A whole lot of nothing and everything all at once

Have you noticed?  No crafting going on in this space right now.  I've hardly had the urge to touch the sewing machine this year and the task of making a simple drawstring bag for my son starting kindergarten next week is the only reason I made myself sit at the machine last night (I even started by sewing a right side to a wrong side - sigh).  I haven't even been reading blogs for a few days, I just had a peek and I have a lot in my reader to catch up on!

The reasons: lots on my mind, lots on my plate, and lots of damn water.

Thanks to those lovely people who have checked in on us to see if we are OK.  Thankfully we live in an unaffected area, up high and dry in a nice old Queenslander too.  Thats not to say everything hasn't been very wet, soggy and increasingly mouldy (and the cabin fever - aaaaargh!).  We haven't had to pack up and leave but this week we have been doing a lot of packing for an entirely different reason altogether - we are in the throws of moving house.  Moving in the middle of Queensland's worst flood disaster over 100 years is no piece of cake.  For the first part of the week there was so much rain that we had to run boxes out to the car only when there were short breaks in the severity of the rain.  Now the rain has stopped entirely and we are hoping that the furniture removal truck on Saturday (a) was not flooded at the depot or something in Toowong (b) has enough petrol (c) is not diverted elsewhere.  Not that I would complain loudly if any of these things happened, I have to keep myself grounded as plenty of people don't even have furniture anymore and will be spending this weekend sorting through the ruins of their homes.  There is a certain amount of survivor guilt that we are spending this weekend moving to a beautiful new home of our own.  I am hoping that we can donate the things we don't want to take with us in the move to where its needed locally.


Thank you to those participating in the Qld flood appeal auction. You're simply ace.

She knits

In the B&B, a basket of wool and needles and an invitation to knit.

I can knit, a bit.

A few rows of grey, and then a change to red to amuse the small one.

He "helped".

Maybe you can too?

I didn't get to do a whole square, but I did my bit of knit.

Christmas, Evandale Tasmania

We went travelling on Christmas Day this year.  A lot of water and a bit of a cyclone in Queensland sent the Brisbane airport into chaos on what we expected to be a very cruisy travelling day of the year.  We made it to Tasmania just fine though.  Before going campervanning we had booked in to stay our first night at Blenheim historical house in Evandale, close to the Launceston airport.  We discovered a very beautiful and stunningly photogenic place with gorgeous hosts who also run a glass gallery and antiques store on their property.  I just wanted to share a few of the photos I took while visiting this magical place. 

Flowers in the garden were in full bloom and buzzing with acutal bumble bees.

The real thing for Christmas time! A holly tree (green berries still though).

A beautifully presented and scrumptious breakfast, just how I would love to wake up to breakfast everyday.

Poking around in the early morning sunshine I discovered many hidden and delicious corners in this courtyard.

The entrance to a walled garden.

The outdoor table that had hosted a family Christmas feast the day before.

A storeroom.

 And a laundry! Where else do you keep your plates and pitchers?

Thanks to our hosts Victoria and Robert for a wonderful stay.

Just been up to...

...a bit of campervanning around Tasmania.  Believe me the romance of what it sounds does not match the gritty reality.  Adventure none the less!

The good:

• having your own lounge room and kitchen in tow where ever you go
• sitting in your "lounge room" in Salamanca in Hobart eating cream cheese and Tasmanian smoked salmon on fresh bread rolls (erstwhile people watching)
• grilled cheese on toast when ever you want it
• gorgeous sun filled evening in a beautiful heritage town for the last day of 2010
• not being able to play kids music on the stereo as the speakers are only in the front
• the kid is a long way behind you
• when the kid finally drops off to sleep in the top of the van you can do nothing but read a good novel until you too pass out

The bad:

• the roaring 40s nearly blows the van off the road
• the road is always sickeningly windey when its my turn to drive
• repeated head injuries from low clearance in the van for adults
• making the kid wee into a baked beans tin in the middle of a freezing night
• needing to get out of the van to toilet yourself about 20mins after the hearing the sound of weeing in a baked beans can

The ugly:

• cold showers at the camping ground amenity block
• slipping over in the shower cubicle, crashing into your child who is bravely enduring the freezing reality of camping ground showers and then discovering that the door does not hold your weight (I'll leave that scene to your imagination)
• falling over in the dark camping ground and removing skin from hands and elbows and getting a large bruise to the knee (and buggering my watch)
• nary a vegetable has been eaten (do baked beans count?)

Alphabet Tuesday: Z is for Zebra

Well there he is, a little zebra to complete my Dick Bruna alphabet panels.

