fiveandtwo

From The Tip Shop

I've had my eye out for a shelf or cupboard for this space, where once was an upright freezer. Carrying a measuring tape around in my bag in case I came across something with potential.

Found an ugly chipboard veneer shelf at the tip shop last week - $10. Coats of paint made it useable, and it fits the spot perfectly.

Temporary place for my vintage floral sheets, not ideal since the fold to the outside will fade and they'll get really dusty.  I haven't found a lairy sheet in good condition for a few years. Such is the state of op-shopping now. Because you're dying to know: top shelf, basket of toilet paper rolls and basket of old sheets for making toiles (testing patterns). I buy toilet paper wholesale - four dozen rolls at a time, ahem, yes. It lives in the shed with a top-up basket inside. Must be a big family thing...not only toilet paper, but washing powder, pasta, flour and rice. I wish there was an Indian or Chinese grocery nearby so I could buy sacks of decent rice. Have recently finished the 15kg bag of excellent Basmati rice I got in Melbourne a while ago.

Second shelf: container of dry dog food (also bought in bulk and kept in the shed). Mostly the dog has fresh meat and bones. Pile of flowery sheets.

Third shelf: pile of flowery sheets, canister containing matches, old kiddie schoolcase containg shoe polishing gear.

Fourth shelf: flowery sheets on a painted - same time as shelf - cardboard archive box which contains odd woolly fabric awaiting dyeing, when I get in the mood, you know.

End of riveting shelf-by-shelf description.

Also bought at the tip shop:

Splendid owly cup measure. Not a bargain ($7.00) but irresistable. Probably there was a whole set, once upon a time: 1 cup, 1/2 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/4 cup. Glad there was just this one, no room for others!

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.

The Kitchen Over Fourteen Years

A couple of comments admiring my kitchen from the post-before-the-last (I am too lazy to do a link) led me to get out the photo album that records the various renovations we've done in this house.

This is how it was when we bought the place in March 1996.

I re-painted the cupboards (I liked the colours but the paint was very sad). I kept the fab black handles. We got a different wood stove.

The sweet little 3yo boy in this photo is 18 in a couple of weeks. I lashed out and got a removalist to transport the piano and the kitchen cabinet in the picture. Piano = very heavy, cabinet = fragile curved glass.

I did the conveyancing on the buying of this house and the sale of the old house (using a kit that doesn't seem to be available now). Stressful, but worth it because I got to buy a gas stove of my choice with the money saved. I developed a tic in my right eye while I was stressing over whether or not I'd "got everything right". Still worth it. Still using the stove - but need to save for another now - the oven door has a disturbing tendency to fall off when least expected.

Above. This is how it was before renovation. After we'd been here for a year or so my husband and his brother get together and made the mobile kitchen bench. Using stud timber from old houses (the top), oregon offcuts from a mill, perforated stainless steel from the scrap yard, square section steel for the frame bought new and welded by DH, wheels from an old wheelchair (from the scrapyard). Still "ideal for the job" today.

Then, we'd saved enough. In 2001 the kitchen took on the appearance of recent photos.

This one of my most favourite reno. photos. Ratbaggy Clare and Ally assisting their Dad plumbing the kitchen sink. We didn't touch anything. Truly we didn't. Really, truly - we are innocent.

In 2006 the kitchen floor was replaced. The floorboards had holes that got bigger and bigger. Random parts of the floor crumbled away. There was a big hole between the kitchen and the back hallway that had a bit of metal temporarily tacked over it.

The most disruptive renovation project to date.

Yeah, well, it remains ongoing, the fixing up of the house. The rusty roof was going to be next, but DH rather fancies solar power. Both would be good.

Giles wants access to the computer. I was going rave on about reno's, materials, design, second-hand materials etc etc.

Nah, sorry, bye.

 

Map Toilet

In the Christmas holidays...I wallpapered the back toilet with old maps.

In hindsight I  was procrastinating about making the fitted, removable covers for the couches. Something that actually needed doing but I lacked enthusiasm for (I did get the covers done in the end). Had great fun doing this, however.

The Australian maps are pretty accurate but city maps have changed, of course. There is a Melbourne map that has Tullamarine Airport "under construction". The world maps are just plain old. There's the USSR, for example. Palestine hasn't had Israel created within it. Sri Lanka is Ceylon. Pakistan and Bangladesh aren't on the old maps etc, etc. So much shrinking, expanding and renaming. So much conflict as a result.

