2paw

That Old Black Magic's Got Me In Its Spool

The Craftsy Block this month is a spool (the picture is clicky to see the BOM), actually it is seven 7 inch spools like this:

I didn't really like the pattern and so I found a free pattern and we all agreed to sew that instead. I think it really does look like an old fashioned cotton wheel wound wildly with thread. First MrsReno and MesSherlock.

And then mine and some of MrsDrWho's. She's had an interesting week thus far, so just made part of her block.

I am part way through sewing the second spool. Next fortnight is catch up evening so I hope to finish my other circle and fan blocks and then there will be ten. Wow, that was fast!!!

The Walk Mittens have been quite fast too. I just have the thumbs to knit. I had to wait until they were both finished as I want to make the thumb of the right mitten with an opening and I couldn't do that till I'd knitted the left thumb. And of course, I knitted the right mitten first.

There is the little loop to be crocheted at the top of the pop-overs and two buttons to be sewn onto the cuffs and after the thumbs they are ready to be worn. The weather is strange, some places are expecting 25*C tomorrow, and I'm back to wearing Summer dresses with a cardigan that I can take off when it's too hot. This may be the first year when I wear a Summer dress in Winter, just twenty-two days to go to find out. It was frosty and foggy this morning and I wore my new hat.

I ordered new dress patterns from Sew Serendipity. The postage from the US was just $3 per pattern so I ordered two: Marilyn and Naomi.

Naomi will need a lower scoop neck and maybe Marilyn will need a slightly higher and shorter waist. I  love them both and they are shown in different fabrics to give you design ideas.

And now The Labradors. Peri is the most beautiful dog in the whole wide world. She in the middle of swishing her tail because she's been a good girl and come straight away when called.

And Miss Lorelai Gilmore is always a good girl and the most beautiful pup in the whole wide world. Except maybe today when she ran into the bush seeking the horrible smelly thing, but she did come back when I used my Teacher's voice.

I don't think I'm up to knitting a thumb, or two, tonight. I had rice, milk and a sprinkle of brown sugar for my tea, I suppose it's nursery food, but as a child it was something we had quite often. We ate macaroni the same way, all Italians are probably scandalised now.

So it's a cup of tea, the ABC News and then an early night for us all.

Help Me, Obi One Can Call Me. You're My Only Hope.

The Internet and Phone are back. It was not, in fact, my ISP at all. It was the Evil Darth Telstra. It appears that the cables to my next door neighbour's house were cut by mistake, and they were offered call diversion and compensation. Because I am not a Telstra customer they just didn't bother with me at all. I rang and that is basically what Rob from Telstra told me: Ha ha boo sucks to you. My ISP explained that this happens pretty regularly, especially in older areas here where phone lines are archaic. I can complain to The Ombudsman, but as I have no details or names, they won't be able to do anything. I do intend to write and explain what happened, as perhaps if they receive enough complaints the Ombudsman may act. I asked my ISP person to pass on to the people I spoke to what had happened. I may have become a little short when they both insisted on reading me long scripts instead of really listening to my problem. It was all very civilised.

Hence I missed Friday Food and May The Fourth. But I did not have a Georgette Heyer decline or even a Florence Nightingale take-to-my-bed. Which is very good.

We had a massive and very scary hail and electric storm last week. Here's eight seconds of what it sounded like in my car:

   

I thought I would get out and my car's roof would be covered with dents, but it wasn't. The sky was black and there were rainbows and it lasted for about half an hour. At MrsDrWho's house it settled deeply, like snow, and still hadn't melted the next day. 

The weather has taken a distinctly Autumnal turn: close to 0*C overnight with heavy morning frosts, but beautiful sunny days at 19*C.

Peri took the opportunity to roll in the most awful smelly and yucky thing, her best yet. I ended up buying some pampering spray to try and mask the smell even after a bath.

Gilly decided that the almost complete felt Christmas plum pudding would be a good toy. And so now it is.

The Labradors do enjoy their walks together. They run so fast and range so far that they need giant drinks from puddles and a dip in the paddle pool when they come home. Lorelai Gilmore likes to follow where Peri leads.

There has been some knitting. I've knitted up the two balls of wool into the back of Dreamy Vision (Aislinn) Yay. I love it. I am sad I didn't take more wool with me. I love the tubular cast on. It's as magic as turning a heel.

