Lovely day

Today is a perfect day, not too warm, with a nice light breeze and fluffy white clouds. I gave all the plants some Seasol to celebrate. The only things really going crazy in the garden are the strawberries (little fruits already) and the gazanias (probably my favourite flower).


There are also a couple of baby blood oranges which I hope I will eventually be eating. The tree itself is still tiny.


I managed to get a nice shot of the kangaroo paws at work yesterday.


I spent most of yesterday evening upgrading my computer to Windows 7 in between bits of embroidery and reading. It went without a hitch and only took a few hours. So far so good: all my files are still there and everything works. I need to complete my entry in a journal round robin and do some more work on a swap this weekend so might be a bit busy to get on the computer very much to check it out.

Embroidery and flowers

I've been working on this for a while now and it's not getting any easier. The thread is made of rayon and it's really slippery and tricky to stitch with. But so beautiful and shiny!



Today I wanted to take a photo for rr of the kangaroo paws at work, but it was raining. But then I remembered taking photos and posting them on my blog quite a while ago. Here are some I took of my kalanchoe and pentunias last weekend:




And one of downtown Bayswater:

Garden, Rufus and tooth update

See? Not much different from the last garden pic I posted.

Pet-wise, all has returned to normal in the Sunnysidey household - Rufus just had his final check-up from the vet who gave him the all clear to remove the collar. Now he had better stop waking me up every day for a 4am feed. To be on the safe side I am going to give away all my indoor plants, just in case the claw problems have been caused by Rufus nibbling or scratching on any of them, as he is wont to do.

Today I saw the oral surgeon who will be doing my implant. The good news is that he can do the extraction and install the post at the same time. Even better news is that I don't have to have another impression taken for my temporary denture, since my dentist kept the last one that she took for my other implant. That is a load off my mind -- believe it or not, the impression casting was the thing I was dreading the most out of the whole procedure.

I have finally found a hay fever tablet that works and doesn't make me too drowsy, and now that I have a little more time to spare (through not having to pamper Rufus) I feel like getting back to my daily walking habit.

Oh, and my Windows 7 DVD is expected to be delivered to me at work tomorrow.

Life is good.

Little patchwork bags

I've been spending a large part of my crafting time the past week or so making these little patchwork drawstring bags, mostly to give away, but I might keep one for myself. They're really easy to make - by far the most effort is in cutting the squares.


I also made a few little felt Christmas decorations. Not for me, of course! I am quite bah humbug about stuff like that. But I thought one of my swap partners might like them.



It's been a bit of a funny week, with antibiotics, pain killers and allergy medication making me feel a bit vacant. The news that I have to have another implant dampened my spirits a bit, after all the pain, hassle and expense of the root canal a few months ago. Oh well, at least this one should be easier and faster than the last one.

News just in as I write this, is that one of the photos I took while I was in Queensland is being featured in an online tourist brochure. Check out the widget below. (I think some of the others I took are a lot better -- this one, of the view of Coolangatta Beach from my hotel balcony, is kind of mediocre).

My photo is here.

Being patient.....

...isn't my strong point. But the garden (apart from the beans) isn't coming along as quickly as I had hoped it would. I'm not sure if it's just me being impatient, or spring isn't quite with us yet so the plants are sleeping in until it gets here.

Maybe I need to plant some impatiens in my garden :-)

This is what it looks like three weeks from planting. The beans are the only seedlings visible from this distance.


If you get up a bit closer you can see the tomatoes coming up:
























And here is my best beanstalk. I pulled out the one whose leaves had gone missing and put in a new seed to replace him yesterday.


The strawberries in the two tubs are coming along well - no flowers yet though - as is the rocket under the kaffir lime tree.

Fat quarters and shiny floss

I stopped by Spotlight yesterday and found a few things that I never knew I needed until I got there. I also got some more felt, because you can never have too much (or is it enough?) felt.

Beanz Meanz Photoz

Curiously, the beans have arranged themselves in a row of shortest to tallest in height. The middle one - the stunted second subject of yesterday's blog - was the first to emerge and has slowed his growth to fit into the line. Hopefully he won't become a has-bean.

Amazing nature

The two leaves on this beanstalk weren't there this morning! This is not the one I photographed yesterday but another one which has overtaken the first one in size and vigour.


Yesterday's one is a little stunted, and I'm wondering if an insect might have nibbled on its leaves.

New shoots and a new computer

I got a new laptop today! But I still have to wait awhile for Windows 7.:-(

A couple of seeds have come up, and we had a little bit of thunder and a light shower of rain this afternoon so I'm expecting even more to pop up tomorrow.

