"Purple Mountain's Majesty"? - Looks Like Lavender To Me

I guess there is more to making something look majestic than just telling the browser to display it in a particular hexadecimal colour code - LOL
Ok - so what am I waffling on about this time?! - I found a link to Project 64 on someone else's ABC Wednesday post, and that looked fun too, so I posted something for that a week or 2 ago, then forgot about it until I went looking at my blog to see what photos I posted recently so I would not post the same ones again for my ABC Wednesday letter "R" post (which I was doing, but the photo uploading seems to have decided to work for a while then have a really big go slow) so I decided to see what colour Project 64 was after for this week, and noticed that if I get in quick enough (and the photo uploading actually works) I can post a photo or 3 of my Lavender bush for "Purple Mountains Majesty" which is this colour of Crayola crayon, #9D81BA, according to the colour lovers website ... (yes - working our way through the colours of Crayola's box of 64 crayons sounds like a weird idea for a meme - but I think it is a good one - LOL)
I also think it is a bit pale to keep typing in that colour (if it is too pale against my background colour and you can't read that bit - highlight it with the mouse and you should be able to read what it says - lol)

Actually ... when I went hunting in my photos, I found a whole pile of purple ones that are the right colour - but I posted most of them in my ABC Wendesday letter "P" post - here ;-)

These 2 were not in there though:

Diesel the dog next to the rather bushy lavender bush ... which I am sure I have a better photo of - have taken lots of close ups with bees and stuff, and I am sure I was looking at one I took of a butterfly on a flower, that is the right colour for this, just today ... but do you think I can find it now?!

I must like laveder bush colours - lavender/purple and grayish green - becuase I seen to und up using those colours in all sorts of odd things - including this experimenting with acrylic pains and hair gel that we did at the art quilt group I am part of (which I intend to post about on that blog sometime in the next week or 2)


Ok ... found the one I was looking for ;-)

a cabbage white butterfly on my lavender plant

and a photo of the whole plant, taken just after the butterfly one.

 But ... somehow I think this one I posted in that other blog post is the one I want to submit to the linky thingy for Project 64 ... who else is going to have a photo of a sky this colour?! ;-)

A rather weird coloured sky - and yes it really did look that colour - that is why I took the photo!!!



Eventful Exhibitions and all the Fun of the (Craft and Quilt) Fair

ok ... so this looks suspiciously like an E post for ABC Wednesday, even though we are up to the letter F this week ... to be honest - that is Exactly what it was going to be, until the chunk of spare time I thought I was going to have to organise some photos and write it didn't actually Eventuate ... but that is Fine - because the subject of this post also quite nicely leads into a Few things that can also just as nicely work for the letter F  ;-)

A couple of weeks ago, was the annual Canberra Quilters Exhibition, which is now on during (and as part of) the Craft and Quilt Fair (organised by a mob called Expertise Events - lol).

As usual - I Entered a Few things ...

First (first finished in this case ;-) was the diary cover that I made back in January, and blogged about at the time - that post is here - http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2011/01/zzz-zen-and-art-of-stitching.html (yes ... another ABC Wednesday post - lol - scroll down past the couple of "doodles" I drew and you will find the diary cover ... and when I found this post to tell Mum where to find it so she could look - I also noticed that further down is a photo of another small quilt that I had sort of forgotten about - I probably could have entered it in the quilt show if I had remembered it at the time entries were due! ... next year will probably be too late, becuase it will have been made too long before the show to be allowed under the rules, unless they change them back to what they were a few years ago when it didn't matter when the item was made ;-)

Here is a photo of it hanging in the Exhibition:



... with the card for someone else's stuff, and the corners of a few other items "rubbed out" (using GIMP ;-) because I don't know if they really want photos of their stuff on my blog (or anywhere on the www for that matter)

and yes ... it seems the quilt judge actually liked it! (didn't come first/second/third - but I got this neat certificate saying it was "highly commended" ... which is more than I expected to get for anything I entered this year)

btw ... once I decided to enter it I took it off my diary, to keep it clean/new looking ... so my poor diary had to be naked again for a while ... it is back on my diary now - and I think I am the only person I know of who is using a diary with a cover that has been "highly commended" by a quilt judge - lol

Next is my challenge quilt (next photo, not next Finished - I Forget Exactly what order I Finished them in anyway - the last Few were done in an Extremely Fast rush - LOL)

