Wishing you a Merry Christmas, Where have I been? Where am I going, and other Weird stuff.

"We Wish you a merry Christmas, We Wish you a merry Christmas ... " etc ... I don't have time to go digging in my photos and make up a Christmas card right now, and I didn't do it earlier because I seem to have been rather busy doing all that other stuff people do when not sitting in front of the computer (and a bit too much getting lost on Twitter when I have been at the computer ;-)  ... not sure if I will get to do it later either - because I am going away ... DH is working night shifts over Christmas, so he is staying home (which is handy because else who would look after the cat and the dog ... DD maybe - seeing she will probably working Christmas Eve and Boxing Day) so ... I am hopping on a plane tomorrow, and flying to Queensland - to visit my parents for a week or 2 ... and they don't have huge piles of download to use each month like I do here at home, or GIMP on their computer  ... lol

But ... because I have not posted for a little While ... and it may be a Week or more before I post again (depending What I might find in the Way of free WiFi/other Internet access ... and/or Weather I feel like going off and finding some McWiFi - lol) I have decided to Whip up a quick post With a few Weird photos of Weird stuff for the Wonderful ABC Wednesday's W Week ;-)

Wow! - I just realised - now that it is after Midnight - I am actually posting this on a ... Wednesday! LOL
(but the linky thingy isn't there yet - I will have to remember to try and find a spare 5 minutes to log in to Blogger While I am at Work tomorrow and add my link then ;-)

now ... What Weird and Wonderful stuff can I find photos of in a hurry? (I still need to organise a few things because I have to be packed and ready tonight, because I leave pretty much straight after Work tomorrow) and I still have not taken the dog for the Walk I promised him (he doesn't care What time of day/night he goes - lol)

OK ... found some ... and they uploaded quite fast and Worked ok - Wonderful!

These few Were all taken with my phone ...
(might be why they loaded fast - smaller photos than my camera is set up to take ... but the couple of camera photos I put in here also loaded fast ;-)

Some Weird Wet person (me ;-) at the #CSIROTweetup:

the same Weird person (me) Wearing a Wig With antennae on it - at the #CSIROTweetup - next to a model of one of the Mars rovers ;-)

Weird animals ... Waiting for a scratch?

 ditto:

Cat's Whiskers: (white ones ;-)

Weird sky

Weird sky again - the clouds really Were that colour!

What is this? and Why is it on my desk at Work?!

yes - it IS a live possum - I work at a high school, and Mr E's class Went into their sceince lab one Monday morning (about a week or 2 ago) - and there, in the corner, was a possum! (it had been living in the roof, and fallen through the ceiling tiles ... they are fairly sleepy during the day so it was easy to just grab a box, stick it over the possum and shove it's backside into the box, shut the flaps and carry it out of the room ;-)

 (btw - that last photo was not my from my phone - I also took a photo with my camera ;-)

oh - and the possum was released into some trees. later in the day.

This is also a camera photo, not a phone photo
... and this one was yellow because it was taken with the flash off (I took one with the flash on too, but I like this one better ;-)
The colour could be said to be a hint as to what I was doing at the time - I just happened to have the camera in my pocket When I Went to ... do What I Was doing in there ;-)  and the dog Was Waiting for me to finish. (he doesn't like it if you shut the door, and if you don't actually close it properly he just pushes the door open and comes in anyway - lol

... and this is some birds Walking around.

I was walking around too - with the iPad - which is what I used to take that photo ... and yes it is a boring one - I only put it in here to see what would happen ... because I probably had the ipad upside down when I took the photo - the thumbnail was upside down ... but (because the ipad knows which way up it is?) the photo comes out the right way up when it is opened ... I got curious to see if it was upside down in here ... no - that just seems to happen at random when there is a glitch - lol (had that happen once ... rotated a photo that I had taken sideways, and it looked fine, as a thumbnail and open, on the computer - but it came out sideways in here! - weird?)

Anyway ... time to finish messing around, and post this - While I still have some night left to Walk the dog, organise the other few things I have to pack/etc, and also squeeze in a good night's sleep before I have to get up for Work in the morning (oops? ... that adds up to a bit more than the approximately 7 hours that it is going to have to fit into!

"but Wait - there's more"

I almost forgot to add the first photo I found - was not going to put it first - figured it might gross a few people out a bit much being right at the top - more Weird stuff at Work:

Yes - that IS a plastic bag of EYEBALLS ;-)

better in the plastic bag than here!

 ... high up on the Wall!