The maps are more decorative than educational. It was like doing a giant jigsaw. I wanted some sort of meaning to the jigsaw, though. The Australian portions of maps include places I've lived, places my husband has lived and places where we've both lived. So NT, Qld, WA, NSW and Vic. are there. Places we've enjoyed travelling through, and to, are included (SA comes in here). Tasmania is included because Linsey went to Falls Festival there at the beginning of this year and she loves Tassie - thinking of doing further study at UTAS when she finishes her diploma. I really want to visit Tassie too, but at the moment our holidays mean a trip to Sunshine Coast Qld to catch up with my parents (in a retirement village in Buderim). A Sunshine Coast holiday is no hardship, however!

As for the world maps...big ones of UK and one of Ireland on it's own. Germany as well. These are for Linsey. The countries she stayed in last year (she loved Ireland). Spain and Portugal feature, I'd love to go to the UK, but also these Mediterranean countries. I want to visit Turkey too, and maybe Greece, for the ruins of ancient civilisations. All this travel is but a pipe dream: my money is spoken for and I'm not sure about alone travel. My husband isn't interested and, frankly, I'd rather go without him.

We put the grab rail in about nine years ago now, for a visit from my parents. There's another on the opposite wall. See how neatly I cut the maps around the rail attachments. That was the last time my oldies were able to travel. I do think the grab rails will be very handy when I become rickety and decrepit. It was easier to leave the rails there than remove them.

I used old maps and pages from old atlases collected from op-shops over maybe ten years. Initially, I wanted to make art work from the maps, and I may still do so. I used an adhesive for glueing on wallpaper borders. It was very easy to use, no mixing and didn't make the maps "soggy", but not cheap. I reckon I used four containers of this adhesive, cost about $60. Money well spent as far as I'm concerned.

Mad Dog

The dog has done this to my couch.

Those fitted loose covers I made, they took hours. Two sets of covers for the seat cushions. With zips and everything.

I am less thasn impressed.

A visit to the Vet is in order, I think. She has also started peeing in the house, and her fur is getting more patchy.

Maybe it's the rabbits, maybe she's gone bonkers.

Broken

This lass is beyond repair.

 

Gracie was given to Linsey over ten years ago, passed on to Leah, then to Clare and Ally. Even though china dolls are meant to be ornamental, not played with, I let them anyway. What's the point of having a doll if you can't play with her?

She's been glued so many times, and adhesive bandage was used when the glue failed. Not surprisingly Gracie was often used in hospital/doctor/nurse games.

This time the injury was fatal and she's in the shed awaiting burial, or recycling (I stil have another hearth to do).

Speaking of hearths and broken things: the kitchen hearth is finished!

Well, some sanding and sealing of the wood surround is in order, otherwise...it's finished!

Did I say the hearth was finished? Yep, it's done.

 

The giant jigsaw was absorbing, I enjoyed doing it. I like having the ice cream containers of broken china out of the way. Makes access to the kitchen bench much easier.

Another hearth to be done...eventually. More plates and bowls need to be broken. I used up most of the good bits on the kitchen hearth. Hmmm, could be an excuse to seek out more china at the op-shop!

In Progress

So much in progress. It's a bit overwhelming. 

The hearth of our new cooker/heater/hot water heater. I looked and looked locally for tiles but nothing suited. For me, it was an excess of bland and ugly. Driving to pick up Giles from work one day...I  remembered. Ten or more years worth of broken china. I've always kept the patterned and coloured stuff. I'm about two thirds of the way through. Then to grout it.

Then there's the seedlings:

 

Which means I need to spend some time preparing here:

 

And then I need to make some clothes for me. Pants in particular. My last decent pair has been stained by "gardening in passing". You know, you see a weed or something as you walk past, bend to pull it out and before you know it you've been there half an hour in your "good clothes".

 

I'm a bit demoralised, I finished sewing pants that I began months ago. They still don't fit. Even after letting the darts out they're too small. Damn. 

I am really enjoying this book. Really. Much that is useful for me, and I consider myself a gardener with some experience. The magic square is one square metre which is the beginning of a larger garden or a garden that is in a tiny space. Or one that's manageable for a person with many other commitments. Add as many square metres as you can manage.

