fiveandtwo

Sewing From Sewjourn And Myxamatosis

I got  Clare to take a photo of me in my wrap around tunic that I sewed up at Sewjourn.

 
Piebald hair (I am growing out the dye) and overgrown garden.

The pattern comes from Ottobre Woman 2/2007, the wraparound tunic with the wrap dress collar and no sleeves. I made armhole facings. I had a piece of really nice black wool crepe from the oppy (ages ago) and this configuration is what fitted the fabric. Sleeveless has turned out quite versatile: with T-shirts under, long-sleeved and short-sleeved and, last night womanning stalls at the twins' Twilight (school) Fair, with a cardigan over. This has turned out to be a really good pattern. The only adjustment I've made is to lengthen the bodice so it wraps at where my waist would be if I had one. All the fitting is achieved by tightening or looseneing the tie strings. I have made this pattern as a dress in a knit fabric - good, but after many washings it stretched out of shape, I've made it as a long-sleeved tunic from a firm double knit fabric - still going strong. The wool crepe works brilliantly. Firm, but with a bit of "give". I have an op-shopped piece in mid blue which I'll make into another sleeveless tunic...eventually.   Note to self: have a photo taken first thing in the morning, before I look all tired and dishevelled.

As for myxamatosis, the rabbit-specific virus introduced to Australia in 1950 as a biological  control of the rabbits that were literally overrunning the southern half of Australia. Apparently a new, more virulent, form has been intruduced.

 
Hootie enjoying orange gelato. But look at the eye. Not wide open and sparkly as usual.

 Hmm...Sheryl rabbit died last week, out of the blue. Now Hootie rabbit is obviously sick. After googling "Symptoms of Myxamatosis" I think Sheryl was afflicted with the peracute form, where death occurs within two days. Poor Hootie appears to be afflicted with the form that takes about two-and-a-half weeks to death. Not fair.  I have primed Clare about the "quick-neck-break" demise of rabbits (courtesy of Roger, or maybe me). Most likely I'll take Hootie to the vet for the green needle. Then I will dig another hole! Can only be good for the trees to be planted.

Stump digging and removing has informed me, big time, that I've aged. I dig, mattock and shovel...and realise that I need to rest after such activity. Last time I did such intense hole digging etc was 1996/1997 when I first planted trees at this place.

Addendum: I've just realised this post was in "draft" from a week ago. Message to self: Pay attention. The bit in the last post about Hootie-rabbit may make more sense now.

This And That

Ally's room.

 

Clare's room.

 

They are not tidy people. Eleven years old tomorrow.

Toile for Leah's debutante dress.

 
Yes, it is a floor length gown but I didn't have that much fabric to fiddle around with, plus, the bodice part is what requires fitting closely.

 
I'm using this pattern. So far I've worked on three new skills: inserting an invisible zip, boning and lining/interlining (that's three layers of fabric folks!). Yeah, yeah, I know all you quiltmakers are always manipulating three layers of fabrics, but I'm learning something new here.

Leah will look like a princess  - look how small her waist is. One day I will blog a scan of one of my wedding photos. Back in the mists of time I had a small waist as well.

Struck by this patch of sunlight this morning.

 
Coming from the bathroom window, across the back hallway, onto Leah's bedroom door.

If you're wondering after the health of Hootie the rabbit...nasty, nasty myxomatosos. Hootie had an assisted despatch last Sunday morning on account of her suffering. I had planned to take her to the vet on Monday... but she was one sick and miserable bunny. Myxomatosis is a very unpleasant virus. No more pet rabbits anytime soon. I've had enough of digging holes and burying pets.

Passata

I actually made this on Tuesday. It's taken me until today to get a half decent photo of the finished result.

I had excess tomatoes that I'd grown! This is cause for celebration because it hasn't been the case for several years. I also brought home the untaken tomatoes from Street Harvest. So, chopped them up, cutting out bad bits etc, and put them in my big pot.

 
Cooked them down, pushed and squeezed with a potato masher.

Then all this pulpy stuff went into the food mill (in batches, I should add).

