The kitchen smells like vinegar and sheep!

... the vinegar smell has been in the air for an hour or 3 ... the sheepy smell has not quite been there so long.

oh ... I guess you are wondering WHY the kitchen smells like vinegar and sheep?

well ...

it started here - http://happyspider6.blogspot.com/2006/06/tutorial-dyeing-self-striping-yarn.html
- I fell over the blog that this is on (http://happyspider6.blogspot.com/) a couple of days ago, while taking a break from sorting out my sewing/etc room.

for a while I resisted the temptation to dig out some yarn/etc and have a play ... but then this evening I was sorting out a box of yarn/etc and I found this small bundle of boring pale yellow 4 ply crochet cotton ... so I decided to have a play. My excuse was that I had half a bottle of vinegar in the laundry (I have been using it when I had been "undying" fabric ... which is kind of like dying, except you start with black/strong coloured fabric and take some of the dye out by putting bleach on it, then vinegar, then rinse it ;-) ... and I already had some food colouring - not a huge range of colours - dd seems to have used up all the colours except some green, blue and "egg yellow" ... oh - and some black, which I only bought recently, but I decided not to bother with that at the moment.

so ... I dug out the vinegar and food dye, and a bowl/etc, and wound the little bit of cotton into a long skein thingy, and also dug out a weird synthetic kids t-shirt thingy (I have a whole bag of them - the whole lot only cost me about a dollar at an op shop!) and I also found a ?linnen thingy that looks like a lace-edged hanky but it is a bit stiff to blow a nose on so it must be a place mat thingy or one of those things that you use the same way one uses a crochet doily (put it on a shelf, often under something else, to look "pretty").

Of course none of those 3 items were actually made of WOOL ... which is what the instructions on the blog said to use ... but since when have I been the sort of person who follows instructions?!

The colours looked really pretty when I put the items in the microwave.

They still looked really pretty when I took them out ...

... methinks I should have taken photos BEFORE I rinsed the things!



yep ... the blue sort of stayed in the synthetic shirt (the green and yellow didn't even do that) ... but I think it would wash out if I actually put it in with a load of washing (which is what one eventually has to do if anyone actually wears the shirt ;-) ... the yarn ended up almost the same as it started out ... and some colour stayed in the ?linen thingy ...

I guess this means that food dye is one of those things that works best in wool ...

(I suppose I could get all technical and waffle on about how some dyes only work with animal protien, such as wool, mohair, silk, etc, and others only work with plant matter, such as cotton, and some only work with various synthetic fibres ... and some actually work with more than one thing ... but those who want to know more about that can go search google or find a book on it or whatever ... but it was rather interesting to notice that there is one strange looking spot on that bit of linnen (or whatever it is) where the dye seemed to "stick" really well to what I can only guess must be a stain that came from something animal ... )

so ... "if at first you don't succeed, try again"?

well - while the other stuff was soaking/cooling/etc I continued with my sorting out, and ...
Yes - I found a ball of boring not quite white WOOL ...

The wool was cooling down after it's first "zap" in the microwave when I started writing this - and hot wet wool, which this was, tends to smell like ... sheep ... LOL

This time I took a photo before doing the rinsing ...



(drats ... I should have put a fork in that bowl before I took the photo! ;-)

now ... fingers crossed ... time to go rinse it.

btw ... lucky for me, I LIKE the smell of wet sheep!
(probably because it brings back childhood memories of growing up on/near farms :-)

*Andrea goes and rinses her wool*

Wow - it actually worked!



... what? you think someone like ME would actually do things the "correct" way and wind it and tie it into a skein first?! ... nah ... why bother - I didn't want it to be perfectly "self striping" or whatever ... I was planning to crochet a beanie or a bag or something with it and have the colours sort of end up wherever they happen to appear ...

I think it may even be colourfast (the owner of that blog knits socks with it so I think she would have noticed if it wasn't - even here in Canberra we DO wash our socks once in a while! ... )

If it isn't colourfast (I might have done things wrong ;-) and I crochet a beanie and wear it in the rain it could be rather interesting seeing me with green dribblies running down my face!

hmmm ... getting a bit technical again here ... "colourfast" isn't just "washfast" ... dyes also need to be "lightfast" if you don't want them to fade too quickly ... I wonder how badly food dye fades in sunlight? ... if I wear it on a sunny day, will my beanie (or whatever) be 3 shades lighter at the end of the day than it was when I put it on in the morning?! LOL

Anyway ... I am living up to my blog title again ... it is almost 3am and I really do need to go get some sleep.

but ... I won't post this quite yet - I have not put the photos in ... I will probably add those in the morning - at the moment they are still on the memory card in the camera ... except for the last one, which I have not even taken yet!

*Andrea goes zzzzzzzzzzzz for a while ... *

... good morning ... er ... afternoon ;-)

(actually it was morning when I got up, but I did a few other things before I came in here to do this)

photos are (hopefully) uploading as I type ... once they are there and I put them in the right place I will hit the "publish post" button and all one or 2 of you who actually read this blog will get to see this.

I was going to take another photo this morning when the yarn was dry, but it isn't dry yet ... it has actually been damp and rainy ... which is a good thing, because we sure need the rain!

anyway ... photos are now in here ... and this is probably going to be the last thing I put on here this year ... (well - there IS only a few hours of this year left ;-) ... so ...

Happy New Year!

Andrea

Season's Greetings

Is it that time of year already?!

Where HAS the year gone?!

May the joy and peace of Christmas be with you now and throughout the New Year ...



Yes - I have been messing around making silly "Cards" out of my photos - this one is a small gum tree beside the footpath near here.


Of course I couldn't stop at one ...



This was a beetle that I found as I was walking out the door from work last week ... it stayed around long enough for me to take a couple of quick photos then it flew away.


One for the "city folk" ?



I took this photo during the TASDA exhibition at the CSIRO Discovery Centre this year (it is a gum tree, and it's shadow, outside the building).


This is the one I e-mailed to friends/family ...



Yes - it is our dog, Diesel.


Guess what this one is?



- it is actually a lettuce (I think) plant in the vegetable garden at the resteraunt we had our work Christmas dinner at! (there were all sorts of lettuce and broccoli etc plants and they were starting to "go to seed" ... I took some photos because the colours/textures were interesting, then when I was putting the photos onto the computer today, I noticed that some of them look like little trees ;)

Anyway,
I hope you all have/had a Merry Christmas ... or a Happy whatever else you celebrate, or not, instead ...
Love,
Andrea
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

er ... more later ... eventually

Eventually I will get around to putting up some photos of some stuff I have made/finished recently ... like a few more of those journal quilts, the things I entered in the Canberra Quilters Exhibition and the TASDA exhibition, etc ... I have taken photos of some of those things, but they are still on the memory card ... sometime in the next week or 5 I intend to take photos of the rest of the stuff (and/or take better photos of some things I don't have good photos of) and then stick them on the computer so I can put some of them on here and write about them ... I was originally planning to have that done by about now ... but I have not got there yet ... oops ...

In the meantime ... I did find one photo of the plastic bag crochet outfit I wore in the fashion parade at last year's TASDA exhibition ...



... it is made from cut up garbage bags and supermarket bags and some other clear plastic bags that came from work (I think they came with safety glasses and/or some other science equipment packaged in them) ... the bag, hat and shoes are crocheted from the cut up plastic bags (with dangly bits of the clear plastic left hanging out for decoration) and the skirt is strips of plastic bags with a waistband crocheted out of cut up supermarket bags and the skirt is lined with a black garbage bag so people don't have to see my hairy legs and/or my undies!

That is one of the things I probably should take a better photo of ... I think I took this photo just before I dashed off to deliver it for the exhibition and I just kind of threw the stuff on the bed, took a photo, then gathered the stuff back up and dashed out of the door with it ... which is one better than this year - this year I didn't even take a photo ... but plenty of other people took photos of me wearing it in the fashion parade before it went out on display anywhere that it could go missing ... and it didn't go missing - most people are still honest enough not to steal the exhibits ... (unfortunately it is only most, not all - someone stole a small quilt from the quilt show here last year!)

er ... the evening seems to have vanished again ... and I have to go to work in the morning ... grrrr ...

goodnight ...