Here is Baby Beanstalk:

Sowing and sewing

I finally got the rest of my seeds from Digger's Club and put them in this evening. So now the plot looks like this:

So I have four different types of tomatoes (Black Russian, Yellow Pear, Costoluto Genovese and Sweetie), rainbow chard (a.k.a. silverbeet), climbing beans, cos lettuce and basil. There is room for a bit more, the gap in the middle is for asparagus as soon as I can lay my hands on some crowns. The weather has not really warmed up much, aside from that freakish day last Saturday. I'm sitting here in trackies and a long sleeved fleece top which is usually unheard of for late October.

Here is another little pouch that I whipped up last night:

Reversible patchwork bags

I found a really nice tutorial for a reversible patchwork bag this week on Pink Penguin's blog, and couldn't wait to make one as my Friday night project. Here are some pics of the first one:





It turned out so well that I thought I'd whip up another one using some batiks that I've had for a while. I think it looks lovely in batiks, and would work well with stripes and polka dots too. I feel like making another one!

Poor boy

I should say poor boys, as Eddie is feeling a little left out while Rufus gets all the attention. Rufie has to go back to the vet tomorrow for x-rays on his feet. Two of his claw sheaths are infected again. Apart from that, he is healthy and content to be hand fed for a couple of weeks while he wears the Elizabethan collar. I think he secretly enjoys the extra love and smooching on demand.

Tonight I have a journal to work on for a round robin so I hope the boys won't be too demanding and keep sitting on it while I try to write and draw. I need to illustrate a cookie recipe, and write a bit about myself, which I always find kind of tricky to do in someone else's journal. Then I need to think about some swaps that I have signed up for. They are a little bit different from the ones I have done so far, involving stamp carving and making some micro-zines (which have to fit into a matchbox!). It will be nice to have some new challenges.

Garden update: the poo crisis of the other day was averted by digging the top layer in with a spade. Simple really. Ha. Now I am keeping the bed watered while I wait for the seeds to arrive. My strawberries are still alive. We have a few warm days forecast for the end of this week, but then it looks like temps are heading south again! Very strange. I still can't get asparagus crowns because we are about a month behind spring!

Ready to plant?

I only needed to put eight more bags of compost on top of the second layer of pea straw. I put half a bag of sheep manure on top of that, but it was very lumpy and I ended up ruining a pair of gardening gloves trying to break it down. Then there were puddles on the top when I watered it - I don't think that's supposed to happen. Help!

Instant vegie patch

Well, it's sort of instant. Here's the story so far.



During the week I collected my first lot of materials. One 1200x1200x300mm flat-pack treated pine kit which Mum discovered a few weeks ago at Buggerybunnings. A large bag of pea straw and four 36 litre bags of improved soil. Eddie and Rufus were sad to see their favourite cardboard box disappear but I needed it for the base.

The picture shows that I need a lot more to fill the raised bed, so I'm going back to City Farmers this afternoon to get more bags of compost, I figure I will need at least 12 more bags. I also have some hanging baskets to replenish.

More later. I haven't made anything for a while and I'm itching to get back to my sewing machine and hand embroidery. Once the gardening is finished for the day I hope to relax over my needle and thread.

Back in the saddle

After yesterday's embarrassment with the zipper, I needed to whip up something quick and easy last night to prove that I could still do it! I love these fabrics from Moda. I found the tutorial on the awesome Indie House blog.

It all went horribly wrong

The little bit of sewing I did before I went out into the garden has now been thrown out. Everything was going swimmingly: the reverse applique was in exactly the right place and the stripes were all lining up nicely, until for some reason I decided to cut the zipper off before I sewed the side seams. You can guess the rest.



Looking on the bright side, I got a lot more done in the garden since I was in such a huff. The bokashi contents are buried, and the rocket seeds I planted last Sunday are coming up. After a nice hot bath and a bowl of beef casserole I'm ready to sit down and sew again for the evening.

Feeling Lazy

I've used up a whole morning of good weather when I could have been in the garden. But I didn't feel like being in the garden, I felt like finishing off my little embroidery.



Perhaps this afternoon I will venture outside since there is a lot of work to be done and a load of bokashi to be buried. I'd better take a peg for my nose.

Finishing things

Tonight I am very tempted to start a new project that I'm really looking forward to, but I must resist. The two things I'm working on at the moment are a bit slow in coming together. I did go out after work yesterday, but when I got home I was on the couch with my embroidery for long enough to listen to Beethoven's Ninth. I worked on my abstract piece with simple running stitches and French knots.


I had a few spare minutes at lunchtime so I continued customising my evil corporate empire bag. I don't think I can work on this for more than a few minutes at a stretch: it's flipping awkward sewing the fabric to the bag!

Monday off

We had a public holiday (Silly Old Bag's Birthday) in Perth today so I took full advantage by staying inside sewing in my PJs all day. Bliss.

I started yet another little project and worked on a few others, but the only thing I finished was another little house. Ho-hum. I get a bit bored making the same things over again so I wanted something a little different to work on. So I got out the fabric paints and slapped them onto some calico, let it dry while I was eating dinner and have started doing some simple embroidery onto it.


























