The Old Red, White and Blue

If you have been taking any notice whatsoever of my little progress bars on the side, you will have seen that one of the quilts has recently seen some action!

For the last couple of days of my in-laws stay, I've been making new curtains for Charlie's room.
Yes, we live in a rental.
Yes, it may be a waste of money to make new curtains you may never use again.
But the old ones were;
a) the shittiest faded salmon pink color you can imagine
b) come summer they may as well be open as are virtually see thorough. I need something better to con him that it's night time!
c) they were on rods and the gap had been sewn too narrow and they wouldn't slide. Tiebacks do my head in.
d) until we leave these isles and return to The Homeland, I refuse to live with any more "other people's crap" than I have to. I have been doing this for 11 long years of rental properties in 8 countries. The pink Austrian blinds in the lounge are bad enough!

Anyhoo...I have had this project on the back burner for a while and thought it the perfect time to complete one of the infamous WIP's that I have vowed to wipe out by 2012.

I'd like to say I'll get it done tomorrow but I'm dreaming.

Biggie Smalls has a 7th birthday on Friday and I have to knock out 2 dozen iced and sprinkled cupcakes (school), and ice cream party cake and party food (family, little friends party, Friday Night), Beyblade cake (Sunday, Laserstrike party) .

Plus go to the gym and Costco tomorrow.
They all have to be home made according to his lordship, as "your things taste perfect, Mum"
How can I argue with such wanton bias?!

The joys of Grandparents.

My in-laws are staying with us at the moment. They've settled into the swing of our lives, like they always do, which makes them such a joy to have here.

The kids were uber-excited to be picked up from school and kinder. So lovely to see the beaming little faces when they saw their beloved Grandma and Grandad! They've joined in the school drop off and pick ups and all the ensuing activities in between, plus all the at home ones - stories, doing the reader, bath etc. It's sooooo nice to have an extra couple of pairs of hands around the place at dinner time, when there are dishes in the sink and washing to fold. And it's really nice to have someone to talk to when the kids aren't about too, for a change!

I feel very lucky to get on with my in-laws, I know many (or is it most?) people don't. I wonder why that is. Who knows? I'm off to sit by the fire (that I didn't have to light) and chat!!
X

I love this skirt...

on the beautiful Emma Watson (aka Hermione, my future daughter-in-law according to Charlie)

I reckon, with a pile of Anna Maria Horner fabrics, I could probably knock off similar one fairly easily. It will undoubtedly be shorter and (a lot) wider than that one. I may not look like Emma Watson when I put it on, in fact, I am fairly certain of it, but I am still inclined to try.

But..
a) will I start off with a hiss and a roar and then lose interest?
b) I have a pile of unfinished projects I have vowed to finish by the end of the year (see the progress thingummys)
c) I have too much fabric and shouldn't really buy any more...

I shall hereby muse about it today and make my decision tomorrow.

Wool is the new Fabric!

Just to mix things up a bit, I decided to break out of my knitting comfort zone (basically knit and purl, preferably only scarves), and start a couple of classes at The Open Drawer.

Within this beautiful hedgehog case made for me by Tori  (and so much more perfectly finished than I could ever hope to achieve) are.....

....some of my Freeform Knitting / Crochet creations. You use different textured fibres and wool to create small pieces that will be added to each other and embellished with things I am yet to learn how to do, like bullions and spirals and balls.

Don't know about the yellow... might have to be in the next project.

 This is the Flickr website of the mistress of Freeform, Prudence Mapstone to get the gist of what I'm doing. Mine will be a scarf as I think a wall hanging may be slightly to ambitious and I can't see myself toting one of the bags, to be honest!

I'm also rocking some old school Granny Squares at a different course at the same venue

I am not much good at these but I like the colourway I chose based on Red Poppies. 'Twill be a struggle to finish a blanket, methinks, at the rate I crochet the little buggers!

Purple is as purple does.

I have two lovely friends. We train together (some much harder than others), we have coffee often, lunch and dinner sometimes too.

We shopped together the other night. Elwood in Glenferrie rd was closing. We've all bought the same purple sweater. We also have matching pink sweaters from Country Rd.

It's all getting very Terrible triplets! And the most bizarre thing is we don't care if we match, even going so far as to send messages requesting the wearing of said sweaters on the same day!

So here's to friends who believe that the comfort of a nice, soft, comfortable piece of clothing is a gift to be shared, not cloistered within the confines of individuality!

To Russia, with love...

 One down, three to go.

Liberty love.

I hate hemming trousers or jeans. Pain in the butt. So now I just use bias binding on mine if I can. I bought this gorgeous Liberty binding at Patchwork on Central Park not long ago and have used it on my new jeans (Lee, $27 from Costco, bar-gain!)

Now I'm sewing Russian fur hats for the Trivia night on Saturday. Our theme is Moscow. There will be lots of vodka consumed, methinks!