Just a bit weird ...

... but I like weird ;-)

which could be why I like all those old TV shows that Julius Sumner Miller did ... I guess that as a kid I also wondered "why is this so?" LOL (and yes - I still like science ;-)
 ... but what has that got to do with weird? - well - he was a bit of an oddball ... but he would have been a rather interesting person to meet.
But why am I posting about him?  - well - I was trying to thing of something to post for the letter J for ABC Wednesday ... and I was catching up with putting some photos on the computer (the lot I am doing at the moment are from the middle of July!) when I found some photos that I took at the Cadbury chocolate factory (yum yum - lol) - they had a display with a pile of (rather peculiar but very interesting) letters that Julius Sumner Miller had sent them, and among them was this recipe for baked beans ...

(I don't think it is copyright or anything ... and it is there on public display)

I don't think I will ever bother with cooking my baked beans that way ... it is way easier to Just open a can and microwave them while the toast is cooking - lol

Also ... Just because I felt like adding it to this post - is a photo of a rather interesting tree:

I took the photo late in the afternoon, near some blowhole south of Hobart (but not the one on the way to Port Arthur - we went there the next day - this one was down the other way ... I could work out where if I dug out the map, but I am not doing that at almost 4am ...  not when I should have gone to bed 3 or 4 hours ago!)

This was near the other blowhole - the one that IS on the way to Port Arthur ...

but it is not right next to that blowhole, it is actually at the tesselated pavement (which is a rather interesting rock formation at a beach a few km up the road).

(hmmm - maybe I could post a photo of that when we are up to the letter T ... along with a few other photos I Took in Tasmania? lol)

btw, the other day (before I found that J photo) I think I was thinking of writing a post about how one should not use the word "Just" as often as we do ... like when someone makes a really nice quilt or other hand made item/work of art and says it is "Just a 9patch" or "Just a log cabin quilt" or "Just something I threw together" ... or "Just a painting I did" or "Just some poem I wrote" or "Just a photo I took" ... it is not JUST anything ... it is something you have created (or in the case of those who say "I Just did ... " when they have done something nice/good - it is something nice/good you have done) - so it should stand alone and be counted on it's own merit - you don't need to JUSTify it - lol
... Just thought I should say that ... lol

er ... I now have Just a few hours until I have to be up again ... I might Just get enough sleep to tide me over until tomorrow night ... (it is a good thing that I will Just be a passenger, rather than the driver, on my Journey tomorrow - lol)

goodnight ...

I have been Involved In something Incredible!!!

I started typing this post a couple of days ago (with a different title, which I didn't like so I thought of a way better one - so If this one Is bad think how bad the other one must have been!) ... I came back to finish It now so I can post It In time for It to be my I post for ABC Wednesday - LOL
(If I post It now, It will be able to be added to the linky thingy ... but If I was to wait until tomorrow It would be too late ... and I can't think of a good/clever way to make all this stuff fit the letter J or K and I want to post something to my blog now anyway - lol)

Tonight the other night was the opening night for the ACT textile arts association's "Garden Tea Party" exhibition ... OMG - it looks ed amazing!!! ... I got DH to drop me off at work thisat morning, so I could partake of some wine and not have to worry about driving home ($4 bus fare vs DUI/killing someone/etc - not a hard choice - LOL)
If u live in/near  Canberra you HAVE to go see it ... if not .... I will get around to posting some photos ... eventually ...

I decided not to worry about posting anything right then - It would have been a long and Involved task to stick photos on the computer, and a boring post without them ... and I had to go to work the next day and I was rather tired - gee I wonder why? LOL (all the late nights during the last few weeks - some from getting "lost in cyberspace" or watching TV with DH on nights when he was on days off and didn't have to get up for work in the morning, and some (most?) from staying up late finishing stuff at the last minute - lol)


