasn’t the most sensible time to be moving furniture etc by myself, but I keep getting caught when I put things off until such-and-such condition is met. Of course this time I got caught anyway, but tough titties – anybody who willingly wades through fresh sewage all day is not going to be fazed by piles of perfectly clean fabric & little piles of Stuff (aka Crap, Junk, Why On Earth Are You Keeping This and WTF Did You Pick That Up For?). Dudes, between tentative forays into scrapbooking/altered-book-making etc and arty journal quilty thangs, I finally feel VINDICATED in having collected all that fine Stuff.
Anyway, so I’ve got my fabric stashes all sorted out again – *mumble* tubs of commercial quilting cottons sorted by category (leaves, flowers, textures, patterns, backgrounds, fruit & veg, animals, black & white, etc & so on), tubs of hand-dyes sorted by colour/type (yellows & oranges, greens, blues, purples, pinks & reds, multicolours, greys/browns/neutrals, superholyspecial mine-all-mine), two ginormous tubs of chiffons & velvets & so on, one ginormous tub full of fabrics for the girlchild (come to think of it, there’s another tub’s worth in the cupboard, might have to rethink that), a slightly smaller tub of xmas fabrics, a big tub of embellisher/postcard/weird-stuff materials, a big tub of upholstery fabrics (tapestry, wool, canvas, etc), a big tub of scraps & small pieces. I sorted out the 4-drawer wheeled storage thing that started out organised and had ended up like the world’s biggest Kitchen Junk Drawer, full of random crap that belongs elsewhere.
I might have taken photos of the insane chaos to share, if only so I could show off the “after”, but my camera’s batteries are flat. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.
By sion, on June 23rd, 2008%
 I’ve been trying to get the little thingies I’ve been working on finished so I could (for once!) stomp in with a big TADA and show a thingummywhatsit from conception to completion in one post, but it’s taking rather longer than expected to finish even one and I’m suffering blogblather withdrawal so buggrit. My slowness is obviously not solely a function of my incessant photo-op breaks (does that make it multi-cessant photo-opping?) with the consequent editing, uploading, and blathering. I’M JUST SLOW. In all honesty I fully expected to be displaying a pic of Laughably Horrible Failed Concept #1 by the end of the first making session, but it came together rather better than expected so I’m still plugging away at it. My scanner’s attached to the printer which is sitting at the folks’ place because Dad was fixing it, so I can’t even scan the sketches. So there it is –> a bit of stitching and shaping ago.
I’m about to go play with this embellishment maker gizmo that Mum picked up in Melbourne at the AQS, because it may be just what I need to make the fringey stuff I want for the VISP (Vessel In Slow Progress). I’m hoping it will be, because I don’t really fancy handstitching a metric buttload of yarn to the form only to find out I don’t like the colour or texture or whatever. I want to tread carefully here, because I do have a tendency to belabour a point. Subtlety not my strongest point, like, and sometimes when I go with the flow and follow the trail of inspiration it leads me up the garden path when I really wanted to go play in the forest. Or something like that. It’s very easy, basically, for me to end up with whatever subtlety I was toying with being totally overwhelmed by some hairy big bovver-boots-wearing punk symbology. I do love symbols, but they can be a bit like the bad boys you shouldn’t fall in love with, too easy to slip into one-dimensionality and vulgarity and crassness. IOW, I have a vessel, and I want to be putting fringey stuff on this vessel, and I do NOT want it to look like a big hairy conceptual twat. Because that’s not what it is.
What else have I been doing? Um. Today we got the girlchild’s immunisations up to date, which sucked about as much as expected. Stupid nurse thought I was exaggerating, but after the first one took her by surprise it did indeed take 3 of us to hold her somewhat still while the nurse put the second shot in. We adopted a dog, by proxy (she’s living with my folks for the time being) on Thursday. What else? Oh yeah: trialling different shopping cart systems. Ugh. I really hate trying to wade through other people’s coding & markup, and I’ve yet to find a cart that isn’t pretty horrible. I can’t believe I used to do webdev for fun. I don’t even enjoy the graphics side of it as much as I used to, and I’m resistant to spending the time that would be required to brush up on my scripting so I could customise something. I suspect I don’t have the brainpower any more anyway, to be honest. Just trying to figure out how to template VirtueMart on a Joomla install is giving me hives. Stingy as I am, I would actually pay for something customised, but finding someone trustworthy & knowledgeable to do it is as timeconsuming as DIY. Especially if you’re as cheap as you are fussy :D
I am a bit curious re the concept of open houses, largely due to being the daughter of a man who thinks having a garage sale is an invitation for every thief in creation to case the joint. Carloads of people drive around looking for garage sales so they know who to rob, doncha know. I think if I was a burglar I might be following the people who buy stuff at grudge sales home, because they’re obviously the ones with a) money and b) stuff, whereas the people who just had the garage sales are likely to be the ones who are either a) going bankrupt or b) moving c) dead or d) indulging in a spot of For God’s Sake Get Rid Of All That Junk In The Shed Or I’m Leaving. And let’s face it, if their shit’s worth having it got sold – why would you want to nick the crap nobody wanted even at 4 on Sunday when the guys with a uteful of rusty ironing boards, grasscatchers and used baling wire are taking the OK Look Final Offer You Can Have It For $10, But Only If You Also Take The Couch Uncle Fred Died On And The Three Broken TVs stuff? The really funny thing, from my pov, is that we’re the people sellers say that to. And by we I mean him & me; we’re as bad as each other. Poor old mum’s the one in the background with more hair in her hands than left on her head, trying not to cry. IOW, most of the stuff we need to get rid of is the stuff – the But It’s Perfectly Good stuff, as well as the What The Hell Did You Bring That Home For?? stuff – that some other bugger was desperate to get rid of a few months/years ago (now even rustier and more outdated and MORE Vintage!). Come to think of it, much of the stuff we would be keeping is from the same source (there are after all treasures among the trash heh). BUT ANYHOW. So me, I’m all about us paring down by having a few grudge sales to pass the Useless To Us crap on to some treasurehunting souls, so we can clean the place(s) up so Mum doesn’t go completely stark, but my dad’s all paranoid that the house will get done over. If he’s worried that it’ll get done over when the Driveby Burglar Scouts get all excited by his dead lawnmowers, old wardrobes and boxes of utter crap vintage bric-a-brac, I can’t see him thinking any kind of open house is a good idea. So I guess we’ll never get doing anything like Textile Goddess’s Open Day. Which kind of sucks, because wouldn’t it be cool if deciding to have an open day would magically make your house look like hers? I can’t even work up a good head of envy, it’s so perfectly lovely and so very obviously born of the same creativity that shines in her artwork.
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CHITCHAT