A is for ... ABC ... Again ...

A is for ...

Alphabet! ... and All the letters in it! LOL
yes - ABC Wednesday is now starting it's 5th round ... so - let's see how well I can keep up this time ... lol (it is a wonderful excuse to try and post at least once each week - lol)

A is Also for All that stuff I posted about last time (Arachnids and Aykayem and All sorts of other Amazing ... or was it Awful? ... stuff)

And ... er ... And! - that word that one should NOT start a sentence with - lol

A is for Antarctica!
... An Amazingly Awesome place that I really want to go to ... which is why I decided to try and blog my way to Antarctica ... trouble is ... I will need more than 2000 votes to win (someone else already has 2002 votes, and a few others are not far behind) ... And I don't think I have Any yet ... sigh ...
(maybe I need to change that Awful profile picture? ... or do some Advertising ... maybe I should tell the ABC radio people About it? - I could tell them that they need to help me, by doing an interview/publicity/etc, because it should be an Australian who wins? - LOL)

A is also for Astronomy ... which is Also Apt - not just because 2009 is the International Year Of Astronomy (As I mentioned in the other A post) but it is Also for the Aniversary of the first Moon landing - 40 years ago this week (I could have said "Today" if I had posted this on time - lol) and Apollo 11 and the Astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who were the first to set foot on the moon. (First humans, and first Americans ... much to Russia's disgust ... hmmm - I wonder if humankind would have made more/greater advances, or made less progress, if America and Russia had been working with each other rather than against each other?)

A is also for ACTTAA - the ACT Textile Arts Association (which I am a member of) ... and the theme for our exhibition (in a couple of months time) is partly to do with it being the year of Astronomy - the theme is "Heaven And Earth" (the other thing is the fact that it is also the year of natural fibres)
... I guess that theme kind of covers everything ... well Almost Anything Anyway ... it could be possible that there might be some where/thing that is not part of Heaven or Earth? lol
I Assume one would have to ask an Astrophysicist about that one?

I Actually had an Amazing and Awesomely odd thought About Astrophysics last night ... (it was to do with Black holes and the Big Bang theory - But that can wait for next week ... or whenever I get around to doing my "B" post - lol)

hmmm A is also for the Absence of Any images ...

... In order to make this post more Attractive, I might have to Add one:



This is from my Geocities page (the one that is about to be Absent because it will not exist any more once yahoo "flick the off switch" sometime soon) in fact I just went and copied this one from the geocities page because I can't remember where on the computer I put the original (bigger) copy of it!
(it is Also possible that it is Absent All together ... As in ... it isn't where I put it Anyway ... the likelyhood of that Awful fact being Applicable is dependant on where I Actually put it in the first place ... And ... it is possible that the image IS where I put it, but where I put it is not in Any of the places where I think I ought to have put it - it could be in Another folder Alltogether ... maybe even the other "Andrea" folder, which is on Another computer ... Ahhhhrrrrgggghhhh ...)

So ... what is it? ... well - this is what I have written under it on my geocities page:

This picture is actually an image of gaseous pillars in the Eagle Nebula, M16. It was Taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, on April 1st (!) 1995 .
The image is courtesy of the Space Telescope Science Institute (ST Sci), operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), Inc., for NASA., and NASA.Material created with support to AURA/ST ScI from NASA contract NAS5-26555 is reproduced here was reproduced on my geocities page with permission.
I drew in the fuzzy bit at the top right hand corner (because it had nothing there, just black squares - the image is actually made up of several smaller ones, and there were a couple missing in the corner).

I still think there is something kind of weird and eerie about that image ... that tallest pillar on the left kind of looks like someone got a whole zoo of animals (both real and imaginary) and kind of squidged it all up together ...

... maybe some Aliens did that to it, just to drive us nuts?

A is Also for the Awfull smell of whatever DD just cooked herself for a Midnight snack (toast I think) which would probably smell ok if I was hungry and I wasn't half alseep, and hadn't had black pudding for supper A little while Ago ... hmmm - DD should be in bed - she has school in the morning ... then again - so should I, because I also have school in the morning! (actually I have to go to work in the morning ... but ... I work at a school - lol)

I can think of At least one other A word ... but that could be a bit Awkward (As it is a bit Awfull) because I want to try and keep this blog "family friendly" ... or at least not too bad mostly - lol

so .. I will bid you Adieu (or however u spell that word) ... and I could say a goodbye/goodnight/etc in a couple of other languages that have words for it that start with A, but I can't be bothered looking up how to spell them ...