I read Lolo Houbein's Wrong Face in the Mirror: An Autobiography of Race and Identity many years ago and found it good. Then, recently at a market I found Walk a Barefoot Road. Haven't read it yet though, it's on the teetering "to read" pile.

I'm also in the throes of painting the latest round of built-ins.

 

This is the one in the kitchen, waiting for paint. There's also one in the loungeroom for TV/DVD/Video/CD Player, books and CDs. I'm doing this post while I'm waiting for the first top coat to dry.

There you have my excuses for posting sporadically. And also that the computer freezes for some unknown reason while I'm using Typepad - the only time it happens. I've learnt to save the draft after each paragraph and photo upload, since the only remedy I've found is to switch the computer off and resart. Anyone have ideas about this? It is very irritating, happening multiple times.

Winter Drying

This multi-storey clothes horse lives spends all winter in our loungeroom. More often than not festooned with wet washing. It gets dry - straight from the machine takes about 24 hours, partially dry usually only overnight.

I got it from a garage sale. Holds two large loads of washing!

Now a picture of some wool fabric recently op-shopped. Actually, the lairy one on top is cotton. Moth caterpillars have gnawed on the light and dark grey pieces at some stage, they're wool jersey, luckily most of it still usable.

One day (don't hold your breath people) I'm going to make a quilt/blanket thingy with my wool fabric bits.

I just looked it up in The Gentle Arts, 200 Years of Australian Women's Domestic and Decorative Arts (by Jennifer Isaacs - a wonderful book, by the way) and they were once known as bush rugs or "waggas", and made from worn out woollen clothing, suiting samples from local tailors and the like.

Very beautiful in a subtle, understated way. Like the quilts of Gee's Bend in the US. Using what fabric was available for thrift and economy. Sometimes I am boggled by the masses of fabric available today, manufactured specifically for patchwork quilting. Some of it is beautiful, too, but the whole "industry" is far removed from the origins of the craft. The same can be said of many crafts - just a sign of affluence I guess.

Banner

Oh, the frustration. I am trying to make a custom banner for my blog. Correction. I have made one, I just can't upload/insert the damn thing. Man, it's doing my head in I tell you!

I've put it all aside for now, to deal with next week...mutter,swear, mutter, swear.

The Battle of the Banner has meant no crafting or other interesting pursuits. Have a look at my bathroom medicine cabinet instead. Finally installed in the bathroom! Came from a garage sale years ago, and fixed up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I read/heard somewhere that greyhounds are cuddly pets. They don't look as if they would be but here is some evidence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clare having a snooze with Suska. That's cuddly.

With the cold weather upon us out comes the winter kitchen window covering. Put on at sundown to keep the cold out and the warmth in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news: I've been having a go at patternmaking. I have a (long term) plan to open an online shop, probably Etsy. Selling little kid's clothes, toys, felt purses, cards and bags. Or maybe just the clothes and toys. Either way I need to make patterns from my sketches. Nothing like a new challenge - but it's nowhere near as frustrating as that banner thing! Of course, it's a slow process...meaning: don't expect grand shop openings anytime soon.

Those of you with Etsy shops, I'd appreciate any ideas/feedback.

I'm off tomorrow afternoon for an overnight stay at Lakes Entrance - tea out Saturday night and a sleep-in on Sunday...ah. This little interlude has been in the pipeline for a good eighteen months! My two buddies and I have found it hard to score a weekend when all three of us don't have other commitments!

Fish o' The Decade

Definitely a once-a-decade phenomenon. My husband catching an eating size fish, that is (not through lack of effort, though).

A 1kg trout, what a beauty.

It's been a scattered week. Well, more so than usual.

I got my large, luxurious sheepskin off lay-by. I haven't sat on it yet, but doesn't it look sooo comfortable.

A random room shot from where I was sitting on the couch to photograph the "sheepy".

The room through the doorway is Linsey's bedroom. It's really interesting to go and look at the ever-changing pictures, photos and artworks on her walls.

I was tagged for the "Seven Weird Things" meme by Janet. I should be able to come up with loads of weird things to tell since I've been considered weird for most of my life! The label did lessen somewhat upon finishing high school. Then I pretty much embraced the tag.

I'll come up with the seven in due course.