Keeping Up

... more like NOT keeping up actually - I seem to have missed quite a few letters for ABC Wednesday ... and that isn't the only thing that I seem to have got behind with ... sigh ...

Is it just me, or does life seem to rush by faster these days?

I thought about doing a late post for J ... but I am not sure you really want to read a post about Junk - lol (I could probably find a few pictures of rubbish to put here, or I guess I could have posted pictures of my sewing/etc stash - I collect all sorts of stuff and DH says that most of it is junk!) but the next letter is due in a few days so I decided I may as well start writing a K post a bit early - then I might actually be able to put one up on time ... if I remember to finish writing it ... I guess I could set it to post automatically anyway ... but last time I did that I never came back and finished it so this time probably wouldn't be any different - LOL

I guess I could still put some photos of my junk here and call it "Keeping things" ... LOL

(probably easier than finding photos of my Knitting - seeing I don't do much of that - I prefer to crochet ;-)

hmmm - I actually DID post a J post last time around (where I did mention my Junk) ... but without pictures - so I guess I could put them in here instead - LOL

I wonder what I would have posted for the letters I have missed?

G for gee I am disorganised? or goodness me where has the time gone?

H for how did I get behind again?

I for I don't know where the last few weeks have gone/I don't seem to ever have time to get all the things done that I want to.

... and J for just another boring blog post? LOL

but if you Keep reading ... I might eventually get to the point ... if there is one ...

maybe I should post about what I have Kept up with ... just ...

I did manage to finish some stuff for that ACTTAA exhibition that I mentioned in my last post
(yes - not just that quilt, but some other stuff too)

I finished this rather odd crochet rug (could it be a Knee rug? lol) for the exhibition:



It was meant to look like paddocks seen from above ... it does to me ... and to the person who told me it made her home sick for the area of farmland where she grew up ...

I also made this bag:



it is made from some odd fabric I found in my stash (I think it is linen ... looks/feels like linen ... could be anything - my fabric has come from all sorts of odd places). I machine quilted a few wiggly lines on it then hand stitched/etc in between them ... and added a few dangly/etc bits. The light green yarn is some from a ball of acrylic yarn that I bought at a farmers market in some town in the middle of Turkey! (it cost me the equivalent of a dollar, and I wish I had bought more than one ball! ... I used it to crochet a silly beanie - which I did on the tour bus the day after I bought it! ... if I had realised how good it looked used for embroidery/stitching, I would have bought more ... I guess when the half a ball I have left is gone ... I will have to use something else instead ... )

Those 2 things (the rug and the bag) and the black hole quilt I just posted about (and yes I did just write that post ... I am trying to get this one done BEFORE it is time to post my K post ... in fact I started writing this post yesterday) ... those 3 things were what I had on display in the gallery section of that exhibition.

I also made some stuff for the fashion parade ... I also modelled the stuff I made in the fashion parade ... people took photos of me modelling it, but I never got around to taking any photos of the stuff myself ... if I do that (or get sent any photos someone else took) in the couple of days before I post this (or it posts itself if I decide to set it to do that ;-) then I will put them in here ... but if not, I won't - LOL

The other section of that exhibition is the bazaar ... and I made some stuff for that too.
I also had a pile of stuff left over that didn't sell last year ...

I made these 4 phone thingys just before the exhibition, and the ear rings are actually some I made quite a few years ago!



I also finished this scarf that has been sitting almost finished for a while ...



... and I added it to the pile of a few others that were left over from last year.

and I decided to sell this plastic bag and beanies that are made from ... plastic bags!



and I had an idea and made up a few packets of bits of interesting yarn to sell:



I don't think much of it sold though ... I guess I probably should have put a bit more effort into it? LOL

I had a few more things for sale, but I either don't have photos of them or already had photos but not recent ones that I found when I dug these out - I took these last few photos on the lawn (or the fence!) next to the car park at the place I went to before dropping my bazaar stuff off on the way home, because I kind of didn't get around to doing it any earlier!

