sunday afternoon

virtue hath gone forth this day chez seahorse.

i have:

• cleaned the floors, first with the Reluctant Vacuum Cleaner then with the Puddle Mop
• cleaned out one of the big drawers of the wardrobe and filled 2 garbage bags of stuff for the op shop (incluidng my maternity clothes, last worn 4 years ago)
• sorted multitudes of clean laundry and dispersed them to the correct bedrooms
• found the tax documents (eek)
• completed another dig on the ktichen table which is now completely clear except for a full fruit bowl
• set chicken carcasses, water, carrot, onion, pepper corns, bay leaves and water to shudder into chicken stock
• made fish curry for tomrrow night's dinner
• made pear ginger cake (currenlty in the oven and scenting the whole house)

and it's only 4 o' clock - who knows what wonders may be perfomed before the day is out?

what to do, what to do?

last weekend i ran up a piece made up of chunks of kimono fabric (bought as a scrap bag from kimono house in the fabulous nicholas building in swanston street) - i fused them to a length of indigo cotton (bought from tombo in westgarth - one of my favouritest shops) and then fused that to some crimson japanese cotton. machined over and around all the edges and here it is.
but it lacks something - it just hangs there - quite colourful and balanced but lacking in oomph.

so, any ideas? i have thought of foiling, stamping with discharge paste or doing some meandering stiching in an abstract tree of life kind of way but my imagination is as slack-jawed as the quilt itself and i don't have enough clarity or purpose to actually do anything.

suggestions or encouragement most welcome

om....

right now there is a high level of om chez seahorse - tonight is the first extended twilight of daylight saving; i have done an hour of yoga (for the first time in at least 5 years) the western sky is still washed with pink gold, a bright waxing gibbous moon hangs in the eastern sky, the air is warm with jasmine and i am barefoot and wearing a sleeveless shirt.

the air is lit with stray bird songs, the odd chook squawk and the sound of billthedog crunching his dinner

i am about to have a poached egg on wholewheat toast for my dinner - the egg is freshly laid courtesy of the cwa and retrieved from the compost bin which is the preferred location for egg laying if you are a discerning chook. i should add that it is the secondary compost bin and contains only old straw from the chook house: since it has became the nesting box du jour it is inactive as a compost bin. the "live " compost bin is elsewhere and there is no way i would eat anything from it (relax, mum)

after doing a modicum of housework this morning, i hied myself to carlton for a hair cut and colour with the wonderful jay at chainsaw massacre (websiteless but at 190 elgin street carlton), went to readings and bought the 'cannot buy my soul' cd of kev carmody songs (it's playing as i write and it's wonderful), looked at jewellery at cellini in faraday street, bought some sushi for a late lunch and came home newly haloed with some fine gold highlights.

it's now well into the dim - the moon is shining like a startling pearl, the sunset is mauvy-pink and everything is suddenly focused in the last of the light.

tonight is some sewing, puddling around and watching the angels on sbs at 10 o'clock. (will add some photos from last summer to give you a flavour of the evening)

subterranean housework blues

a small grrr as first item on the weekend agenda....

now if you read textileseahorse even semiregularly you would know that i do not count housework as a hobby or even a high priority. but in the interests of keeping child protection and cholera at bay i do clean the house (in the loosest definition of that word) once a week - floors, kitchen and bathroom get an oily rag wiped over available surfaces and the floors are even swabbed.

BUT i feel hampered in even keeping a modest level of cleanliness going when my so called vacuum cleaner refuses to step up to the mark. i don't know if you could even call it a dilettante vacuum cleaner so low is its interest in removing dust and assorted cr*p from the floors.

now it's not a state of the art vacuum but it was sold to me AS a vacuum cleaner and it cost more than a tank of petrol so i think it's reasonable to expect some grudging sucking at ground level (which sounds like the perfect lead in to an actress/bishop joke but i will resist)

i often invoke hercules as my patron saint of cleaning but i bet he got on much better with his tools than i get on with mine. this vacuum has a Bad Attitude and the mop (the one i bought under the influence of aliens back in february) is good at scrubbing (tick) but bad at not leaving pools of water on the floor (frown).

so with 3 kids, 3 cats, 1 billthedog and 2 chooks* is it any wonder that chez seahorse could be known as chez filth-hound?

*the chooks aspire to live inside within comfortable distance of the kettle and tea caddy but are confined to cwa headquarters (how many people still have tea caddies? i see a post of the virtues of loose tea and the teapot in my future)

!!! just before i posted this i did the usual spellchecking as i type in ye olde englishe which is picturesque but mystifying for Dear Reader. and lo the message appeared at the top of the post - 'done spellchecking' - minus the last g that's the perfect retirement home name for the civil servant..... although 'dundraftin' also has its appeal and i have often said my twilight years could be spent in a home called 'dun kvetchin'

off to clean my dusty cups (and a final aside it may be the north wind that bloweth outside or the spark of spring in my blood but in retrospect this post is full of potential bishop and actress opportunities)

bogong moths stage 1

here is the background for my bogong moths quilt. it serendipitously began with a piece of eucalyptus dyed silk that had been folded and held with a bulldog clip before immersion and when unfolded looked like a row of bogong moths....

the background is composed of many layers - black cotton, batiked cotton and paper that was free motion quilted in zig zag rows then painted with walnut ink, sepia, fabric paint, xpandapaint, rubbed with shiva sticks, touched with copper gutta and copper embossing powder. then lightly toasted with the heat gun.

final assembly should be this weekend so more photos then

and i'm feeling better although still a bit like a failed sword swallower

sick as a frog

i have been sick on and off for the best part of 4 weeks now with various forms of the current bug - mainly sore throat, cough and no voice but this latest iteration is the nastiest. i have had a sword swallower's sore throat and earache since last wednesday, antibiotics since friday and it's not getting better :( so i'm feeling very sorry for myself.

apart from anything else it's boring.

and not good for creativity. so there are no photos of anything new. but some of where i would rather be....

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off to feed the chooks...