"Go figure" ? ... or whatever ...

when I posted the last 2 things here, I was also going to do this too, but I ran out of evening ... oops!

The crochet Dude ( http://thecrochetdude.blogspot.com/ ) had this thingy on his blog (he got it from someone else's blog - it is doing the rounds)

Life's to do list - Completed items are green and purple are the ones I am not sure if they count ;-)

01. Bought everyone in the bar a drink
02. Swam with wild dolphins (can't remember doing that, but I have had them surfing in the bow wave of the boat a few times, and had them try and do it with the catamaran I was sailing but I wasn't able to go fast enough for them)
03. Climbed a mountain (... yeah - I used to live at the bottom of a hill that was actually Mt Taylor! ... but I have also climbed a few bigger mountains too)
04. Taken a Ferrari for a test drive
05. Been inside the Great Pyramid
06. Held a tarantula ( in order to hold a tarantula one has to actually have access to one ... if someone has one that it is ok to hold, I will hold it ... might be kind of nice to actually meet one)
07. Taken a candlelit bath with someone (I'm seriously a hopeless romantic)
08. Said 'I love you' and meant it
09. Hugged a tree ... I have talked to trees too - trees usually listen better than people do ...
10. Bungee jumped
11. Visited Paris
12. Watched a lightning storm at sea
13. Stayed up all night long and saw the sun rise (I have also stayed up and been too busy getting lost in here to actually see the sun rise!)
14. Seen the Northern Lights ... no - but I have seen the Southern Lights (Aurora Australis) instead ... bit hard to see the Northern Lights when I live in the Southern Hemisphere!
15. Gone to a huge sports game ... not that a "huge" game over here is really that huge ... but I think a one day cricket match is big enough to qualify as our next best thing ... and if that doesn't qualify then I think actually being part of the opening ceremony for the Olympic soccer matches (that were here in Canberra) does!
16. Walked the stairs to the top of the leaning Tower of Pisa
17. Grown and eaten your own vegetables
18. Touched an iceberg (does lettuce count?) ha ha ... that was the crochet Dude's comment but I had to leave that one in! ... it is the only iceberg I have touched too ...
19. Slept under the stars
20. Changed a baby's diaper we call it a nappy though - and the first one I changed was the one on my newborn baby! (I didn't see the need to practice before that - I had seen it done and somehow I just knew that when the time came I would be able to do it ... I was right ;-)
21. Taken a trip in a hot air balloon
22. Watched a meteor shower ... also saw and heard a close one once ... the meteor I saw was close enough that I could hear the hiss as it passed overhead (it was falling on an angle i guess ... was high enough not to fall that close to me and I lost sight of it behind the house anyway)
23. Gotten drunk on champagne ... not sure if it was the bubbly or the beer and wine and spirits I had with it ... LOL
24. Given more than you can afford to charity
25. Looked up at the night sky through a telescope (I should do that more often, seeing we actually own a small one ... it even has a motor and a fancy tracking gadget that lets it follow the stars across the sky)
26. Had an uncontrollable giggling fit at the worst possible moment ... don't think I have ever had an uncontrollable giggling fit ... but there have been times when it has been very hard to stiffle a chuckle at something
27. Had a food fight I was in the middle of a huge one in the dining hall at uni - no I didn't start it ... don't think I actually threw any food either - didn't want to have to help clean up ;-) ... but i am sure I have thrown food on some other occaision ... even had a sword fight with the dog, using a french stick (long skinny loaf of bread)
28. Bet on a winning horse (I paid 50cents to go in a Melbourne cup sweep at work ... and got my 50c back because the horse I got ended up coming last!)
29. Asked out a stranger
30. Had a snowball fight ... yeah - one or 5 ... I remember the first one - was on my first trip to the snow (in high school) I threw a big snowball at someone just before we bot back on the bus and it missed them and went in the bus window ... guess what seat it landed on? - yes - mine!
31. Screamed as loudly as you possibly can
32. Held a lamb I grew up on farms ... one was a sheep stud ... I held them, fed them ... and I have even shorn a sheep ...
33. Seen an eclipse a few lunar ones, a few partial solar ones, and a total solar eclipse - wow!
34. Ridden a roller coaster
35. Hit a home run ... it was a fluke if I even HIT the BALL!
36. Danced like a fool and not cared who was looking
37. Adopted an accent for an entire day er ... why?!
38. Actually felt happy about your life, even for just a moment
39. Had two hard drives for your computer - how about three?! ... (this one has 3)
40. Visited all 10 provinces or all 50 states of what country? ... he he ... there is only one state of Australia I have not been to ... but we only have 6 ... and a few territories (I live in one of those)
41. Taken care of someone who was drunk ... even drove his road train (great big long truck) down the road for an hour while he threw up out of the passenger side window and then slept it off (and he wondered why I left him?!)
42. Had amazing friends
43. Danced with a stranger in a foreign country (some of my best memories include this)
44. Watched wild whales
45. Stolen a sign (a friend in college stole a "Please Pay Before Pumping" sign and put it on her bedroom door) I think I once found a stolen one and kept it
46. Backpacked in Europe
47. Taken a road-trip
48. Gone rock climbing
49. Midnight walk on the beach
50. Gone sky diving
51. Visited Ireland
52. Been heartbroken longer then you were actually in love
53. In a restaurant, sat at a stranger's table and had a meal with them ... does an Army mess hall count? - I sat at a table with one person I knew and one stranger ... that "stranger" and I got married and we now have teenage kids!
54. Visited Japan
55. Milked a cow (I've tipped quite a few over, does that count?) ... people actually DO that?! ... I grew up on a farm - of course I tried milking one ... but I have never
56. Alphabetized your cds why?! I don't even get around to writing on my photos - why would I alphabetise a pile of CDs?!
57. Pretended to be a superhero someone who hasn't done that must have had a deprived childhood ... ?
58. Sung karaoke
59. Lounged around in bed all day ... only when I was sick ... although I have slept in rather late a few times ...
60. Posed nude in front of strangers ... does joining a nudist club, and going naked at their activites, count? ... or how about going in a wet tee shirt contest ... then taking the shirt OFF while still up on stage?!
61. Gone scuba diving
62. Kissed in the rain
63. Played in the mud
64. Played in the rain
65. Gone to a drive-in theater ... I grew up in a country town ... the only other sort of theatre was the one with a stage, where they put on plays!
66. Visited the Great Wall of China
67. Started a business
68. Fallen in love and not had your heart broken ... see #72
69. Toured ancient sites (in and around Italy, Greece, Mexico)
70. Taken a martial arts class
71. Played D&D for 6 hours straight does another role-playing game count? ... not that we were really doing much actual game ... it was more like a few minutes of game every now and then in between the "dungeon master" going and smoking joints and the rest of us having too much fun talking, drinking, messing around, etc ... but we had fun ...
72. Gotten married - and I still am.
73. Been in a movie no, but I have been on tv ...
74. Crashed a party
75. Gotten divorced if I had married my first partner I guess we would have - but I wasn't silly enough to marry him in the first place ...
76. Gone without food for 5 days .. only once - when I had glandular fever and was too sick to eat.
77. Made cookies from scratch is there any OTHER way to make them?! .. throwing blobs of stuff on a tray and sticking it in the oven is NOT "cooking"
78. Won first prize in a costume contest ... I won the prize for best antlers at an "antelope day" party once ... the year after, when they had the next "antelope day" party I made them bigger and wore them again and won the prize for "least original antlers"
79. Ridden a gondola in Venice
80. Gotten a tattoo
81. Rafted the Dead River
82. Been on television news programs as an "expert" (Does the DIY Network count?)
83. Got flowers for no reason
84. Performed on stage
85. Been to Las Vegas
86. Recorded music ... no - you do NOT want to hear it - it was when I was a teenager at uni, and I went in to the church one evening and put my tape recorder inside the piano, hit the record button and plucked away at the strings for a while ...
87. Eaten shark ... when I was a kid the fish one normally got given at most fish and chip shops was something called "flake" ... and what is flake? - shark!
88. Had a one-night stand
89. Gone to Thailand
90. Bought a house
91. Been in a combat zone no - but I did serve 6 years in the ARMY
92. Buried one of your parents ... I think I buried most of my dad with sand at the beach once ...
93. Been on a cruise ship
94. Spoken more than one language fluently (English & Spanish)
95. Performed in aisles at Rocky Horror (Just saw it for the first time last year and that was on DVD)
96. Raised children.
97. Followed your favorite band/singer on tour
98. Created and named your own constellation of stars
99. Taken an exotic bicycle tour in a foreign country
100. Picked up and moved to another city to just start over ... didn't really realise that was what I was doing at the time ... but looking back on it ... yes I did ...
101. Walked the Golden Gate Bridge (now that would be a big leash) I have walked over the Sydney Harbour Bridge
102. Sang loudly in the car, and didn't stop when you knew someone was looking ... but I had to stop when everyone threatened to stop and throw me out if I didn't stop that horrid noise!
103. Had plastic surgery (does corrective laser surgery on my eyes count?)
104. Survived an illness that you shouldn't have survived ... when mum had my younger brother the doctor did mention something about nearly loosing me and being worried for a while (I surprised them and didn't come out head first like they were expecting) ... but when mum asked him to elaborate he wouldn't ... just said "don't worry, she looks healthy enough now"
105. Wrote articles for a large publication ... my blog is getting big ... does that count? ... or does someone actually have to READ it?
106. Lost over 100 pounds
107. Held someone while they were having a flashback
108. Piloted an airplane
109. Petted a stingray
110. Broken someone's heart
111. Helped an animal give birth ... had a couple of cats who had kittens ... but they didn't seem to need any help ...
112. Won money on a T.V. game show
113. Broken a bone ... actually someone broke it for me - it was my nose and he did it with his forehead ... says a lot about what was IN his head doesn't it?!
114. Gone on an African photo safari
115. Had a body part of yours below the neck pierced
116. Fired a rifle, shotgun, or pistol ... all of those, and thrown a hand grenade too ...
117. Eaten mushrooms that were gathered in the wild
118. Ridden a horse
119. Had major surgery ... I assume having tonsils out is major?
120. Had a snake as a pet ... no ... but I have stick insects ...
121. Hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon how about to the top of Ayers Rock (Uluru)? (I did that one 3 days in a row! ... and did you know that it actually has some bushes and even small trees growing on the top?!)
122. Slept for more than 30 hours over the course of 48 hours ... think I did when I had glandular fever and was too sick not to ...
123. Visited more foreign countries than U.S. states that is easy seeing I have never been to the USA!
124. Visited all 7 continents
125. Taken a canoe trip that lasted more than 2 days ... we didn't paddle canoes for more than 2 days, but the overall trip was longer
126. Eaten kangaroo meat ... we Australians don't mind eating our coat of arms ...
127. Eaten sushi
128. Had your picture in the newspaper ... with an albatross ... which doesn't sound odd until I mention that the albatross was found north of Adelaide - far from where it should have been!
129. Changed someone's mind about something you care deeply about ... don't know ... it is possible I might have but didn't know about it ...
130. Gone back to school ... I work at one - does that count?
131. Parasailed
132. Petted a cockroach ... there are lots of different sorts ... if they are smelly and eating stuff in my house I squash them ... but if they are out in the wood pile or the bush they are usually not the same species and I let them be ... have even taken photos of some pretty ones in the bush ... and there was a fish tank full of "pet" ones in the science lab at uni ... I think I patted at least one of those ...
133. Eaten fried green tomatoes (Mom used to make tomato jam)
134. Read The Iliad - and the Odyssey
135. Selected one "important" author who you missed in school, and read their books. I did find a cheap second hand copy of a book I missed at school (not sure if the other class did it and not us, or if I was meant to read it but was too busy reading science fiction instead) so I bought it to read ... come to think of it ... I put it somewhere and now I can't remember if I actually read it or not!
136. Killed and prepared an animal for eating I have killed, cleaned, cooked and eaten fish and rabbits ... have also killed and butchered a sheep (not sure who eventually ate that one), and I have plucked chickens and helped slaughter a cow ... that stuff is normal when you have lived on farms/etc
137. Skipped all your school reunions (hearing through the grapevine that everyone's going to meet at a certain local bar doesn't make me want to travel 1,000 miles to attend. I'm just saying.) ... ditto - although usually I have not even actually bothered to find out if they have even had one ... I kind of left the town and never kept in touch ...
138. Communicated with someone without sharing a common spoken language ... how hard is it to point at some pretty object and hold out a coin? LOL
139. Been elected to public office ... I probably could have been president of Canberra Quilters one year, if I had wanted to - they couldn't find anyone to put their hand up so if I had put mine up I would have been it ... but being president of something like that just isn't "me"
140. Written your own computer language
141. Thought to yourself that you're living your dream (I have thought more than once that I'm living IN a dream and that I could wake up at any moment).
142. Had to put someone you love into hospice care
143. Built your own PC from parts
144. Sold your own artwork to someone who didn't know you ... ask me again in a few weeks time ... that is if I actually finish something to try and sell in the TASDA exhibition
145. Had a booth at a street fair ... it was a table at a market in some paddock somewhere ... sort of the same thing except it was not a very good market and nobody bought anything ...
146: Dyed your hair
147: Been a DJ
148: Shaved your head (see #146)
149: Caused a car accident ... the police report said I did ... but it was actually the other driver ... but it wasn't worth arguing at the time ... was only a minor one.
150: Saved someone's life ... who knows - I might have without realising it at the time - anyone who fixes up something that was dangerous and/or an occupational health and safety issue/etc or correctly disposes of something poison/harmful rather than leaving it in the wrong place/etc or does something like warn a tourist not to swim at an unsafe beach or whatever may have saved a life without even realising it!
151: Walked the streets of Pompeii then climbed Mt. Vesuvius (I added this one to the list because it was an incredible experience) ... I have probably seen and done one or 2 incredible things too ... but I want to do more ...