The pic is scanned so the colours are a bit out, so I'll take a proper photo when it's finished.

My little container of thread ends was starting to overflow, so I decided to get the embellisher out and needle-felt the thread ends to a piece of black felt. The result was a very interesting textured fabric which I will cut up and use later in something else, but it looks quite good as a piece on its own. A bit like a cross-section of Jackson Pollock's vacuum cleaner bag.



Sometimes I think keeping a container of thread ends that are too small to stitch with is doing nothing to discourage my habit of hoarding. But I just can't bear to throw these things away.

Here's a funny photo from last night. The boys wanted me to come to bed, but I was on the computer, so they both tried their usual trick of jumping up and sitting between me and the monitor. I took a photo and even when I was downloading it they refused to move, so I took another one of them with the first photo showing on the screen in the background.

Garden wildlife

Such a lovely day today. I decided to get a bit of weeding done, and I also planted my kaffir lime tree into the front garden and threw down a few rocket seeds. A few creatures of the garden wanted to have their pictures taken. This lazy bee was just wandering around, and I felt brave enough to take a close up.


I must have disturbed this wolf spider's burrow - at least I think it is a wolf spider. Wikipedia tells me they go around carrying their egg sacs. She looked about as comfortable with her egg sac as a heavily pregnant woman and was no doubt a bit cheesed off that I had made her homeless.


Of course there were the inevitable ants' nests everywhere in the garden and I did my best to avoid them. After I'd finished in the garden and was sitting back in front of the computer, I felt a little tickle in my shirt. After several half hearted attempts to brush it out, I finally took off my shirt and shook it: out fell a large bull ant. I was pretty lucky to get away from that one without a great deal of pain!

Little house

Last night I decided to sew the little house ornament, but I made the door a bit too small. It's still quite sweet though. I'll make another one for the swap, maybe tomorrow. It only took about an hour to make and was pretty simple. Thanks to orange flower for providing the lovely tutorial.

Tonight's project is to customise this very plain hessian bag with the "C" word on it!

Mushroom or chicken?

I spent all of last evening stitching my doodle. The red mushroom looks more like some sort of polka dotted chicken pecking for worms in the ground. But never mind. The apron is ready to send off. And I had a lovely restful evening.



I'm not sure what tonight's project will be. I've started playing around with some beautiful rayon thread that caught my eye in the embroidery shop the other day. But it's a real pain in the bum: won't lie flat, and the thread ends fray quickly and get tangled up during stitching. But it looks gorgeous so I will persevere. I really do need to work on my satin stitch. But I also have a swap coming up that involves sewing a little house, and I might start that instead.

A long time between posts......

...but I'm back to blog about *embroidery* - my latest passion.

The pic above is of a little project I completed the other day and submitted to the Sublime Stitching flickr pool. I was googling today for "free hand-embroidery patterns" (I am such a cheapskate) and was thrilled to see a link to the Sublime Stitching blog where Jenny Hart had added my picture with a nice comment. Really made my day!

Right now I've got a couple of small projects on the go. I'm participating in a round robin with four other women in which we are to send an embroidery item around the world. Each person will embroider something on their item, then send it on to the next person until it completes its journey and we all end up with a nice keepsake. I have chosen to do an apron, because I found a couple in Coles for $3 (cheapskate again) and I'd rather have an apron than a tea towel. I'm starting tonight so that it will be ready to send on the 1st October.

I doodled a little picture and transferred it via the laser printer method onto my apron, and have picked out a few bits of floss with which to whip it up. I'll keep you posted on my progress - perhaps I'll even have a pic of it finished tomorrow.....

An avalanche of books

Eddie and Rufus were very generous today and sent me off down to my favourite bookshop (Planet in Mt Lawley) to choose a few titles. Those gardening sessions I had planned for my holiday might have to be deferred for a while. (The book Rufus is reclining on is called "Zakka Sewing".)

A Heart - it's anatomical!

I'm preparing a matchbox swap in which my partner has quite an intriguing profile. There are many cool and interesting things on her list of likes, including "anatomical diagrams (especially of hearts)". So I finished the matchbox and then started looking around for some things to include with it, and one thing led to another with fabric paints and embroidery, and now I have this:



Not sure what it is going to be. Perhaps a pendant, but it's quite big so maybe a fridge magnet. I especially like how the arteries turned out -- I used blue variegated thread. I think with a bit of stuffing it will turn out awesome. Will work on it later tonight.



Here's the swap so far: Hedgehog matchbox, Hippo stamp, little H bead, Hand, Heart, Honeybee, Hope and Hare buttons. Guess what the swap is based on? I'll give you a hint: it is a letter of the alphabet!

























This is the stamp that I carved - she also happens to have hippos on her list of likes!