Spring weekend.

I've missed blogging about many things, mainly because Ive been hoping to blog from home on my laptop with the internet, but getting the internet was an interminable hassle. So you missed my weekend at Engage with Bec, Elsie and R, my housemates birthday move night, a brunch for girls from church, a weekend of massive spring cleaning, my obsession with Bachy S3, and probably many other things. And I'll just pick up from here.

Nutritional blenders are the best thing ever. I'm abandoning my lifelong love of cereal.

Last weekend Heather came over and we sewed the blanket made from old wool jumpers. Craft: accomplished!

My group at work organise the social club event for the month and we did a High Tea. We labeled tea pots with different tea and people tried them and it was a big success.

Friday night was a planned visit from Bec and Anna plus a surprise drop in from a couple from Wild Street, which was lovely fun. OH I have started kind of jogging with church girls on Friday after work.

So the weekend having Bec and Anna stay has been lovely. My french toast speciality.

We visited tocal homestead for some photography. Some of these are my phone and some are Bec's real camera.

And then we went to Morpeth, and Anna had dinner with other friends while Bec joined us for dinner in Maitland at Marmooks, and then Bec and I watched some hunger games movies to catch up on culture.

On Sunday, we went to the Branxton markets which were disappointingly small this time because of the weather, but oh well. There was a good earring shop and a good ceramic jewellery shop.

Finishing Quilting.

Much sitting at the sewing machine sewing back and forth all over the quilt.

Then binding. Cutting longs strips, sewing them together, folding it lengthwise and ironing it, sewing it around the edge. Realising didn't fold it around the corners properly (this isn't a picky detail thing, it's a stupid impossible-to-have-corners-at-all thing) so unpicking 3 quarters of it, sewing it back on with correct corner folding.

Then a few hours of hand-sewing it over the edge. Finished it on Sunday night after church. And it is done!

Hood.

I've decided to crochet a hood. I've got a few balls of grey wool left over from my granny rug. When I've got a bit of a headache I find the lights at work uncomfortable. And a hood can keep my head warm without giving me hat hair. This will be a nice craft to take with me to WA on my holiday next week. Waawaa-land I call it.

I'm aiming for something like this. http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=349864.0#axzz2XwPyhyyg

This is what I currently do when the light burns us, precious. Ridiculous but true.

Tapestry.

It's underway. I sorted the colours. I've started stitching. It's quite hard on the fingers, and I need good light to pick the right colour for each section. I think it's already half done though. So I aim to mostly finish it by the end of the year. I took these photos at night, so they are yellow.

New shoes, new project.

I had a stay at home pottering weekend. I could have done dvds all weekend, but I did Jillian, and made myself read North and South out in the park. Because it was such nice weather. Good little me. I bought a pair of shoes as well. Black mary janes. I've been looking for new shoes for work, which I can put orthotics in, and potentially even walk to work in. They tick the first 2 boxes, I'm just going to break them in for a bit before I try the walk to work. I'm trying to walk to work every morning. Also, the shoes are in the sweet spot of not too pretty/shiny/fragile and not too sporty/casual/chunky. The satisfaction of shoes well bought.

On Sunday I had a quick music meeting in the middle of the afternoon, and then some time to fill so I went to EG shops to buy tapestry needles. Sussan had thick coloured tights on sale, so I did some more shopping. It were an expensive weekend, but I only bought things on my list.

Tapestry is my next thing. Grandma gave me one she started, it's a Frederick McCubbin painting I like. It's quite huge and only a quarter done. I did a few stitches last night, and it's surprisingly hard work. The needle and wool are fat and slow so it's hard to pull through the weave, compared to cross stitch.

Cross stitch.

Calling it finished while still finding more things to do. I had to repair a bicycle spoke.

This is a close up to show you how many shades of cream there are. And that it's all done on cream linen. It looks really beautiful.

This is how I stored it: rolled up in a piece of cotton quilt batting. Keeping it clean was really important, and it's picked up some brown spot stains somehow anyway.