The theme we had to follow, for the challenge, was "Home" ... as usual I had several ideas, most of them looked good in my head but I knew I probably wouldn't be able to make them look that good in fabric ... except for this idea - because I had actually done something that looks similar in the past - and that did look good (in fact I believe it is still getting admired whenever anyone sees it hanging up inside Mum and Dad's campervan ;-)

Anyway ... this is (a rather bad photo of) my challenge quilt - I can't take another one right now because I don't actually have it here at home (they become a travelling Exhibition for a year so it did not come home with me at the End of the Exhibition like the others did)



oh poop! ... I just realised, when I was fiddling with that photo - I Forgot to colour the lake in blue! LOL
(or draw on a few green tree symbols or something, for a bit of extra colour/interest/realism/whatever)
I came up with the idea of doing a map to Find my way home ... and got to thinking about how home is the place where one is at ... so this is kind of meant to depict where I am at, and the stuff that is happening around my life ... or something like that ... hopefully reading the place names on that map will help my Explanation make a bit more sense ... and it may help Explain why my blog posts are as weird as they are, and as sporadic as they are ;-)
(it is no co-incidence that the "here be dragons" is right near "procrastination plateau" at the bottom of "slippery slope" LOL)

My miniature quilt probably also explains a few things about me:



... there are definitely a lot of things about this that the "quilt police" would arrest me for - wobbly weird stitching and lumps and bumps and tucks and puckers and creases and wrinkles ... but I made it because I wanted to (the "Tiny Treasure" (miniature quilt) catagory does not have to be to any theme, but this quilt was actually another idea I had for the "home" theme - figured it was not that easy to make a good looking bigger version so I did a little one - and I like how it turned out ;-)

I only had 2 actuall QUILTS in the quilt show ... but they have catagories for creative clothing - which can be actual vests/coats/etc wearable things, and accessories. So ...

I entered this bag:



which was easy to make - machine quilted some grey fabric, hand stitched between the lines of machine quilting (which takes quite a while to do but I really enjoy doing that kind of stitching and stuff) and made it into a bag ;-)

I also found some green fabric that I had machine quilted with black thread (as an experiment for something or other that I ended up not needing for what it was originally done for) and I decided that seeing DH had just bought us an iPad - it needed a bag to keep it in (so it didn't rattle around in places like the car glove box when we took it somewhere) - so I did some gold hand stitching in between the black, and made it into an iPad sized pocket:



Trouble is ... I finished the bag in time to use it on the holiday we were taking the iPad on ... but the quilt show was AFTER the holiday - so I did not want to use the bag and get it dirty/scuffed/whatever before the quilt show (which could have easily happend while I was taking all those photos of food that I posted to Facebook - lol) - so I put it away, rather than using it, and then had to whip up another bag for the iPad!
(no photo here ... think I took one, but it is still on the camera - I might have to post that, and some better photos of some of this stuff, at a later date)

The other thing I made ... was for the creative clothing challenge - same theme as the quilt challenge ("Home") but had to be either clothing or an accessory ... so I kind of somehow came up with a rather weird idea ... and was in a bit of a contrary/cheeky mood - and figured that I would be a bit mischevous and enter something rather weird and wonderful ... I was kind of expecting to totally confuse the organisers and have them wonder what the heck it was and what to do with it ... because this is actually a HAT!



pity they didn't tell me they needed a "head" for it - I could have found/made something that would have worked (even a foam ball on a stick with fabric over it would have worked, had I known ... or been able to be there helping in the afternoon/evening on set up day like I usually do, but couldn't this year because I had a meeting to go to on the other side of town).
It does actually fit my  head - I made it so it would (no Mum - you don't have to walk beside me when I wear it - and yes - I DO intend to wear it ... somewhere - lol)
 ... it is meant to look like a hollow tree trunk, that is "home" to a bird (in a nest) and a whole pile of other creatures (worms and spiders made from yarn, plastic lizards, spiders, snakes ... etc).
(and the bird's body is a ball of yarn - because I ran out of time to crochet the body - although now I kind of prefer the idea of using a ball of yarn anyway ;-)

Funny thing is ... my weird idea kind of backfired on me - in a really nice way - lots of people actually liked it, including the quilt judge! - in fact she liked it so much that she awarded me that nice blue ribbon - yes - it came First! LOL
(and, I have not got it yet, because prizes are awarded at the next meeting - but according to the list in the catalogue - my First prize is a voucher to go and spend at a local quilt shop ... so I can go buy more Fabric to Fill up my sewing room ... or maybe I could spend it on some Fancy quilty gadgets/tools to Fiddle with?)

