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 26th, 2009%
this is very cool. If I can get my hands on some of that golden digital medium everybody’s talking about, I’m going to have a lot of fun with this toy.
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%
how awesome would it be if I was one of those people who can get three quilts, two totes and a four-course dinner all done in the same day?
Unfortunately I’m utterly not that person; I’m the sort of person who redid the same blanketyblank load of smelly flood-soaked linens for the 3rd time hoping that it is indeed the charm, also washed the girlchild’s school uniforms and hoped the stinky linens haven’t contaminated the machine (it appears not, but I guess we’ll see if she starts emanating basement funk when she gets all hot & sweaty), sighed a lot while accomplishing very little in the way of kitchen-tidying, made one one-pot dish serve two meals, tidied the workroom so Mum & Laurel have room to play tomorrow, and wasted time on facebook. Oh, and got another zebra done.
here they are together on the background block. Probable background block. Maybe. Did I mention this is all seat of the pants? It’s all seat of the pants. That block may go back to being vertical, but if it stays horizontal, does anyone have an opinion as to the posing of the equines (are zebras equines? Surely they are. Whatever, I can’t be bothered googling)
 
 
or do they just look bad on the spotty background and I should save that for something less eyemangling like monkeys?
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 17th, 2009%
the view from my workroom this morning:
Town’s going to be under water by this arv, not sure how bad or how long for. If the bloody rain doesn’t stop soon, maybe days. There’s been something like 450mm in the last 4 days, and that’s just here – it’s been raining upriver too (they’re already flooded in) and I hear all the way out to Armidale, so the poor old Macleay is carrying a whooooole lotta runoff. And occasional bits of tree.
SO glad we’re up on the hill :)
By sion, on February 17th, 2009%
making surprisingly fast progress on the underlying structure. Who knew you could wing it when piecing?
chucked a strip on either side of one of the wonko slices.
made a few blocks for possible inclusion:
   