I don't think I have anyone who reads my blog who also lives in Canberra, who wouldn't already know about it ... at least I hope you already knew about it - because if you missed it - you missed something amazing! It was such an Inspiration to be Involved with something so Imaginative and Incredible as this exhibition ... when one went Inside the gallery it was like being In a garden tea party ... but a rather Interesting garden tea party with Interesting Insects and Interesting (stuffed) people and oh I so wish that I had been able to hear the music that the green man looked like he was playing on his violin. Yes - someone made a musician, with a needle felted face/head and hands, who looks like the "green man" ... it was kind of funny watching some little girl getting a bit freaked out by his gnarly toes ... but she loved all the other stuff like the flowers and butterflies and stuff, and the amazingly eccentric lady with a weird feathery dog and a bunch of ducks on leads! (there are some Incridibly creative people in our association!)


Anyway ... DH and I are about to go out for tea, but when I get home I might have time to stick my photos onto the computer so I can show you the bits of it that I did (and maybe some other stuff ... depends if I have any photos that show what it was like but that I can post without worrying about Infringing anyone's copyright/etc. - we allowed photography at the exhibition - but only for personal use, which probably means not for sticking up stuff that shows the details of peoples work all over the internet or whatever ;-)


ok ... DH and I have been and eaten (Leong Kitchen in Campbell - yummy - one of our favourite spots to go for tea ;-)


then we watched some tv, and while we did that I finished off some weird tree branchy thingy with fabric leaves and copper wire - was something I was going to put in the exhibition but I ran out of time ... had the "leaves" and the wire so I figured I may as well finish the thing and see if it turned out ok (yes ... it is ... ok ... but nothing fancy - it might get used for something, sometime).


anyway ...


These are not the greatest of photos - the light was a bit bad when I took most of them, and/or I was in a hurry, and I have not even cropped any of them or anything, let alone doing anything else to fix them up a bit - they are just uploaded from the camera and thrown in here as is (I WAS going to have an early night, and it is already getting late - sigh).


So ... what did I make? - I made a mess:

... which the cat seems to like sleeping in!    (yes those are legs on the right ... they belong to "Mary" and now have feet, but they didn't when I took that photo - lol)


This is taken (late in the afternoon) from inside the door of the building we were in:

Quite an interesting place for an art/etc exhibition - they have a few other ones (for other groups/people/etc) there during the year too - it is actually part of the CSIRO - downstairs (under the ramp/etc in this photo) is an education place for families/school students/etc and beside me on the left, but not in the photo, are a whole pile of offices/min labs where one can look in the window and see some of the scientists working/whatever ... and on the right, but also not in the photo (you have to go along the ramp and around the corner to get in) is a lecture theatre and a function room - the function room is where the exhibition is ... there is also a sales area next to it - behind the red screens in the photo, and sort of straight ahead (you do have to veer right a bit or you will fall over the rail into the garden below - lol) is a cafe/eating area - where we ate and drank on opening night, and also sold tea/coffee and cakes all weekend (well - it WAS a TEA party after all!)


This is a general view of part of the exhibition

Hopefully nobody will mind this one being posted here - the only thing where any real detail can be seen (the table of stuff) was photographed and published in Saturday's paper. My stuff is not in this photo (except for a small caterpillar which I know is on top of something I can see in the photo, but I doubt that it would show up even if you clicked to get the full size version, and part of my nest is visible in the top of the tree ... but probably a bit hard to see if you don't know what you are looking for - lol). Some of my stuff is out of sight in the back corner (off to the left behind that bird cage) , some is beside where I stood to take the photo and "Lizzie" is standing with a few other "people" off to the right somewhere ...