btw ... I Found the blog post where I wrote about the other quilt I made that looked like a map ... the post is at http://aykayem.blogspot.com/2007/07/magical-map-of-journey-of-life.html ... but now that I know when I posted it I can go and copy the html for the link and put it in this post so the same picture also shows up here:



... and so you don't have to go read all the other junk in that old post (although you can if you like - your keen stare will not wear the electrons off your computer screen ;-) I will explain what it is right here - I made this small quilt for Mum and Dad, and gave it to them for Christmas one year ... Mum made a LOT of quilts, and Dad used to work in a hardware store - so there is a "Quilt Town" and a "Hardware Hill" ... and a few other odd things ... lol
Both of those quilts are made from bits of the same peice of fabric - a length of calico that I rust dyed (by wrapping a whole pile of rusty junk, and dirt and stuff, in it and leaving it in a wet soggy heap for a day or 3 before I shook all the stuff off/out of it and washed it)

Anyway ... too bad if this blog post is not Finished ... because I have dedided it is ;-)
- I should be heading off to bed ... and even if I don't do that - I was meant to be doing other things this evening and still have not done them - and the main one was to Find some Fabric that I need to start making something that I want to have Finished For the textile art exhibition that is also coming up in a Few weeks time ... a Few too Few weeks ... as in I only have about 2 weeks to Finish the thing that I need that Fabric For!
(hopefully it will only take me a Few hours to make it ... providing I can Find a particular box of Fancy Fabric that I know I have hiding away ... somewhere ... !)

er ...

goodnight.

Crochet stuff and a few other things that start with C

I have been meaning to post some photos of some stuff I have Crocheted for ages ... so ... needing something for a C post for ABC Wednesday seems like a good excuse to actually to do it ;-)

... now I just have to find the photos I have taken ... and see what I don't have photos of, and actually FIND the items I don't yet have photos of so I can take some ... no wonder I drive myself Crazy!

ok ... I found some crochet photos, and some other C stuff ... now I just have to put them in here ... hopefully it won't take long - I spent too long finding and editing photos (some needed cropping and stuff) ... and I WAS going to be in bed by this time of night ...er ... morning ... because I have to get up for work in a few hours ...

I will start with the crochet ones ...
... and first - some shawls I actually made a couple of years ago, but didn't take photos of until late last year:

A green (wool) and black (who knows what sort of yarn it was) one:



with a rather cluttered background ... must take a better photo sometime ... or (even better but harder to organise) get someone to take a photo of me wearing the thing ...

A pinky purple/black/silver one:


done in a couple different fancy yarns.
And another one I actually made even earlier ... this thing is HUGE:



That is the top edge of the shawl stretched out down the passage - the but under the cat's tummy is the bit that goes on the back of my neck ... the bit that hangs down the back is actually draped over the dog's paws and he has his head on it - LOL
btw - the last few rows on this ended up so long that not only did it drive me mad, but each row took TWO balls of yarn!
(and it still drags on the ground after I wrap it around myself ... but it is nice and warm so I could probably use it as a snuggle rug or something ... or as my costume next time I am invited to a fancy dress party and want to go as a wookie ;-)

This is my "rainbow shawl" that I finised a year or 2 ago:


It is made from some fine wool I was given, and when I finished crocheting it this is what it looked like:


and yes that is asphalt under it - I spread it out beside my car, in the mostly empty car park at wiork, to take the photo.
This is what it looked like after I soaked it in some vinegar for a few minutes and then arranged it in the bottom of a large ice cream tub, attacked it with various colours of food dye, and zapped it in the microwave for a few minutes (until it was hot, so the dye would set):


hmmm - if you click on this to see it bigger you might see how clean the kitchen floor probably isn't - lol

This is something weird I crocheted last year:


it was for the Summer challenge for the textile art group I am in - we had to do a hand of some sort, on a stick - they were then displayed at the exhibition later last year. I crocheted a hand with long pointy fingers ... then I was mucking around and tied knots in the fingers ... and decided I liked it that way.