 
Winding away, separating the tomato flesh and juice from the seeds and skin. The result went into the bottles (already sterilised). The bottles went into the rinsed out big pot.

 
Ideally, the bottles would be submerged. I don't have such a tall pot. When Italian people do this the "sauce" is bottled, often in crown-sealed used beer bottles and many bottles are cooked in a used 44 gallon drum over a fire. Lots can be done at once. Here, I cook them for half an hour once the water is at the boil. I have some seal failures (one in this batch). The cap doesn't "pop" and be sucked down as it should. I put them in the fridge and they're used next up.

 
The finished product - 6 x 750ml bottles of passata. Can't be bothered doing an "edit the background" pic. There is soup cooking, and a cat on a stool. Pippin, my first cat, he's lived longer than the three other cats we've had. Cats who came after him. These six bottles make a small dent in my annual usage of about 35 or so 750ml bottles of passata.

It is a splendid base for many pasta sauces, many Indian curry sauces and the base for numerous soups. A most useful and versatile product.

 

Installation

The first sculpture I had to produce for this, my third year at TAFE, but endeavouring to finish first year! Two modules of sculpture, one module digital imaging, one module prepare and mount exhibition (basically be involved in mounting the end-of-year exhibition).

 
This is Requiem For Fruit Trees. Remember I said I was going to remove the apples, pears and a plum? Well, an apple tree has been removed, courtesy of Sammy-cat. The double-graft pear has been cut down, now I have to dig out that stump. The Prune d'Agen/Greengage has had a severe haircut. It's installed on the pavings in my back yard.

The white is apple, oranges are plum and pear. I would have to look at the bark to tell which. I used the drop saw to cut the lengths of wood.

 

 Very carefully. I slowly cut the branches. I used safety glasses over my normal glasses. Sure my seeing glasses would have offered protection, but I don't even want to think about replacing them. The cost, the cost. Scary! I wanted a clean cut for this sculpture. Wouldn't have been achieved with my hand tools, sadly.

Anyhow, I cut over a hundred lengths from the choppings. Then worked out the best (?) arrangement. The circular configuration represents a tree trunk.

 

Now to the Assemblage.

Sewjourn, And Other Stuff

Phoo, I've come back from another therapeutic Sewjourn weekend. To say I've found my tribe is entirely accurate. I love these women.

One day I will post about the sewing (for me) that I did. I took some photos, not many. Definitely not enough for posting.

On my way home - the first drops of rain were on the windscreen as I pulled out of the Sewjourn driveway -was horrible weather. Horrible for driving. I pulled over as I approached Tullamarine, flashing the hazard lights. Me and lots of others. I couldn't see, and the road was just sheets of water. The rain eased after about 20 minutes, and I could continue. I drove through Melbourne (CityLink) in teeming rain. On the Monash freeway I had a phone call. The husband saying Giles had crashed his car and as far as he was concerned it was "find your own way".

WTF?

So I rang the boy, and yes, he'd "rear-ended" another car. We talked about towing his car - not driveable, back home. Insurance stuff wouldn't come in to play until Tuesday.

Ok, Giles is uninjured. When I got the phone call from the husband...he couldn't tell me if he was ok. I had to ring Giles to find out. I was not much use talking on the phone from the side of Monash Freeway.

I'm really angry that Giles's dad was so dismissive of his car accident.

The people who helped him were the parents of a friend of his. They were boating off Lakes Entrance and came in to help.I'm angry at his dad.

When I did get home from Sewjourn I asked, "I seem to remember the story of a young fellow who drove his sister's car into the river". "Well, no one helped me then, he can deal with it himself". "Were you happy that it was dumped on you?", I asked. "No". "So, why is history repeating itself". "Why?".

 On Tuesday help was much more forthcoming from the Dad department. Organising the repair, coming and getting the car from our house, telling him who to talk to regarding his insurance claim. I asked why the reaction on Sunday. "I was stressed", he answered. Got a fright hearing that Giles 'd had a car accident? I remember he flipped out when Linsey crashed her car.