talking about DOing things ... there are other things I should be doing now ...

It Figures ...

hmmm ... a month ago I copied 3 links into a blog post and then saved it as a draft ... now I am not even sure what the 3 links were, and what I was going to say about them! (but I am sure I will remember once I go and look at them ;-)

http://www.theiff.org/oexhibits/oe1.html

ah yes - I found a website for something called "The Institute For Figuring" ... hence the title I gave this blog post ... the link is to an online exhibit, about something called Hyperbolic Space ... which I found quite fascinating (even though some of the maths is way beyond what I learnt at school/etc ... sigh)
I think I found the link to this on a blog or website about crochet (that or I saw it mentioned and went searching) - because the site actually has a section on crocheting this stuff! - click on "crochet models" on the menu on the left ... hyperbolic space is kind of what Escher used for some of his art, and they have worked out that it is also how lettuce grows it's crinkly leaves ... kind of like fractals explain how a fern leaf grows the shape it does ... yeah I know - this all sounds like nonsense ... but it makes sense to my weird mind ;-) ... although I kind of got a bit lost when they explained why they now think our universe might be shaped like a pair of pants!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041219170412.htm

oh - this was another crochet model of a mathematical concept - one I found out about a year or 2 ago ... I think it would drive me nuts trying to crochet something this huge - especially seeing I would already know what it was going to look like when it was finished ;-)


http://thatyarnstore.blogspot.com/

A crochet blog - ah - this was probably where I found the link to that hyperbolic crochet stuff! ... then again ... it may have been one of the things that came up in the search results when I went looking for hyperbolic crochet after reading about it wherever else it was i first read about it ... it's an interesting blog though ...

while I am on the subject of weirdo maths concepts etc - I should find the fractal website I was looking at and put that link here too ... if I can find it ... I downloaded a fun program, called "Winfract" ... which is a windows version of one I used to play with, called "Fractint" (both are/were free to download ;-)

hmmm ... still looking ... but I did find this - http://irfanview.com/ - I think this was on the computer once upon a time back when "the computer" was the one that is probably now sitting in bits in the corners of the house somewhere because it has been replaced with a newer/faster one ... or it may have even been the one that was replaced by the one that this one replaced ... or something like that) - Irfanview a handy little freeware graphic veiwing program, that is also useful to convert graphics files from one format to another (which was what I think I wanted it for last time I found it ;-)

hmmm ... I found a different freeware fractal program than the one I was looking for - http://www.fractovia.org/uberto/ ... I have not downloaded or used it yet (because I only just found it!)

