fiveandtwo

Scarves

 
Finished the scarves that've been in the pipeline.

 
Oranges, greys (completed a few weeks ago), purples and greens. All cotton lined, the orangey one has nice flannelette. Purple and green have a section of patterned cotton, used when I discovered there wasn't enough of the plain colour. I like it!

Following that I sorted projects to take to Crarf Camp (yay!). I am very ambitiously taking just about everything I've got cut out, including the shirt I haven't finished from last time. It still may not get finished, since it's down at the bottom of the list.

Sorted my sewing stuff into the Lady Sewing Box, all good except my pincushion doesn't fit - too fat. I guess I'll just have to make another. Three more sleeps!

The Debutante Ball

 
 
Such gorgeous young ones (Leah is over yonder in this pic. and you can't see her). Two really funny fellows are rolling up the red carpet after the debutantes were "presented". As someone a few weeks ago sardonically commented, "Well, most of them have been around the block before now". The original meaning of the debut is lost and now it's a school fundraiser.

I was told deb. balls are boring but I enjoyed it. I had Linsey to talk to and beautiful young people to admire. 

 
Leah and Harry, her deb. partner.

 
Poor two-left-feet Harry managed to stand on the hem of the dress and rip some of the folds down. This happened even before the ball, when the formal photos were being taken. Safety pins were brought out for repair - I wish I'd been there so it was pinned properly at least.

 
Gorgeous girls and boys.

Harry is a lovely lad , I wish Leah would have him for a boyfriend instead of the current one. Sigh.

 
The paparazzi of Bairnsdale taking the opportunity for a group photo. Took quite a bit of sign language to get Linsey to take a photo of the photographers instead of the youngsters. "What? You want me to take a photo of the people taking photos?". Yes.

 
Linsey and Leah can't dance the Pride Of Erin (would have to be one of the easiest dances).

 
My beautiful big girls.

I find this kind of photo the hardest. I usually have the flash switched off, but at night, even with low light setting, I need flash to get an in focus photo. However, I find these photos ordinary. See photo above. Lovely girls, ordinary photo, shows what I mean. Need to read the camera manual in more detail, I think.

After all the trepidation, the deb. ball was good. Leah seemed a bit deflated on the way home. Anti-climax maybe? So much preparation: dance lessons, choosing a dress, deciding the hair and makeup scenario. I guess it's all over so quickly. Followed by...work at the chemist on Sunday and school on Monday. Did the debutantes of old experience this, "Now what?" feeling? Maybe they were excited by meeting those potential husbands. My guess is, for most, it was, "Now what?", or maybe, "What the hell have I got myself into?".

Ha, who knows.

Grumpy Person Takes Photos Of Sunlight And Shadows

Inexplicable grumpiness, and sadness. Two mornings in a row I've streamed tears while walking the dog. Wish I understood myself.

However, this afternoon the most splendid sunlight made a brief appearance in the house.

 
 
 
 
Found two of these chairs at the oppy recently.

 
My go to cookbook: In The Kitchen by Michelle Curtis and Allan Campion. The picture is Thai Chicken Balls. I made the other recipe on the page, Lemon Chicken Polpettini. Only I used turkey mince because there's a free-range turkey farm 5 minutes from town but not a free-range chicken farm. Once upon a time we bought turkey direct from the farm (you could see the birds barrelling around the paddock). Now Leadoux Turkey can be bought at the local fresh produce shop. Polpettini were yummy.

 
Choko relish and pickled onions. I'm including the pee-in-a-jar looking stuff in the background. It's feijoa jelly. Tastes like feijoa...mmm,nice. Then, there's a nasty, odd, metallic aftertaste. I did jar it, but I think it will go on the garden. I am really over preserving. Sick of it. I guess this is how women in olden times felt after preserving a much bigger harvest than mine. Did they have other women to help? Sisters, aunties, mother, daughters? How does this bode for the future? I love that scene from the film Looking For Alibrandi where the extended family gets together to do the tomatoes (great book too). I want that for the future.

Here's a pic. of my improvised jelly bag, for the dud feijoa jelly.

 
I could have cropped out the clothes horse in the background...but, that's how it is. The clothes horse is a permanent fixture in the colder months. It's a skyscraper - holds two (smallish) loads of washing. Got it from a garage sale years ago. Never seen the like since. If I saw another I would buy it quick time (just to decorate my kitchen in winter *cough*).

