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 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 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 January 12th, 2008%
… I’d been meaning to do! How legend is my dad?
A while back I wandered into the Salvos, as is my wont, and they had this old sewing machine table for $4. No machine, of course. one of the ones you open the lid to form a work surface & then haul the machine (on a hinged dropdown) up & lock it into place. Quite an unglamorous bit of gear really, but I kept looking at it thinking it would be really useful for something if I could only trap that little thought buzzing around my head … a lightbox, I eventually decided.
Then the salvos had a sale, and it was down to $2. Well really, how could I not grab it just on the offchance? Even if I just slotted a piece of the perspex boards we use for fabric into the top & put a lamp underneath it would be great. Asked dad what he thought, and he got all enthusiastic …
 … and (eventually) I ended up with a MASSIVELY bright light table (32 watt circular fluoro inside) with a switch at the end that automatically turns it on when you open the lid & off when you close it (the auto-off being the important thing, since with the lid closed there’s no hint of light escaping). Like a fridge light in reverse. It’s awesome. Not the prettiest thing ever (I may do something about that if I get exercised) but awesome nonetheless – and total cost was under $50! Would have been even cheaper if dad had gone for the smaller light fitting, which would have been fine (seriously, this thing is like operating theatre lights).
By sion, on December 14th, 2007%
okay, here we go. This is about as tidy as it’s ever going to get, although I’ll probably do some “invisible” organising of drawer contents etc, and I definitely need to sort out that storage rack from hell. Only so I can find things though (like the big wad of silk hankies I’ve been looking for since about June).
< < Here's the plan, or at least one iteration thereof. I kept fiddling and changing things around, and deciding that no X didn't work in context of Y in the next room or whatever. Still, it gives an idea of the layout - the main portion here is the fairly poky loungeroom, and the narrow L-shape is the adjoining sunroom (the other half of which is my daughter's bedroom). There are double glass doors in the leg of the L, but since they're completely insecure I end up shoving something heavy into that alcove so the bad guys can't just huff & puff their way in to steal my goodies. On to photos.
 To your left as you enter the room is the cutting table. Partly behind the door when it’s open, but there’s actually enough room there to use as a spare sewing table if required (although I’d probably have to get rid of those empty boxes from underneath first heh). Don’t you just love the divine wallpaper? Bleargh. If I get sick enough of it I may end up blutacking some white paper up over it, but mostly I just tune it out. I’m good at tuning out things I can’t change :)
wow I’m really tired, I’ll have to finish tomorrow.
… okay, I’m awake now :) design wall is to the right of the table, behind me as I sit here at my desk. Covered in crap I was just getting back off the flat surfaces, at the moment; will be cleared up & put back to its intended use.
 rest of the design wall, work centre. The 2006 journal quilts that just came home are up on a large corkboard along with a few other things, smaller white/corkboard is ostensibly for reminders etc but at the mo just safeguards E’s preschool photos, white bookcase is both printer stand and my equiv of an in-tray, other little bookcase holds computer-related stuff (software, media, cables, packaging etc) and staplers etc. And hand-cream. There’s a 2-drawer filing cab under the desk with all the horrible accounting crap I avoid doing as long as possible. Room for both desktop & laptop on the desk, as well as several buckets of pens & brushes etc, a handful of remotes, an assortment of my favourite tchotchkes and an occasional cat.
 big worktable. Source books & sketchbooks etc up one end, small bookcase containing supplies (mostly for making clutch purses from old books), Janome 8000 can be set up on it if needed. Underneath at the back there are a few 50L containers; two full of leather & fur etc from the Shamanka days, one full of upholstery type fabrics, and a case full of papercraft paraphernalia. There’s also an underlocker and my old Pfaff under there somewhere. The big brownish square underneath to the right is the big lightbox, & there’s a trolleycase & a fishing tackle bag under there that I take to classes etc. Drafting board with pinnable surface attached is at the end of the table, & you can just see the edge of the storage rack from hell and beyond that the narrow pantry containing clothing & manchester fabrics and one window & corner of the sunroom.
 the boomerang tabletop, currently resting on the adjustable worktable that will go into the bright corner of the sunroom – its proper frame is outside waiting for Dad to see if he can get it working again; it’s supposed to be adjustable too, motor-driven. No problem if it can’t be got working, just potentially useful if it can. At worst the provision for wiring etc will permit much neater cabling than that tangle currently on the floor.