Ah - here is the website I was looking for - http://www.dwponline.com/fractals/ - has a basic explanation of fractals, some pretty pictures, a link to download the winfract program, and a whole pile of info on how to download/install it and a heap of hints for how to use it and what to do with it ... lol ... oh - it also has links to more info on fracals and chaos theory and stuff too ... enough stuff to get someone like me lost for hours ... days even!

btw ... more about that making things website, with the stuff made with Altoids tins ( http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/altoids_and_tin_cases/ ) - I forgot to mention this in the other blog post, but I just had to have a laugh at it - there is even a project on there for how to use an old Ipod shuffle to make a container for your Altoids! ... so you have somewhere to keep them after you have tipped them out of the tin so you can use the tin to make the other projects!
one wonders - if you need to use the tin for something other than keeping the Altoids in, then - unless you are like me and don't like them - why not just EAT the darn things?! ... or if you don't like them - let your partner and/or the kids eat them, or give them to the dog or something ...

I should have spent the time I spent in here this evening doing something else ... like finishing my June and July journal quilts, starting my August one, and writing addresses on the fabric postcards I am supposed to be posting tomorrow (actually I should have posted them earlier this week ... but tomorrow is ok ... and hopefully next week will be ok too - they have to arrive by the end of this month ... but 3 of them only have to go to places here in Canberra, and one to Qld ... so even that one should only take a couple of days to get there ... if they get there at all (that is part of the excercise - to make a fabric postcard, put a stamp on it and post it and hope it survives the trip ... although those who are less adventurous, and/or don't trust Australia Post/etc, have been putting them in envelopes ...)

er ... it is now "too late" ... and I am still up ... oops ... ;-)

I will try and get around to posting a couple of quilt photos sometime soon - the exhibition has now been and gone, and I actually did get my quilts finished in time ... I entered 3 quilts and a bag actually ... but one of the 3 quilts is the January journal quilt that I finished earlier in the year and have already posted a photo of.

btw - I started my own hyperbolic crochet thingy ... and it is also a moebius strip (which is rather weird because as someone else described it "eats itself" as you crochet it!) ... I only did a bit of it, then got busy doing quilts, and now I am busy doing some crochet and other stuff for the TASDA exhibition (although I might enter that, or another better, bit if hyperbolic crochet, if I get time to finish/make it ... and if I can think of a name/etc to relate it to the theme of the exhibition ;-)

goodnight

Some random stuff ...

I figured it was about time I posted something ... rather than writing something new, I probably should post the thing I have saved as a draft - especially seeing I just noticed that the date beside it is 24/7/06 (well actually it says 7/24/06 but we Australians don't write our dates that way around) ... and today just happens to be the 24/8/06! so I saved it exactly one calendar month ago ... weird eh? (but I am going to post this one first, before I forget what I was going to say ;-)

The date kind of jumped out at me more than it normally would, because today is Dad's birthday - Happy Birthday Dad ... not that he is at all likely to be reading this ... I think he is probably just finishing setting up camp somewhere in a camp ground in Kalgoorlie (they are being "grey nomads" and travelling all around Western Australia at the moment ... wish I was having fun travelling instead of stuck here going to work every day ... sigh). - I just spoke to Mum and Dad on the phone almost an hour ago and they were just starting to set up camp
... I am not sure how long it takes to set up a camper trailer ... probably not that long actually - Dad has it all organised with clever little drawers and stuff and places for everything ... and that neatly leads me to one of the things I came in here to write about - there is a website URL that I wanted to post here, and I was also thinking of sending it to Mum and Dad when they got home ... but maybe I shouldn't - Mum might have to start fighting with Dad for computer time ... LOL
What URL would my Dad possibly find so interesting? - this one ...
http://www.makezine.com/

... I found the link to it in a science newsletter I am subscribed to ... one aimed at School students (and teachers) ... which is why I found it highly amusing that the page the link actually pointed to - http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/02/
it has instructions for how to make a copper pipe potato gun! ... there is a LOT of other interesting stuff on that page too ... including a link to another interesting book on the Project Gutenberg website - http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/12655 ("The Boy Mechanic Vol 1" which has some fun things to make, some things that nobody would bother making but are funny to read, and some things that nobody would want to make/do now that we know how dangerous some of the chemicals/etc are!)

... I have also found a couple of interesting old sewing/etc books, on the Project Guenberg site, too - quite interesting and probably also quite useful!

another thing I found on that "make" webiste was this page about projects that use Altoid tins (or any other small tins that mints/etc come in) - http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/altoids_and_tin_cases/

I noticed someone has made a survival kit in one - http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/08/make_a_survival_kit_out_of_an.html
... I have a few tins that same shape/size (I hate Altoids, but luckily my husband and kids like them ;-)
so ... here is a picture of the "survival kit" that I have been carrying around for the last year or 3 ...



... well ... it might not save my life if I get stranded on a desert island, but it might save my sanity for a while ;-)

So ... what is all that weird looking stuff in there?
(and yes - it was all IN there, and - even more surprising - it all fitted back in there again after I took the photo!)

In the tin, there are a pile of fabric hexagons, and the paper hexagons I am sewing them over (so that eventually, one century, I can sew them all together into a quilt or something) and there is a tatting shuttle, with some thread on it (ready to start tatting the 4 butterfies I need to finish decorating a fabric box I made a year or 2 ago), and a crochet hook (needed for the tatting - to join the rings of knots to each other I have to pull the thread through the loops with something and this tatting shuttle isn't one that has the hook built in like some of them do), and there is also a tangle of left over sewing thread that I have been using for the hexagons, and a tangle of embroidery thread that I was using for something else that has been finished and removed from the tin (probably should sort out the tin and take that thread out ... then again ... I think I left it in there because I was going to use it to do some embroidery on that little green scrap of fabric ... not sure what it will end up being used for though), there is also a safety pin, a sewing machine bobbin full of thread, and hopefully there is a needle or 3 hiding down the bottom. One other item ... that also makes the tin qualify as a survival kit? - that little round ish brown thingy beside the bobbin - is a coffee bean! (I ended up with a handful of them somewhere ... ate a few and decided that eating any more would be just a bit too much caffiene in one go ... so I threw them into the sewing tin, which I happened to have in my pocket at the time ;-) ... I ate one a few days ago when I went to get a needle out of the tin and found the coffee beans ... so there is probably another one hiding down the bottom ... with the needles?! ... ).
Sometimes a coin or 2 live in there too ... but not at the moment - I have not put any back after the last time I was short of money one day and needed a couple dollars change ... calling it a survival kit and mentioning that it sometimes has money in there kind of reminds me of when I was a Brownie and a Girl Guide, as a kid - and we used to carry 5c (the price of a phone call), a notebook and pencil, a safety pin, and a bit of string, (and probably a hankie too, but I don't remember that) around in our pocket - in case we ever needed them ... of course my pockets also used to contain an assortment of other odd stuff at various times too ... like rocks and nuts and bolts i had found, and gum nuts and insect cocoons and feathers and leaves and whatever else i found and collected ... and it used to drive my Mum nuts ...

er ... I should have gone to bed 2 or 3 hours ago ... so methinks it is time I posted this, and the other one (which I have just been writing in between writing the last 2 bits of this one ;-) ... and then I should go get some sleep, before it is time to get up again and go to work ... sigh ...