Alas Poor Geocites, I Knew It Well ...

Yes ... I just found out that Yahoo are closing down Geocities, and deleting all the Geocities websites (well the ones that don't move to PAID web hosting and get the URL re-directed), in late October ...

Which is a bit dissapointing seeing I HAVE a Geocites website!
... not that I used it any more - LOL
but ... it IS the first website I ever had, so it sort of has a bit of sentimental value ...

... which is why I was happy to see that, because Yahoo were good/clever enough to tell them, the nice people at the Wayback Machine are busily archiving as much of geocites as they can before it goes offline, and I am also pleased to notice that they have already (as part of their normal crawling around the www over the last several years) archived a couple of older versions of my geocites home page, and some of the stuff on it (the photos don't work, nor do half the links ... but that is not surprising - some of the links and photos don't work anymore on my geocities site itself).
What they have archived for my site can be found at http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/ (well it could 10 minutes ago, but now they seem to be having "technical dificulties" ... hopefully that is just temporary ... hopefully it could be because they are adding to it already - I just submitted my URL for archiving again - the nice folks at yahoo geocites provided the link to a page on the wayback machine site where we can do that ;-)

The only bit if my geocities site that I really wanted to keep, and have it at it's original URL, was this - http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/sigscquiltpic.jpg ... because the URL, and my name, was mentioned in an article in a magazine! (in Down Under Quilts magazine ... who now have digital copies of their magazine online ... but not the one my URL was mentioned in - that was 5 or 10 years ago!)

hmmm ... I guess I should just print out all the pages on my website and stick them in a folder to probably never get around to looking at in my old age ... because I don't think anybody else will really care/be interested in looking at what I had there ... LOL
but ... just in case I am wrong/you are curious (and happen to be reading this before those yahooligans delete it) the URL for my Geocities page is http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9279/ ... or http://www.geocities.com/aykayem/ (they came up with those shorter URLs later on, so those of us with the original longer ones ended up with 2)

btw ... I do also have a few crochet patterns on my geocites site ... but I already had plans to move them to my blog (either this one or one of the others, with a link in the side bar of this one) anyway ... once I have printed them out, crocheted them again so I can find/correct all the mistakes (I know there are at least a few mistakes in there, and will probably find more) and maybe tidied them up a bit so they look/work ok when they are printed ...
(of course, me being me, and considering the fact that I have been meaning to do that ever since I started this blog - it may take me a few weeks/months/years to actually get around to DOING it ...)

Hmmm ... This post doesn't have any photos, and nor did the last one I wrote (which is now not the last one I posted - lol) - I wonder if I can find photos, of the things I wrote patterns for, on the computer?

... er ... maybe not quickly ... but I found a few photos of some other stuff I have crocheted, from way back in 2002 (which was about when I wrote those crochet square patterns that I have on geocities).

In fact I found a heap of other stuff, and I put a whole pile of photos in here ... and it made the post rather long, and disjointed (seeing it was about 2 different things - lol) - so I have just decided to cut and paste all the other stuff into a different post - and post that one before this one ... so it still appears on my blog with this bit on top of the page, and then all the weird photos under it ...
- so if you want to pretend that I left them all in here as one big long blog post, then you should be able to just scroll down a bit, skip the short paragraph that explains what they are (for anyone who just finds the post by itself somewhere/somehow without reading this first) and keep reading ... or just look ... or whatever ...

ok ... the photos are now in their own post ... and DH is waiting for me to finish this so we can go and get fish and chips for tea - LOL

A pile of old photos of crochet and stuff ...

I found all these while I was typing a blog post about how Geocities was closing down - which will now be posted shortly AFTER this one (so that for those who want to keep reading it like it was one post can just keep reading down the page to this one - lol) - most of them didn't really relate to the first part of that post, so I decided to put them in their own post instead - LOL

Anyway ...

... snip snip ... where is the glue? ... oh there ...

here are all those photos I just found:


I am not sure what this is ...

... or why I crocheted it.

This one is a discloth (or could be used as a face washer or doily or whatever)

I crocheted it for a swap/exchange I was doing on the Australiacrochet yahoogroup.
(and I made the design up as I went, so there is no pattern for this one anywhere ... yet ...)

This is one of a pile of little bears I crocheted ...