 6600P on top, along with a small ironing board & iron because I was messing around with xmas quilties. Fan & directional lighting in front. Small bookcase full of thread (I need a bigger one!). The elephanty hanging pocket thing needs to be hung a bit higher, so miss nibs can’t get her hands on the good scissors and my rotary cutters. There’s enough room under the table that the couple of bags & box of scraps etc are not in the way when I’m sewing.
Behind the sewing table is a tower bookcase (probably won’t be staying there, since if I take it away it leaves another path to the hall. All you can see of it in the shot to the right is the fabric length hanging from it), two pantry cupboards in an L formation (slight deviation from the plan) containing fabric etc. More fabric on top in containers. Next, under the window which looks into the very exciting carport, is a 4-bay low unit that contains quilts & partly quilted UFOs, beading supplies, and packaging supplies. On top of it is a set of plastic drawers containing embellishmenty stuff (ribbon & tape & cord, scrabble tiles, bits of metal & mirror, a pile of slide frames, keys galore, feathers & bones, broken jewellery, etc), a couple of rotating CD racks with software that needs to be pruned, a bag containing the alleged WIP (WISP?), and ebay listings in the box.
 okay here we’ve departed entirely from the plan; the two metal storage bays are instead against the side wall, and a very bodgy bookcase is blockading the double doors. Photo is labelled, so if you care about the crap I’ve hidden around the corner where I can’t see it, click to view bigger.
 Inside the main fabric cupboard, with all the hand-dyes & prints I use for the landscapey etc work. I take most of the contents of this cupboard with me to classes/workshops, which is a bit of a pain in the rear. Containers on top hold wadding etc scraps, homespuns etc, and gorgeous traditional girl fabrics I just couldn’t resist even though I’ll probably never get around to making the doona covers or summer quilts or whatever I dream of.
 2nd cupboard, containing most of the glues etc and a few paints (the bulk of the paints are stored outside), UFOs, and assorted useful junk.
 okay, so here’s the infamous storage rack. One of many things picked up for free when The Warehouse closed down (geez you gotta be quick! dumpster divers round these parts are bloody quick off the mark – this is not actually the one I sent Dad down to collect; it was already gone & they were just putting this one out & he nearly didn’t get it because it wasn’t exactly as I’d described). He collected a bunch of laminated particleboard for me too, from which we made all the extra shelves for the fabric cupboards.
Buried on this overloaded, horribly untidy monstrosity are several containers of fused fabric scraps, cartoons, rolls of vliesofix, rolls of freezer paper, angelina & flash etc, scraps of wadding & pellon & pelmet vilene cut into postcard-sized pieces, a whacking great pile of superthin vilene, boxes & ziplocks containing stuff like feathers, a buttload of threads, wool & cotton & silk roving (and hopefuly my silk hankies), leafing supplies, cardmaking stuff, bolts of fabric, handfuls of random fabric I’ve picked up off the floor and stuffed just anywhere so I could vacuum, bits of special fabric I was keeping separate for some reason, stamping paraphernalia, and god only knows what else. This rack probably epitomises my mind, sad to say.
So there you go, now you’ve seen where I spend about 80% of my time.
By sion, on May 20th, 2007%
 not sure why. I got a bit swamped with prep for the show (another crop of dyepainteds to the left) & then I was exhausted & then we did it again for the zone get-together, and meanwhile I was trying to figure out the class calendar, and both Small Person and I had awful tonsilitis, and generally blah! Between being crook and feeling like I was going to smother in the mountains of STUFF all over my house, I’ve been a bit down I guess. The show & zone gtg were great though; I met lots of lovely people including a few online listmates & got to see some great quilts. At the quilt exhibition I found out that Sandra won 1st prize at the Wauchope Show (not the quilt show, the show show) with the wallhanging she did in my classes; I was tickled pink. I’ve got several weekend workshops pencilled in, Robyn from Port asked if I’d consider teaching at her shop, quite a few people asked for info on the classes at Connie’s, and an embarrassing amount of sunshine was blown up my skirt (I was wearing one, and all. AND proper human shoes!).
 Also at Wauchope, I bumped into Lesley, who had Asha’s WIP in her bag & wanted more fabric. I do like the stitching detail she’s doing – I wasn’t sure where she was going when she first laid out those strips, but it looks great.