... it was a particularly rowdy class that disected eyballs the day this happened ;-)
(usually the leftover chopped up greebly bits come back in the trays or whatever, and I just have to scrape them out and bin them, and wash all the trays/scalpels/forceps/probes/etc, rather than having to find a long stick to remove greeblies from the wall, and go find a mop and clean the ceiling!  ... "and what did you do at work today?" "well, I scraped an eybeall off the wall, and mopped the ceiling ... "  I guess it keeps the job interesting - LOL)

and ... if it Works (it said there was an error, but now it says it is uploading ... I guess I will have to "hurry up and Wait" for a While to see if it worked, and try again if it didn't)
here is will possibly be a link to a video of some Wonderfully Wild and Wooly Weather:

(it wasn't uploading on blogger, said "rejected by server" or somesuch - so I decided to try putting it on Photobucket instead ;-)


hmmm ... maybe it wasn't such a good idea to start uploading a video at 1:30am, and then noticing that it is 298MB in size! ... dog is now walked, other bits I had to do are done (unless I have forgotten something) it is now almost 4am ... and 25% of it has uploaded ... I wonder if there is a size limit? LOL
I will post this, and add the video later, if it uploads, (and if I can log in to photobucket and blogger some time/place and do what I will need to do, and if I remember ;-)

[the next day] OK - here it is (it took half the night, but seems it did upload ok ;-)


The video was taken at around Midnight one night late in November ... it was rather stormy most of the night, but for over half an hour it was like this - constant flashes and booms - amazing!
(kind of made me imagine weird things - like maybe it was elephants who had become angels and they were having a disco in the sky ;-)

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 ...

D

D is for Disorganised ...

and I am Definitely Disorganised - why else am I only just posting my D post (for ABC Wednesday) now, when I am already a few days late for E?! LOL

D is also for Disaster and Devastation ... and I am sure there are a few D posts that mention that, after the bushfires in Victoria (I saw one D/disaster post, about the bushfires, on a blog I found listed as one of the "blogs of note" when I logged in to blogger ... I thought that blog name sounded familiar - lol)
I live in Canberra, where we had some bad bushfires in 2003 ... so a lot of people here have been offering help and suggestions of what sort of help will be needed and when, because they know from having been there themselves ... this time the fires were not near here though ... but the sky has been very hazy, and the sunsets have been very orange and smokey looking, for the last few days (yes - there are still fires burning down there in Victoria ... and floods in Queensland and Bourke (in Northern NSW) ... so D is also for Deluge (but hopefully not for anyone Drowning in it) ... we sure have had some weird weather lately - record high temperatures in one part of Australia and record rainfall in another ... a years worth of rain all in one day - right in the middle of a Drought ...

Anyway ... enough of all that ... except to mention that D is also for Donate/Donations ... there are Bushfire appeals and flood appeals to donate money and/or stuff to ... both for the people affected, and for the animals/wildlife/etc ... but I don't think I need to try and list them all here because those who want to Donate have probably already Done that, or Doing that ... or at least have the info from all the media coverage/etc ...

so ... time to Delve into the other D things I was going to post about (but kind of ran out of spare Days in the week to get around to actually Doing it)

D is for:

Dunlop ... is the suburb I live in ... I think it is probably named after Sir Edward "Weary" Dunlop but I could be wrong ... if you want to have a look at my suburb - do a search for Dunlop, ACT, Australia ... or somesuch ... there is probably lots of stuff about it on the www ... and on Google Earth as well (I was just looking at our house on there a little while ago - lol) ... or you might find it by using location tags on one of those photo websites that has those.

D is also for Dog ... and Diesel - the name of our dog - lol

way back in the "Dim Dark past" (well ... about 16 years ago anyway) we used to have a Dog called Digger ... but I Don't have any Digital photos of him ... and I Don't think I could even find the right album of "real" photos that might have one of him in it, even if I Decided I wanted to Dig around in them and Do that at this hour of night ... I also grew up (for the first 8 years of my life) with a dog called Dobie ... even shared a bone with him once, according to my Mum - lol - I think she said I was about 2, and she looked out the kitchen window and there were the dog and I, out in the back yard, taking turns at having a chew on some Disgusting old bone ... and the dog was happily letting me take it from him and have my turn - LOL

I actually spent part of today helping out at a friend's Dog grooming salon - and spent most of the day there Drying dogs ... so Diesel was very interested in all the Doggy smells on my clothing/etc when I got home.

hmmm Diesel must have "heard" me type his name ... he just came in here and looked at me and wandered out again when nothing exciting was happening ... lol

Here is a (Dopey looking?) photo of Diesel:


That was in the back yard a few weeks ago ... and he is sitting on the Dirt ... but at least he is not Digging in it (although he Does Do that in one spot on the lawn sometimes ... I think he digs himself a cool spot to lie in, because where he digs is under a couple of bushes that hang over the lawn)

and ... the friend who owns the Dog grooming salon I was helping out at today just happens to have a puppy called Dawkins ... he also has another dog too and one or both of them often go to work with him and spend the day lying around in the salon ... I was helping out there one other day recently ... I think it may have been the same day as the bushfires in Victoria ... no (just checked date of photo) it was a week or so earler - but it was stinking hot that day too ... and I took a few photos of Dawkins Doing what Dawkins Does ... lying around looking Dopey - lol



he also doesn't seem to care where he lies and what he lies in ... yes he is somewhere in amongst this pile of hair that tends to collect under the table they use to brush and/or clip the dogs.