You can't see the Eiffel Tower lace very well and my close up photos are not terribly good.

I haven't found the rest of the 4ply to knit my convertible mittens so I've started a new 8ply pair. I think I can crank out a mitten a day. We'll see. The Walk MIttens are from a free pattern.

MrsDrWho's Lord of the Rings wool beret, My Precious,  is complete. I found the website for the wool, where you can buy all sorts of LOTR movie costuming. If only!!! There seems to be a severe lack of green though.

New denim leggings, or jeans as I like to call them, have been worn. Once with Labrador accessories, and once with MrsHouse Of's eldest daughter's new shoes. Surprisingly I could balance in them, even walk a little. Just.

The passsionfruit vine is bearing fruit and a bumper crop too. I made melting moments with passionfruit filling last week for morning tea. I plan to try some passionfruit curd this week.

Once the Sun goes down behind the hill at the back the temperature drops quickly every afternoon. It's 4-30pm and time to close all the windows and turn on the Warmy bed for Peri. There's chicken and vegetable soup to be made for tea and The Labradors' rice to be cooked and a mitten to be knitted. I have lots of blog posts to read and comments to answer. We plan to be online into the foreseeable future!!!

Wool Frontal

This post was shaping up to be all about knitting, but then some other things crept in: Labradors of course, and some material, clothes and weather.

Knitting first. I have knitted the Ding Dong hat out of the Socks That Rock 5ply Merino. It is the Rainbowret, a free and very simple pattern. I did twisted rib for the band and then just knitted away until I realised I was running out of wool. I wound up two strands of my Colour Me Surprised Opal sock wool and did a few alternate rounds, which you can just spot in the middle section, and then remembered I'd stopped winding the skein of STR when I hit a knot. So I wound more and knitted a hat's worth. It is very warm and if you wear it on a nice Autumn day you give yourself a warm hat headache.

I actually knitted this to check out what the hat was like for MrsDrWho. She found her Lord of the Rings Royal Mythral 8ply from two Christmases ago and now I am half way through her hat- My Precious!!!

The other emerald green 5ply is the wool for a new cardigan for me, Floriston. These are two pictures from the Twist Collective to whence the link leads. I think the pleat at the back is lovely, the vents in the sleeves too and it has a nice flared shape which I am learning is very flattering for me.

My newest cardigan had no wool yet. It might be this wool, unravelled from the cardigan it almost is.

It's Aislinn by Amy Herzog, who is my current cardigan pattern crush. MrsDrWho persuaded me to buy the pattern. I have one cardigan that just needs to be sewn up, one started in mohair, the Floriston ready to go and now I have Aislinn. I adore the pattern around the hems and the lovely lace, and as I have but an illusion of a waist, when I knit and add the ties at the end they can be at Empire Line height. And once again the photos are from Aislinn's pattern page and the link leads there.

So it's all about the knitting here and there has not been a dress at all this month. Luckily I had the extra dress up my sleeve. New dress material arrived from the FatQuarterShop. At $5 per metre it is too hard to resist, and nice teachery material. The fat quarters are metallic greens for something I've yet to decide on.

Peri rolled in something so smelly today that I had to drive home breathing through my mouth. Baby wipes met their match in Peri. She has her eyes closed as she blissfully rolls. This isn't the actually smelly site, that was somewhere in the bush.

When we came home she had to be washed. Again. She's on her lead because she runs away before she is dry and the weather is too cold for that. She's pretty happy with all the attention and wagging her tail at me.

It was 1*C this morning and there was ice on the car so I used my gifted ice scraper, which worked a treat, much better than a bucket of warm water.

Poor Gilly had an issue with the big metal plates we walk across every day at the dam. She runs across them and has never paid any attention until today. She put her little paw on the icy cold metal and then would not go near it again. No treat would entice her. No nice or commanding word would do. She tried valiantly, and in the end Peri was so exasperated she ran back down the steps, growling playfully, and herded Lorelai Gilmore across.

She seemed quite recovered after that.

RoseRed was an invaluable help in the purchase of my new Denim Leggings. Yes, that's right. RoseRed helpfully explained that they were less legging and more jean. She is right. An emerald and sea green pair arrived today in the post and as I tried them on I said a prayer to the Denim Legging gods. They were listening and fit was achieved. The colours aren't true, it was dark outside when I took this photo.