I feel much better today. Mum & Dad came over, which meant I had to tidy the kitchen & dining area properly, so for an hour or so there was actually one neat, uncrowded spot in the house. Then Dad helped me move El’s new cupboards into her room, which meant moving a lot of other crud around, so the table was cluttered up again for a bit (clear again now, yay. Man, I get so sick of every available surface being dotted with junk … but guess who the culprit is? Someone about my size … if I hate it so much, why do I bloody do it?? lol). Anyway, so her room actually looks cute now, and I can finish the bedroom/playroom transition finally. I also finally got some shelves into one of the workroom cupboards the other day, which meant I could put away some of the stuff that’s been spread all over the floor in boxes and bags. Tonight I went through two boxes and two HUGE bags of fabric+, and from it got two slightly less huge bags of clothing + sheets + fabric to give to the salvos, a large bag of fabric to offer Margaret for the kids’ charity quilts she makes, and a mediumish bag of stuff I actually rooly trooly want to keep because I will actually USE it. I feel quite proud of meself. I did the same in my wardrobe the other day, and got rid of two huge bags of clothes I just do not, cannot, will not wear. You can actually see the floor in my wardrobe, and the hanging rod is no longer in imminent danger of collapse. I can give stuff away and not feel guilty, woohoo! Yeah anyway. So you can see the floor in the workroom too, now, and I’ve cleared off several surfaces, and it’s getting there. It’s such a relief to finally make some visible headway in The Great Rearrange of 2007 – suddenly inspirations are pinging around all over again, after a month or so stuck in the doldrums.
By sion, on April 19th, 2007%
 not much useful done, but good nonetheless. My baby girl turned four this Saturday gone, so there were lots of preparations & presents & excitement. Her father stayed here from Easter through to the day after her birthday and was on his best behaviour, which is definitely a good thing. I turned the house upside down & inside out before Easter & unfortunately it’s still mostly in that condition, although at least her playroom (swapped around with her bedroom) is organised & I got the bottom half of the stupid forest mural thingy up. 100 acre woods – why can I never remember that name? Never was into Pooh.
 Anyway. Amongst the gifts E’s paternal grandma sent over were a few for me: some metallic flash, 2 bottles of liquid fuse (w0000000t!), a can of 606, a big bottle of liquid sculpey, two bleach pens and a quilt arts diary. The diary was supposed to be for christmas but she ended up not sending the package – it’s still great, I’m actually recording dates & events into it in the hope that fewer deadlines sneak up on me and shout “BOO!” as they go screaming by … excellent haul. My MomIL is the best – I wasn’t really joking when she went back to the states & I said I wanted to keep her & send her son home instead <G>
the small amount of work mum & I did manage to get done involved dyeing etc. We’ve got a few crates full of bread-&-butter dyes to be rinsed, and we had a daylong play with sunprints and discharging and overdyeing/overpainting and so on. Judy & margaret came and had a play too. I’m in love with discharge, but I’m totally falling asleep in my seat so I won’t blather too much. Here are some photos tho …
discharge experiments:
 
     
and a few painting/overpainting trials:
   
I’m real happy with that sunprint. The dyed pieces (a metric buttload thereof) are waiting on a rinse.
… and last but certainly not least, I finally picked up my new 6600P today! And I finally haave a thread container! AND I got the nintendo DS with sudoku etc on it. Colour me w00ted … I’m off to bed before I start typing dream gibberish (don’t laugh, it’s happened before!)
By sion, on March 9th, 2007%
Finally got my new lot of notecards organised. I guess I should stick a paypal button up there too … I do have a merchant account for cc transactions, but some people are understandably nervy when not going through a 3rd party. It’s easy in oz; direct deposits are de rigeur – why banks are still getting away with charging umptybazillion quid to do an international transfer is beyond me. We’re talking something like $20 each end, quite often, AND a delay so they can play silly buggers on the short-term markets, and for mine it’s all inexcusable given the current level of connectivity. BUT ANYWAY, I won’t get started on my banks are cheeky bastages rant :)
Haven’t done much the last few days. Week, really, I guess. I’ve been flat out dragging myself out of bed long enough to take her highness to preschool. I realised today that I’d stopped taking my iron supplements sometime recently, so that might go towards explaining the relapse into the glandular-fever-blahs. It’s VERY ANNOYING.
speaking of her highness, her dollhouse arrived the other day. It’s BIG. I knew it was, but wow. I unpacked & temp-assembled just the conservatory, and good heavens. I need to pull the main house out & check it for damage before I leave feedback, but it looks like it’s probably okay. I am definitely going to need to rearrange her area to accommodate it though lol. Check it out:
she’s spotted the pics a few times while I was comparison shopping, and every time goes “I NIKE that dollhouse!” so I think she’ll be fully stoked come her birthday …
By sion, on February 27th, 2007%
fairly lousy photo, because I left my camera down at the shop & had to use the videocam.
working on the stitching … probably won’t do much more before I sandwich it & start quilting.