I did sell a few things ... have not sorted it out and worked out exactly what sold, but I noticed that someone did buy a fabric bowl that I made a few years ago, it was one that didn't sell last year or the year before ... my things are probably a bit odd, and therefore have a limited appeal ... LOL
(and there are a few very talented and quite professional people in that group - so there were a lot of lovely items for sale for people to choose from)

btw ... the clothing I made for the fashion parade is rather unusual too ... a crochet shawl dyed with food dye and vinegar (and a weird hippy dress I made to match it but will probably only ever wear as a nightie or fancy dress), an outfit made from 3 of DH's old business shirts (which actually ended up looking way better than I expected so I might have to wear that somewhere), and a skirt made from a too small around the middle skirt I got from an op shop and bleached and altered/added bits to ... which I might also wear ... sometime ... on one of the few ocasions where I actually wear a skirt instead of just wearing jeans/pants - LOL

oh - and the thing I mentioned that I went to on my way to delivering the bazaar stuff - was actually the trade display part of a green energy/etc conference, where they had a sort of a workshop thingy run by some people who are getting into making re-cycled clothing - like the stuff we have already been doing in the ACTTAA group ... I didn't have a lot of time to organise much but I took along a pair of old jeans and a pretty old green cotton dress (that I think I may have bought at an op shop because I liked the lace on it and the colour of it and was thinking of making it into something else) ... I ended up doing some slicing and dicing and started yet another UFO (Un Finished Object) - hopefully when I finish it, it will become an interesting skirt ... and I might have enough fabric/lace/etc left to maybe make a bag or something to match it ... but (like this blog post ;-) who knows when/if I will ever get around to finishing it ...

(yes ... I am putting a future time/date on it so it will be scheduled to post itself when that time/date comes around ... and if I get around to taking photos of that clothing I can still add them in here before it gets posted ... but somehow I don't see that happening - lol)

hmmm ... seems there is a glitch in blogger or this poor old computer ... or something ... I just hit the post button and it changed the date/time back to today, all by itself, and posted it ... then it let me edit it and change the time and date ... but it is showing up on my blog with Tuesdays date on it ... wow - time travel - LOL (or - really scary thought - did I just loose to days and it IS Tuesday?! ... hope not ... the time on the computer screen still says it is Sunday evening ... even if my blog does appear to think it is Tuesday already ... )

ok ... I think I fixed it ... so if anyone was subscribed to my blog they may have got this post early ... or if anyone just happend to be looking during the 5 minutes this post was up there early then they may have seen it ... I hit the "save as draft" button after I added the other purple edit and it is now NOT showing up again ... but it isn't listed as "scheduled" either ... sigh ... but ... "nothing ventured nothing gained" - now that the date/time seems to be staying how I set it, and showing up as one minute past midnight on Tuesday (which is what I did change it to before it changed itself back, and what I again changed it to when it then still showed up on my blog, but as being posted on Tuesday) ... I might just see what happens and hit the "post" button again ... and if it shows up early then it shows up early - it will "fix" itself when it actually IS Tuesday - because nobody who didn't look this evening or tomorrow will know any different - LOL
(well ... you wouldn't have if you had not read this - LOL)

Exciting Stuff?

... or just plain boring?

You can decide that - I just write the stuff - LOL

... if you can call this "writing" LOL
(which is probaly why I have decided to do a weird little Experiment with this post - it is explained in the other bit of red writing further down the page - which I actually wrote after all the blue stuff, but before this bit ... lol)

er ... this Ended up being an Even weirder Experiment than I planned (and probably not very Exciting at all) - seeing I am now typing this black writing several weeks after I typed all the other stuff! - ABC Wednesday is now up to the letter K!
(I posted something for F, and missed G, H, I and J ... and have a K post scheduled to post itself in a couple of days time when it is due) ... I wrote my F post early (probably in between writing the first few bits of this one) and I scheduled it to post itself when it was due ... which it did ... then I kind of got busy ... oops? or should that be Eek!?


I was thinking of doing my E post a bit Early, but I Didn't finish my D post Early Enough to Do that - LOL

I could post something about my DD, Erin - but I am not sure the sort of people who would find that Exciting are the sort of people I have (or even want to have) reading this blog - LOL
(Er ... that whole concept of people getting ... er ... Excited by looking at pictures of children/minors is just a little disturbing - lets not go there?)


Evening I figured, when I wrote the blue bits last night, that this would be a good place to start when I came back this Evening ... [so - start here!] ok ok - I am (eek - I am also talking to myself!) ... and I am also cheating and actually writing this bit last night - LOL

(which is why it is a blueish green ... or is teal a greenish blue?)

Anyway ...

er ... ok ... considering how little sense this blog post is going to make - do I bother writing about these things or just leave them as jotted down ideas and post about them next time around?


Eggs

eggsamples of eggs even?

I do have a good egg photo ... I took it yesterday ... but I think it deserves a post all of it's own - so I will do that later ... if not soon, then maybe I can save it for later in the year when we get around to the letter E again?!
(or if ABC Wednesday stops, I might just work my way through the alphabet again anyway ... it is a good excuse to TRY and post every week ... but as you can see - it doesn't always work!)

and, of course, I did say in my D post that I could put some photos of Egypt in here ... if I had the time I could put Even more than "some" - I took an Extremely large quantity of photos on my overseas trip.

