A finish

Hi,

Just a quick post to show a little dress I finished yesterday for Gorgeous Girl. This has actually been done for a while, but I couldn’t find buttons that I liked.

These are the third ones I bought for the dress, and were the best I could do with the selection available to me…still not convinced that they work.

I cheated, and didn’t make button holes. I just sewed the two layers together when I sewed the button on (shhh).

Here’s a tip I found out recently for sewing on buttons: If you thread your needle so that there are 4 strands going through it (thread the cotton from both ends) then you don’t have to sew as much 🙂

And that’s the back.

I have a knitted garment blocking as we speak. Hopefully I’ll get some time soon to sew it up. Last Sunday was my first full weekend off in three months. It was heaven. I got the knitted garment finished, and updated Gorgeous Girl’s baby book, and even did some scrapbook pages. Pictures of the scrapping pages in a later post.

Yesterday I photographed my stash in preparation for loading on to Ravelry. I’m hoping that having it stored online will help me keep track of what I’ve got.

Musicwise this time of the year is always insane. This week I’ve spent my free time rehearsing for tonight’s performance for the alumni supper – it went well, except for the crappy sound system. I love singing with the girl I sang with and the song was well received.

Then tomorrow the two choirs I’m in are singing for a musical program as part of the graduation festivities, so we’ve been rehearsing for that.

Sunday I have to work – hey!? Do you think I can trade sleep for crafting time? (I’m currently trading it for blogging time).

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment, despite my sporadic posts.

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Playing catch-up

Now that Gorgeous Man is back from his visit to the USA and Canada I have my camera back, and can show you some of the things that I’ve been working on.

I love Gorgeous Man. He skyped me from Toronto to tell me that there was a store called Fabricland up the road from his hotel and ask what he should look for 🙂

This was what he brought home.

The basket was part of the gift. I love baskets and boxes and when the conference he presented at gave him a fruit basket as a thank you, he put the empty basket in his suitcase and brought it home. Now I really need to get sewing!! There has also been other fabric acquisitions, but in the interests of protecting the guilty (me) I’m not showing them…

My friend F taught me how to shirr fabric. This was the result.

Gorgeous Girl has developed some sign language to go with her words. When she wants something, or wants to be picked up she turns her palms upwards and flicks her fingers in and out. I caught her mid-action in this picture.

We get our lawn cut by the campus gardening team. I’ve been waiting for over 3 weeks now. The grass on the front ‘lawn’ is now taller than my head… The blue you can see in the long grass behind Gorgeous Girl is one of the two roof tiles that blew off last week! It was much windier than usual.

One other thing has been occupying my time.

One of the ladies in my new sewing group (which totally rocks by the way – we had so much fun) is a spinner – she used to own a yarn store, and sell wheels. To say I was excited when I learnt this is an understatement. She brought the spindle and fleece along to our last sewing day and after we had worked on our group charity quilt – we spend an hour on that and then work on our own projects, she taught me to spin.

I’ve filled the spindle 4 times since then 🙂 I’m starting to get some nice thin, even sections. I’ve wanted to learn to spin ever since I was a little girl who had to be forcibly dragged away from the spinning demonstrators at an agricultural show, so I nearly passed out when Z told me she’d brought the spindle and fleece for me to try. I was completely overwhelmed at the end of our sewing group when she told me that the spindle was mine to keep. I have the nicest friends, honestly I do.

I’m finding the spindle is great for those 3 or 4 minute chunks of time waiting for the kettle to boil and stuff like that.

The snake in the grass top is finished. I think I’m going to send it out to be quilted. Time to start the next quilt. Fish this time. I’ve kind of let my days of the week organisation of projects slip, I think I need to get back to that. I seem to be more productive that way.

We will not discuss the dress I’m knitting for Gorgeous Girl. Let’s just say that there was much cursing when I discovered that I had neglected to cast on the stitches for the armhole (I was only 5cm from finishing the thing) and had to frog back…

Well it’s time for me to switch over to my work computer and go to work. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by…

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Scarves for Africa project

Thank you everyone who professed an interest in the scarves!! I am overwhelmed with the generosity of the knitting community, and my colleague can’t quite believe it when I tell her the response we’ve had so far. I will reply to all of you personally, I’m a bit behind because I worked this weekend…

To answer some of the more common questions:

* The scarves can be any pattern or yarn that you like as long as the colours are navy blue or bottle green.

* You can see examples of the colours of the uniforms on this page here: Feeding Children in Africa: Wishlist.

I don’t know about you, but seeing “Food” on a wish-list for a school brings a lump to my throat.

* I’m going to be doing a mistake rib scarf to start with.

* The scarves are going to primary aged children, so they don’t have to be overly long.

* Let me know when you are ready to post and I’ll send you my address. I’ll collect the scarves and then take them in to Bronwyn at the office.

* Please put GIFT on your parcel so that I don’t get hit with import duty – sometimes I have to pay it anyway, and that’s ok, but I’d like to minimize that as much as possible. 🙂

* Let me know if I’ve missed anything, or if you have any questions, and from the bottom of my heart, Thank you for coming on board 🙂

There are other things going on, but I want to keep the scarves information in a dedicated post of its own.

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A change of focus is just what I needed

Yesterday I went to the guild meeting for November (yes, I’m a sucker for punishment) and confirmed for myself that it will well and truly be the last time I attend there. Among other things, Gorgeous Girl was the recipient of several pointedly hostile glances for saying “yummm yummm” and “ahh” while eating her food and looking at a book while the speakers were talking. Not everyone, some folk were lovely, but it just made me feel sad.

So sad in fact that I started crying when I was telling The Chocolate Cat about it later.