I've also had a crush on tiny quiches and lemon meringue tarts: I've made two batches of each, and more no-knead bread made with Atta flour as suggested by Jan.

There was a little special happening for a few moments at the lights on Sunday. Tony Robinson, Baldrick of BlackAdder fame, was filming an interview for one of his Time Walks. He'd been in town for a few days hosting rebellions and such like. I don't know who he's talking to, but I'll see when the programme is shown later this year or next.

And now we're off to bed. I slept for 3 hours this morning as I was feeling a little bit swimmy and dizzy in the head. Not poorly as such, but not quite right. And I am sure there are myriad people who would agree I am not quite right. If I'm still feeling dizzy tomorrow, it's off to the doctor for me.

Monkey See, Monkey Through.

Unbeknownst to Peri, she has been educating Gilly on a means of escape from the dam area. Peri is an expert under-the-fencer, and Gilly has been extremely interested in mastering this skill. For quite a while she was flummoxed.

But Gilly has learned well and achieved success.

So now they both travel between the two dimensions just like in Timeslip. I remember watching as a child and being both terrified and fascinated. I have never seen it repeated. It is a good TV memory.

The weather is now alternating between cold enough to wear jeans (Friday) and warm enough for just a dress (Saturday and today). The nights are cold enough for the doona and hot water bottle and Peri and Gilly have to be under their quilts, no matter whether there is room for them on the bed or not. I have knitted three whole pairs of socks and they all have the ends sewn in and are ready to wear. I also have two individual socks. One is The Clock Sock which has a ball of wool so I can knit the partner. It is part of my "Knit all the socks in The Knitter's Book of Socks" project. The other is a random green sock- no, it is not. Somewhere it has a partner. That's 4 1/2 pairs of socks!!!

My Purls before Swine socks are not the correct green colour, the I Let Leaves are fine and so are the Colour Me Surprised.

I have knitted 85% of my Podracer convertible mitten by Glenna C. The fingers are short because you knit a mitten top that flips open to allow for dog lead manipulation and treat distribution. They are for iPeople with iDevices who need their fingers and thumbs. I have made a Podster thumb on my right hand but I will make an ordinary thumb for my left. It can be difficult to take a photo, sometimes very difficult, especially when Miss Lorelai Gilmore is helping. And I use the word helping in a sense in which it is almost never used: as in NOT helping. She's a funny sweet girl.

There may have been an accidental lay-by of more green jeans. Three pairs in, respectively, lime, sea green and sage. The first is a thick but stretchy denim and the second and third stretch cords. That makes nine pairs of green jeans/trousers. There have been the long dark years of no green jeans though. I worry about being too consumerist. (Is that a word??)  But they will last for years: the coming long dark years of no more green jeans!!

It is school holidays and MrsDrWho and I are going on a short day trip to assess possible excursions and write some questions for the children to consider. I am presently winding up a skein of Socks that Rock so I can knit in the car tomorrow. It is medium weight Merino wool in the Bella Coola colourway.

I'm  in the market for another knitted neckwarmer. I wear the one I have to walk The Labradors and don't have to worry about an Isadora Duncan moment with a car, tree or kangaroo.

I fear there will not be an April dress. I have one up my sleeve, but I'd like to whip one up from the new Knit pattern. Oh, I've made the picture a clicky link!! I think....

I'll finish winding the wool, make a cup of tea and cast on for new socks while I watch Doctor Who. Then it will be early to bed for everyone, as I have to be ready to leave at 8-45am in the morning and there's a walk to be squeezed in for Peri and Gilly before then.

I Dream Of Green Jeans: I have Light Brown Hair.

This week I collected my two lay-bys and I am very pleased. It was worth paying twice the price for the teal boots as they feel so comfortable, so soft and look so good. And I almost have both boots matching jeans.

The colours are not accurate because by the time I got my act together and took photos,  it was almost dark outside. I have some beautiful 10ply that matches the teal coloured jeans and boots. It's Debbie Stoller and I shall have to rummage about and find it. I may have a better emerald boots match in one of the four pairs of jeans I put on lay-by yesterday: Khaki, Menta(???) Emerald and Sea green. Yay!!