Even Eastern Turkey ?

Energy

Entropy

Existential?

Existance

Exit

Extra

Extreme

External

Entry

E=MC2

Extraterrestrials ... terrestrials - Earthlings

Earth

Earth wires?!

Exhibition
(er ... I did just post about that ... well I just wrote it ... it will post itself the day after tomorrow)

[er ... that kind of gets complicated ... one thing leads to another ... or more than one other ... and it all goes pear shaped because it isn't linear!]

(maybe I need to re-draw these notes as a kind of diagramy thingy? with arrows and lines and circles and stuff ... [do that, scan it, and stick it in here?!]

ah ... here (in red, below) is the other bit that explains what weird thing I am doing with this blog post (and why it doesn't really make any sense at all ;-)

maybe I should put the stuff I wrote tonight (quick jottings of the few ideas I had already thought of while doing my D post, and a pile of other weird stuff I thought of as I jotted ...) in blue ... then when I come back later (tomorrow I hope) to finish this I should just add to it in a different colour (and if it takes longer than one "session" of sitting here typing, then change to yet another colour) so Everyone can get all Excited about seeing what my posts start with and how they Evolve and then how they Eventually End up looking?! ... now that could be an interesting Experiment! [and this yellow can be the equivalent of highlighter/post it notes?!]
[ then I can get down to buisness and write most of it in grey green then do my adding/edditing/putting more bits in stuff in purple ?]
er yeah ... and come back several weeks later, and take 5 minutes to find a colour I like that I have not already used for something else, and finish this poor Excuse for a blog post!

I guess this Experiment is a bit different to the ones the students do at the school I work at ... talking about work - I have work tomorrow - so why am I still UP?! (yes this is a bit darker blue because I actually added it after the red bits - but I did it tonight, before saving this and logging out, which I am now about to do).

Hmmm - this post is going to be a bit more all over the place/Everywhere than usual - it could End up being Extremely hard to follow. I guess you will just have to concentrate Extra hard? LOL

ok, now where was I? (out of my mind maybe?)
ear
earwig

End

endoscope

(does it Ever End at the end?

or is it Endless?

erk! - an endless endoscope?!

eeeeewwwww!

on that note ... I probably should just give up?!

[and set this to post itself tomorrow or sometime, and hope nobody notices? ... or put a date that is about a year ago so nobody actually finds it? lol]

... I would put the time/date on this for right now, except that I just posted something a little while ago and want this on a different day ... but it will be tomorrow in a few hours time, so I might set it to go out just after midnight ...

so how come I suddenly have time to do 3 blog posts all at once? ... well ... the quilt show is over, the ACTTAA exhibition is over ... and it is school holidays for the next 2 weeks ... and I don't have a deadline for something that has to be made/done tomorrow (although I do have some red inchies to make and post sometime in the next few days ... but I do have the next few days to make them in ;-)

I wonder if the date will change itself and do silly things on this one (it did with the next one, so it ended up showing up on my blog, but after some Editing/fiddling I managed to fix it so it vanished/hid itself again, and is scheduled to appear again on Tuesday)
but then I had to spend ages and ages fiddling with html tags that seem to have ended up all over the place and caused an error message (and not letting me post it until I manage to fix whatever one of the (not sure how many but it seems like more than 50) of those particular pairs of html tags had a missing "partner" - aaaaaahhhhrrrgggghhhhh!)

hmmm - this has probably got to be my weirdest (and worst?) blog post Ever!

btw ... I just noticed I still have most of a Z post, and part of a post about N and some ideas for O/etc, saved as drafts - from last time around - I guess I will have to try to use them when we get up to those letters this time - LOL

odd socks ... and other things ...

... Ever noticed how you put 2 socks in the wash ... and one seems to go missing?

I have heard many people complain about that, and about the same thing happening to pens and teaspoons and tools and stuff ... yet wire coat hangers seem to multiply in numbers that indicate they must be breeding with each other or something ...

If you don't know what I am talking about you have probably never read the right blog posts, or been on an e-mail list/forum/yahoogroup for long enough to see the subject come up ... because the subject has come up several times on the newsgroups and yahoogroups I have been active on. (in fact the moderators on the scquilters yahoogroup recently had to tell everyone to stop going on about it because it was generating too much off topic e-mail - lol).