This is "Lizzie"

she was going to be more royal (hence the name) but then things didn't work out that way when I threw her together (besides - I didn't have time to make a corgi or 3 ... )


This ...

is the back corner of the garden - my compost heap which is made from a cardboard box with some of my crochet shawls/etc int it and fabric scraps and crochet mushrooms and stuff on top, and a wooden box with more crochet fungus/etc in it, with "Bill" the gardener leaning on the wooden box having a cup of tea and donut (crocheted ones - must taste a bit wooly - lol) - brought to him by "Mary" the cook/house maid - who is standing there with a carrot, which I actually made as a pin cushion, in her hand, and wearing an apron I made from 2 cheap tea towels  ... pity about that weird person standing between them - LOL (yes - me! - wearing some strange thing I made to wear as a "tea gown" and an even stranger hat - an old felt one recycled - with beads and crocheting and lizards and spiders and stuff on it - I will have to take a better photo of it sometime I guess). "Bill" also seems to have been adopted by a bird (I made that from sticks and grass and string, at some open day/workshop type thingy I went to last Summer) I also made the tall plant in a pot ... which is now standing in the passage waiting to see how long before DH asks me to hurry up and "put it away" - trouble is - I have decided the spot it is standing in IS it's "away" - lol


This is my table and chairs - The chairs are a pair of old directors chairs I have had for years (since before I met and married DH actually) but the back bits (the fabric part you lean back on) were old and tatty hessian stuff that had gone brown and were a bit torn, and the chairs were a bit grotty looking so I slapped a coat of paint on them and made some new backs with applique' flowers on them. (one day I might make some nice cushions or something to go over the seats (to cover the paint splots - I did say I "slapped" on that coat of paint! lol) - I sort of wanted to do matching seat cushions for the exhibition but I didn't have time, but oddly enough the chairs actually looked fine as they were ... )

The table is actually made from bits of 2 tables - the legs off some table I found on a rubbish pile on the side of the road near here (the glass top was missing - it probably broke when someone drove a car through the wall of the yard where the table used to live - the rubbish pile was all the old bricks and broken table - they left the junk outside the fence/wall when the re-built it and then forgot about it for a couple of months ("out of sight out of mind" - lol). The top of the table came from a friend (who is also in the textile art group but was too busy with work and other stuff happening in her life to have time to make stuff to exhibit this year) she was throwing it out and I was going to use it on top of something to make a round corner table but it was too big for the space I had to put it in - but it was perfect for this! It was also the perfect size for the table cloth - which was also made from a bit of crocheting the same person gave to me - she crocheted the doily (the part that is on the top of the table) many years ago, then added the corners (the pink and purple bits) later when she made it into some huge beadspread or somesuch, then she unpicked whatever else was around it and re-used the yarn, and decided to give me the middle bit because I liked it - so I added the white bit with beads around the edge - so she DID have something in the exhibition after all (hmmm - a collaberative work? LOL).






Here is a closer view of the stuff ON the table:

... and the weird crochet vase with blue and orange flowers - yes I made that too - and all that other strange stuff on the table (well - except for the stuff I obviously didn't make, like the "tea set" that is actually laboratory glassware I borrowed from work). There are some doilys and milk jug covers etc, and a tea light holder which I probably wouldn't actually use as one because it is crocheted from garden string (stiffened with a mix of water and woodwork glue) - the "candle" in it is actually a metal bit from the bottom of a tea light candle, with a toy "troll" standing in it - it's bright orange hair looks like a candle flame - lol. At the back is a "Garden Tea Pot Party" - a party in a garden in a tea pot - lol  - one way to find a use for a teapot without a lid ?! Some of the stuff in it is crocheted, some is yarn wrapped around wire, and there are some fabric flowers ... and the people are wire stick figures with yarn wrapped around them and their clothing is made from tea bags (ones I had used for my cups of tea at work - kind of handy that I don't take milk in my tea else the tea bags would be a bit too smelly to use for stuff like this - lol)


This is a basket I threw together (made from grass, shredded paper, red fabric scraps and string) last Summer

- I thought it looked like a bird nest and might fit in nicely somewhere - so I named it "nest" and took it along - and it was perfect as a bird's nest in the top of the big tree in the middle of the room ... I took a photo of it when we were packing up because the tree and a pile of the other things (vines, leaves, bugs, flowers, etc etc etc) from the exhibition are being donated to a good cause and the nest went so well in the tree that I decided it had to stay with it (I didn't really need it for anything else right now anyway - and if I do decide I want a grass basket for something else, then I can go weed the garden, dry out the weeds, and make another one - lol)