So there I was feeling very sorry for myself when I started chatting with one of my colleagues on facebook and I discovered that she runs a Non-Profit Organisation for children in rural schools. These are usually schools on farms where the farm workers children attend. The provide uniforms and stationery and other equipment. I asked her if there was anything she particularly needed and guess what she said…

Scarves

Last year they managed to help one school (it gets cold in parts of Africa in winter, it even snows in parts) 12 of them knitted 56 scarves. My colleague knitted 18! I figure I can knit a few scarves, any one want to help me?

They need 56 navy blue and 54 bottle green ones – the scarves then match the school uniform and can be worn at school in the classroom.

If you are interested, please let me know, and I’ll give you a mailing address . We’d like to have them in time for June next year (Southern Hemisphere winter). Here is a link to her NPO where you can learn more about what they do: Feeding Children in Africa

Here is a link to their wish-list showing individual schools and what each school needs: FCIA Wish List

So after talking with her, I felt a lot less sorry for myself. I’m going to be knitting some scarves, just as soon as I can get to a yarn store, I’d love for you to join me – we could have a scarf along. Let me know if you are interested.

Then Sarah of Nibbling Along gave me this lovely prize.

An I love your blog award. The rules of the award are as follows:

1. The winner can put the logo on their website/blog.

2. Add a link to the person who gave you the award.

3. Nominate at least five other websites/blogs.

4. Provide links to the nominated websites/blogs.

5. Leave a message at each blog/website telling them they’ve been given the award.

Wow, choosing just 5 is hard…I’m going to try and choose 5 that I haven’t mentioned before. In no particular order:

1. She has the Logic of a Puggle – This is an Australian blog, and while she lives in a different part of Australia to where I am from, her pictures often remind me of home. Btw, puggle is a real word, you’ll have to visit to see what it means.

2. Life’s a Quilt – Hedgehog is an incredible quilter, I really envy her style, who has recently taken the first steps down the slippery slope of the knitting obsessed fraternity 🙂 She also gets to travel to very cool places and I enjoy her travel pics very much.

3. Through the Loops – The most amazing knitting designs (I have quite a number sitting on my to do list waiting for the perfect yarn) and beautiful photography.

4. Javajem Knits – I don’t think there’s anything Javajem can’t do, she knits, spins, quilts, sews, and draws the most amazingly whimiscal pictures. Plus she’s just a really nice person and I feel privileged to call her my friend. And to think we’d never have met if it hadn’t been for the magic of the ‘innernets’ – Thanks Al Gore!

5. Patchywork of Mini Grey – Another Aussie blogger. I’m in love with her paper piecing at the moment. Very different from traditional paper piecing, but so effective. I’m planning on showing her website to my new quilting group at our meeting on Monday.

On the weekend F came over and we sewed the MOST adorable little summer dress out of white embroidered lawn and lace. I’m going to have to borrow a camera so I can show you. I don’t know if I can wait until Gorgeous Man gets home. Now I know how to add shirring elastic 🙂 There is one more dress and a skirt ready to be shirred up. Unfortunately it’s been too cold to wear the dress 😦

It’s November and I’m sleeping with a handmade quilt and a thick blanket on top of that still.

Anyway, Gorgeous Girl is asleep – we had a rough night due to some tummy issues so I’m going to hit my sewing machine.

Let me know if you are interested in the scarves.

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Should I be worried…

…that Gorgeous Girl has twowords: ‘Daddy’ and ‘Gone’, but still won’t say ‘Mummy’?

The Gone is said in relation to food and bottle more often than it is in relation to Daddy, but even so…

It’s been a hectic week. We’ve had some changes in the care for Gorgeous Girl. The girl that has been coming to watch Gorgeous Girl didn’t turn up for work Monday and Tuesday (which made working from home with no childcare interesting) and then on Tuesday night she resigned. I’m happy for her. She has a new full-time job for one of the major supermarkets here, so financially and career-wise she’s better off, so it’s good for her.

While I was in the USA we had two people looking after Gorgeous Girl during the day, so I asked D if she’d be interested in taking over. She was,  and Wednesday and Thursday were great. D has a little boy about 10 months older than Gorgeous Girl and she had great fun chasing him around the house giggling hysterically. Then Friday she came to tell me that she needs to study for two weeks. So I am once again without a carer for Gorgeous Girl (for the next two weeks). It’s only 3 hours a day, 4 days a week, but it’s such a huge help, especially since housework gets done while Gorgeous Girl naps…

So D is bringing a friend over on Sunday to see if she can take over for the 2 weeks while she’s on study leave. Of course, all this would happen while Gorgeous Man is away 🙂

There’s been a bit of knitting going on, and I’m hoping to have a FO to photograph by the time the camera comes back from its travels with Gorgeous Man. I’m also hoping to get a bit of sewing done this weekend. I picked up a very cute pattern for pants, and some fabulous lime green fabric with red embroidered ladybugs while I was in the USA.

Our little breakaway from the guild group had it’s first meeting this week (with *gasp* an agenda!!!). We had a great time. We’ve decided to call ourselves the Free Radicals. Interestingly, with the exception of F we are all foreign. There are five of us so far, and we are thinking that a group of about 10 would work well. The other names that were floated were mostly foreign as well. Given the recent guild dramas, we are being very selective about who we invite. We just want people who are nice, and who want to sew without powerplays etc. We have some exciting plans, and I think it’s going to be fun, and Gorgeous Girl is more than welcome.

Well Gorgeous Girl is sleeping and there’s a pattern waiting to be traced off and cut out. This post was longer, but my internet died and I can’t remember what witty things I wrote…

Enjoy your crafting, and for those of my friends in the USA – happy voting!

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