I decided to do a quick google search to see if I could find an example ... funny how the first result that came up in the search was this one - http://www.universetoday.com/2009/08/21/if-you-dont-have-an-lhc-heres-how-to-create-your-own-black-hole/
... hmmm - I think the reason for that might have been MY comment on there! (you should be able to find it not quite half way down the page ... or further down in this blog post if I remember to copy it here (I did - further down in this post) ;-)

the second thing that came up was this perfect example - http://www.woodworkforums.com/showthread.php?t=78511 ... change all the references to woodworking/screws/etc to quilting/pins/etc and it is almost exactly the same conversation as what I have seen on the quilting lists I am on - lol

hmmm - some rather odd results come up when one types "odd socks wire coathangers pens black holes" into the google search box - lol
(I found and had a read of a couple or really weird but quite interesting blogs and a rather strange, but interesting, short story ;-)

so why am I posting about odd socks/etc NOW?

er ... 2 reasons - the main one is because I just found a photo that reminded me of it.

I took the photo a few weeks ago ... after I took the washing off the line, and carefully put all the socks in pairs as I put them in the basket
(well - all those that were pairs - DS's socks never have pairs - they never get put in the wash in pairs because he usually just gathers up the first armload of dirty washing off his bedroom floor when he has a clean up of his room, and chucks it in the laundry ... and ... he doesn't usually wear them in pairs anyway! - he just grabs 2 socks that are near enough ... or the first ... or even the only ... 2 socks he can find in the mess on his bedroom floor and wears them.)

... anyway ... I DO usually wash mine in pairs
(except for the "pair" I have been wearing lately where one is pink and the other green - because they are the same type of sock, bought at the same time from the same place, and the other pink and green sock both have holes in them!)

but ... I only had ONE red sock ... and I knew I had hung 2 on the line the day before - becuase I actually remembered doing it!

The other one wasn't still on the line ... however it had been windy that day, so I had a look around under the line/around the yard to see if it had fallen/been blown off ... but there was no red sock lying on the lawn or anywhere I could see ... so I took the rest of the stuff off the line (no - the red sock wasn't IN something else - I checked - becuase our washing machine likes to play that game - it even stuffs shirts and things inside doona covers) and then I had a potter around and pulled up some weeds from the garden/lawn and picked up some other stuff that was lying around under the pergola (where the washing line that had the socks on is) ... when I just happened to glance INTO the bucket of water that was beside me ...



yep - found the red sock! LOL

... which ended up becoming one of the few examples of when one of my socks goes into the wash alone - becuase it went in with the next load of washing I did before it re-joined it's partner - lol
(well ... who knows what is in those buckets - probably a mix of whatever was in the bucket before I found it in the rubbish pile on a nearby building site, rain water collected as it ran off the side of the pergola roof, dust, dog slobber, and whatever insects/etc may have drowned in there)

btw ... this is the comment I left on that Universe Today post (which was about making tiny black holes without needing to use the LHC to do it):
aykayem Says: August 23rd, 2009 at 2:45 am
yes – let them make those black holes and do their research – before I lose any more socks! Black hole type phenomena have also been observed (by both myself and other members of various newsgroups/e-mail lists I have been active on) in relation to wire coat hangers and pens – there seem to be black holes which swallow up and/or spit out those items – and in some kind of pattern/proportion that results in this equation/rule – the number of wire coat hangers/pens/odd socks/etc that can be found in a location near one of these black holes is inversely proportional to the need one has for said item. I also seem to have a black hole in my sewing room (although I think it, or another one, may also sometimes be active in other areas of the house too) – and it seems to swallow things up and then spit them out again when I am no longer looking for them (usually when I have given up trying to find them, and used something else instead).btw – I have even made a (small ;-) quilt with a black hole on it – the photo is on my blog ( in this post – http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2009/01/other-4-journal-quilts.html )

hmmm on my comment on that post the ;-) shows up as a smiley face - I didn't know it would do that else I would have put another ) after it :-)

anyway ... that quilt leads on to the other reason I am posting all this weird stuff about odd socks, wire coathangers and black holes ...

well - not that quilt exactly - as you can see from that comment, and the link I put in there - I have already posted about that one ...

but ...

I have made another black hole quilt! LOL

and ... I have already posted a photo of that one too ... but only part of it ... in the post before this one - so now you get to find out WHY there is cat hair on my event horizon ...