I have never seen so many green jeans and I am going to go madly wild. I can't miss the opportunity to have green jeans. I've knitted two balls of the mohair and made a lot of progress on my cardigan with the long, long rows. It should match well too.

Me-Made-May is soon beginning, well obviously it is, it will soon be May. It's a bad month for me. I would rather have Me-Made-March or Self-Stitched-September because May is the last month of Autumn and I shall just be wearing jeans (green!!) and tops and cardigans. Really, there is little excitement in wearing and showcasing a cardigan every day. I am thinking of having my own Self-Stitched-September this year when I will be wearing dresses almost every day.

Our Sewing group has gone ahead in leaps and bounds and we have made so many nice blocks in our semi-Craftsy BOM 2013.

Soon it will be School Holidays and we're having a catch up day. With glasses of wine and lots of nice food. I am aiming to make two blocks each month and so I have to catch up on two blocks myself.

I don't know where the time goes. Monday disappeared in a long nap, Tuesday was Leukaemia Support Group, yesterday I readied myself for sewing and today I did some jobs. And of course, The Labradors.

Peri and Sandy played Pride and Prejudice: will Peri accept Sandy's invitation to a brisk run?? Will she, won't she?? Yes, she will. Huzzah!!!

Running is such fun for Peri, I forget she is twelve and a quarter now. I love the joy in her eyes.

Lorelai Gilmore has been seeing off the big bunnies, or wallabies as humans call them. She's always on the look out for them.

She thinks she has bravely thwarted the evil wallabies and their dastardly plan to hop through the bush. She doesn't even woof at them, but shivers with excitement and her tail is long and brushy.

I have had my 'new' car for two years and seven months. Today my odometer read 18,000. I average 20km a day. It has taken me approximately 940 days to work out that my remote locking has two different modes when locking and opening. Whilst out at the weekend I had to go back to check to see if my car was locked or not. MrsDrWho said she was sure I should be able to tell remotely. So today at the dam I opened and locked the car a few times and yes, it's two beeps when it opens and one when it locks. It is just as well I am not in charge of being alert and observant and have Gilly to do that for me!!

My car still feels new and I have made a big effort to keep it clean and tidy, apart from the dog hair. Sigh.

My toe is still not properly better. It is not worse, it is slightly better. I am sitting here typing and soaking my foot in Lectric soda, or washing soda crystals and warm water. Even if nothing happens my feet are so soft and clean.

Oh, I forgot that I also prepared my Friday Food today. I already know what I am cooking for next week too. It's for MrsDrWho's to take to school and I am very excited to be cooking it, though not half as excited and the people I mentioned it to when I was making chocolate crackle Easter eggs!!!

I don't think anything special is happening tomorrow so we shall have a lovely walk, a nice nap and then maybe catch up on reading some blogs. The weather is still sunny and warm, I wear a dress and don't need a cardigan yet, so Peri and Gilly will no doubt spend the afternoon sunbathing and I shall read a book and drink cups of tea.

 

Cool To Be Kind, Means That I Love You Baby, You've Gotta Be Cool To Be Kind.

I have finally sewed and quilted all of the blocks from last year's Craftsy quilt. This is the last one, the Circle of Geese block. It is paper piecing, where you sew the material onto paper. It's complicated and took about two hours including all the cutting, sewing and pressing. I do love it.

They are all in a plush pile on the back of the armchair- where I am leaving them so I don't lose them,

and every time I walk past I run my fingers over the quilting. I love the feel of the close stitches making the cotton batting soft and cushiony. I did actually slightly censor myself, lest I become the Nigella of Quilting!!

My next step will be to trim the batting and backing to 1/2 an inch all round and then decide on the arrangement of the blocks. I shall try to do that on Thursday at Sewing.

We are all so happy because it has been cool. Cool in the day, 23*C, and cool in the night, 7*C. We are all sleeping soundly and catching up on extra sleep during the day. I am happy, Peri and Gilly are happy and they are playful too.

Peri has decided she likes to play with the reindeer toy.

And she plays with Gilly, wanting to be chased and to chase in turn.

Gilly has been amusing herself with a chopped up carrot in a bottle. After she removed the lid she spent a good ten minutes adeptly manipulating the bottle with her paw and then shaking the carrot out. Peri just wanted the carrot without any of the effort. She magically appeared in almost every photo.