I don't see myself ever doing a big cross stitch like this again. Cross stitch is nice if you have good light, room to spread out, concentration to read a pattern all the time. None of those things apply to me anymore. I live in a small dark unit, and craft gets done at night or when I take it somewhere like church. I think crochet is a better craft for me know because it is small and portable. Granny squares can be done almost without looking at your work, and take up a pencil-case worth of space.

I wish I did something fun on the weekend, but it didn't work out. It rained when I wanted to swim, and then when it was sunny I couldn't think of anything to do, so I stayed inside all lonely. I did do a few satisfying things, however. I finished my cross stitch! (bar the spoke that has already come undone and the 6 stiches I've found uncrossed) and I cooked pasta for church, a pretty good pesto. I was impressed with it and I enjoyed cooking it.

I'm thinking of juicing. Finding it hard to eat veggies and fruit at the moment, so I'm thinking of doing some juicing to compensate.

Bathurst.

While I have a car, I drove to Bathurst to visit Grandma. I left at 6.30am on Saturday morning and had a lovely easy 3 hr drive. I didn't do anything exciting, I just hung out at home. I did Jillian and cross stitch.

And had a My Kitchen Rules marathon. I'm kinda hooked. The common mistake is, I don't think people understand the effect of scale. Cooking for 12 is different to cooking for 2 or 4. And it's surprising that people don't seem to do a proper practice run. It's either "I cook this all the time!" (but not for 12 people while also cooking 2 other courses, dummy) or "I wanted to try something different". There is a lack of logistical planning.

So anyway, because I didn't do much worth blogging, here is a photo of a toilet paper dolly.

Cross stitch... almost.... finished....

I'm up to "finishing"!!! I did the last bit of the leaves on Saturday. So I've practically finished.

I still have to do the face, the bicycle spokes, and the silver border. And then check carefully for anything I missed. I'm on track to finishing it this month.

Made after Melbourne Cup: doona cover.

I answered the phone at work last Friday and it was actually a friend, Mike, and while we were catching up he asked me if I had started and finished something after Melbourne Cup. Remember that time I blogged that? Don't just spend the end of the year winding up; tick something off? Mike was all over it, doing something handy with insulation. Impressive! I was planning on using up leftover varnish on my bed frame, but I can't decide. I need a second opinion. However, I have been making a new doona cover! I bought a big piece of fabric in Africa which has been in the cupboard for 6 months. On that really hot Saturday I bought 2.5m of sheeting for the back and sewed it together. I finished it off this weekend.

The thing is, personal projects don't have strong deadlines like the things you do for work or for other people. You sometimes just have to have a deadline so you can get the thing done and out of the way, once the first burst of initiative has worn off.

Here is the making of the doona cover. Put front and back material on the floor, and put the old doona cover on top. Cut around it, with a bit of extra space for seams.

You need 3 sides sewn together and a hemmed opening at the bottom.

Raid the random button collection for 3 big plastic press studs saved from a previous doona cover.

Sew them into the opening while you watch DVDs.

Fancy lights.

• A 50 bulb light strand.

• 1 metre of gold organza.

• Scissors.

I started by tearing fat strips of organza and wrapping it around the light strand to hide the cord. That used about 2/3 of the fabric.

Then I cut squarish pieces of what was left, and poked them through the cord at the base of the light bulb, between the bulb and the little ring that holds the cord together. Turns out like a bow on each light.

Then I wrapped it around the easel.

My Christmas tree.

Cost: $6 for lights, $10 for 1m gold organza.

Craftspiration.

I've been flat and tense for 3 days, as if a storm was building inside me, up to last night when I felt like crying but was too dry and had nothing to cry about anyway. Woke up today a lot relaxed, for some reason.

I've had lots of craftspiration today from the internet. Karen shared this place with me on facebook, I'd like to have a look if I'm ever around there. It's the sort of shop I'd like to have close to home, but the East is not a creative people place.

I like these fancy paint rollers. Would be a lot cheaper than wallpaper and matching upholstery fabric. They are beautiful designs as well. I wonder how hard it is to line up each stroke of the roller. The coolness of them is really in the paint applicator part of the roller so that you don't go dry as you roll along.