Some crochet vines I made for the textile art exhibition last year:


The light green one is some weird green wool I had in my yarn stash, and could be worn as a scarf if I want to. The darker one is some even stranger fuzzy yarn I got from the op shop, with flowers made from some fuzzy yarn (same sort as in that huge shawl) and the pods are made from felted dog hair - so maybe it is a dogwood vine? (hmmm I wonder what dogwood actually IS ... something I have seen mentioned in books I have read, but it isn't native to Australia ... I might have to "google" it sometime ;-)

This is a green cotton shawl I made last year ... in September/October - mostly in the car on the way to/from Queensland (and some of it in front of the tv/etc at Mum and Dad's place, and the last bit at a friend's place here in Canberra just after the trip to Qld.) ... so I call it my "travel shawl"



the danby bits were fun to make ;-)
this is the back of the same shawl:



I also made another (smaller) one in cream coloured cotton, but I have not taken a photo of it yet (I think i took these photos while I was still crocheting that one) I started the second one while i was part way through the green one, because I wanted something smaller (without such long rows as I was up to with the green one) to test out if the pattern I had in mind for the last few rows would work ok, and to work out how many stitches I needed to have in the row when I started the pattern bit ... so once I worked out the pattern and how many stitches in each repeat/etc - I had a miniature shawl - so I kept adding to it until I ran out of that particular yarn (in fact I did run out of yarn part of the way around the edging but I had something else that was similar enough to use for the last bit of the edging and not show up as different ;-)

These are some quilted fabric Coffee Cup Coasters I made in December:


I used 6 of them as part of the Christmas gifts I gave to the science teachers I work with (we seem to have a tradition where everyone puts a little something on each other's desks at the end of the school year ;-)
The other 3 are on our coffee table, but I am not sure they get used ... or even noticed ... lol
This is a beetle ... it wasn't in the B post, and it IS in this C post, because I took the photo during the Canberra Quilters meeting last week - I found it on the floor near my feet during the raffle draw (after which everyone gets up and stomps around packing the Chairs up) so I picked it up to save it from getting Crushed underfoot - and it Crawled around on my fingers and on my lap, making Chirping noises!


...  much to the amusement of the few people sitting Closest to me ...
(not a very Clear photo - it wouldn't stay still! ... so I Clicked about 8 photos then Chucked it out the door)

I found some Cloud photos too:


I often take photos of Clouds .. I think these are Cumulus, probably in the process of becoming Cumulo nimbus (those big tall thunderstorm clouds) Because we had a Crashing big thunderstorm not long after I took this photo last week.
This one was taken from very Close to the same place as the other one (a Couple of metres away probably)
but it was a Couple of days later ... and there was an even bigger storm even sooner afterwards ... with Crazy purple streaks of lightning and rain so heavy it was hard to see where I was driving ...



During the storm I just happened to be picking a friend up from work and driving us both to her place ... I live thunderstorms and she ... doesn't  ... so every big flash of purple lighting I would say "wow" and she would say "s..t" (or worse ;-)
And last (beCause I have well and truly enough photos in here already) 3 videos of a spider - Argiope sp. (not sure which one - but this is the genus the Saint Andrew's Cross spider is in) ... although it could be a Nephila sp. (which is another genus in the same family - the Golden Orb Weaver is in this genus) .
btw - yes I guess it is a long stretch for a C thing - but it was Creeping and Crawling around it's web, next to my Compost heap:











I know - too Creepy? lol

... and too late ... to make the Cut off for adding to the linky thingy, for the letter C posts, before it Closed ... oh well - I will just have to put the link in a Comment ...

hmmm - a C post and only one photo with the Cat in it (and she had to share that one with the dog!) but I am sure she will Cope ok with that.

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 ...

Under construction ... or just Unfinished ... ?

Uh oh! ... my half written Q post, for ABC Wednesday, is still a draft (yes - it is Under construction but still Unfinished a few weeks later! LOL) I might have to change the title and post it as another letter (at the rate I am going lately, I might just get organised in time to post it for A when we get Up to there Again). Any ideas I had for R and S and T will just have to wait for next time ... except there was one idea that could have been an R or an S post that I Really Should post about a bit sooner ... seeing I was going to post about it for C but kind of didn't get there ... I will see (C?) if I can get organised for that when we get Up to there again ;-)

in fact my old website even Used to have a sign in it saying it was permanently Under construction (not that anything that was on Geocities was permanently anything - lol  ... although mine is archived on that wayback machine webite. (not that it is worth looking at or anything ;-)

U is also for Up too late and for Usual ... considering what the title of this blog is, I just had to mention that ... lol
(not that it is so Usual for me to be Up late these days ... I seem to need sleep ... sigh ... )

U is also for Unusual ... which a lot of my blog posts are ...

and ... U is also for UFO  ... and yes I am interested in flying saucers and the like, but - oddly enough - that is Usually NOT what I am talking about when I talk about UFOs  - U see, I am also into quilting (and crocheting and a few other textile art related things ;-) and quilters often talk about how many UFOs they have ... and they are not talking about collecting flying saucers - UFOs are Un Finished Objects - and I have been known to sign my e-mails (on the quilt related yahoogroups I am on) with my signature and this line under it: "... who has more UFOs than all the episodes of The X Files"  ... because I think I probably DO!