... I am not sure if this was one I swapped, or just one of the many I made because I was having fun making them at the time ... lol
(I got the idea from a bear pattern that a friend wrote, but I changed just about everything in the pattern so it isn't the same pattern any more ... but I have never actually written the "pattern" down ... I might do that one year ... )

This is a milk jug cover I made

the tassel is because I ended up with a different number of stitches around the outside than I needed for the pattern of the edging (last 2 rows) to work out evenly - so I did my usual and fudged something - which I actually like - lol
(hmmm, I think I used someone's else's pattern for this, or at least for the middle bit, but I can't remember what pattern it was or where I got it ... somewhere on the www I think ... not really helpful eh?)

This is a small bowl I made ...

... and beside it is the rest of the roll of the garden string that I crocheted it with!
(if something can be tied in a knot - I will have a go at crocheting with it!)
I think I used a coaster pattern as the basic idea, but changed it so it doesn't lie flat like the coaster did.

This is not crochet

it is a tiny quilt I made for a friend, for her birthday. I think it was also my first bit of "stipple quilting" ... but not my last ...
(I can't remember where I got that foundation peiced cat block design from - I probably got given a copy of it at a craft group I used to go to about 15 years ago, but I have seen it a lot of times, in a lot of places (books, websites, quilts, etc) since then).

here is a bookmark I crocheted

I think I made that one up as I went.

but I used a pattern for these 2 drink coasters

but again ... not sure offhand what pattern I used (one I found free on the www, probably when I did a google search for "free crochet coaster patterns" or somesuch)

This is a Christmas quilt I made ...

using quilt blocks that other people made - I went in a swap that we had on a quilty yahoogroup I am on ... I have actually been in several swaps on that group, but I think this is the only one where I have actually made a quilt out of the blocks ... in fact this was the blocks from 3 Christmas swaps, from 3 different years! (an angel block swap, and 2 different Christmas star/tree block swaps)

I tend not to go in many swaps now ... well not block swaps ... but I did just join in and do an "inchie" swap on an art quilt list ... if I have not done so sooner, I will try to remember to post about the "inchies" when we get up to the letter I again for that ABC Wednesday thing ... if we do another round that is (we are up to Z this week, not sure if it is starting at A again or not)

Ah ... found a couple of what I was looking for - those crochet squares that I wrote patterns for, and posted on my geocities page

This one is "Within"


and this one is "from big things, little things grow"

(I think, when I named this one, I was feeling inspired by a song with that same title - lol)

and these are a pile of other squares I crocheted around the same time as I designed those 2

the last 2 are the ones I designed, the rest are all from patterns found on the www and the URLs posted to the Australiacrochet yahoogroup
- we were doing a weekly mystery square at the time ... and, at the time, I was the person who was finding the URLs and posting them ... so I have a huge collection of granny square URLs ... somewhere ... lol
... if anyone reading this (IS anyone reading this?! lol) actually wants the URL for the pattern for any of these - leave a comment telling me which one (they all have numbers on them in the photo) and provided the pattern is still up at the same place it was back in 2002 (some of them are not), I can look up the URL for it in the list I have.

er ... I probably should stop looking for photos now - seeing this post has got rather long - LOL

but first ... a quick peek in the other couple of folders of photos from that year, to see if any other names jump out at me (I am just browsing the file names as I upload them, rather than opening up any photo software - because doing that seems to be what this poor old computer doesn't like ... and it also takes longer to find photos if I do that because I always get lost/side-tracked in there doing other stuff - lol)

hmmm ... a log cabin quilt block I made

I am not sure if this is the one I made into a pin cushion for a swap, or if this is the other one, that I still have not made into anything (I made 2 blocks almost the same, using the same fabrics - the idea was so i could make 2 pincushions - one for the swap and one for me ... the swap one got finished at the last minute so I could swap it ... and the other one didn't ... lol)

and ... probably a good photo to end with - 2 more crochet squares - another "pattern" that I made up

... I gave it a name, but I am not sure if I ever wrote this one out as a pattern. (I probably should one day - because I like it ... lol)

now ... back to that other post - lol

Yes

Yes ... I am having fun doing Wednesday ABC posts ... when I get around to it ... lol

... so this one is my Y post.

and Yes - I would like Wednesday ABC to keep going for another round ... then I can post about how I want to go to Antarctica when we start at A - LOL

... and I will probably also post about the other A things I probably didn't cover last time ... LOL

Y?

