Where am I?

If anyone actually reads this blog, they might be wondering where I am - because I have not posted anything for a while ... not even any TAST (the Take A Stitch Tuesday challenge) stuff ...

why not?

well ... er ... sort of been busy ...

- stuff like work, being a wife and mother, and stuff like sitting down in front of the TV with DH (Dear Husband) and sewing/crocheting while watching a few dozen episodes of "Scrubs" - because DH bought the whole set of it on DVDs the other week - LOL

The TV watching is not a total waste of time though - I do need to get a pile of sewing and crocheting done, and in front of the TV is where I tend to have time to get it done ...

I have also been (not very sucessfully yet) trying to find my sewing room under all the mess, because I have entered a challenge quilt and a miniature quilt into the quilt show here (the Canberra Quilters exhibition) so I have to make those in the next few weeks, and I have note even started the challenge quilt yet! ... but I have pieced the miniature quilt - which is one of the things I am now doing some stitching on in front of the TV - it is mostly a "crazy quilt" and I need to do decorative stitches down all of the seams and embellish the rest of it too - I said in the catalouge description that it is crazy quilted with "a lot of spiders" - so I now have to sew the lots of spiders and their webs on there!

I also have some crocheting and other sewing/quilty stuff I want to do for the TASDA (Textile Art and Surface Design Association - a group I am part of here in Canberra) exhibition that happens a month or so after the quilt exhibition ... that is the one where the theme is "Poles Apart" - the reason that my blog is (or "was" if it has stopped working or I have edited my template and take it off or something by the time you read this) playing that weird music (see the post before this one for further expanation, links to their website, etc ;-) ... the music I am now listening to (because I went to look at my blog to see if it was still working, and it is :-)

And ... I have some ATCs to make, for a swap I signed up for (ATCs = Artists Trading Cards) and I have not made any Journal quilts for a while (I was planning to keep doing one for each month, like I did last year ... but "the wheels fell off") ... and - instead of being in here getting lost in cyberspace - I came in here to check my e-mail while I drank my coffee and ate my doughnuts - I should be back out where I was, in my sewing room, finishing off my "Inchies" - which are sets of 1" squares for a swap I am in on the AuzNZartquilters yahoogroup ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aus_NZartquilters/ )

hmmm ... this was going to be a short post where I wrote that I was busy and said "here is what is keeping my busy right this moment" ... and then I was going to paste in most of the text from the e-mail I just sent to the people in the inche swap ... which I am still going to paste in here anyway - for those who are interested in reading about what "that weird Andrea person" is doing with bits of fabric, yarn and shredded bits of plastic shopping bag ... and an iron ...

Hi All,
I have been collecting a pile of blue bits of whatever I find (in the op shop, in my sewing room while looking for something else, in my crochet yarn stash, etc) ever since I heard about this inchie swap ... but I only just started making my inchies today! In fact I am just having a coffee/e-mail break after doing that just now - I have just been ironing bits of yarn and cut up plastic shopping bag etc onto bits of netting and bits of that tyvek stuff that they now seem to use to make pillows and doonas ... hopefully I won't get lost in my e-mail for too long - because I want to spend some more time this afternoon doing some more things to them and doing the other ideas I have in mind ...
btw, I think my inchies ideas are now getting mixed up with ideas for my ATCs for another swap (due in a months time) and my journal quilts (which I have not actually been getting around to doing any of for several months ). - once I get into my sewing room and get immersed in a mad moment of creativity all sorts of odd stuff starts happening ... and with the way I tend to make my ATCs and similar things (journal quilts, postcards etc) it is often quite easy to do what I did for a journal quilt and some ATCs and postcards last year - and that is to make one bigger bit of stuff (i.e. I grab some interesting background fabric/whatever and throw on a few bits and iron/quilt/etc them on) and then cut it up into the various sized bits for a set of ATCs, a journal, and some postcards, and then I finished the various items by adding some embellishments to them and doing the edging/binding and stuff. ... so at least some of my inchies will actually sort of be the "trimmings" from the edges of A4 sized quilts or ATCs ... LOL


I will try and remember to take some photos and blog about the inchies, and how I made them and the other stuff, when I have finished the inchies ...

btw, I have still been doing the TAST stitches every week, and I will try and get around to taking photos and catch up with blogging about them sometime in the next week or 3
... I have even used this week's TAST stitch (half chevron stitch) on the needlebook that I am stitching stuff on for the round robin I am in, on http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/southerncrosscrazies/ (yes - I am on LOT of yahoogroups - lol)

btw ... if the song finished while you were reading all the lunatic ravings I have just written, and you actually wanted to listen to the song - it should play again if you hit the little "play" arrow on the top left hand corner of the music player box at the top of the page ... I just did that becuase I wanted to play it again while I finish this and read the other few e-mails I have not read yet ;-)

Anyway ... I have a few e-mails to read/reply to, a whole heap of sewing to do, and a pile of junk to go and get out of the back of the car - that is another thing I have been busy with this weekend - I went and "slept over" at a friend's place (the other side of Canberra - not really that far away but if I sleep there we can have a drink or 3 and I don't have to drive home afterwards) and we spent Friday evening and most of Saturday sorting out a pile of junk she had in a spare room ... she has been crocheting (and teaching crochet, and writing patterns and designing stuff for magazines etc) for years, and she had a whole pile of crochet items and lots and lots of odd bits of yarn and stuff that she no longer wanted ... so guess who got given anything I wanted out of that lot - yes - me!
... I tend to use all sorts of odd stuff, and I tend to get most of my crochet ideas when whatever bits of yarn I find/buy/get given "talk" to me and tell me what to make out of them - so it was kind of like having a birthday or Christmas or something when I got given all her junk ... so it was one of those "everybody wins" things - she got company/help doing the sorting/clearing out of her spare room and I consider all that yarn and stuff more than fair payment for spending the day dragging stuff off high shelves and carrying the heavy stuff down the stairs for her ... and the op shop will probably do well too - because she also had a whole pile of old books (mostly novels and stuff) she was throwing out - so I put them into boxes and most of those will go to the op shop ... along with the heap of old clothing and stuff that I have sitting in a pile in the lounge room - once I get the other stuff out of the car the old clothing/etc can go in - and the whole lot can go to one or other of the op shops that are right next to where I work (the ones I usually go to in my lunch break and take fabric and yarn and stuff OUT of - LOL)

er ... I had better go do that stuff before I run out of afternoon - oops - where has the day gone? ... looks like my inchies won't get any more work done on them until this evening now ...