I finally figured out what was bugging me about the tree base, and fixed it – why it took so long I don’t know, because it was pretty obvious really. Glad I did, because I was pretty much stuck thanks to that itchy sensation of something wrong, not game to go forward until I figured out what was askew.
In other news, it occurred to me the other day that I don’t really need a loungeroom per se. It’s become an extension of Eleanor’s playroom lately, and then she keeps mining this room (ostensibly dining area) with small toys and assorted books anyway. So, I thinks to meself. Rather than going down the end to fetch stuff and spreading it all over the dining area, why do I not just use THIS as a cosy lounge/dining bit and work in the loungeroom? I’d have two huge walls for design walls (here, nothin), plus it’s right next to all the arts & crafts stuff AND the playroom (other end of the sunroom I use for all the Stuff), plus heaps more room (or a better arrangement of space or somthing). The only cons are 1) the aircon is out here (so big whoop, I’ll just have to run it longer. Or get a window unit … ) 2) moving all that shit around.
so not my favourite job.
Guess who’s turning 4 in April, btw? And guess who’s getting this for her birthday:
By sion, on July 16th, 2006%
okay doonah cover made and on her majesty’s bed, so I’m playing with the wallhanging again before I hit the sack. Draped a piece of flannelette over a corkboard as a temp design “wall” and put the assembled critters etc on it in a rough composition. The board isn’t quite big enough but eh, I wanted to see how they looked together. I’m surprised at how well the bower (bleach-discharged bracken print) looks. I wasn’t at all satisfied with it, and thought I’d have to redo or do a lot of embellishing & stitching to make it work, but it’s fine once it’s in context.
I’ll admit to being rather pleased with it thus far, even if I am having trouble with a stupid magpie.
By sion, on July 15th, 2006%
One of these days I’ll get used to the BUSYBUSYBUSY … whew, relax before I catch up on that other stu … awcrapBUSYBUSYBUSY rhythm of my life I guess, but meantime I’ll continue to grumble about it occasionally. Perhaps the semi-quiet periods – especially the ones where I don’t have the energy or inspiration to do anything remotely useful – are better thought of as fallow times than just wasted opportunities.
It has always seemed odd to me though that when I’ve got my lazy bum kicked into gear and I’m all fired up and organised and trying to be totally focused on a project, umptyump other things crowd around like ants to a picnic demanding their share of the goodies. The other things are rarely things I resent doing or anything, and in fact are often things I enjoy, but they’re still distractions from the prime directive of the moment. 5 weeks or so deadline on this wallhanging, which is fine, but:
- the “should take you an hour or so to do” graphics project I agreed to a fortnight ago turns out on receipt to be rather more complicated and extensive than that (ordinarily no problem, just shitty timing)
- someone who buys my jewellery reasonably often dithered too long about a necklace & missed out, so ordered a replica through C. She’s a beader herself, maybe I should just sell her the special beads? heh
- C’s after me to do more jewellery for the shop, because it’s looking a bit sparse
- because this other stuff is going OI OI OI!, I’m feeling increasingly guilty about the stuff for el’s room that still isn’t finished
- the ex is on his way down for four days, and sounds grumpy and headachey (yay fun), and will probably take a crapzillion photos of our beautiful daughter against the backdrop of waist-high drifts of fabric and the playroom she keeps destructobotting behind me as I try to organise it (c’mon, teeny violin for me!)
Meanwhile, it’s raining for real, actual wet stuff from the sky, so it’s dark and wet and not conducive to painting & discharging fabric, plus it’s all gloomy inside. Upside is that it’s not as cold as it has been lately, go figgah.
 Also meanwhile, I’m kind of at the point where I need to be looking for flowers to put in this wallhanging. I did find a bunch when I was doing the exhibition flyer (at left) so with any luck some of them will prove suitable for applique design.
