fiveandtwo

Super Samantha

Firstly, many thanks for your comments and good wishes regarding the little cat Sammy.

I checked in with Sammy first thing today. I didn't know how she was going yesterday: phone calls receive a recorded message. Today she looked, mostly, like a proper cat. Fur dry and fluffy, eyes alert, not glazed over. Face not so good. I rang later today after x-rays were taken and, amazingly, it's "just" a broken jaw,  a lot of soft tissue injury plus infection. Jaw broken too far back to do much about other than let it heal. Her eating shouldn't be compromised when it heals. She's walking properly so the spinal injury was bruising and swelling (yay). She is very anaemic, so must have had a big bleed after the accident. Being fed via nasogastric tube at the moment, but Sammy can lap water. She will come home when she can eat.

I asked the vet nurse if Big Bills can be paid in installments: yes, they can. Thank goodness, as this will be a Big Bill!

I think Sammy may have used most of her nine lives now. This is what the vet said when we brought this very borderline-for-survival cat in, "Cats are the most robust of animals, they survive trauma that would kill other animals, including humans".

Well, yay for cats.

The Cat Came Back...Sort Of.

We have two cats, Pippin and Samantha. This is Samantha.

 
She didn't turn up for food on Tuesday morning, or Wednesday, or Thursday... We looked in the pound for her on Wednesday, even though she is registered and microchipped and they would have contacted us. I kept my eye out on my daily dog walks all around where we live, even though sick or injured animals tend to "go to ground". Joy, my neighbour from two doors up came over this morning and asked if our black and white cat was missing. There was Sammy, in the corner of Joy's front yard. What a mess. I caught her in a towel and went straight to the vet. She'd obviously been hit by a car, probably on Monday night or Tuesday morning and it had taken her four days to get almost home. She smelt like a rotten dog bone so had developed an infection in that time, her face was bloodied and her front paws, she was wet, with matted fur and not able to walk properly - gait all wrong in the back legs. How this little cat must have suffered over the last 4 days.

The vet nurse put Sammy straight in to the "warmer" on a heat pad and organised an IV. She was hypothermic and dehydrated. The vet has advocated "conservative management" - no x-rays, no surgery. IV fluids, antibiotics and pain relief and see what the next 24 hours brings. Sammy's odd gait is a result of a spinal injury. The fact that she's survived for 4 days already and had made her way home, almost, is a positive sign. Wait and see. I am to ring tomorrow to find out how she's going.

Many would say, "Why didn't you just dong her on the head?". Well, I think if you have animals as pets you then have the responsibility to to provide good care which includes vet care if they're sick or injured. I am trying not to think of the probable cost of Sammy's vet treatment.

 
Samantha isn't a very sociable cat  and tends to be wary of humans. She will let me, Clare and Al pick her up but runs away if anyone else attempts to. She will "talk" to me but no-one else. Interesting, since it's my husband who feeds the cats in the morning. Pip will talk and smooge with anyone. Both cats are ostensibly Leah's (birthday presents) but she lost interest when they were no longer kittens.

Hang in there Samantha.

Introducing

The splendid lads from Patons Knitting Book n. 347

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

My favourite is the very earnest looking Warren, followed by Earl with the lovely model yacht.

These next pics come from a summer knitting pullout that was in "Woman" magazine, June 27, 1964.

 
What's with the weird "model" pose of the little girl in the red-and-white striped top? And why is that little boy putting sand down the back of the little girl's romper? She looks less than impressed.

 
I'm not sure what to make of the Sailor Boy trunks. Just not sure...

In Reverse

When my girls were little I made lots of these little reversible dresses for them. I think the original pattern had a facing and it dawned on me at some stage that if I just cut out two fronts and two backs and fastened the shoulders with a snap closure I would have a reversible dress! I've been making them for the Maker's Market.

 

The last of the squirrel fabric.

 

Using up the ink with the bird print.

 
 
 
Snaps not yet applied.

 
 
 
Baby set with reversible top.

 
Reversible pinny, red linen one side and very cute scottie dog print on the other.

