This and that

We have had Gorgeous Man’s mother and step-father visiting with us for the last few weeks. Yesterday they returned to China where they are working.

One thing about being an international family is that you have to be organised regarding Christmas presents. Gorgeous Man’s mother left lots of presents to go under the tree for Gorgeous Girl, and I sent them home with a small gift as well. Since they will be spending Christmas in Australia this year with the rest of the family I needed to do something small and light. This is what I came up with.

Some 8 x 8 inch layouts to go in the mini-album which is currently kept in Australia. I think they turned out well. The two pages in each photo don’t necessarily go together, it was just convenient for photographic purposes.

Gorgeous Girl was recently invited to a birthday party (complete with face painting, balloon animals and jumping castle) and I decided to make the gift rather than contribute to more plastic stuff in circulation. I checked with the mother and discovered that she had been looking for an apron for a while. Gorgeous Girl and I went fabric shopping and she chose the fabric, telling me “This one, A likes pink”

A few hours later we had this little gift.

The gifts weren’t opened at the party. So I hope it was well received. It probably would have worked better with light pink thread, but I’m trying to use up my thread stash. I inherited a lot of thread when a friend moved overseas and it seems silly to buy more when there is adequate stuff sitting in my thread case. I have to confess to being enough of a geek that I get a thrill when I finish a spool.

I have a finished quilt and a computer bag to show you, but I’m a terrible photographer and those pictures are blurry. I’ll try again tomorrow if the weather is good.

The garden is starting to come to life. The corn is up, the strawberries are producing nicely, I got one final jar of cape gooseberry jam out of the gooseberry bushes and the lettuce is starting to peek though the ground. The warmer weather has caused the chooks to start producing more eggs and I gave away a dozen this week.

Of course there has been spinning (knitting too but everything is still at a boring stage).

This is 327 metres of tussah silk and is the Twist Street in the Rain colourway from the Nurturing Fibres sock and fibre club that I belong to. The yarn is blue and green and black with shots of burgundy. It’s just stunning. This will become something special for my friend Kerin. My mum is going to play courier when she comes to visit at Christmas, so I have a deadline with this one.

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Some birthdays

September and October are the birthday months in our house. Gorgeous Man celebrates in September and then Gorgeous Girl has a birthday at the beginning of the month and I follow her exactly a week later.

Recently we had a small party for a Gorgeous Girl who turned three.

There was cake.

There was some bubble blowing.

And there were some friends.

The next day was her birthday and we opened some presents.

In honour of turning 37 I thought I’d play along with this meme that I spotted over at Patchy Work of Mini Grey if you don’t read her blog you really should, she is an incredibly talented quilter.

Rules: Things you’ve already done in bold. Things you want to do in italics. Things you haven’t done and don’t want to, leave in plain font. She changed a few of them to make them more relevant to Australians and I left some of her changes in.

1. started your own blog (several!)
2. slept under the stars
3. played in a band (brass band and highschool band)
4. visited Hawaii
5. watched a meteor shower
6. given more than you can afford to charity
7. been to Disneyland/World
8. climbed a mountain – it had steps cut into the side of it, so it doesn’t really count
9. held a praying mantis
10. sang a solo
11. bungee jumped (no bloody way!)
12. visited Paris
13. watched a lightning storm at sea
14. taught yourself an art from scratch
15. adopted a child
16. had food poisoning
17. walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. grown your own vegetables
19. seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. slept on an overnight train
21. had a pillow fight

22. hitch hiked
23. taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. built a snow fort
25. held a lamb
26. gone skinny dipping
27. run a marathon
28. ridden a gondola in Venice
29. seen a total eclipse
30. watched a sunrise or sunset
31. hit a home run
32. been on a cruise
33. seen Niagara Falls in person
34. visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. seen an Amish community
36. taught yourself a new language (I have enough Chinese to order food, shop  and ask for directions, does that count?)
37. had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. gone rock climbing
40. seen Michelangelo’s David in person
41. sung karaoke (I lived in China…)
42. seen Old Faithful Geyser erupt watched a sun set at Uluru
43. bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. visited Africa
45. walked on a beach by moonlight
46. been transported in an ambulance (sirens weren’t flashing though)
47. had your portrait painted (Cartoon at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco)
48. gone deep sea fishing
49. seen the Sistene Chapel in person
50. been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. gone scuba diving or snorkeling (Ningaloo Reef snorkelling)
52. kissed in the rain
53. played in the mud
54. gone to a drive-in theatre
55. been in a movie
56. visited the Great Wall of China
57. started a business
58. taken a martial arts class
59. visited Russia
60. served at a soup kitchen
61. sold Girl Guide cookies
62. gone whale watching
63. gotten flowers for no reason
64. donated blood
65. gone sky diving (no thanks)
66. visited a Nazi concentration camp
67. bounced a cheque
68. flown in a helicopter
69. saved a favorite childhood toy
70 visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. eaten caviar
72. pieced a quilt
73. stood in Times Square
74. toured the Everglades
75. been fired from a job
76. seen the Changing of the Guard in London
77. broken a bone
78. been on a speeding motorcycle
79. seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. published a book
81. visited the Vatican
82. bought a brand new car
83. walked in Jerusalem
84. had your picture in the newspaper
85. read the entire bible
86. visited the White House (well stood outside the fence)
87. killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. had chickenpox
89. saved someone’s life
90. sat on a jury
91. met someone famous
92. joined a book club
93. lost a loved one (close friend)
94. had a baby
95. seen the Alamo in person seen a platypus in the wild
96. swum in the Great Salt Lake
97. been involved in a law suit
98. owned a cell phone
99. been stung by a bee

I am yet to get pictures of my very cool knitting computer bag. At present I’m working on an apron for one of Gorgeous Girl’s little friends who is turning three.

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Mojo Returning

For a while there I lost my scrapbooking mojo. Instead of scrapping I took on the task of organising all of my childhood photos into an album and labelling them. I have family photos that I look at and have no idea who the people are or what they were doing. I don’t want my children/grandchildren to be doing the same thing. This was a big job and took time away from actual scrapbooking. But last weekend the job was done and I dug out the scrapbooking supplies.

This was the first page I did.

This is me and my good friend Sarona on my graduation day. I have to admit that this page was really hard to do and I got a bit teary while working on it, so it is simple for that reason. Sarona passed away in 2006 and Gorgeous Girl was named for her (middle name).

I then moved on to something less bittersweet.

Then with mojo in full swing I tried my hand at letting go a bit and being more free.

With the trees I literally pulled the circles at random from my circle punch stash (thanks Kerin) and then cut the larger ones from scraps also selected by random. I think it works. I copied the idea from one of my Australian scrapping magazines.

In addition to the custom spinning I’ve also been doing some test knitting of Carlé’s new yarn base. I’m knitting Juno from Knitty.com

More accurate colour.

It’s hand painted merino lace weight and it is gorgeous to work with. It also unknits and reknits really well (I should stop knitting lace after 10.30pm).

Finished up some three ply sock yarn.

And in my next post pictures of the world’s coolest computer bag (which has been hijacked by my knitting)…

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