Thinking of buying this blouse pattern. Peter Pan collars are in at the moment, which is good, I don't think chinese collars really do much for me and that is all I could get for the last few years, so I've had my eye out for any other sort of collar at all. I'm not sure if I'm to old and big for a Peter Pan collar though. It's good to see different people sewing it and wearing it, patterns are such a risk.

UFO goal.

I'm going to finish my cross stitches. One is basically done, it's a big teddy bear thing I started 15 years ago. I've been sewing beads onto it to fancy it up. I'm not going to get it framed and hang it up, because I'm not into teddy bears any more. I'll just put it away until someone (a sister or a lifelong friend or possibly though unlikelyly me) has a baby. So there's no deadline on that, but end of the year will do.

The other one I bought when I finished my HSC, so that's 10 years. I recently got it out, and I'm on a roll. I did something like 3 hours on it on Sunday, staying warm in bed. It's very pretty and also timeless, young but grown-up at the same time, and will look really good framed and hung up. So I think I can finish this year easily. I'm well over half way done. I mainly have the bunches of flowers and the tree and the bike spokes and some white (TIP: do white as late as you can because it gets dirty from your hands).

If I can knock these over AND fix up my chest of drawers (I've bought the varnish!) then that will be quite good. Next year I will try to finish a quilt, and make a shirt or something from some fabric I got in Bowral, and make a new doona cover from some material I brought back from Namibia. It's like running in a treadmill. Constant motion but always another thing coming around, and I rarely feel like I get to START a project. Or CHOOSE a new project. The choosing was done in the distant past, but the project unfinished remains forever.

Boxing.

 

I got some cheap headphones for work to listen to music. The box is a nice shape, so i glued fabric to it. I didn't have paper, that would have worked well. If I was doing it again I wouldn't do the folding edges at the edges thing, I would cut the fabric off and glue a trim over. I think I still should glue trim in some spots, but it's good enough, I can put treasures in it without advertising cheap headphones.

I also spent a lot of time on my computers. I have a 10 year old PC, which I hardly ever use. I  deleted my student design software off it to take to Africa with me and give to the Bible college I'm visiting. As long as I can get registration to work on another computer, Rachel's old laptop, which has proved tricky. I'm not sure what to do with that old PC, I only use it occasionally, and it's so tired and awkward. The screed is pretty good, worth not throwing out. One day soon I need to back up everything off it before it finally dies. Anyway I drefragged it. I find that always so satisfying.

And I wrote some emails on my ipad, saved to be sent when I get some wifi maybe in a cafe tomorrow.

And I am going to cook mince for burritos at church tomorrow. And I have lots of little blocks of 100g cadbury which was $1 at coles! $1 for 100g! Deal.

Making work pretty

This is my first post from my iPad which I bought last night. It is hard to upload pics and resize them.

The picture I took is of my wrist pad for typing. It was blue. I took it home on the weekend, bought some spray glue and glued fabric on top and trimmed it. It was a disaster at first, the glue soaked right through the fabric and made it sticky, but the sticky has worn off now and it looks cool.

Made a piano keyboard cover.

This is a job I put off for 5 years. That's an epic bit of procrastination for a job that only took 30 minutes and involved no heavy lifting. I've had this scrap of quilt batting sitting on the keyboard for a long time, but it doesn't keep dust off. So I needed to ad some material to cover it and fit down the sides. I had lots of leftover cheap satin from cape making. 

I pinned it on and cut a slit for the music stand, because I like it poking through. Folded the slit and sewed it down.

Like so. Like sew :)

Then fold the edges down to get a fit, like a bed sheet, and sew. You might notice that I like to cut and pin things actually on the keyboard, rather than use a tape measure and do maths.

I trimmed off the uneven bottom edge, I didn't hem it because A) I don't care and B) this cheap satin is really slippery and hems roll all over the place and get rumpled.

And another ta-da! moment. Dust-free piano playing.