And I think I’m going to make myself feel better by at least knocking up el’s doonah cover for tonight. Seeya!
By sion, on June 23rd, 2006%
Been reorganising & tidying the house (well, the latter is mostly theoretical at this stage, since I keep making ever more mess in my attempts to get Really Truly Honest-To-God Actually Bloody ORGANISED This Time). And doing last financial year’s taxes. I hate doing taxes, I’m always scared I’ll do something wrong, so I invariably put it off as long as I can and then get all panicky when it absolutely positively has to be done by X. ANYWAY. So accounting, housework, and both the small person and myself being ill has been my lot lately. Hopefully we’re on the mend now that we’re on the dreaded antibiotics.
I did find, in amongst all the stuff I’ve been sorting out, the torn envelope with all the quotes I’d garnered to quilt into the background of the dragons wallhanging. So, this is what the background is whispering:
- Set me as a seal upon your heart, a seal upon your arm
- many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods [drown?] it
- may you rest & travel wrapped deeply within the wings of love
- I have found the one whom my soul loves
- A heaven full of stars over my head … myriads with beating hearts of fire
- the sea’s blue splendour of coloured nights & days
- the great look of love, long hidden, found at last in meeting eyes
- the moon in her phases and the tides of the sea
the movement of the earth & the seasons that will be
are the rhythm for the dancing & a promise through the years
that the dance goes on through all our joy and tears
- oh perfect love all human thought transcending
illuming sense & sight with radiance bright
that theirs may be the love that knows no ending
joining two lives forevermore as one
- now, shielded in his wings, our faces yearn together
- oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower
this close-companioned inarticulate hour
when twofold silence was the song of love
By sion, on April 16th, 2006%
You’ll have guessed by the absence of self-congratulation and photographic evidence that I didn’t get the curtains finished by her birthday. I don’t think anybody’s that surprised – I’d have been SO proud of myself for getting something done by deadline for once if I had, and I may even have managed it this time, but I failed to allow for both of us getting miserably sick so eh.
In any case, she’s pretty impressed with her special new princess bed as is.  The bodgy nightstand will be replaced by the round table once it’s finished, but that project is on hold until after the show. She helped put the flower fairy wallies up (she went kind of insane with them actually …) on the doors of her built-ins, and she’s very impressed with the silly garden gnomes she found (and I bought, since they were on special for $1.98 each!!) the eve of her birthday:
By sion, on April 12th, 2006%
waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. Zonked from the pain tab, which I needed because between my ear and my throat I couldn’t function. Trying to figure out how I’m going to finish these stripey curtains is a bitch when my brain is apparently swelling enough to push my eyeballs out of my head.
I think I’m going to make a buttload of very pointy triangles, of the prints, and attach them as a kind of fringe into the black border. I may even get excited later and stitch a bell to the end of each triangle.
Right now I’m going to bed, having accomplished sod all today other than figuring out that a) headcolds suck b) my brain sucks when I have a cold c) you take the stupid dual-feed foot OFF when you want to use embroidery stitches, moron; you don’t ring mummy and after whining about DYING I TELL YOU DYING take ages trying to figure out what’s wrong with the machine while she naturally assumes you’re not a complete bloody dumbass so of course you’re using the embroidery foot which is specifically for (shock! surprise!) embroidery.
By sion, on April 12th, 2006%
ever tried sewing with a miserable, snotty, overtired, snotty, wailing, drooling toddler on your lap? Did I mention snotty? Very snotty. The drooling is courtesy of the postnasal drip and inability to breathe through her nose getting too much for her, so she just goes screw this and wails about the snot & drool waterfall.
Makes you wanna have kids, dunnit?
Sewing with small person on lap not so successful. Progress has slowed a lot, so I’ve gone from “wow, I have enough time to actually get most of this stuff done by her birthday (Good Friday)” to “shitshitshit, what can I get done by her birthday? am I going to get the hanging finished by the SHOW, even??” Compounded by the delight of my life giving me her godawful cold, probably as a result of my clothes being covered in her effluvia every time she wants a cuddle. Which is often, because she’s sick. Doesn’t matter how often you wash your hands when it’s EVERYWHERE, man. EVERYWHERE! GERMS! Icky human waste crud! I deserve a freakin medal for not giving in to my squeamishness, I tellya.
|
|
CHITCHAT