Thank goodness Giles' car is comprehensively insured because he has a loan for the car. The lad will have to pay a $1500 excess though. Lucky he's the most overpaid apprentice in Victoria!

I rode my bike everywhere when I started work, or walked. I socked money away and bought an SLR camera, a film SLR. Digital wasn't even on the radar in 1982. I had wanted a proper camera for years. At boarding school I had one of those instamatic cameras with a fixed focal length. Well, I have a record, of sorts, of those years.

And now, a pretty picture. Not that a pretty picture can ameliorate the hideous events of these last days. My heart goes out to the Japanese people. What fraught days are these. Was it Dorothy Porter who said, "What fresh hell is this?".

 

Hole For A Rabbit.

Yep, I dug another hole today. For Ally's rabbit Sheryl, found dead in her hutch this morning. Lots of tears but Ally still wanted to go to school.

 It is no fun digging a hole in the rain! Our yard is becoming a real cemetery, a bit macabre I suppose, but with numerous chooks, Sheryl the rabbit and three cats - Sammy-cat, Squeaky and the mummified cat  found under the house when we replaced the kitchen floor - there's lots of bones under the ground  round here. I think they're all under, or close to, a tree. For fertilising purposes.

 
Sheryl, curious about that person taking photos (Clare in this case).

Maker's Market And Hole Digging.

 
Maker's Market number two today, not  as lucrative as the last, but defintiely worth having a stall.

 
The stall and my two offsiders just before opening time. The lady in the background, facing us, was Linsey's grade four teacher, lovely lady. Just thought you needed to know that...

 
Clare and Ally were good company and most helpful. I was able to leave them in charge while I ran to the bank to get more change. It seems everyone had $50 notes. They went and got me coffee and, even though we had brought sandwiches and fruit for us, I let them buy some biscuits and muffins from the Red Cross fundraising food stall,  when the coffee was purchased. They also raided the money tin for their pocket money! The earnings from this market will almost pay their school levies. Better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick I reckon!

 

Up there, on that second storey/mezzanine is a dance school - ballet, jazz and tap. Leah was a budding ballerina there for a while, until she went to secondary school and her new peer group considered ballet uncool. Anyway, being Saturday plenty of classes were on and the tap classes were, of course, the loudest. Clare and Al: "What's that, is it a storm coming?" Nah, tap dancing. I've met a brilliant tap dancing teacher . "Yes?". Sorry kids, she lives in Melbourne.

 
I'll do some thinking, and more research, about pricing. Probably it's just that markets are fickle. In conversation with other stallholders the consensus was that this one, only the second, was good and fun, just less lucrative.

Those big digital display panels are for Bingo which is held at this venue twice a week. A lady I know said the bingo players are nervous that the stallholders won't be gone by 6.00pm. Well, the market finished at 3.00pm - I think they were worrying a bit much. Bingo is addictive? Could be.

 
Why am I digging a hole? Sammy-cat died in the wee hours of this morning. She was making really good progress, so not sure why. A blood clot that moved? Injury that could not have been picked up in the X-rays. The vet rang just as I was making our sandwiches for market sustenance. I managed not to drench the bread, but I had to redo my makeup. I worry that I prolonged her suffering, that last Saturday she would have been better off "put to sleep". Fruitless worry.

I thought, "If I'm going to dig a big hole I might as well remove one of the trees that are going". Hence the major excavation of stumps and roots.

The hole needs to be deep enough the the dog doesn't dig up Sammy's body. I'm reminded of this Michael Leunig cartoon.

 
From his book Ramming the Shears.

I'll sign off now.

 

 

 

 

Pricing Panic

 I've been making swing tags for the Maker's Market. I've tagged the little clothes and the bags.

 
Now I am struggling with pricing. The toys have had a slight price increase since the last market. That's settled. The messenger bags are $55, the other bags, $40...$35. The little clothes? $28 for the reversible dresses? $18 for the T-shirts. Should that be $32 and $20?

Brain explosion big time!