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 ...

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)

odd socks ... and other things ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



yep - found the red sock! LOL

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

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

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

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

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

but ...

I have made another black hole quilt! LOL

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

There is cat hair on my event horizon ...

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




so what exactly IS this?

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

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

A is for ...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fig Jam

Those who are/have been in the Army, or those who live with them, will know what this title means ... LOL

( FIG JAM = F... I'm Good, Just Ask Me)

except I am not so sure I am that clever ... but those who saw this thing said they thought I was ... LOL

what thing?

my jar of "stuff" that I put in the ACTTAA exhibition!

(yes I finally got around to taking some sort of half ok photos yesterday)

A weird new variety of jam? LOL

(the label was actually an afterthought ... I did it at work just before I took an early lunch break to go deliver this, and my other things ... but often my afterthoughts are just what something needs to make them compete -lol)

yes - the photo is a bit blurry (the camera focussed perfecly on some other bit besides the actual label - LOL) but the label is readable so I can't be bothered trying for a better photo ...

ok ... here it is sitting on a clipboard/folder (first solid/flat thing I found) on the bed (the bedroom was the room where it was still fairly light at the time, and I had just gone in there and taken photos of the quilt I will probably blog about in the next day or 2, and I saw the jar sitting on the dressing table and remembered I needed to do something about that too ...)

hmmm ... nice silhouette ... lol

maybe I should try a different camera setting for those close up shots?

"hmmm" thinks I "this one - 'behind glass' - might work?" ... yes - it did - lol

that is the crochet fish ... on some crochet weed ...

This is a not so close up of that side of the jar:

maybe I needed MORE rocks sewn into the bottom? ... it still seems to be floating UP ...

and this is another side, with a crochet sea urchin in there ...

there is a pink starfish in there somewhere too, but it didn't show up in any of these photos - lol

here is another side:

er... those blue/purple balls seem to stand out a lot now! - they are the styrofoam beads (to make the seaweed float up) that I coloured in with permanent marker - they were not so obvious when I first put this together, but they seem to have faded quite a bit since I first put the stuff in the jar!

Here is another side

the fluffy red blob was meant to look like a sea anenome ... it sort of does to me ... but maybe one needs a good imagination? LOL

I really should tip the water out and wash/rinse the crochet stuff, and dry it ... (and maybe take some more photos of it dry?) ... before it goes slimy/starts to rot or something ... LOL

I also really should go to bed and get some sleep ... I keep yawning ... a lot ... and I was already tired about 5 hours ago ... sigh ... the joys of being back at work and having to get up in the mornings ...

goodnight.

MORE

... is the title of the sea urchin bowl I made for the ACTTAA exhibition that was on recently.

Here is a photo of it on display:

It was made from some hand dyed fabric I found in my stash, which was quilted in 7 segments, which were then decorated with suffolk puffs (yoyos) and sewn to 7 same shaped bits of stiffened backing (using blanket/buttonhole stitch)- then I crocheted around the segments and added the beads (coconut shell beads I have had for about 20 years!) and then laced the segments together with the same thread ... then I added the fluffy red yarn around the top because it told me it wanted to be there ... LOL

why a sea urchin bowl? - actually it was something I had the idea for years ago but had never got around to attempting - and the theme for the exhibition was "The Living Reef?" and sometime just before entry forms were due in I remembered the sea urchin bowl idea and decided to make one.

and here is the veiw out of the window above where the bowl was on display - a rather interesting veiw of wintery tree branches ...

I also exhibited this:

it is called "Preserving the Reef" ... and it looks like stuff in a jar or water because it IS stuff in a jar of water - crochet seaweed/coral/etc ... with a couple of rocks sewn in the bottom to make it sink and some bean bag "beans" (styrofoam beads) that I coloured in with a permanent marker sewn on the ends of the seaweed to make it float ... I will try and take some better photos of it in the next few days (photos of stuff in a jar of water with stuff in the background don't always work out too well) ... I need to take the photos in the next few days because I think I ought to empty the water out soon - else it might all rot and/or go slimy/mouldy or something (but if I empty out the water and dry all the seaweed/etc out, then I can keep it all in the jar in case I ever want to add water and display it somewhere again ... lol)

The 3rd thing I entered was this fishy looking thing:



which I made, and blogged about, earlier in the year - I decided that because it looked fishy then it could BE fishy! ... so I called it "Something Fishy" and entered it!

I also made this scarf, necklace and bag as my donation for the raffle prizes:

the scarf is done in Tunisian double crochet, the necklace is crochet and beads and the bag is made by quilting some fabric and adding a bit of stitching etc.

I also put these earrings in the bazaar:

but nobody bought any ... lol

(oh well ... I made them years ago and had tucked them away and forgotten about them until I found them late last year ... and of course I made the cards to display them on at the last minute in a hurry so they were not that attractive looking ... not compared to some of the other amazing stuff people had made to sell ... )

I also had a few other things in the bazaar - crochet phone socks (which also didn't sell) and crochet scarves like the one I did for the raffle (sold a couple of those) and crochet beanies (think I sold one of them ... they were a bit too weird and the weather was getting too warm to sell beanies) and fabric/bead necklaces (made them years ago too ... and didn't sell any)

I also had 2 things in the fashion parade - one was a crochet shawl which I still don't have a photo of ... was a bit hard to get one of it in the fashion parade, even though it wasn't me wearing it - because I was busy wearing other things in the fashion parade (one of mine and 3 that other people had made) ... when I get around to taking a photo of it I will blog about that in it's own post ...

The other thing I made for the fashion parade, and wore in the parade, is also something I will blog about separately later - it was a crochet outfit (a long vest thingy and boots and a weird beanie) ... and a photo of me wearing it ended up in the Sunday newspaper!

er ... now that it is 4am I had better post this ... well - by "post" I actually mean I will stick the time I want blogger to post it on there and hit the "publish post" button and let blogger post it tomorrow night - LOL
(yes I am cheating - I probably should be asleep when this post gets posted ... I probably won't be ... but I probably won't be in here getting lost in cyberspace either - LOL ... and I would probably be doing the same thing even it I hadn't said I was doing "Blogtoberfest" - because I think it looks neater with a post on each day than it does with 2 posts on one day)