... which is why, back in November, I joined in the "UFO pledge" thingy they have for Canberra Quilters ... and I nominated FOUR UFOs that I would finish by November this year ... nothing has been done on them since! LOL  ... I also nominated THREE UFOs for a similar thing a group of us from one of the yahoogroups I am on ... at least one of them was the same quilt as one of the other 4 ... and at least one wasn't ... can't remember offhand exactly what 4 I nominated for the CQ one (I think I do have it written down, but I can't be bothered getting up and looking right this minute) ...  wich means I either have 5 or 6 quilts I promised to finish this year!!!  ... I WAS going to finish one or 2 of them for the Canberra Quilters exhibition (coming up at the start of August) ... but a couple have way too much stuff to do in the time I have to do it, and with the others I wasn't sure how long they would take to finish, or what I wanted to do to finish them ... so - me being me - I STARTED some more!!!  so now I have a quilted bag (half made) and 2 small art quilts (one partly done and one barely started - I should be out doing that now!) ... and a miniature quilt (partly done, but lots of fiddly hand work) ... all needing to be finished by the end of July - LOL

Yes I should get them done - provided I actually get out to my sewing room and DO the machine sewing that needs to be done on the 2 art quilts ... then most of the rest of what has to be done on them all is a pile of hand sewing, which I will be able to do in the evenings in front of the TV

Then ... once those more urgent quilts are done (have to do those - the entry forms are in - lol  ... the UFO pledge ones are ok if I don't do them all - I can "carry over" any I don't finish to the next year ... I just don't get my name put in the draw for the prize unless I finish a quilt) I still won't get to work on those other 5 or 6 UFOs ... because I will be busy trying to make/finish at least some of the dozens of ideas I have for stuff for the exhibition for the textile art group I am also in! (and I have some very Unusual ideas for that ... fabric and yarn plants, stuffed people, mushrooms, vines ... all sorts of weird stuff - LOL ... mine you I don't think I am the only person making some Unconventional things ... the theme is "Garden Tea Party" and I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of it is going to look like things might look if we had been actually smoking that caterpillar's pipe!)

I really should be out sewing the quilt that I was going to do when I got home this afternoon ... Unfortunately I didn't get around to it - I went visiting last night (stayed the night at a friend's place) and ended up coming home with a plastic bag of strawberry plants, and a couple other odd things like agapanthus and stuff ... so this afternoon the dog and I spent an enjoyable few hours outside in the front yard weeding and tidying up ... and planting strawberry/etc plants ... and then he still wanted to go for a nice LONG walk at Sunset ...

but ... this post looks a bit bare without photos, and because I had to send in photos of most of the stuff I entered in the quilt show (yes I did have 3 other things finished, that are also going into the quilt show) I can put photos of a couple of those UFOs in here:

This is the one I WAS going to do this afternoon (and hopefully will be able to go and do at least some of in about 10 minutes time ;-)



yes ... I "drew" on the photo - lol  ... at the time (and also now ;-) this quilt was just a bit of fabric (sitting on top of some batting and backing fabric I will use for it) and my idea ... what I am meant to be out doing now is quilting those lines I have drawn an idea of in green ... then I will cut some holes in it ... then I can hand sew around the edges of the holes and add some more stitching and beads/etc by hand while watching a TV show or 5 ...

This is another one I started ... the idea came to me about 2 days before I handed in the entry forms!



None of it is sewn together ... I just cut out all the bits and laid them out on the table ... the photo is sideways - those are the toes of my fluffy slippers on the chair that I had to stand on to get high enough above the quilt to get it all in the photo - lol (and again - I drew in a few bits to make it look more like it is going to look ... hopefully it won't take to long to do all the machine sewing bits ... then joining it all together shouldn't be too hard ... famous last words? lol)

And ... also at the last minute - I remembered that there was a creative clothing challenge (could be clothing or an accessory - like a bag or hat or whatever) ... so I started this bag - the theme is "Go Green" ... so this is a green (and black) bag with little bags/purses/phone pouch/etc to GO with it)



I actually did some of the hand stitching on this one this morning at my friend's place ... it is looking good - if everything goes as quick and easy as that bit did, I might have some spare time between finishing this stuff and the quilt show delivery date, to make a start of more of the stuff for the textile art exhibition ... (yeah - like THAT will happen - the Usual thing with my quilt show entries is that I am still stitching at least one of them the day, or even hour, before I have to deliver the stuff!)

