Small things make me happy.
On the weekend we went to a garage sale. One of Gorgeous Man’s colleagues is retiring and moving back to Australia and they are trying to minimise what goes into their shipping container. I scored some magazine holders to help keep my extremely large reasonably sized collection of quilting and craft magazines under control and for K40 (about $20) I got this.
It’s housing the overflow from my academic bookshelf. The books on top are all ones that need to be read in the next little while. The bottom shelf holds photocopied primary source material and research notes and a fake history book 🙂
Gorgeous Girl had a teacher and two teacher assistants in her classroom this year. The last gift for them has been finished.
A shot to show the lining.
The outer fabric was one I bought on a visit home to Australia when we were living in South Africa, so that must make it about 2009. The lining fabric was inherited from a quilter whose failing eyesight caused her to give up sewing. I think it’s from the early 1990s. The bags really need interfacing or stronger lining, but I have to work with what I have on hand. I’ve got one more of these to make as a Christmas gift for someone. The fabric for that has been cut, so I just need to sit down and sew it all together.
In a normal year (one where I don’t have to go back to Australia multiple times for medical treatment) we get to go back to Australia twice a year. Once at the end of the year and once in the middle of the year. There are no craft stores in PNG. There is a store that sells sewing machines and cheap polyester thread and fabric, but no quilting fabrics or notions. This means that I need to think about what I want to make and what I will need for the next 6 months.
Since I’m committed to using up my scrapbooking, yarn, fibre and fabric stashes I don’t really need any major purchases there. I made a list of the quilts I can make entirely from stash and that is what I will work on for the next 6 months.
So here’s my list:
- Rotary cutter replacement blades (about 5) I keep my rotary cutter in a plastic zip-lock bag, but it still rusts very quickly in the humidity.
- Sewline Trio pen refills
- paper piecing templates for half hexagons and 6 pointed stars
- needles for hand piecing the hexagon quilt
- sewing machine needles – would hate to break a needle or two and have no replacements on hand.
- Frixon Pen for marking
- quilting thread for brother’s quilt in brown, cream and blue
- black and white fat quarters or jelly roll. (I’ve got a black and white quilt being planned and if I start collecting fabric for it now there’s less expense all at once, and I’ll get a greater variety).
- plain white quilters muslin (about 10 metres). I don’t have many blenders or large pieces of yardage in the stash and this would be an easy way to always have something on hand (and I’ve got an Irish chain quilt planned which will use about 5 metres) – to be honest this will probably be a June purchase.
- black tone on tone fabric for my African quilts. It would seem I only bought enough fabric to make one small quilt before leaving South Africa. Again, this will probably be a June purchase.
Then there is the non-crafty shopping list:
- aluminium free deodorant, enough for 6 months
- organic shampoo and conditioner
- organic soap – I have some allergies that make using ‘normal’ soaps tricky
- facial moisturiser
- swimmers for Gorgeous Girl
- work shirts for Gorgeous Man
- shorts for Gorgeous Girl
- handkerchiefs for Gorgeous Girl
- drawing pads and craft paper for Gorgeous Girl
- card blanks for Gorgeous Girl
and so the list goes on. We need to work out what craft things she will be wanting to use for the next 6 months and what clothes she will need for the year. Good thing we have light bags travelling out of PNG. Usually our bags going out weigh about 12 kilos, coming in they are at the full weight allowance of 23 kilos each 🙂