Pixel

Approximately August 1989 - 3 August 2006

RIP

If my maths is ok, that is almost 17 years - not bad for a tortiseshell moggie who had cat flu when we got her from the pet shop ...

(btw, this photo was taken a week or 2 ago, while she was doing one of her favourite things - sleeping in some of my fabric!)

... talking about fabric - I have a quilt to finish, right now - it needs me to sew a few more beads and stuff onto it, before I deliver it tomorrow - it is one of my exhibition quilts ... I was up rather late sewing beads and stuff on it last night, most of the time with Pixel on my lap - kind of a nice way to say goodbye (we noticed she was too sick to eat sometime after the vets had closed, and we had a fair idea that the trip to the vet in the morning might be a one way trip ... Diesel (the dog) was rather upset when the catbox came back empty ... and Spook (the other cat) is on my lap right now ... but that is nothing unusual for her ... she seems to think that having a cat lying over my arms helps me type better )

weird quilts, etc ...

I really should put some more photos of my quilts and crochet and other stuff up here some day ...
I keep saying that, but I never seem to get around to it
(actually I have a "round to it" somewhere ... it is a leather key tag with the word "tuit" embossed on it ... I have also seen a paper version with a circle with the word "tuit" in it, and a caption saying something about how this is to help with all those things you want to do and have not done yet, because you have not got around to it - now you can do them all because you have one ... lol ... trouble is ... i lost mine! ... it is somewhere around the house, last seen attached to a pile of spare/not currently in use keys ... I think I know what pile of mess it might be hiding at the bottom of ... one of the piles I was going to sort out "when I get around to it" LOL (catch 22 could be a good excuse to keep putting it off - "I will sort it out, when I get a round tuit ... but until I find my round tuit, I can't sort it out yet, so I may as well go and do some quilting/crocheting/whatever instead ... " ;-)

Anyway ... what I came in here to do was to copy and paste some more stuff that I have been saying on one of the yahoogroups I am on ...
In the Scquilters group, someone was talking about satin binding, they found out that you could buy it as strips of binding AFTER they bought some satin fabric, and were asking if they needed to stabilize it with anything before they cut it and sewed it on ... and this was my reply ...

er ... why not add the satin yardage to your stash ... maybe it could become a satin backing for a future quilt/etc? lol ... or a satin lining for a bag (a lot of quilters seem to end up making quilted/etc bags ) ... then you can buy the satin binding and use that....
but I know - probably because if it was me I would be thinking/doing the same (LOL) - you want to use what you have because you don't want to have togo and BUY something else ... and you want to get it done NOW and "surely itcan't really be that hard to make it work" ... if it were stubborn cheapskate me, I would probably use some second hand (i collect stuff like that from op shops etc ) satin fabric that I have on hand, and cut it with a rotary cutter, and my "short thumbs" - and make sure I have just the right look on my face and growl at it at the right moments and jolly well make the stuff do what it was told ... and when I sewed the stuff I would probably get a bit of "frogging" practice (rippit rippit) while I was at it... LOL
Andrea,
disorganised in Dunlop
... who really should go out and do some of that sewing I was going to spend the evening doing ... lol

then someone else was asking about freezer paper (some quilters use it for applique etc ) and someone else replied to tell them about using the wrappers from reams of photocopy/printer paper (the stuff that has a waxy coating on the inside does the same thing as freezer paper does) so I had to add my 2c worth ...

Hi All,
Just one thing to watch out for though - don't use the bit where the wrapper
was glued together because the glue is sticky and doesn't come off your
fabric ... one guess how I found out that little bit of handy information -
LOL

Also - not all photocopy paper wrappers have a "shiny side" - I have a
plentiful supply of photocopy paper wrappers at the school I work at
(schools do a LOT of photocopying!) ... but the brand they have been getting
lately just has plain paper wrapping - so it has no "shiny side" to stick to
the fabric! ... luckily I don't use it much and I still have a few sheets
of the stuff that does have a shiny side stashed away here at home in case I
do want to use some ;-)

I used photocopy paper wrappers for some angel swap blocks I made - but not
for appliqué - I used it for tracing a design on and sewing on the wrong
side of the block with fancy thread in the bobbin (so the bobbin thread
formed the decorative design on the right side of the block) it was handy
having something that would stick to the fabric and stay in place while I
sewed and it also helped stabilise it ... but, like when using any tear away
paper/etc foundation, it was a pain having to rip it all out from between
the stitching (next time I will probably just trace a design onto the fabric
and unless it another swap block I will add the batting and backing and draw
the design on the back ... or I will do what I have been doing with a
few things I have made recently and quilt from the back with fancy threads
in the bobbin (crochet cotton and stuff like that) and just make up the
"design" as I go ... lol) ... but I will eventually get around to having a
go at "freezer paper" appliqué ... one year? ... one millennium? ...
whatever ...

Andrea,
who was going to spend this evening working on my challenge quilt for the
Canberra Quilters exhibition ... but tea kind of took a while to cook and
eat, then the dog got a bath and then a walk (brrrr) ... and I got lost in
here for a bit longer than I intended (gee what's new? lol) and I seem to
have run out of "evening" ... sigh ... if I go out there now, I might get a
bit of something done before I either fall asleep or freeze ...

I think I did get a little bit of sewing done ... the next day!

anyway ...
among the replies was one saying that it is a bit difficult to trace on it ... so I just had to reply to that ...

I guess it could be - but I used a plain white photocopy paper wrapper,
without any printing on it, and traced it using my light box
(no - I didn't spend lots of money and buy a light box - I "made" one -
found an old wooden box, found a light globe with a fitting and cord and
laid it inside and put a sheet of perspex over the top ... works fine for me )

hmmm ... I think the only traditional thing about my quilting is that
quilting traditionally used to be about using up what you had on hand, or
could easily/cheaply find ... and most of my quilts are made using fabric I
have collected from op shops and garage sales or been given, or if I have
bought it new it has mostly been when it is on sale/at a cheap price ... and
I don't have a lot of the latest fancy gadgets like a walking foot etc, just
an ordinary sewing machine and the cutting mat, cutter and ruler I got as
birthday and Christmas presents from Mum one year, and another ruler that I
never realised how useful it would be until I won it in a raffle!
I have done a few "normal" quilts with traditional blocks/methods/etc but
most of my quilts/etc (especially the ones I have actually finished!) are
probably not at all traditional - they are too weird ... lol

Andrea,
disorganised in Dunlop

Yes - if anyone is still reading this (that is if anyone ever was reading any of this mess) ... you will notice that this all DOES relate to the title of this post ... because I told scquilters that I make weird quilts ... so of course somebody had to have their say and tell me that I shoud go and "google" (search for) something called "Gees Bend Quilts" and I "might find that mine are not so weird after all" ... so, like the good little girl I am (ha ha ha - not! ... is not hard to get me to go get lost with google!) I went and "googled" ... and sent this reply to scquilters ...

Ok ... of course I went straight to Google and did a search ... after a few "page not found" and other pages mentioning the quilts but not showing pictures ... I found a website with all sorts of info about the exhibition ( http://www.auburn.edu/academic/other/geesbend/home.html ) and there is a page with pictures of all the quilts in the exhibition ( http://www.auburn.edu/academic/other/geesbend/explore/catalog/slideshow/index.htm ) ... wow! - I am glad u told me to go look for these Lorraine!
... these are REAL quilts! ... these are what patchwork quilting is meant to be ... not that it isn't meant to be all the other things it is either ... but I like the idea of quilts made out of whatever one has handy, and without worrying if they follow the "rules" (some rules are meant to be bent ... if I vanish in the next few days, I have probably been taken away and locked up by the "quilt police" ).

warning: read (the rest of this post) at own risk
(I kind of ramble on a bit when I get going ... and this lot is sure to confuse you all because I think even I am confused - and I wrote it!)