playing with layout ideas ..
By sion, on February 16th, 2009%
that pretty much worked as intended. Which is kind of a shock, really. And if I think about it very much part of me wants to have a fit of the vapours (uneven!! wonky!! unmeasured!! unmatched!!! besides, nobody gave instructions so how do you know you’re doing it RIGHT??!) so I’m pretty chuffed that I just did it. Took me all day to work up to “just” doing it, of course, but even so. Before trimming on top, after on the bottom – about 40″ long I think (haven’t measured).
Unfortunately we had a bit of a casualty while I was sewing – her highness is very enamoured of my new teeny iron, and begged to be allowed to iron some ‘terial. After trying to drum it in how careful she’d have to be, I let her have at it, and she did really well for about an hour before ironing the knuckle of her thumb. She took it about as well as you’d expect a highly-strung drama queen with a cold to, so we spent about an hour on the couch & then her bed while she screamed and wailed and sobbed. Teeny blister. I wonder if she’ll pay attention now about the oven and stoves and stuff?
By sion, on February 16th, 2009%
how awesome is this?
By sion, on February 15th, 2009%
 Friday I went down to Connie’s and bought some fabrics for a baby quilt for the grandson-to-be. Son & DIL2B sent me links to their preferred baby linen, which to be honest doesn’t look well-enough made to justify the expense, so of course I offered to make something along similar lines. That’s it over on the left. It’s going to be very hard for me not to break out of the muddy monotone-ish sort of mood of the theme, I tellya – I’d previously gathered she wanted brights, and brights would certainly have given me an excuse to make something gorgeously Melody-ish, but she apparently wants super earthy. I do actually love earthy colours, but I think I’m going to have to sneak something in somewhere with some more contrast to get the little brain properly stimulated … maybe I can overdye some of the fine zebra-style print I have so I can still use it.
(heh interrupting myself to report that there is a small person standing on the front verandah bellowing “Eensy Weensy Spider” at the top of her lungs because she thinks it will make the rain go away.)
Anyway, so here’s the fabric I purchased Friday:
And here’s some I already had that I might be able to include:
notice that I already had some of that multi stripe, duh. Been looking for an excuse to use it and to buy some of that gorgeous multicoloured spot for ages. I’m not copying the Zanzibar one, hope they’re not silly enough to expect that, but I hope I can get near enough to that “feel” to make them happy.
Ok on looking at the pics I’m thinking I need to do two quilts – one for the insanely expensive fancy cot (w a few trimmed sheets etc to go with) and one to throw on the floor. The floor one can use all the high-contrast brighter fabrics (I’ll throw in some nice rampantly jungly greens as well) to stimulate the little noggin:
and the cot quilt/blanket can use these + some hand-dyes (the teddies are potential backing):
 I was doodling around with ideas for layouts & drawing zebras (do these guys look sufficiently zebra-ish?) and her highness decided to help me design the quilt. I had a rough sketch for a quilt that I’d dreamt about making (literally; woke up from a dream about, before I knew they were pregnant – maybe even before they got pregnant, can’t remember) and she felt it needed embellishing/finishing – with unicorns rather than zebras:
I love that there’s a fly bugging the lion. I would never have thought to give him a fly.
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 February 7th, 2009%
I forgot about the last journal quilt. It kind of departed the text, to quote Opus.
    So the theme was something about maps. I think solvy was mentioned, but that went by the by (one of the ideas I had may well be the answer to my ongoing desire to capture something of The Nepal Experience, though. Before I get senile, preferably). So I started with this idea about the self, the way to the heart, the road signs and maps and guides we give people we want to learn the way in. I drew a weird symbol of self, which in my case prominently features hands and heart and mind and belly and feet. And one eye open, into which thou mayest read whatsoever one wishes.
  During the making it developed fire in the head, naturally, and a light from above which was almost obliterated further down the line, and some darkling damage was done to various spots, and one of my children bruised my heart while the other is thankfully offering sunshine so that went in, and my roads and waterways never did come clear no matter how much contrast I tried to add, and the dormant/growing things which sprang from my hand got a bit lost in the chaos. It kept looking twee and shallow, and in my attempts to make it more powerful I went a bit overboard. Crayons (iron on & regular & oil pastels), moonlight mist sprays & daubs, inkpad, heatgun, yada y blah blah. Mounted on a felt backing.
I don’t particularly like how it ended up, to be honest, but it seemed to true (even in that lol) to do anything but put a hanging strip on & send off. What the hell. I’m really not sure I like lutrador/spunbond in & of itself – I’ve seen some stuff that looks great on the web, but it doesn’t seem to do any of the things I expect, so if I’m going to continue using it I obviously need to figure out its strengths & work in different ways.
By sion, on February 3rd, 2009%
n because I haven’t written the list yet so I don’t know how many there are.
#1 is my baby girl, all Big and off to her first day of kindy today.
Everybody survived, too. She even got a sticker, which says “Good Work!” and which she was pretty chuffed about.
#2 is the arrival (FINALLY) of the new adapter for my laptop, so no more struggling with the constantly-crashing dinosaur of a desktop.
#3 is the concurrent arrival of my groovy new toy.
  
Is it not cool? Or maybe HAWT? I didn’t even know the handle swivelled when I ordered it. ~$25 at dealsdirect if you want one.
#4 is that the plumber FINALLY came today to look at the hot water system. Cactus (no shit!). Needs replacing (glad it’s not my money). Too late to do it today (bum!). Since I’ve been restricted to pommy washes since I discovered it peeing water all over the laundry, in the middle of a freakin heatwave, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed. I can (and did, several times) wash my hair in cold water, but I suspect that immersing my entire lardy self under an icy shower might result in an ungainly demise, especially when it’s about a billion degrees in the shade. He reckoned there was enough hot water left in it (even though it’s been turned off at the fusebox for 2 days!) to get me a shower if I turned the tap back on temporarily & just dealt with the laundry being flooded. Fine by me, so that’s what I did. I would have gone to mum’s to grab a shower over the weekend, but I was told the plumber would be rocking up when he was finished the job he was doing Sat morning – major wires-crossedness there – so I had to stick around. Getting hotter and sweatier and more revolting. So, I’m clean, I boiled water again for the girl’s bath, and the plumber’s bringing a new hot water system around at 8am tomorrow. The 8am part isn’t so groovy, but he’s cool enough that I can probably handle pretending to be human before coffee.
#5 is the hangers I’ve been meaning to photograph & post about since I bought them just before xmas.
I’m not sure what they’re supposed to be for, but logic suggests it’s some form of textile hanging. I think they’re from Nepal, or maybe India; I got them from the same woman I bought the nifty bamboo hangers yonks ago. Whatever they’re intended for, you know they’re going to be used for quilts … I told her she should load up on them next time she goes over, & show them to the girls in at Connie’s. Did I mention that they were under $10 each?
There. 5 cool things (8 really, if you count the hangers separately!). Life isn’t all bad.
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CHITCHAT