Hoping tomorrow I have a dry-eyed dog walk and I'll be in sorting thoughts mode rather than confused shit mode.

Stuff

 
The Dress: it is finished! Hip hip hooray. I'm sure there was 135.6 kilometres of hem that required handsewing. The wanky ball lovely debutante ball is next Saturday night. Today week. I have it on good authority that it's boring. Linsey is the other guest, so at least I'll have someone to talk to. Leah issued invites to all her friends and apparently they've all got something else on...they're such supportive friends *cough*. Well, she will look gorgeous. And that's the main thing.

Have pin basted two quilts. I think, if I have my sewing machine on the kitchen table, that I'll be able to machine quilt them. I am sorely tempted to hand quilt, hand sewing is relaxing for me, however, I want them finished this year (next year at the latest). I have a stitch on my sewing machine that "looks" like handsewing so I'll experiment with that.

On this balmy day I washed the windows. True! Thinking back it was nearly two years ago they were done. I remember Linsey had not long come back from overseas and we exclaimed over the apricot blossom, and I commented on how lovely it is to enjoy such a sight through clean windows. That makes it September 2009. Ahem.

Then, I gardened. Heaved things out, snipped things back, and weeded. I don't like tackling a cold, wet garden so today = make hay while the sun shines. The choko curtain grows ever longer at this time of year. It is a very productive vine. I chop them into all sorts of things but I still think they are best sliced and briefly stir fried with garlic and ginger (other veg. as well) and sprinkled with soy sauce. I've been told they're good roasted, but haven't tried that yet. Just about everything is good roasted. I made choko relish and had it recently on a baked potato with shredded cabbage, grated carrot and sour cream. Yum. I am making some more relish just for this purpose!

 

 

Kathie Winkle

Found at the Lakes Entrance second had shop on Sunday. Two Mexico bowls and a saucer which is Chequers. I'm not sure if Chequers is a KW design, but it comes from that era of Broadhurst. 

Lots of interesting stuff at this secondhand shop. Going in with $7.00 in your wallet is an exercise in restraint.

Those are feijoas (aka pineapple guava) in the photo. Yummy. Cut in half, scoop out flesh with a teaspoon, delicious. I am planning to make feijoa jelly. Soon.

Good Things About Yesterday

A Sunday when I planned to hem The Dress. Got a better offer on this cold, but sunny day.

Let's go to Red Bluff, a beach on the way to Lake Tyers, which a bit past Lakes Entrance. "Oh no, it's the Surf Classic this weekend". We get there and the Surf Classic has been moved to Cape Conran. Phew. We had the beach to ourselves.

 
 

We had the dog on a long rope initially, but since the beach was deserted we let her off. She ran and ran. A greyhound at full speed is an awesome sight.

 
 
Here, she's still on the long line.

As a bonus Red Bluff has a rocky point. I think I have some sort of deep connection to rocks. Ancestral memory? Jungian stuff there.

 
 
 
 

 The small fry like rocks too.

 
 
 
 

Clare found crab shells.

 

Don't walk on these rocks and dunes. Soft sandstone erodes readily.

 
Fenced off for protection.

So, back to town for fish and chips.

 
My junk food of choice. Salty and crunchy is my junk food vice. I can resist chocolate and sweety things but...hot chips, packets of chips, salty things deep fried in batter. Mmmm...yum.

Shared with ever present seagulls.

 

Gratuitous image of sunlight on water. Something I find beautiful.

 

Forgotten About Quilt Top

I entertained thoughts about using this as the backing for the wagga...but it would be too busy. Too much happening. I looked in my repository of cream blankets, a suitcase on top of Leah's cupboards (she hates that I have put my stuff in her room) and found not one, but two large blankets, so now I think I'll make it into a quilt after all.

 
I made it about five or six years ago and then didn't like it, put it away and forgot about it. In some ways I'm still not sure...It's made from all sorts of fabrics: placemats, pillowslips, curtains, aprons, sheets, table cloths and actual fabric that wasn't made into something beforehand (now there's a novelty). It's big too, queen sized. Interesting that I managed to line up the rectangles on this, unlike the wagga.

Here's the very last cherry tomato. I put the cherry tom in a pot on the deck this year. It liked that spot and was very productive, but not too productive. I guess I could have taken excess to Street Harvest but with limited space one cherry is good and then I can grow other veg.