On Friday night people with nothing better to do roamed around the neighbourhood throwing flour on all the cars. My car escaped lightly, but it was extremely annoying and The Labradors wanted to lick it. At first I wasn't sure what the white powder was so I discouraged them. Buckets of cold water, then rain, cleaned most of it up. (I put the fireworks over the number plate!!)

My too big emerald green boots were sent back and a brand new smaller pair appeared on the front verandah this morning. All the postage was free, excellent service from I Love Billy. They were very helpful when I was too hot to be able to think clearly.

Now it is cool I have cooked, sewn, swept up leaves, washed woolllen underblankets and all of Peri and Gilly's blankets. I've even cleaned up the DVR hard drive and read more books. Tomorrow is the day for making tomato sauce. I decided not to use the recipe requiring 25lbs of tomatoes, I'll just make a 1 kg batch and see how I go from there!!

All That's Left Of The Dreams I Hold, Is A Band Of Cold.

Yes, a cold front swept through and we are currently luxuriating in a second day of 26*C. Last night it was 8. 8*C!! Peri and Gilly are happy and I am feel so much better. I did some jobs today. I needed the first day to somewhat recover and today I sent the too big boots back to be exchanged for a smaller size, bought Vliesofix and made March's Craftsy BOM and even sewed and posted off a gift. I added some of the books I've been reading to my Typelist and read two more books. I cooked pasta sauce and had a proper hot meal along with the usual salad.

Here's the block. It's not the Craftsy Block. That would have involved drafting my own block and sizing it up from 9 1/2 to 12 1/2 inches. I don't think this year's BOM is really for beginners. Instead we chose a block from a Moda sewalong by Zen Chic. I have made a green one today and I'll partially assemble the aqua one so our Sewing group can see the steps involved.

In other good news I found my lost blocks. They were inside the unbound Spot On Kaffe Fasset JellyRoll quilt. On Monday I unfurled it and there they were. It is amazing how an invitation to afternoon tea with The Dutches can elicit this:

and this for Baby Zoe.

It's a wombat soft toy, each side is different, from Saffron Craig. I lined it with cotton batting and then some wadding. It will need to be washed, but baby Zoe will only feel the soft natural materials. She is so happy and so cheeky. She is starting to eat real food and almost say some words and crawl about. She's just lovely and gorgeous.

The Federal Government is mooting higher entry scores, Emotional Quotient tests and Literacy and Numeracy tests for Teachers in training. The tests will be in Year 3. By then they have been on Prac. every year, surely they need to be tested and show excellence before they begin?? Way back when I trained, to win a Studentship you needed the highest Matric results, you needed to front a panel and be interviewed and convince them of your passion to teach, and in First Year we all took Literacy and Numeracy and needed to show we were more than just able. In our whole State there were only fifteen Primary studentships awarded and I am very proud that I was chosen. I am sure the teachers who must facilitate learning should themselves have a very high standard of education and be creative and diverse thinkers.

Google Reader is being closed down. Why?? There must be quite a lot of people like me who are not all tablet and smart phone-y and like the organisation and convenience of an RSS aggregator. Bah Humbug. I will wait while other more techy people come up with some solutions.

We solved the sprinkler problem. I placed the sprinkler on an upturned bucket and then the initial spray wasn't in anyone's eyes or ears. It was like rain and Peri and Gilly spent many happy times in the  sprinkler rain, being cool.

When not under the sprinkler, Gilly was improving her digging skills in the paddle pool and getting nice and wet.

Peri had some enforced time under the hose when she rolled in something smelly and grubby. She was inordinately happy to be smelly and grubby and didn't mind smelling of colloidal oatmeal when she was clean!!

I'm turning on the oven and cooking an apple pecan banana cake tomorrow for Friday Food and I'm also having a go at making my own tomato sauce. Not sure how that will go, but I have lots of tomatoes from people's gardens and I love home made tomato sauce.I always choose it over commercial sauce when there's the option. Maybe I'll make some relish too. Yum.

And soon, very soon, I hope to be knitting myself Slow Line and Alight. As soon as I finish Petrea: I just need to sew it up and knit the button bands. Come on the cooler weather.

Hope Sprinklers Eternal

Elbow length sleeves? To my eyes: bad. Much shorter sleeves? They look better to me. I think the longer sleeves pulled the dress out of whack, and they were also hotter. This is Dress #4. It doesn't have a name, but on reflection the flowers look crocheted, so it's the Doily Dress.