I have just been getting lost in cyberspace for an hour or 2! ... I got a bit lost on that website, and then followed a link to http://www.alabamaarts.org/index.html ... interesting site for those after some arty inspiration ... then I decided that maybe I should post to my blog (because most of what I post to my blog is the same weird stuff I have just said in my latest post(s) to whatever yahoogroup I have just posted stuff to ... and I am just about to add this weird post to the pile of junk I have been posting to this list over the last day or 3 ... LOL) ... so I went to the blogger page ( www.blogger.com ) to log in, and did my usual thing - got side-tracked looking at the "blogs of note" they have listed there ... some of them are boring, but some are quite interesting ... anyway ... I am now up to the bit where I need to come back here and finish typing this post, and then copy most of it into my blog, then send this post, then finish writing my blog post and publish it ... talk about round and round in circles! LOL (hmmm - there could be a quilt idea in that? lol)

anyway ... what I really should be putting on my blog is some more pictures of my quilts - so that anyone who wants to can look at them and decide for themselves how weird they really are ... but in the meantime, there are some photos of some of my quilts (and other stuff) in my yahoo photos at http://au.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/aykayem/my_photos ... that URL gets longer every time I go there! ( that is the one that comes up in the top of the browser once the page loads ... but I actually got there by typing http://photos.yahoo.com/aykayem into the browswer ... yahoo works in strange ways ... ) unfortunatley I have been slack and lazy lately and there are no recent photos in there ... but there is a whole album called "quilts" that has a lot of stuff in it, and there are other albums with photos of mystery quilts being made, and crochet stuff, and a couple of scquilters gatherings, and one called "other peoples quilts" that has a quilt mum made in it, and a quilt (made by Evelyn) with blocks from a scquilters swap ... (hmm - I probably should just put photos of all my quilts and stuff in yahoophotos and then mention that on my blog ... but if I talk about any of my quilts etc in my blog I will probably still stick a photo in there too) and, for those mad enough to look at all my photo albums - no - my "family" does not consist of a bunch of stick insects! ... that just happens to be the only photo I got around to putting in that album - I didn't know what other album to put them in - that one seemed the most logical because they do live in the house with us ...

hmmm ... I don't know if my quilts are weird or not, but I am sure you are now all totally convinced that I am definitely weird!

oh ... yeah - if you want to check out what actually ends up on the blog today ... and/or look at what other strange stuff is on there ... and/or look at the few quilt/etc pictures that are on there ... my blog is at www.aykayem.blogspot.com (well, the one I am posting to is ... there are links on there to 2 more, also on blogspot but even weirder than the main one ... and I have one or 2 others but I have not actually posted anything much on them - I just created blogs on a couple of other free blog places to test out how well they worked/etc ... but the blogspot one usually works fine so I have kept using that one ... )

Andrea,
disorganised in Dunlop
... getting lost in here and talking about quilts instead of actually being out in my sewing room and making them ... which I should be doing ... after I have gone and got milk/etc from the shop, cooked tea, hung out the last load of washing I did, etc ... sigh ...

he he he ... I just sent that message ... and had a good laugh at the spell checker ... wants to call my blog a "bog" and blogspot "bloodspot" (but it does find most of my zillions of typos ;-)
And now, like I just said in that post ... I have other things to do ...
but first ... I have to reply to another scquilters message and say "Goodonya" to the person who decided that her daggy old "sampler quilt" that has been lying unfinished in the cupboard can be put to good use and is making it into 2 quilts for her 2 dogs ...

... I said this there, too ... was going to say it here, then decided it went there, then decided that it probably goes in both places ... and ... why type it twice when I can copy it? lol ...

We have a dog and 2 cats ... and I have made them each a quilt ... the cats each have a small one (about 18" square) that I had fun making out of leftover bits from a mystery quilt I made (the one that I then added to so it became my 2m square monster ... lol) not that they sleep on their own quilts - they seem to think that whatever half made/new/clean quilt/fabric/etc I have out on my sewing desk is far better ... so is the basket of clean washing, or any article of clothing that DH or I leave lying on the bed ... The dog has a quilt I made out of old cotton shirts and some bits of an old sheet ... I held it up for "show and tell" somewhere and got told it was too good for the dog ... LOL (gee - it was only some old shirts, even had a stain on one bit ... threw it together in a day and made it for the dog ... so it is HIS quilt ... and he sometimes uses it ... lol ... it lives inside, gets put on the lounge when he wants to lie on there beside us and is wet or dirty or has a "pigs ear" he is chewing ... spoilt brat ... lol)

and now ... I really do need to go buy some milk and come back and cook some tea (we need the milk for the pancakes DD wants and probably for what I might end up cooking for DS and I ... and for a hot chocky later this evening, and breaky in the morning ... the milk always seems to run out in this house - someone must be drinking the stuff or something ... lol)

Crochet/Quilt update ...

Someone on the Australiacrochet yahoogroup recently posted there and asked "Where is everyone", because the list has been a bit quieter than usual ... so I posted a reply ... it also goes in here because I have been a bit quiet in here too! ... so now you will know what I have been doing with crochet/quilting ... as for the rest of my life ... well ... mostly get up, take kids to school/me to work ... get home, have tea/play "Mum's taxi", sometimes go to meetings etc ... maybe do a bit of crochet or something in front of the TV, maybe check my e-mail and/or get lost in cyberspace, go to sleep, get up ... etc ... pretty boring eh?

anyway ... here is what I am just about to post to Australiacrochet (I am waiting until after I post this, so I can also tell them that the photo is here ... provided it works ... LOL) ...