I only started this panel yesterday, I had an "Oh my god, its Monday!" moment and hopped straight to it.  I hadn't had a close look at the illustration before then but did have some half ideas in my head about how it was going to go together.  I realised with some dismay and absolute resignation that it could only be done piece by piece, all 23 of them alternating black and white to hopefully end up with a correct representation of the original.  I cut out all the little pieces yesterday (with a stiff wind blowing though the house = mistake!) and last night spent considerable time shifting the pieces around the backing fabric to get just the right placement.  Yes, I had to move 23 pieces everytime I wanted a slight adjustment up or down, or left or right.  Then hunched over the kitchen bench under the bright halogen lights I started to sew all the pieces down.  I finished this morning (after quitting and going to bed, I didn't sew through the night) with aching shoulders and hopefully not a permanently hunched back from sitting at the kitchen stool.  Looking forward to a good yoga session tomorrow to straighten myself out again.

Next year I have the task of getting all these panels together into a wall hanging for my son's room.  Happily we are moving to a new house next year, finally our own house.  Yes, we will be home owners (gulp!).  The timing couldn't be more perfect for this project.  Don't worry, after setting myself up again after the move I'll be updating how the project is coming along and it will eventually be completed - rectangular? horizontally long? vertically long?  The choices! I'll have to see what fits best in the new house.

Thanks for following along this year, I couldn't have done it without the accountability factor of posting it to the blog!

The finish line

I am looking at the finish line for my alphabet series.  I am aiming to be done before the end of 2010 rolls around.  We will be off to Tasmania at the end of this week, and I really don't fancy taking any sewing with me on this holiday, its time for a break for sure!  So tomorrow is the last Tuesday of the year that I have left to post about this project.

If you've been following along, and even if you haven't, I think you know what the picture for Z is going to be.

Its complicated to recreate in felt though, so lots of little bits of paper template and felt scraps are piling up on the bench.  Its like an ultimate two colour jigsaw puzzle to put together, hopefully it will be all stitched down by tomorrow.

See you then!

Alphabet Tuesday: Y is for Yawn

Does this make you yawn?  Or does just thinking about yawning give you the urge to yawn?

Did you?  Go on, admit it.

Happiness is...parcels, coffee and a stolen hour

Yesterday afternoon I took some time out.

It was very humid weather, I had done all my jobs for the day, and the little one was asking nicely to watch a DVD, so I let him and headed out to relax on the back deck with an armful of goodies to kick back and catch the breeze.

I had just re-filled my coffee bean tin at Merlo coffee, taking home my complimentary coffee in my Keep Cup of course, feeling good about re-usable packaging here.  Coffee is a bit of indulgence for me, I don't drink it regularly any more.

I had two lovely parcels to open, just for me!  One was full of goodies from a close friend, including some delicious Christmas biscuits.  Mmmm, they are tasty and disappearing fast!

My second parcel had just been picked up from the post office.  The post office queue was huge and everybody seemed to have a red parcel pick up slip.  I asked the lady behind the counter if they had missed a delivery or something due to the bad weather (it did look like the whole suburb was turning out to pick up mail) but she looked at me amused and said, "No dear, its just this time of year!".  Silly me.

My parcel was from Nic at Yardage Design with my copy of Handmade Living (devine publication!) and a print of her bunting panel, and a cute little elk decoration.  (I have a moose that is similar, I must dig him out and they can be friends.)

So I drank my coffee, ate some biscuits, read through my new book and felt very chillaxed, well as much as the humid weather would allow for.

And then the DVD was over and it was time to do something else.  I hope you also manage to squeeze in a relaxing hour here and there during this busy time of year.

Rest with the best

Sheets for rest time at kindergarten next year. 

I was putting all the effort into making these thinking why, why, oh why? The boy doesn't do rest time, hasn't for ages, he's a twelve hours a day go, go, go kid.  Enforced rest time is boring, but the powers that be say there will be rest time so sheets are needed, in their own drawstring bag no less.  So you know, if you have got to have them, you may as well have the coolest.

Doily dress

Let me present the finished dress from yesterday.  I stole a few photos in the last afternoon light yesterday, the dress has already gone to its new home.  I only have the doily pinned on in these pictures, I hand stitched it to the dress last night.

This peasant dress is a super easy pattern from Libby Lu's Boutique (on Etsy).

I thought I knew better than the instructions when it came to the sleeves, and it turned out I was wrong!  The instructions say to sew the seam of the sleeve first, then do a very fiddly turn under and stitch to create the casing for the arm elastic.  I thought that was unecessarily complicated and turned under the long edge of the sleeve to make the elastic casing first, put the elastic in, and then sewed the arm seam.  The difference is hidden raw edges if you follow the instructions and a not so neat looking raw edge and elastic ends showing affair using my method.  Grrr.  Lesson learned.

I added a litle tag to the back using some floral ribbon, just so the recipient knows for sure which is the front and which is the back when getting dressed.