I don't have a photo of the miniature quilt I entered - that catagory didn't need me to submit a photo ... I might have to take photos of all this stuff once it is finished, and add it to that half done Q post that I didn't post (seeing the title of it at the moment is "Quilts" - LOL) and then post it ... maybe even not as an ABC Wednesday one - lol

eek ... my evening is running out and I still have that quilting to do ... I had better post this and go do at least some of it ... or things could get Ugly - lol

Oh No, Missed ...

... a couple of weeks of Wednesday ABC ... again ...

I Must have been too busy?

My M was possibly going to be some Musings on a few things, and was definitely Meant to Mainly be Me Mumbling on about My adventures with Making a Multicoloured crochet shawl using some leftover wool (Maybe Merino?) and turning it into a rainbow with vinegar and food dye in the Microwave oven ... I guess I Might be able to use that for R or S - lol

N was going to be all about how Naughty I was to miss my M post ... and possibly I was going to find photos of a few Not so Nice (and maybe even Nasty looking?) things which I guess you are spared from ... for Now ... LOL

Oh well ... I guess it is now time to ramble On with some O things ...

Oh dear ... I wonder what I should post about?

(maybe it is a good thing that I didn't get a good video of something that someone else who was watching the same thing did get one of, and e-mailed it around to his friends with the title "Oh Dear" ... lets just say that if one is going to decorate one's house and yard like a Christmas tree, complete with lit up model reindeer on your front lawn, then one is sure to attract a bit of attention, and there is at least some likelyhood that some of that attention is the sort of attention one would not want, which upon seeing the security video the next day, might lead one to come knocking at the door of the house where the party was and ask them to make sure their guests please refrain from doing THAT sort of thing in their yard ... what sort of thing? - well, the guy who did it was a "Kiwi", and was rather drunk, and it was the sort of joke that some people consider to be (even more than?) a little bit "Off" so you will just have to do what he did and use your imagination)

Ok ... ?

... oh?

that was not ok?

oh well ... oops? LOL

sorry

I guess I will have to think of some Other things to put in here:

hmmm ... there must be some Odds and sods that I can post about?

I wonder if I took a photo of the Orange bag that I made?

[andrea saves post and logs out, goes to bed (it is rather late ... almost "stupid O'clock"), gets up, goes to work ... and hopefully comes back in here sometime b4 this has to be posted, and goes looking for photo]

A day or 2 later:

... I didn't get around to comeing in here last night, but I did happen to find (and put somewhere where I could get it if need be) that orange bag ... just in case I can't find the photo of it that I am fairly sure I did take ...

I also just decided to have a look at how many posts there are on my blog ... and thought I was getting quite close to the 250 mark ... until I noticed that I actually have 19 posts saved as drafts! LOL
(one or 3 of them are Wednesday ABC ones too ... including one called "O etc" that actually Only has a couple of ideas for P and S typed in there ... and there is also an N and an M one, each with a few ideas "jotted down" in there, that I didn't actually post LAST time we were up to those letters - so I guess I have missed those 2 letters twice around now - lol)

Anyway ... I guess I should see if I can find the photo of that Orange bag ...

but first ... if I want to call it "Oh" instead of "Zero" - O is how many friends I have on facebook ... LOL
(yes ... I sort of got side-tracked and ended up signing up to faceblerk ... somehow I can't seemyself actually using it much ... lol ... I had to do it though - because DD told me not to ... but I didn't bother to send her a friend request, I know she would only say no)

[another day passes]

... it is now Wednesday evening - I was going to finish this and post this last night, but I was still working on it (well - more like getting side-tracked with other stuff) when Tea was ready, then I went to a meeting, and didn't come back in here when I got home (because it was rather late) ... so now it actually IS Wednesday ... which means I had better finish writing this and actually pOst it.
(actually it is more finding and adding photos and stuff that I need to do - I don't think the last 2 or 3 posts had any pictures in them at all so this one needs at least one)

btw ... Facebook is stupid ... seems that if I want to have a user name (well why wouldn't I want to be "Aykayem" there, same as I am almost everywhere else online?) I have to "verify" my account ... I thought I did that ... but no - I have to put in my mobile phone number and do it via SMS ... now why would I want to do that? - I don't intend to actually USE facebook on my phone ... what if i didn't even have a mobile phone? ... and why the heck should I need to give them MY phone number (and probably access to then send me junk I don't want to be sent) just so I can call myself by my online name?! ... yet another of the many reasons why I am blogging here on blogger, rather than one of those other places - LOL

Ok ... now that I have told Facebook Off ...