 

I'm still not used to all this rain. Clare and Ally have never had a pair of gumboots (born at the start of the drought) but now they actually need them, I have resurrected my ancient pair. Especially for going into the chook pen. It badly needs mucking out but it's much easier to do after a long dry spell. It's weird to have mud in our small yard. Where we walk out the back and at the front gate.

 
The Autumn vine is hops (deciduous). To the left is the feijoa which has monster fruit this year. The rain, again. A bit of achillea (also known as Yarrow) and a convulvulus which I don't know the name of but is a splendid ground cover.

Wagga Quilt Top

Quilters who like all their squares perfectly aligned should avert their eyes.

 
All those squares I cut out and assembled last year have been sewn together! I didn't have any particular size in mind, it just sort of grew to this roughly double bed size.

I pinned the whole thing together on the kitchen table before losing interest until now. I think I'll use one of those old cream blankets for batting because it's in keeping with all the recycled wool pieces I used. All from the oppy - I buy pieces no matter how small. There is a dark olive green that's left over from a jacket I made and a dark grey from a pair of pants. I'm wearing them now, in fact (just thought you'd like to know...).

Not sure what to back it with. A purple chenille bedspread? A green, thick cotton sheet? A vintage floral sheet? Or one with large green hearts on a white background? Red lozenge shapes on a white background? Blue chambray? I'll have to dig out all my large pieces of fabric & vintage sheets.

You Sew, Girl! (The Book)

I ordered this book on Sunday night and it arrived on Tuesday (fast delivery, or what).

 
I ordered it from Nicole's website after seeing snippets of it around the traps. It's signed and all.

I'm particularly excited by the section on Pattern Free Sewing, something I've only really done with toys, bags and the like - this is clothes sewing. Look at these pages from the book. Doesn't it whet your appetite for stitching?

 
 
 
 
This is the child's Panel Skirt (there're instructions for a lovely, twirly circle skirt too). The Panel Skirt instructions apply to adults, as well.

 

I rather fancy a new glasses case too.

 
So much better than my own version.

Instructions are clear and easy to follow, but, being me, I'll have to fiddle and work it out as I go. I'll have a go at the Pattern-Free Cowl Top just as soon as I've finished The Dress ("only" the hem to go) and the sewing-bits-of-wool-fabric-together obsession has run its course. Must photograph the sewn together top of the wagga! Now brooding about whether to add batting of some kind, I have thoughts of using one of those old cream-coloured blankets (saw a couple in Vinnies today), and what I'll use for the back. I will pick your brains when you've "seen" it.

Sewing Furiously, Slow Internet

I've been on a (forced) internet fast for the last week and a half. I blame Clare and Ally for using up all the (large) monthly allowance: too much watching episodes of Pokemon and Vampire Knight on the internet in the school holidays. Last time we were slowed in under three weeks was in the Christmas school holidays so it has to be them...couldn't be me and my love of picture heavy blogs. Nah, definitely not.

 It is so good to have high speed internet back. Sad but true.

Work progresses on The Dress. It even looks like the picture on the pattern envelope and Leah is very happy with it.

 
I've done some more since I took this photo, finished off the bodice and put in the waist stay (a belt-like thing inside the dress that helps support a strapless dress with a full skirt). Still to be done: sewing the drapey bits to the lining (I'll need to reinforce those spots), at the moment it's held by little safety pins in the seamline, then all that remains is to do the hem. The Ball is 28/5.

In between sewing and fittings of The Dress I've been obsessively sewing together bits of wool fabric, for bags and scarves and I'm going to start my Wagga while the obsession has taken hold.

One scarf is finished, lined and all it is. To prevent Itchy Neck Syndrome.

 
 

Some more await lining.

 
I have so enjoyed the process of piecing these together. "Hmm, that colour works, and that one. No not that one".

 Same meditative creative process with the three wool-patch bags I made "fabric"  panels for. I cut out more bags from fabric in my stash, as well. 
Top three are woolly-patchy, the other are all one fabric, all have wild but complementary lining. It's always good to have a hundred projects on the go...nah, not really, it's overwhelming. In addition to all the above, including The Dress, I have cut out some clothes for me. Some from that "spencer-coloured" wool jersey that I dyed.

Cannot complain of boredom.