And bags! These two are reversible slouchy totes.

 

Three totes.

  
                         

Two messenger bags of the kind that I always make for myself.

 


The little clothes are made primarily using op-shop fabric and re-purposed clothes from the oppy.

The bags use some fabric from Spotlight, mostly the geometrics, as well as curtains, tablecloths and bedspreads from the oppy.

It Was Going To Happen

The goosefoot trunk apple tree finally fell over. It'd been leaning for a while. I think it was only the dry weather of the last decade that kept it upright. A wet spring and summer...soft, moist soil...over she went.

 
See the goosefoot trunk = very unstable. I'm leaving the tree for the time being as it's not dead and may ripen the apples over the next month or so.

Even if the tree hadn't fallen over it was coming out anyway. I have Big Plans for the garden this winter. All apple trees - out. Double-graft pear tree - out. Plum tree in the vegie garden - out. To be replaced with two stand alone dwarfing apple trees and three (also dwarfing) espaliered, two pear trees espaliered on, yes, you guessed it, dwarfing rootstock. Apricot, peach, nectarine, blood plum, two european plums and nashi will stay. I'm getting the apple and pear trees from Woodbridge Fruit Trees in Tasmania. I'll pre-order next month when the 2011 catalogue opens and the trees will be sent bare-rooted in the mail in winter. This works very well, I've bought fruit trees and roses like this before. I haven't finalised my selections but at the moment it looks like Fuji, Stayman Winesap (won't be allowed to develop a goosefoot trunk this time), Lord Lambourne, Esopus Spitzenberg and Democrat. That's the five, but I'm also tempted by Gravenstein for early fruit. Buerre Bosc and Buerre Hardy  are the pear varieties. In spite of the name Buerre Hardy is more like a Williams than a Bosc. The Woodbridge website is quite good, lots of information.

As I said: Big Plans.Lots of digging and chainsawing too. I have to try and dig out all the godawful Jerusalem Artichoke as well. If ever there was a vegetable that tastes like dirt that one is it. I don't know what possessed me to plant it in the first place since I'd had experience of it at a house I rented years ago.

In the meantime I am sewing furiously for the Maker's Market - a matter of weeks away.

 

Gocco!

I bought a secondhand Gocco printer (and  heaps of associated paraphenalia) this time last year, from an old lady in a nearby small town. This is the first time I've used it. For a year it's sat in a drawer, mocking me. Well, no more mockery. I have used IT.

Behold:
A couple of weeks ago I bought maybe ten little T-shirts on sale at Target with intention of printing on them for the Maker's Market. So that the T-shirts wouldn't mock me as well, I gathered some images of the type I had in mind. The bike and the bird, plus a couple of others not used (another bird, a penny farthing bicycle) came from a lovely blog called The Graphics Fairy. She specialises in vintage "clip art" sourced from her vast and ever growing hoard of old books, encyclopaedia, dictionaries and ephemera. She posts the original picture and often a "cleaned up" version. All I needed to do was add more contrast with a black fineliner and reduce the size of the pic. The telephone was a clipping I found in a box of my own vintage pictures. I think it came from an old children's book. I emphasised the black on that, as well.

Then, with images all fixed and photocopied, I took a deep breath and opened the drawer. Making the screens was straightforward. Gee, why all that procrastination? Figuring the best way to print on fabric was a bit more complex. One tutorial I found used a plastic card like a squeegee on the little screen. I found too much ink came through, even with the very sticky Gocco/Riso inks for printing on cloth (they came with what I bought). I ended up using the Gocco as you would to print on card. I think the T-shirts came up quite well.

What I learned:                                                                                                                                  

+ The screens used a lot of ink to reach a point where a consistent print could be made. Not good for doing four T-shirts. A print run of at least twenty would be a more economical use of ink. As a result I cast around for other things to print rather than waste the ink.

 

+ In doing so I discovered a crisper print is made on woven fabric. Better to make "patches" to be sewn on?

+ Cleaning up after printing is very messy (oil-based ink) and the screen frames are cardboard - they were damaged in the clean up. I'm not sure if they'll be truly re-usable.

