evidence

today i have:

1. woken up at 10 to 8
2. got the kids to school on time despite #1
3. came home and had home-made quince jelly on a crumpet (which i shared with w) and a strong coffee. the jelly is the last jar of last year's batch which i found at the back of the cupboard. the first of this year's jelly is sitting on the kitchen window sill, glowing like church windows.
   i bought more quinces this morning (see #4)
4. went to the wonderful psarakos market in thornbury and bought quinces, mandarins, grapes, potatoes, a huge head of garlic, a bag of pink lady apples, cabbage, carrots and oranges (all for a bargamonious $24!) . then on the way out we bought octopus tentacles (yum) and sardine fillets - both for dinner tonight
5. took poor w to the doctor to confirm that he still has middle ear - 2 lots of antibiotics and it hasn't budged. one more lot of stronger drugs and if that doesn't shift it, we're off to a paediatric ent.
6. home for lunch and eventually w conceded defeat and is still currently sleeping.
7. mixed up some chelated iron for the cumquat, lemon and seveille orange trees which have been looking a bit seedy and yellow about the gills
8. put washing at various stages of cleanliness and dryness in the washing machine, on the washing line and in the drier
9. pulled some of the more irritating weeds that have been taunting me in the front garden. this poor garden has been sadly neglected since i hurt my back - i dare not pull more than a few weeds and digging and planting are distant memories

later i will upload some wip photos of the amazing carunculated w earflap hat

ciao for now

and another thing...

ok i lost my nerve and published the previous post for fear of blogger eating it...
here are some more

here are the assembled stash components for the w hat mentioned in previous post



these are my most worn and commented on knitted garments - if you can call wrist warmers a garment?








can you guess what this is?


it's a lap rug - violent pink fur on one side, orange polar fleece on the other. cool huh?



and this is an unrepresentative photo of the colour of my long term knit. it's wendy bernard's not so shrunken marilyn cardi. a lovely well written straight forward pattern but i am in the doldrums of the soooooo long top down bit - i know once i get to divide for the arms things will speed up but it takes me 10 minutes to do one row at the moment which i always find discouraging. the yarn is jo shop silk road dk tweed in cedar - a much deeper more complex green than you would judge from this photo. and you can't really see my so cute beaded stitch holders from woolly butt in rosanna

diversions

so called because they divert my attention from finishing ufos!

this is the first (unfinished) block for my 'dear me' quilt, inspired by the dear jane quilt - it will be a mix of embroidered, appliqued and pieced 6 inch blocks. this is an armadillo traced from a critter pattern works applique pattern. holbein stitched in a variegated green dmc cotton. i'm also planning an embroidered hare and crow and blocks made from fabric from family clothes (discarded or outgrown ones i hasten to add)










these are my first addi turbos (she purred) and i am totally smitten with them. they are light and smooth and don't catch and are just luvley


today's diversion - an earflap hat for w. my 6 month old nephew was wearing the most gorgeous multicoloured earflap hat yesterday at my mother's birthday knees up. so i went hunting for a similar pattern and found this one at magknits. a quick stash raid and we're up to this



and (sigh) these are my jaywalker socks - i can't say i'm that keen on this pattern - it's a 2 row relatively easy, straight forward lace pattern but i think any kind of lace needs at least some concentration and i don't have a lot of that at the moment - hence the lack of progress. and i'm not confident about how i will deal with the amelia raitte's picot edging - to be continued...

















i ran up this little number last weekend - inspired by craftapalooza's covered tape measures. made of the same wool felt that i made the pincushion from and dead easy :)

catching up

well it's been a few weeks since my last post but i've been waiting for some sun to take photos of the New Quilt - and today after many dreary grey days the blessed Sun returned. Here she is in the fig tree



my favourite quilt - both in the creation and the final product. She was based on Kaffe Fassett's columns quilt in his Museum Quilt book - blissfully easy with no points to match and the wide stripes really make the most of the beautiful Picadilly fabrics. I've decided that Free Spirit are my favourite fabric makers - soft, smooth, drapey and fabulous rich colours. I pieced the back with fabrics from my stash that went with the front - again an easy process using big pieces.




And thanks to Yarnstorm I handquilted it - but for her example I would never have contemplated handquilting a 88 by 68 inch quilt but it only took me a week of evenings in front of the tv to stitch in the ditch (luckily there weren't too many ditches!) and around the outside. I would also highly recommend bagging the quilt instead of doing the usual sandwich and binding - this is a quilt to be used not judged so I'm happy for it to have some quirks.




Here is my attempt at a felt pincushion - like the New Quilt a little quirky - but I'm happy with it. Made from the most luscious wool felt from the Steiner shop in Kew and stuffed with even more luscious wool roving.



Thanks to Soozs for the inspiration. Also to littlebirds whose intriguing post about her aversion to polyfill and preference for wool prompted me to try it. I must say that the wool feels much nicer and has a depth and warmth that you certainly don't get with polyfill. I'm just not sure how practical wool would be for toys or items that need frequent or comprehensive washing.

Here is some wonderful eye candy from Buttonmania in the Nicholas Building (corner of Flinders Lane and Swanston Street



- the tiny pink roses and larger red roses are glass buttons (although I don't think they're really old) The stripey ribbon is from Clegs in Elizabeth Street. Nothing like haberdashery to cheer you up after a stressful meeting.