I guess some people would say that looks Disgusting? ... but Dawkins Didn't think so - he was quite comfortable thank you very much ... lol

btw ... as with the cat photos - there are more Dog photos on this other blog of mine (the one where I sometimes post a whole pile of dog and cat photos, but usually don't get around to posting anything to very often at all)

D is also for Dubai ... which is one of the United Arab Emirates ... there are lots of other countries and cites in the world that start with D ... but Dubai is one that, unless something Disasterous happens, I will actually be visiting in just over 4 weeks time! (I am taking some long service leave and going on a holiday, to Dubai and a couple of other places, with my Mum ... because Mum and I both have the travel bug ... but Dad and my DH (Dear Husband) don't ... so they can stay home and "mind the fort" while we go and see the world ... or a little bit of it anyway ... )

D is also for "Dingly Danglies" ... something else I like and DH Doesn't ... especially if they have bells or smells ... he even thinks ear rings are a waste of time/money ... and absolutely hates tinkly jingly stuff hanging from key rings or from anything he has to touch/use ...

and I know I have already mentioned that D is for Disorganised ... but ... in my usually Disorganised way of Doing things ... here is another (Disjointed - lol) bit on the subject (one that I actually got organised enough to paste in here back before it was time to post my D post, when I was here typing my C post and also started jotting some "D" ideas Down and then saved it as a Draft)
While I was typing my C post (the Day after I should have been posting this D post!) I was also reading a couple of blogs that I like to visit ... and I left a coment on a recent post on this blog

Her post was all about how she had been tidying up/organising her sewing room ... and this is part of the (rather long) comment I left on the post ... or I thought I left it there - it doesn't seem to be there so it probably didn't actually work (or maybe it was "moderated" off there because it was too long - lol - either way, it is probably better in here rather than taking up space in someone else's blog comments) anyway ... this is the bit that I did type in there and then copied and pasted here before I hit the button to (not?) add the comment:

btw - wanna come and sort my sewing room when you are done there? LOL

(I have been "in the middle of" sorting it out for a year or 3 ... or 5 ... now ... sigh ... am also currently moving a pile of boxes of fabric and boxes of other sewing/crafty bits/junk/stuff/whatever from under the pergola into the garage ... the original idea was to put them under the pergola for a few weeks until I sorted out the sewing room, then I could sort out/tidy up there as well, while I was at it ... but that kind of didn't happen anywhere near as fast as it was originally meant to and is still not going to happen that fast now (something to do with me always having some other stuff I want/need to sew and doing that instead, and the fact that I am going overseas for a month in about 5 weeks time ...) so now the boxes of fabric/craft stuff are going in a pile in the garage (where I might actually be able to sort some out during this winter) and the boxes of really weird crud are going to get sorted out (at least into 2 piles - "get rid of now" and "sort out later" - lol) and then the pergola might actually sort of look like a pergola and not a junk shed with the walls missing ... sigh - I really DO need a house with a granny flat or somesuch - so I can have a decent "studio" or something, rather than a sewing room that is actually an end of an open space that has windows on 2 sides, one wall, and open to the living area on the other side ...)

btw ... part of the reason I didn't get around to posting this post any sooner was because for the few evenings in the last week or 2 that I wasn't busy doing other things and might have spent catching up here, I just chekced/answered e-mail and then left my blogging until "later" because I was busy sorting out the pergola ... which is now a lot tidier and actually looks like a pergola again ...

... talking about the pergola ... I also usually hang the washing out under there (has a roof over it so it means I don't have to worry if it rains before I bring the washing in off the line - quite handy when everyone goes out to work or school or something and I often do the washing and hang it out in the evening and then take it off the line when I get home from work/etc the next afternoon/evening) ... and I have a load of washing to hang out now ... and it is now after Midnight and I have to get up fairly early in the morning.

oh ... just remembered one more thing b4 I go ... D is also for Doesn't work ... which on some peoples computers that will apply to that upside down thingy I had in my C post ... I thought it would work on most computers, but after looking at my blog on the one I was using at work the other day - maybe not - because it didn't work on that one ... it just came out as a jumbled mess - LOL

lol - ɹǝʇndɯoɔ ɹnoʎ uo ʞɹoʍ sǝop ʇı puɐ ˙˙˙ dn ʎɐʍ ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ ʇı ʇnd puɐ ɹoʇıuoɯ ɹnoʎ dn pǝʞɔıd ǝʌɐɥ noʎ ɹo pɐǝɥ ɹnoʎ uo ƃuıpuɐʇs ǝɹɐ noʎ ɹo uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıpɐǝɹ ʇɐ ʞo/pooƃ ǝɹɐ noʎ ˙˙˙ sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟı

... if you can't read the above paragraph ... then I guess it doesn't work on your computer - sorry ... lol

(-: ʇuoɟ sıɥʇ uı sʞɹoʍ ʇı ɟı ǝǝs puɐ 'uıɐƃɐ ʞɹoʍ ʇɐ ƃolq ʎɯ ʇɐ ʞool oʇ ɹǝqɯǝɯǝɹ sı op oʇ ǝʌɐɥ ı llɐ ʍou)
¿ʇuoɟ ʇuǝɹǝɟɟıp ɐ uı ʞo ʞɹoʍ ʇɥƃıɯ ʇı ʇnq

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 ...