I love my new dress, it has a swirly hem. I swirl it a lot. I wore it to the opening of The Cancer Support Centre. They had chairs for all the important people, and the older lady volunteers and the sick people were standing up. I have to give top marks to Michael Ferguson  Geoff Lyons, Peter Gutwein and Ivan Dean, politicians who all gave up their seats. There are others too, like Nurse Cathy, I can see. Some younger hale men stayed sitting down and let the older people stand. It wasn't a case of men versus women, rather ill versus healthy. I couldn't have stood in the humid heat for half an hour. You might spot me in the photo!!! The Centre is wonderful and we are lucky to have access to such modern facilities.

Sadly there were no egg sandwiches for afternoon tea. A tad disappointing....

I sewed two skirts for MrsHouseOf's birthday. Sadly, my photos were more awful than usual. I sewed Views D and E without the ruffles.

I didn't quilt all of my blocks for the Craftsy BOM 2012 last month. I did sew two dresses, two skirts, an apron, a tote bag and a bagsket - in spite of all the hot days. This is quite a total and I am very pleased. We are having still more hot weather in Autumn: 29, 31, 31, 27, 27, 28 and 29 this week. I shall leave the quilting until it is much cooler and instead I shall sew a Pear Dress.

I bought Peri and Gilly a sprinkler to play under in the hot weather. I am not sure they know it is meant to be fun yet. Vundy and Tori loved their plastic sprinkler to death. Literally. Their enthusiastic engagement of sprinkler and excited teeth lead to its demise.

I am soon to be the proud owner of two pairs of short boots. One pair is a teal green and I have new jeans that match. The other pair is emerald green and I have new jeans to match. There will be a certain lay-by wait. MrsDrWho and TinkingBell convinced me that the slim leg jeans don't look too awful on me. Thank you ladies!! I had a lovely day with Tinkingbell, we brunched and lunched and chatted non-stop!!!

I found the teal boots in town and the emerald ones at I Love Billy via Frocks and FrouFrou's blog.

Last week I went off to one of the shiny new hospital buildings to be part of the Patient Partner scheme. I spent the afternoon with the doctors-in-training on their Haematology unit of work. Only three people felt my spleen, as last time everyone did and I couldn't lie on my left side for a week. It is a good feeling contributing to their experience of unusual and interesting diseases.

MrsReno (formerly known as Jubbly's mum) has a new dog, a friend for Jubbly. His name is Curly, and you can guess why. Jubbly had his coat clipped for the Summer and Curly is off to be clipped this week. He came from the RSPCA and is a very nice dog. Already Jubbly and Curly are constant companions and friends.

I am extremely tired after MrsHouseOf's birthday outing and I had appointments today. Tomorrow there will only be sleeping, dog walking, and Amy Johnson.

What Is This Thing Called, Luv?

Luv. Dear. Duck. : all terms used, particularly in shops, by older people. I'd rather be a 'Luv' than a 'Guy'. I resent being called a 'Guy'. A guy is a man. But "What is this thing called, luv?", is a question we all might have asked this morning.

Rain. It rained for about 90 minutes and we all went and stood out in the rain. Looked at the rain in the tub. Ran about when the thunder clapped. Walked in the last of the shower. What a nice surprise to have rain at last.

Hobart, the Southern Capital, has 600ml of rain a year. That's half of Sydney's total. We are regularly in drought, even though on the West Coast they have literally metres of rain a year. They announce Outside Days at School, instead of Inside Days. You do everything in the rain on the West Coast as a matter of course.

Gilly has had a Wonky Eye for a day and a half. I promised myself that if it was wonky this morning we'd go to the Vet. And so we did. Gilly was so good for Dr Liz. She had some local and dye in her eye which showed there were no scratches. They had to take her out the back to turn her third eyelid inside out with tweezers because she was trying to hide under my dress. She was perfectly behaved. It didn't hurt. There was no grass seed, she has a little conjunctivitis and so we have eye ointment.

Peri welcomed her home and they ran about. Gilly must have smelled of the vet. They were happy to be together again.

Peri and Gilly had a special treat. Their new favourite thing is sugar snap peas. They were on sale for $7 a kilo so I bought some. They snap them up!! You can see the remnants of the dye in the corner of Gilly's eye.