The reason there is cat hair on my event horizon is because we have a cat, who likes to "help" me sew - so there is cat hair on all of my quilts (and on everything else I make) ... including this one:



(as usual - if you click on it you should get a bigger version)

I made it for the ACTTAA exhibition, which was last weekend ... which is why, in my usual manner of working to deadlines - I made the quilt the weekend before that!
... even though I have known for ages (almost a year) that the theme/title of the exhibition was "Heaven And Earth" ...

btw, the title of the quilt is "Good Heavens, Where Did All These Coat Hangers Come From? … and Where On Earth Have All My Biros/Keys/Teaspoons Gone?!"

oh - and for those who might be wondering where I got all those teeny tiny coathangers from - I made them out of paperclips!
(it created a bit of interest at work - me sitting at my desk, in my lunch break, bending paperclips with a pair of pliers - lol ... I did it at work because I knew where a pair of pliers were there ... I have a pair here at home too ... but they are "lost" somewhere in the pile of mess in my sewing room ... probably hiding in a box of bits for some half finished project or another ... )

hmmm ... talking about black holes - time seems to vanish into them too - it seems to have taken me just over 3 hours to write this blog post ... but I did eat my tea in the middle of it, and uploaded some photos, and read a few e-mails/etc ...

There is cat hair on my event horizon ...

They say nothing can be seen inside a black hole, and nothing can exist there in any recognisable form ... but I guess cat hair can exist anywhere ...




so what exactly IS this?

... well ... it is part of a quilt, which I finished on Tuesday night, and delivered Wednesday morning - for the ACTTAA exhibition that opened this evening, and is on tomorrow/this weekend ... I will post a picture of the whole quilt later, along with photos of the other stuff I have in the exhibition, and maybe a few other photos of stuff that I have done and not posted about ... but I am not sure exactly when "later" will actually be - LOL

Cloud 9?

... or #9 dream?

(well - getting all the stuff I want to do - done ... that is a dream ... LOL)

is this cloud 9?



or this?


or one of these?


or maybe this one?


or any of these?






Those were all around here ... mostly in the suburb I live in (while walking the dog) ... but the second one was near lake Burley Griffin, in the middle of Canberra.

This one wasn't in Canberra though ... it was somewhere on the way flying back to Canberra from Mum and Dad's place in Queensland



and these 2 were somewhere this side of Singapore, flying back from Dubai ...





I guess one could say I like taking photos of clouds? LOL



actually - the reason for this blog post is that I just had to have one go out at 09:09am on 09/09/09

(well - it seemed like a good idea when I thought of it earlier today ;-)

... but I will be at work at the time, and probably won't be anywhere near a computer (or if I am - I will be logged on to one to do some stuff I need to do for work, and won't have time to mess around blogging ... I have to type up some order forms, which I have wanted/needed to do for a while, seeing we have totally run out of some of the stuff I am ordering - but it is hard to do stuff on the computer if I don't actually have one on my desk! - I have to get some one else to log off theirs and use that ... ah the joys of working at a public school - no money to have all the things we would like to have ... sigh ... )

I probably should have done some reasearch and posted something interesting about the number 9 or something ... ?

Then again - that is what google search is for - lol

hmmm seems there is a movie coming out soon, with that title - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472033/ ... and I bet my DD will go and see it ... (she is mad about anything that Tim Burton has anything to do with - lol)
There are also a few bands and songs and games and stuff ...
... and there USED to be 9 planets in the solar system, until the powers that be decided that one of them wasn't big enough to be a planet.
and Wikipedia has the usual page of interesting stuff about the number 9 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9_(number)

but I don't really have time to be doing all this (so why am I?! ... er ... because it is fun? LOL)

I really should be out getting some stuff ready for the textile art meeting I am going to tomorrow evening - it starts early so I am going straight there from work (via a shop or 3 and maybe an other place) ... and I should have been doing some sewing this evening ... but that kind of didn't really happen ... something to do with going out and having Italian food for tea (with some Lambrusco - mmmmm - lol) and then the evening just kind of didn't seem to have much of it left after that ... sigh ...

btw ... nothing much to do with the rest of this post - but I found the photo below when I was looking for some clouds - someone I know used to write "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade" at the bottom of her e-mails ... life?/someone/thing "handed" me some lemon colourd organza fabric, so I made a lemon quilt! - I found the bit of fabric in the op shop near work - the day before I needed to make a quilt if I was to have it to deliver the next evening for the Canberra Quilters meeting - for the recipe book (the chose the best ones to go in the book, then the rest of the entries went on the back cover as tiny little pictures ... mine was one of those - but that is ok - I like the quilt, and that is all that really matters to me ;-)




oh - one other quirky thing about 9:
I was born 9 months and 3 days after my parents got married!
(but I was actually conceived after the honeymoon and born 2 weeks early ... but apparently it really had the neighbours talking - lol)