I will try to get around to taking some more/better/close up/etc photos later - photos of some of this stuff, and the stuff I made (and modeled) for the fashion parade part of the exhibition (2 hats and some clothing made from other old clothing and a vest crocheted from strips of plastic supermarket bag) and I also need/want to take photos of some of the other stuff I have made this year ... not sure when though ... I have other things to do this week too ... and then I am off to Queensland for a couple of weeks ... then I am going to a weekend quilt retreat a week after that ... but I do have to sort out/pack up/put away the stuffed people and the other stuff sometime, so hopefully I will remember to take the photos while I am at it - LOL


er ... who stole my evening?! ... it isn't meant to be "Tomorrow" already!


If the photos are all skew wiff or something then I guess that is too bad - the putting photos in posts seems to be working better than it used to so maybe it will be ok anyway (they used to end up with a pile of extra gaps between some of the photos and text, which I had to fix by going in and deleting a pile of extra bits it had put into the html code ... I noticed that it still puts the "div" tags in there, but what used to mess things up was it put even more in when I had to move photos down from where it put them at the top of the post - but things seem to have been improved and it has let me put the photos into the post exactly where I wanted them to be - yaaaay!  (I wonder if it was something google/blogger fixed, or just that it works bettwer with the newer version of the web browser that I don't think was on here last time I put photos into a blog post? ... either way - I am happy ;-)


Anyway ... it is past bed time, and I have to go to work in the morning ... methinks I will be tired tomorrow night - lol (if not from the late night now, then from walking home from work - I don't have to walk home, but I want to - I have been trying to organise things so I get dropped off to work and walk home at least one night a week - because I kind of want to be a bit fitter and healthier and I think that helps - seeing it actually takes me a couple of hours to actually walk home (it takes a good 15 or 20 minutes to drive there - so it is a fairly long walk, and in Winter it is still dark when I get home ... but I enjoy the walk and I don't feel cold because I am walking ... now it is Spring here it is not totally dark when I get home ... so I end up taking even more Sunset photos on my way home - LOL (there is a better veiw to the West closer to home than near work)


er ... I was supposed to be posting this not still raving on about stuff - oops? ;-)

but one two more things B4 I go ... I can't help but noticing something - with the stuff I did for this exhibition - which was a new and different thing for this group - where instead of everyone submitting their own stuff and someone having to put it all together - it was done as an installation and largely worked on as a collaberative effort (where a lot of people worked on the various bits/things in groups and most of it was all coordinated/put together as one big thing ... sort of ... lol)  ... but for most of my stuff I seem to have ended up doing what I used to often do with stuff we were meant to do in groups at school - I worked on things as a group of one! ... kind of weird that ... it wasn't because I didn't want to work with others ... it is just that it kind of didn't work that way - I only had time to work on stuff at odd times here and there, and ideas often came to me late in the evening while I was doing the stuff, and if I had tried to work with a group for most of what I eventually did half of it never would have got done ... which ... is also kind of how it used to happen at school ... LOL
Yes - I guess one can still call me an Individual ;-)
But I did also do some stuff with groups of people - I was part of 2 or 3 very productive days where a group of us got together and made things like bugs and creepy crawlies and other stuff one day, and vines and leaves another day, and we all had a great time working on stuff together ...

hmmmm ... that reminds me - I still have not had a chance to find my coffee cup (which was old but I liked it, and is now probably totally lost/claimed by someone else) after I left it behind at the last one of those days - we met (on weekends) at a primary school on the other side of town, so me being down there when someone is AT the school kind of never happens, because I am usually at work - at a different school on the other side of town! - LOL

oh well ... it was originally an old un-claimed one that I got from the staff room at the school I work at (they were left out on a bench for 2 weeks for owners to claim, then word was sent out that if anyone wanted to come "shopping" for a "new" cup/mug to come and help themsleves before those that were still left were then put in a box destined for the op shop) so I guess my mug decided it was time for it to move on to the next owner? lol



goodnight ...