Oh - I found that Orange bag photo ... found it faster than I found where the photos are on this computer (it's new, and I wasn't sure which letter the external hard drive that had them on was - there were 3 of them listed - DH likes his technology, which is fine by me because I like using it - lol) ... the photo was actually in the 6th folder I looked in ... one I almost didn't look in, and kind of only did look in there because I looked in the one before it by accident - they were both folders of 4WD trip photos ... but there were one or 2 other odd Orange O photos in there, because I took them last year when I was doing a post for some other Odd alphabetical blog thingy that used to happen (it kind of stopped because the person doing it got rather busy and was finding it a bit too Onerous a task thinking up random letters and catagories of stuff to post - we were sort of playing blog scattergories - lol)

here is the bag:

>


and the O post it was part of is here (so I didn't even need to find the photo to upload - all I had to do was what I did, and go and copy the link from that post - why put it up on blogger twice? LOL)

and ... like I said in that post - it was 3 O things in one photo - an Orange bag, an Orange crochet Ornament ... and an Odd one out (isn't a textile item, and I didn't make it) - an Orange carrot ...

I know - I am Odd



At least I didn't write all of this post in Orange!

But I did find another Odd Organge photo:



an Odd photo of Orange street lights shining Orange light Onto the road, with an Orange sunset in the background.
(I wasn't quite On my Own when I took the photo though - the dog was with me ;-)

Ok ... I think I have finished this post ... time to say "Over and Out" ...

(before I get tempted to compose an Ode to the letter O Or some Other Odd thing?)

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)

Fishing around in my Fabric ...

... actually more like digging it out and spreading it around in piles all over the place, digging around in the piles and then stuffing most of it back in the cupboard but not nescessarily neatly and not always where it came from ...

so why was I doing that instead of in here making a bit more effort to at least sort of half keep up with "blogtoberfest"?
(at this rate I will be lucky to do a post a week, let alone the post a day we are supposed to do!)

Strange as it may seem, and sometimes it doesn't appear to be the case, but I also have other things in my life besides blogging ... although what I was doing does relate to what I do in cyberspace - LOL

- I have been choosing fabric for the mystery quilt I am doing on this yahoogroup

There are a lot of us doing it, and we are having a lot of fun - lol

This is actually "MQ11" ... because it is the 11th one we have done on this list! The first one was about 10 years ago (I joined the list the night before we started sewing the first one!) ... then the list kind of went to sleep after we had done 10 of them (and I have actually done all 10 ... well ... only finished some of them, but started them all - just have not finished them all ... yet) ... all was quiet for a few years ... then someone decided to wake the list up ... and I am glad they did!

We actually got instructions for choosing our fabric just over a week ago, and the cutting instructions were put up on Saturday ... so of course I am only just choosing my fabrics now - LOL

actually I started digging around and looking for some suitable fabric a few days ago ... but ... I only found one lot of "maybe" and then life got in the way for a few days ...



trouble with that lot is ... I don't know how well it would work with the fact that the background of the chilli fabric matches the backgrounds of the plain red and black ... (I also realised later, once the cutting instructions were posted, that those 2 chilli fabrics would have been the ones that got cut up into little strips) ... so would be a bit of a waste of a cute design fabric, that has a lot of potential to use it in a design where the matching/blending colours could be used to do that on purpose ... so I might see if I can find time to try and design a quilt just for these fabrics - lol

or maybe some/all of these as well? LOL



so ... the "maybe" became a "yes I will use them, but not for this quilt"

... so back to the stash to see what else I could find ... I did a LOT of digging around in there last night ...

and came up with these ...



(no not the stuff in the plastic bags - that is a sample of some alpacca hair, plus a bit of stray sheeps wool thrown in with it, both of which came from the Murrumbateman Field day, which DH and I went to on Saturday ... and a bag of emu feathers which someone gave to me at a thing I went to at the Dunlop Grasslands, which are "just over there" [andrea points roughly in the direction of the front door] ... it was a nature talk/walk and the launch of an information pamphlet ... and I took lots of photos of flowers/etc LOL)

er ... back to that photo, and the subject I WAS talking about ...

the pile of green/brown fabric on the left is enough for the single bed size version, on the right is ok for the lap quilt size ...