Y not?

(I think I actually did that for my post last time we did Y ;-)



Yes I want to blog my way to Antarctica http://www.blogyourwaytoantarctica.com/blogs/view/281

Y should you vote for me?

- Y not?!

you can read my post about it here - http://thebestblogintheentireworld.blogspot.com/2009/07/i-want-to-go-to-antarctica-i-want-to-go.html ... or you can read much the same stuff at the site where you will need to go to vote for me!

cool URL I have for that blog eh?!

one day I went to go there (there used to be something else there I think) and I saw it was vacant and so I took the opportunity and signed up for it!

Y?

Y not?! LOL

so ...
Y am I still UP at this late hour of night?

well ... because when DH went to bed I was wide awake (probably due to having been up even later last night ... er ... as in getting fairly close to sunrise this morning actually ... so I slept in until lunch time today) and then I kind of got side-tracked in here ... and joined twitter ... which I had been kind of meaning to do for ages ... but hadn't got around to because I couldn't decide on a good user name - I wanted to use aykayem (which is a name I invented for myself way back in about 1978 ... before cyberspace had even been invented!) - but ... after years and years of signing up for all sorts of stuff/junk/whatever online, and it always being available ... I tried to use it for twitter and it was TAKEN ... aaaahhhrrrggghhhh! (I wonder if he/she knows that he/she isn't the only "aykayem" hanging around in cyberspace? lol

Y is also for Yellow ... which is the colour of the lid on a jar of Vegemite ... and with both Vegemite and yellow - "a little goes a long way" ... LOL
(I briefly thought about making the text in this post a nice bright yellow, but thought the better of it and spared you - it probably would have been almost totally unreadable anyway - but yellow IS a very useful colour to put just a little bit of in a quilt that needs a little something to give it a bit of a lift/some oomph/whatever - lol)

"Yellow" is also the title of a song I rather like ... but I am not going to add music to this blog ... it has enough stuff to load as it is ... (I do have a music thingy on this blog and that song is actually already ON there! ... I think it is about half way down the list ... I just went and looked to see if it was there and still working ok (it was), but I closed it again because this poor old computer is acting up, which it has been doing a lot lately, and if I had left that window open while it was doing what it was doing, it probaly would have resulted in a blue screen of death or something ... and it doesn't want me to re-start it right now - I tried to do that a little while ago but it told me to try again later because the automatic virus scan is still going! ... besides ... very shortly I am going to hit the post button on this and go to bed - LOL
(I just need to do couple things first - like add labels, and put the current date and time on there - because I actually started typing this post a couple of days ago so it has that date/time on there until I change it)

btw ... I didn't get around to doing an X post last week ... but I probably more than covered it all last time we were up to the letter X - with all my Xanthorreas and other X words ... LOL
(oddly enough, because I happened to be at the botanic gardens and saw some nice ones, I did take several more photos of Xanthorreas a couple of weeks ago!)

Actually - I just looked at that X post and realised that it was also my FIRST post for ABC Wednesday! LOL
(but ... it wasn't my first post about the letter X/X words! - but I won't bore you with the details of that here - it is all explained in the Wednesday ABC one if you are really that interested - lol)

hmmm ... if I hadn't missed most of the letters in the middle of the alphabet I would have been a full circle ... so maybe we HAVE to do it again so I can have another go and see if I can at least fill in the gaps and do the letters I didn't do this time - LOL

anyway ... it is now even later than it was when I changed the time on this post (it is now 10 past 2 rather than 10 to 2 ... lol) so I had better post this before I fall asleep on the keyboard or something (or before this poor old computer decides that the one thing I am still doing on here is still too much for it, and totally crashes on me ... )

btw ... the name I decided to use on Twitter? - UTLAU
... which is what someone started calling me when a group of us used to chat on ICQ a few years back - UTLAU stands for Up Too Late As Usual ... and as you can see by the title of this blog - I liked it - LOL

... and as you can see from the times on most of my blog posts ... it still kind of suits me!
(although back then I was up in the wee small hours of the morning more often than not, and on any night of the week ... these days I am only up this late sometimes, and usually only when I don't have to get up for work or something the next day ... )

btw ... I could also say that it stands for Up Too Late . au - because I am up too late, in Australia - lol
(which is kind of another reason why I decided I like it, and decided to use it for Twitter)

er ...

goodnight!