Hi All,
I am still here ... just mainly lurking as usual ;-) ... I have been doing some crocheting, but not a lot in the last 2 weeks because I realised I need to stop crocheting and do some quilty stuff for a while - it is almost time to put in my entry form for the quilt show and I need to at least start whatever I am entering so that I know what it is going to be ... lol (also one of 2 of the items I want to enter are in categories that require a photo with the entry form ... so I have to have made at least enough so there is something to take a photo of ... although one year I designed a small quilt that was actually a picture of burnt hills and stuff - and I laid out all the fabric where it was going to go and that was the photo that went in with my entry! ... and, strangely enough, when I made the quilt it actually looked kind of the same!).
The crocheting I have been doing was mainly a few scarves ... one in that feathery yarn (I think it was a cheapy version of "feathers") for dd (she liked it) and 4 in some odd yarn I got on special somewhere and can't remember what it was called ... I had bought 6 balls of it - 3 in pink and 3 in a greenish colour ... I needed to make a scarf or wrap for my donation for a raffle prize for that TASDA group I am in (they have a big raffle every year where everyone in the group is supposed to make and donate whatever item they decide it will be this year and they draw out that many tickets and the winners all get one each, then the money goes to a local lady who runs a soup kitchen) ... anyway ... I decided to use the pink and make 2 identical scarves - one to keep and one for the raffle - and I used a big hook and did Tunisian double crochet stitch so it grew really fast (and looked quite interesting too ;-) ... trouble is ... dd saw them and decided one was hers! ... so ... I dug out the green (it is a sort of olive green with apricot bits in it - sounds awful but looks good) and decided to make 2 more in that colour because I knew that dd wouldn't want to steal one in that colour [;-)] ... and I donated one of those - so now I have 2 more scarves to wear ... with the other few I have crocheted, and a couple of fabric ones I bought at a market stall, and a couple I have been given as presents/etc - I now have more scarves than I know what to do with - LOL
I have also been working on a shawl ... which is starting to look like a huge great bear rug! ... I started out using 3 balls of that hairy stuff that came from Spotlight (I bought it when I went to Queensland to visit Mum and Dad and we went to check out the new store they had built up near their place ;-) ... I forget what it is called, but Lincraft have one called "Funky Fibre" that looks the same ... these 3 balls were black/brown with a little bit of yellow in it ... and 3 balls is nowhere near enough to finish what it is going to be! ... it also now has some black (some other cheapy version of the same stuff plus some of the "Funky Fibre") and some brown "Funky Fibre" and some more black (Janice gave me a couple not quite full balls she had left over - thanks - and I also bought 2 more ... but with the size the thing has become - those almost 4 balls only did 4 rows! LOL ... it is a shawl that I made up as I went along - it starts with about 5 chain joined into a ring and then about 7 trebbles (DC for those in USA ;-) into that ... then I kept adding rows, but doing 3 DC on each end - so the thing keeps turning into a bigger and bigger triangle ... then after a few rows I made 2 more "corners" (points) on it by doing 3DC in the same place along each side ... then a few rows later I added some more corners ... so it is king of shaped more like bats wings or something ... I will put a photo somewhere sometime after I eventually finish it ... that probably won't be for at least a month or 3 ... but it will be before the TASDA Exhibition (in September I think) because I plan to exhibit it in that - probably as part of an outfit to wear in the fashion parade [grin] (I also plan to make a matching beanie and maybe even more items of clothing to wear with it ... maybe even some felted boots or something if I get time ... I have been wanting to try making a pair of those for ages ;-)
I have also been crocheting a really weird ?beanie (it still might become something else yet - it isn't finished ;-) with black 8ply acrylic, and the left over bit of pink stuff I used for those scarves ...
In between the crocheting I have also been making more of those A4 sized journal quilts (am doing one for each month this year - for a challenge, and exhibition, for the art quilters yahoogroup I am on) ... and I have started doing some of the bits for the quilt show - actually I should be out doing that now! LOL ... and I should be doing the washing first [sigh] (My grotty lab coat from work is soaking in bleach, and I also have a doona soaking in the laundry tub, washing that is going to be an interesting, and wet, excercise ... lol) ... there are photos of the journal quilts on my blog - www.aykayem.blogspot.com ... in fact I might copy this e-mail into there too ... save me having to type most of it again to tell my millions of readers about it (no - I don't really have millions of readers [sigh], but I think there might be one person who reads my blog ... sometimes ... LOL ... actually the main reason I started the blog was so I had somewhere to copy all this kind of stuff together in one place in case anyone was interested, and then I realised it was also good to have somewhere to stick photos of stuff where I could also write something about them in the same place). I might stick a photo or 2 of those scarves up there too, if it is working ok at the moment (it was having a hissy fit when I posted something to it the other night) ... and if I actually took any photos ... I know I have photos of one - in one of them it is under the cat! ... I decided to take a photo of the feathery one I made for DD before she looses/ruins it, so I laid it out on the bed ... and the cat laid on it! ... [andrea goes looking for photos] ... oh yeah - the dog came in to see what was going on - so he got to model it!

now - here is the photo of the scarf ... on the dog ...



note the cats on the bed WITH the dog! LOL ... the dog only chases the cats if they run ... btw - the dog is called Diesel ... and that is Pixel (who is almost 17 years old!) lying almost on top of him ... and Spook is half out of the corner of the photo (she is the one who came and sat ON the scarf as soon as I laid it out on the bed)

and ... I just found a photo of the green scarf I made for the TASDA raffle (the other green one and the 2 pink ones are the same) ...



Those who have seen/felt it say they like it, and it is "lovely and soft" ... I wonder where I got that yarn from and what it was, and - most importantly - can I get some more?!

anyway ... finding more photos will have to wait until later ... I have to go out somewhere shortly ...
(whenever "later" happens I will also put some more photos on http://spot-theblog.blogspot.com/ ... I have just saved a half written post, to that blog, as a draft ... I ran out of time before I put any of the other photos there ... )

Journal quilts ... etc

er ... I decided it was about time I added some photos of my April and May journal quilts ... then I realised that I have not actually added photos of March, or my second version of February! ... so I guess I had better put those here too ... LOL

February - yes ... I already did one, then I realised that the quilts will be traveling around the country and might even end up going overseas - so maybe real gum leaves, feathers, and a dead weed are not good things to put in one ... so I made another version of the same design/idea, but this time without the leaves/feather/weed in it ...



now what DID I call it? ... oh yes - "Primal Stirrings"




March - "Journey - Chasing The Dream"



... it is sort of about the journey of life, and about following your dreams (with a Kangaroo sequin with a gold star for all the athletes chasing gold medals at the Commonwealth Games, which were in March, in Melbourne)

[later edit - Feb 2008! - the above quilt is on page 77 of this month's issue (Feb '08) of the magazine Down Under Quilts! ... there were several other people's journal quilts in there too - they are part of an article about these journal quilts, and how a group of us each chose 5 quilts, which were then exhibited as a group at several quilt shows/etc around Australia, during 2007]

Then I didn't get much quilty stuff done at all in April and May (but I did do some crochet) ... I made my April quilt in the middle of May and my May one on the last day of May and the first day of June ...

April - "Tropical Dreams"



this one was actually inspired by a few things - mostly the trip to Queensland to visit my Parents (who live on the Sunshine Coast) ... DD was spotting Frangipanni flowers from the train window as soon as we got to Sydney (they don't grow too well here in Canberra ) and she was also pointing out any other nice tropical looking flowers she saw , and while we were up in Queensland I took quite a few photos of flowers/leaves/etc in Mum's garden, and then, after getting back from Queensland I got to go to Bowen Island (Near Nowra) for the weekend (doing some conservation volunteers stuff) and there was a frangipanni bush next to the hut we slept in ... I probably should have called the quilt "Sub-tropical dreams" because we didn't actually go far enough north to be in the tropics - LOL


May - "If I Can't See It - Then It Isn't There?"



actually I only just named this one (and the April one) earlier this evening! (when I put the photos up on the yahoogroups page for the yahoogroup that I am doing these things with/for) ... I kind of forgot I had not actually decided on names for them until I re-sized/etc the pictures and went to save them, and realised they had no names!
the May one was a weird idea that came to me sometime (I think it was actually in late March or early April, but then I had the other idea for April ;-) ... I think it was when I was kind of daydreaming and thinking of quilt ideas and stuff (like "what on Earth do I make to enter in the quilt show this year?" and "when will I actually find time to make it?" lol) and this idea came from somewhere in the weird universe that exists in the back of my mind (the place where a lot of my ideas come from ) ... hmmm - maybe I was trying to tell myself something?

Now ... let's hope that if I can see it in "preveiw" then it IS there ... because it isn't all there in here ... I know - that doesn't make sense - I think the editor thingy where I am writing this is/was having a bit of a hissy fit ... it didn't like me uploading a big photo ... so I made them smaller (which I probably should have done anyway, but I was being lazy) then it didn't like doing all 4 photos at once, even though it all looked like it was working ... they just never turned up in here like they are supposed to ... they did work when I did them again, one by one ... but the first 2 I did just show up as an "x" (in a box) in here ... but they look ok in the "preveiw" thingy ... methinks computers/etc have a mind of their own ...

... hmmm - now there's an interesting concept (which I think I actually thought of a year or more ago) - now that the internet is so huge, and so much stuff is connected together ... and it seems to have a mind of it's own ... what if it actually DOES?! ... what if that much information all connected together with all those various applications/etc just happens to all connect in such a way that the internet becomes conscious ... and some stream of bits and bytes and stuff flying around in cyberspace says to itself "I think, therefore I am"?