The weather is hot. I know the BOM says it was 28*C yesterday, but if you stand in the backyard in the full glare of the Sun for three minutes, it's 38*C.

I wore my Mashup dress in public. The straps feel a little insecure and I hitch them up a lot, but as a wearable toile it is a success. Next time I would put a zip in the side and also add a little to the neckline so I could pull the bodice down a bit further to get rid of the gathers on the princess seams. I can see all the bruises on my arms from where Miss Lorelai Gilmore treads on me. I do bruise very easily now.

I have a new pattern ready to mash up for a dress in March. I'm thinking of a play on Klingon Kleavage.

I shall make View B with the short sleeves, and leave the high neckband in place. Then I shall put a sweetheart or some such neckline so that there is a cut out where you can see Klingon Kleavage. Should be an interesting design!!

I am ready to start on my Posher Frock to wear in a week. I have decided to use my first Amazing Fit pattern, but I shall shorten the long sleeves, rather than have the puff sleeves the pattern uses. Using the 13th dress length means I can wear my aqua wedges or 'pear' coloured shoes and take my small aqua handbag. I have nothing better to think about.

I am very excited because tomorrow we have our first Sewing of the year where we look at the Craftsy Block of the Month 2013 and all our material and catch up together. Yay!! I must decide what to cook to take with me. Red Velvet Cupcakes, Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Meringues?? I see a theme there. I made Nigella's Meringue Gelato Cake for dessert on Sunday, served with this chocolate sauce. MrsDrWho said the sauce was very rich, so next time I would not make quenelles, I would zap it in the microwave and pour a little over

There is still no knitting. It needs to be cooler.

It's A Dress, Jim, But Not As We Know It, Not As We Know It, Captain.

The pattern envelope said the dress would fit smoothly below the bust at the top of the rib cage. Not on me it didn't.  So, no dress by Friday. But there was a dress by Saturday and I had my revenge on Supposed Dress #1: I used it as lining. Ha!

I sewed Simplicity Amazing Fit 1800, view B. It has an interesting construction and I am very glad I basted it together first:

 

 

 

 

 

The next thing I did was clean the mirror!! I found 2.5 metres of fabric in one of my tubs. The perfect amount if I didn't add the giant pockets and I used the other failed dress as lining. The pattern has extra wide seam allowances which I utilised. And then immediately un-utilised. As usual I overestimated my size. And I liked the sleeves narrower. All in all this is a great dress. It is so comfortable to wear and it will be nice and cool in Summer too.

I did try to take some self-timer photos, but Gilly was helping....

But I managed one reasonable picture. It has a 1950's vibe, according to party goers. The sleeves are attached last of all and form the shoulders after they are faced at the top.

I stayed at the party for two hours and talked to lots of friends, had a glass of posh bubbly and some finger food. Then I had to go home and go to sleep immediately!!

Cheered by my dress success I decided to fix my green dress from earlier this year. I basically took it apart. I raised the shoulder seam by 4cm, re-drafted the sleeve heads to take out all the excess puffiness, and then sewed it together again. In spite of this, the neckline still gapes and I feel I must keep putting my hand on it all the time to hold it close. I threaded hat elastic through the top stitching channel. I just need to adjust it one last time and stitch the ends in place. It is not perfect, but as good as it is going to get.

So not a dress by Friday, but two wearable dresses by Sunday. Not too shabby.

The weather has been very warm today, but now we are having thunderstorms. Peri and Gilly needed to cool down in the paddle pool. But only their feet and in Gilly's case, only one foot!!!

I re-potted my zucchini plants into three bigger pots after a lot of helpful advice. Imagine my surprise when I saw actual zucchinis had appeared. Two actual zucchinis, but it is two more than I have ever grown!!

I  am still quite tired after my outing yesterday, so I plan to get some extra sleep this week. I did something every day last week, and two things on some days. I also have a huge haul of thick books from the Library. I had 15 books on Hold and they all seem to be coming at once. I need to do some dedicated reading. I was so slow with one book, and we have three weeks, that I missed the due date and now I have a $1 fine to pay on Monday. I think we may just be able to sneak in a quick nap before tea!!

Please excuse any errors, I have read through twice, but my brain is a tad sleepy and slow.