... I thought I had chosen my fabrics ... but I just wasn't so sure about that lot on the left ... the top one matches some of the others but doesn't quite "go" with them ... and the browns go together too well ... I kept grabbing that green one on the far left and trying to find other blue/green/etc fabrics to go with it but just couldn't get the combination we needed ... had to have a light, medium and dark (and another medium/dark for the single bed and double sizes and also a medium/light if we wanted to do the queen size) ... and a couple of the bits of fabric had to be fairly big ... and I don't have a lot of big bits ... and most of what I do have don't go with each other - LOL

I wanted to do a single bed size and maybe a lap size as well ... but I kept finding fabrics that would only do a lap size - like the pile on the right in the photo above, and this one:



btw ... the bottom middle fabric (looks almost white) is actually some fabric that I "dyed" with condy's crystals - to look like sand ... for a quilt I WAS going to make for something a few years ago but didn't get time to make yet ... story of my life that - lol

This pile of fabrics is still a "goer" ... when I went to bed last night I think I had decided to do this and the other lap quilt size (the wildflowers/orange/green/brown/etc) ... but I ended up deciding that I would not use either of those other 2 piles ...
(although I wouldn't mind using the top 3 fabrics from the lap quilt pile - the wildfowers and orange bits and the big bit of dark green - together in something ... one day ... lol)

... this lot was still calling "come and find me"



I kept grabbing the bits of green fabric and these ...



... and a few others ... but this afternoon I realised that I had been trying to choose them all around the 2 on the left in the above photo ... which, once I read the cutting instructions I realised it was totally silly to actually use those 2 where I was going to use them (we needed 2 smaller bright bits of fabric that sort of needed to stand out a bit) because they get cut up into narrow little strips ... so all my kokopelli/animals and cats would end up being sliced in half, or smaller!

so more digging ... what else could I use for those 2 bright bits?
(I even tried using a few other brighter things with one or both of those 2 bits as other fabrics ;)

why am I having so much trouble deciding? ... I guess I always take ages ... then often use/do something weird for my fabric choices ... and (maybe because I DO take so long to decide?) whatever I eventually choose has always worked out looking good ...

... even when I do something totally weird, like I did for MQ2 - and used GOLD LAME as one of my fabrics!



I am glad I did ...

(I really should finish that quilt one day!)

... and strangely enough ... I also have some of that same lame fabric (came from the same garage sale I think) in green and blue ...

so ... yes ... I just HAD to do it ...

- so I had a look what fabrics I could find to go with the lame ... and I found some!



enough for a single bed size quilt in fact! ...

I thought I was going to be short one fabric ... wasn't sure what I could use for the "medium" ... noticed I only needed a fairly small bit ... so had another dig in the pile that was still in the cupboard and found the fishy fabric and measured it ... it was the right width - good ... how long do I need it to be? - 35cm ... how long IS it? ... 36cm! LOL

- it must have been "meant to be"?

... too bad if a quilt with lame fabric on it is not that practical to use for camping/etc or to put on my side of the bed when I am cold and DH isn't (which is the whole reason I wanted to make a single bed size quilt in the first place!) ... I guess it will just have to be the one I take to sleep under on quilting retreats or something - LOL (although I probably will still use it on my side of the bed eventually ... just not while we have a rather large dog who likes sleeping all over the bed ... and sometimes even wrestling with us there as well!)

I wonder if the fishy fabric will stay as the 6 1/2" squares the instructions say to cut it into, of if it will end up getting cut/etc into something smaller? lol

so ... it looks like I AM making a single bed size after all ... and I will probably do the pink/brown/grey/etc lap quilt at the same time, if I can find time to do all the cutting and sewing for both each week ... (not that I need more lap quilts - but what ELSE would I use those 2 weird pink/brown/grey bits of fabric for? ... strangely enough, even though they are not "my" colours I DO like them ... but I don't think I have a lot of other fabric they would go with - lol
I guess I can use the chilli/etc fabric to make something the right size for my half of the bed/camping/whatever ... or finish one of the other MQs that is about the right size ... I have one that is almost finished actually - I got it half quilted (doing it myself - I like to say I did everything not just the peicing) then I put it aside for later because I had something else I wanted to do/start ... and kind of never got back to it ... oops

er ... I should be asleep ... it is now about 2 hours later than the time on this post (the time on the bottom is when I started typing it ... unless I change it to some other time ... which I did not do this time ... LOL) ... which means it is at least 3 hours later than I should still be up, seeing I have to go to work in the morning! ... sigh ...