I think I ought to be asleep, therefore I am going to bed ... soon ... LOL

(after I have a drink/etc and dig up something to wear tomorrow and do whatever else I may have decided I had to do before I went to bed but have forgotten about ... )

... goodnight

(well - it will be a good night if this thing actually lets me publish it this time ... it stuffed up the first time - I think there is something not working with the intenet and/or the stupid ISP - a few things are having a go-slow tonight ... I got a "can't load page" message instead of "your post has been published" - not a good sign - LOL - my "edit posts" page said it was there but it wasn't on my blog and it came up 404 when I tried to edit it ... but when I finally got the browser to go back to this page it was still here - thank goodness that is one thing that does seem to work ok ... it never did that with geocities - once something I had been working on was gone - it was gone - and no amount of going "back" etc would ever find it again ... )

... I think blogger died ... at least the log in/post to your blog part has - it won't even let me log in ... luckily I copied this and saved it before I hit the "publish" button ... just in case ... now I just have to remember to dig it out and try to post it sometime ... LOL

but first ... had to have one more try to log in, before I left the room ... and it let me log in at last ... and all the stuff was still in here! (except the bit that I had typed where I had saved a copy - so I copied that in here - lol

now ... let's see if they have actually fixed the problem ...

(if they have not, then this will have to wait ... I have to get up and go to work in the morning!)

Something to do while you wait ...

... for me to update this blog - here (below) are a few silly/etc websites
to keep you occupied.
(that is if there is anybody who still comes and looks at this blog anyway
...)

(u may as well go look - me updating this properly might take a while to
actually happen - I seem to always be too busy lately ... not sure what I am
too busy doing though - I never seem to get anything much done either ... )

Work was boring today ... spent the day trying to organise the mess from
when I had to move everything out while they re-built the main room I work
in (I think I liked it better how it was before!), and then had to move it
all back in again ... all while still trying to actually DO some work
(preparing chemicals and equipment for high school science classes, and
cleaning up the B$^%& mess afterwards) ... so of course it has got in an
even bigger mess (today the teachers and students were all out of the school
on a "walkathon/cross country" thingy, which meant they were not there
wanting stuff got out for lessons, etc - so I had a day to catch up ...
well - to try and catch up a bit anyway ... sigh
So ... the first silly URL is work related ... this is the sort of science
stuff I would rather be doing (writing blogs is far more fun than trying to
work out what shelf/cupboard to put what stuff in) ... anyway ... from a
newsletter thingy I get via e-mail at work ... a link to someone's science
blog - http://westius.blogspot.com/2006/03/mr-science.html

"What newsletter thingy?" you ask ... oh ... you can subscribe to it here
... http://www.csiro.au/helix/sciencemail/subscribe.html (or click on the
"science by e-mail home" link there and read about it)

It is cold here in Canberra now ... but it is colder where this blogger is
(but I might like his job better than mine too - lol) ... I found this
listed as one of the "blogs of note" when I logged in here to post to my
blog - http://bigjuli.blogspot.com/

now ... time for a couple of interesting creative/textile related links ...

2 people's versions of how to make fabric postcards -
http://debrichardson.blogspot.com/2005/09/how-to-make-fabric-postcard-debr-style.html

http://www.4ormore.co.uk/projects/postcards.htm

those links were on http://inaminuteago.com/blog

so was this one -
http://www.squidoo.com/freeformcrochet/

... she also caught the bug and started a couple of her own ... this is one
of them - http://www.squidoo.com/fabricpostcards/

gee she finds, and posts about, some interesting stuff!

this wasn't on her page though - it came from the teacher/librarian at
work - silly game it is ...
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/stackattack/

anyway ... I still have a few e-mails to read, and DH is on his way home
from work ... and when he gets here we are going out for take-away or
something ... so I had better go read those e-mails ... lol

oh ... before I go - anyone know anything about lace? ... this person -
http://patrasplace.blogspot.com/ has just posted a picture of some that she
doesn't know much about and wanted to know more (that was also mentioned on
inaminuteago ... lol) ... I know someone who might know ... so now I have an
e-mail to send as well as a few to read ... lol

It is now one day later ... I tried to post all this (above) to my blog the night before last ... but something wasn't working and when I hit the "publish post" button it all vanished but didn't appear on my post ... luckily it was still "there" when I hit the "back" button ... but it wouldn't go onto the blog ... I hope whatever it was is now fixed ... else I will have to blame windoze or something - this is a new version of their browser I am using ... it works a bit like firefox now - with tabs and stuff ... and harder to find a couple things I like to use - like there is no drop down list of the last few pages I went to if I want to go back more than one page - have to go find it under the history, which took me a while to find where the heck that was! ... methinks maybe firefox still works better?

oh well ... I actually came in here to do other stuff - just decided to have another go at posting this stuff while I was here ;-)
... so now it is time to hit that "publish" button again and see what happens ...

Dogs in the sky ...

No ... not flying puppies ;-)

This:



Behind the thin layers of clouds there is a nice big sun on the right ... and a little one on the left?! No ... the sun has not had a baby ... it isn't a shooting star, or a UFO ... it is a sundog.

"What is a sundog?" you ask ... they are also known as parhelia or mock suns - they are sunlight reflecting off ice crystals in the air - this site explains what they are and why they happen - http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/parhelia.htm

I actually found that website a year or 2 ago, when some website mentioned Brocken spectres ( http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/droplets/globrock.htm ) and I did a search to find out what those were, and I got lost at that website for an hour or more and found the stuff about sundogs (I looked at all that info because I had heard the name, but didn't know what they were) ... since then I have wondered if sundogs can be seen here in Australia, because I had never noticed them before ...
and ...
... at about 5:25 pm yesterday (SUNday - lol) , while driving home from somewhere, I finally saw one ... 2 actually - one each side of the sun, but the other one wasn't as bright ... I did take a photo of the 2 of them, but it is a bit out of focus (grrr - I couldn't tell that from the LCD screen on the camera - else I would have taken another photo!)

Here is the blurry one anyway ...



It is a bit hard to see the one on the right, but it is there ... just.

By the way ... the strange pink and white circles and ovals in both those photos are not UFOs or some other weird thing in the sky - they were weird reflections or something, in the lens/etc of the camera ... that kind of thing happens when you take photos directly into the sun ... lol

If one is interested in looking at clouds and other weird stuff like that in the sky, then that website is a place to get well and truly "lost in cyberspace" for a few hours ... I have seen what I think was a not very tall pillar ( http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/halo/pillar.htm ) and on several occaisions I have seen what I think were probably iridescent clouds ( http://www.sundog.clara.co.uk/droplets/irid1.htm ) ... and we have probably all seen rainbows ( http://www.atoptics.co.uk/bows.htm ;-) ... I also like watching sunsets and sunrises (not that I see many of those - LOL) ... the sky is really quite interesting ...

I also took a couple of photos of 2 more journal quilts today ... my second version of "Febuary" - similar to the other one but without real leaves or feathers, and my March one.
I was going to put them here, and in the photos section of the website for the yahoogroup that they are a challenge for, but ... after I put the photos onto the computer I went to a meeting then when I came home I put 2 loads of washing on, in between sewing hems around the edges of 3 Scout scarves (now they just need the stripe sewing around 2 sides with cotton tape) ... they needed someone to sew some scarves and silly me said yes - lol

... so - it was late by the time I came in here ... and now it is even later ... oops!

and ... I still have those 2 loads of washing to hang on the line so the stuff will dry while I am at work tomorrow ...

and ... talking about work tomorrow ... er - today actually, seeing it is after midnight (even if it is really "today" I kind of still think and talk about it as "tomorrow" if there is some night left between now and then ;-) ... I really should be asleep now, seeing I have to get UP for work in a few hours time!

look - even the clouds are waving goodnight ...
(well - they look like waves to me ;-)



I took that photo on my way home from work today ... er yesterday ... Monday ... lol ... (it is now Tuesday here) I should have gone outside and had a look at the sky a bit later, when the sun got down behind the clouds, in case there were any sundogs again ... lol (the cloud and the weather was similar to the evening before)

er ...

goodnight ...