+ I will try acrylic screen printing ink (for fabric) next time. Possibly the screens require the viscosity of the Gocco fabric ink, but it's worth a try.

+ Gocco is easy to use but the bulbs are single use and it appears the screens aren't really re-usable (I have yet to try). The size is also restrictive. I'm thinking a little photo emulsion screen may be a better option for me for fabric printing.

+ I haven't used the machine for printing on paper/card. I think this would be its best use, and what it was designed for.

The Gocco and the T-shirts cannot mock me now.

Tomatoes

 
 
 

Picked this morning. Costoluto fiorentino grown from seed that I got from The Italian Gardener.

I picked more but these were the best looking, ha ha.

Cats And Dogs

Finished!

 
Eight dogs.

 
Three birds.

 
Two cats.

 
 
Two little dresses.

 
One little top.

 
One felt purse (decorated with old buttons from my vast collection).

The blue toddler dress is cut from one of those long, linen dresses that were popular in the 1990's. I was able to use the embroidery that was on the front of it.

I should mention that all these projects have been in the pipeline for some time. Cut out a few months ago and partially sewn over the intervening weeks. Only finished this last week. There's no way I could complete them from scratch in just a week.

Saturday afternoon saw fourteen jars of plums bottled.

 
The red plums are Satsuma, Japanese/blood plums. Even though the entire crown of the tree broke off before Christmas, pretty much half the tree gone, it's still laden with fruit. The yellow plums are Prune d'Agen, the European prune plum and my favourite fresh. I haven't bottled them before. I used Mason jars for the first time, which I got from The Redback Trading Company. I might buy some more next year. I used the Fowlers jars etc a while ago but I'm not really a fan. I also re-use supermarket jars until the lining in the lid gets worn. I've discovered I can get new lids from Green Living Australia, and keep the jars going. They also have cheesemaking supplies.

Cheers, people.

 

Tostaree Fire

The Tostaree (near Orbost and Nowa Nowa) fire is now under control. On blast furnace Tuesday, as I gave some water to the shrivelled garden in the late afternoon, I spied what I thought was a massive cumulo-nimbus cloud. Hmm, all the other clouds are in the south west, this was easterly. Turns out it was a huge cloud of smoke from the fire which was perhaps 50km away.

 

On Wednesday it was rather smoky.

 
Around midday a strong northerly wind blew it all away. There was a lovely "smoke" sunset, however.

 
Now, I know need to become adept at photoshop (I still haven't finished that subject at TAFE: Digital Imaging). These photos would be better with the removal of power lines and TV aerials. Especially that TV aerial in the middle of the last picture. It annoys me a lot. I don't like any strong vertical in the middle of any picture, not photo, painting, print or otherwise. I like diagonals, and verticals to either side of a picture, and horizontals in a top or bottom third of a picture. With my art training I should be able to explain this, but I think it is a personal aesthetic.

I do wonder, if I became good at using Photoshop, would I then become "slack" with my photo-taking, not considering light, angles, framing: all that stuff. Nah, I don't think so.But perhaps that is why I'm so resistant to really learning it. I would like to use Photoshop to make good graphics, labels and so forth for the fiveandtwo business, therefore I need to persist...sigh.

Giles went to Orbost today with the SP Ausnet crew from Bairnsdale to work on restoring power to Orbost and places further east, like Mallacoota. He's not home yet (at 7:00pm) so his first pay will have overtime. Goodness. He is loving his job. I am so pleased.

In other news, Linsey is back in Australia from her 3 week sojourn in Vietnam. They (the girl and her boyfriend) only got "Vietnam Belly" once but it was horrible. In spite of that belly trouble, they did all sorts of things: kayaking off an Island (can't remember the name), hiking the countryside around the border with China, checking out tailors in Hoi An... the bad belly occured there. Lachie was sick again in Nah Trang, and then it was all good. I'd like to go to Vietnam to eat myself silly and maybe buy some textiles. No doubt, with the eating, I would have some gastro as well.

Won't happen until I'm an old lady. I'm going to take a wheelchair tour!