Bags, skirts and cameras...

Have had a few days with the extended family holidaying and celebrating my sister's birthday. I can safely show her present now. It is a bag made from what i think is known as mexican oilcloth. It is lined in coordinating polka dots, same oilcloth. Tricky sewing this stuff when it's lined with the plastic fabric as well. I use a teflon foot and leather needle, makes it much easier. I wouldn't mind getting onto this stuff direct so if anyone knows a good lead, yell out.

Made my niece another skirt, more Heather Bailey.

After my husband discovered you can buy a lot more than fabric direct from the US, I had a little look at cameras...and found out I could save about 40 % by dealing direct. I have just about worn mine out- I bought the latest model of the same thing...why spoil a beautiful friendship!! The 17th street photo shop in New York very kindly sent me this....

I was very impressed with their deal and service.
I got the extras pack as well, a tripod, charger and rechargeable batteries, card reader, 2 gig memory card and camera bag. I would recommend them to anyone. Have a great day, Tracey

card display unit and a skirt.

Home long enough from the beach to do some sewing.

A shop wants to sell my animal cards so I made them up a little display unit to show their selection.

Just used clear vinyl as the pockets. I have made a few of these for home and they have ended up in shops, must add it to my list again, would be handy for notes, cards, to do lists etc. I have no idea how I just underlined this, oh well....

Also been dressmaking. This little skirt is a design I am working on for my 18 month old niece, elastic in the back, none in the front. I even sacrificed some Heather Bailey, but with her being this cute who wouldn't!

Off to her mother's birthday tomorrow, just finished her present and will take a picture of it in good light in the morning, have a great day, Tracey

Love that beach!!

Apparently you friends in the US and Britain are experiencing extreme winter conditions and here in oz it's hot, darn hot. 40 today and yesterday and 43 tomorrow. Perfect weather for yesterday's effort...5 1/2 hours on the beach achieved this...

Half the beach people either came to dig or came to take photos.

Look at howthis second picture makes our work look a little like Australia.
The ocean eventually won the long battle, but it was great fun...haven't worked that hard with a shovel for years. The kids loved it, their uncle and Mum working along with them, you can't buy that fun at an electronics shop......
Of course there was only one downside, I spent so much time concentrating on the kids sunscreen that, while I had that long sleeve rash vest, hat and face sunscreen, i seem to have neglected the legs...I wont put you off your meals by posting a pic, but just get a mental picture of beetroot! My husband can't believe it as I am the sunscreen police!!

I have taken all the photos from my nan's photo board and scanned them all into the computer to make a photo book for each of Mum's brothers and sisters. I especially love this one of them rabitting and thought you may like to see it as well. My mum is the little girl, my aunt in my late Nana's arms and her brother is there helping.
Too hot to sew today, hopefully Wednesday looks good for some serious progress,
Stay warm..or cool!! Love Tracey

Therapy report

Nana, and Pa in his urn, has been appropriately sent off. The eulogy all went fine and the day went well...must have been the fabric therapy the night before.
After an hour and 10 minutes I had accomplished this much...

...very rough and completely unmeasured...breaking every "proper" rule actually!!

But it's amazing how a little bit of pressing and cutting to size at the finish can help...in the approximately 20 minutes I have had to spare since, we have got them to this stage,

The teddies one has really been made with the scrap bag dregs, i was determined to try and use everything. The greens are coming up as a cute table runner/centre.

Off to the beach today, hope your day is great, Tracey

What price therapy?

 
 
 


Heartfelt thanks to everyone who has left such lovely messages about my darling nana. The eulogy is all written and ready to give tomorrow, but beyond that I am ready to hide from my children under the bed...or run outside and scream!! Doesn't hormonal joy hit at just the perfect moment!!!
I hate to think what an hour's massage or therapy would cost me...and all too hard to organize a time and place anyway...but I have one clear hour before I need to start making tea and I am going for $2 scrap bag therapy!
I have tipped out the contents, I am not in the mood to trim or press anything at this point, or to search the stash for matching.... I am just going to sew for a solid hour and see what happens!! If I have to throw it out, it will still have been cheap fun!!
...and my husband thinks this hobby costs him money!!!

Categorically not the best New Year's day ever!

A quiet New Year with friends last night and i ended up hypothetically sleeping on the couch so Dh could try to get the broken ribs cosy in bed...I say hypothetically because I don't think I slept at all, between barking dogs and their attempt to get a rat in the garden, the daughter's cat thinking I was purely there to replace the cat toys and the sheer fact it was the couch..I woke up feeling ordinary.
My 94 year old grandma is in a home 120 kms from here and took a downward turn at Christmas so I took the fact dh was having the day off as a chance to see her without making the kids see her deteriorated. Dh took one look at me and said to go tomorrow, as I hadn't slept the night before either as I kept checking him all night to make sure there weren't any undetected internal or lung troubles. But i didn't like to put it off. Got there and her respirations were a lot stronger and she didn't seem absolutely terrible but i thought I didn't want her alone so i would stay until some of the others returned...and all of a sudden at about 2.45 pm she drew out her breaths and passed away with me holding her hand...not in the script when her daughters had spent the last 2 nights with her expecting this, then left to sleep because it didn't seem so likely! So an afternoon of ringing the family, talking to nurses and waiting by myself sitting with my late grandma for others to get there meant I only got back here at 7pm.
Now, it's bed...and heaven help the dog, cat, kid or husband that disturbs tonight's beauty sleep!
RIP Nana, after a life that completely revolved around your family.
Everyone else, Have a better day..and a good sleep! Tracey

Forecast...no change predicted here!

40 degrees here, with hot strong northerly winds...there's nothing cool about north winds in this area of the Southern hemisphere!
Another year about to depart...almost 2 pm, a few due here for New Year's...(perfect for the pool)..I have just got home from groceries, food to prepare,tidying to do and a wardrobe to sort because I decided today was the day to get that organized so the contents are all over my floor! I have realised that with the best of intentions the New Year will bring no change here! I am always full of good intentions and attempts to be more organizedand nothing will be different! But really, when life is good, why make too many changes!
We have had a little extra excitement here and perhaps a little extra to be thankful for as we leave the old year behind.. my darling husband was in too much of a hurry yesterdy between fixing a windmill in the heat and trying to cart loads to the silo and came off his quad bike. Of all the days he had his phone on the charger and I was returning niece and nephew to my sister, so it was very fortunate he managed to get himself up, get the bike back up and get home, of course he went back about his work and only went to emergency a few hours later when breathing got tricky!! turns out there are a fair few broken ribs, a dodgy arm and leg but he's dosed on painkillers and back working, harvest stops for no-one. They are closing silos early so he promises he will be home to put his feet up. I shudder when I think of the eventualities if he had been knocked out or the bike had fallen further and unbalanced onto him in the table drain as it threatened to, with noone home and noone with any idea where he was..in 38 degree temps!

Here is a harvesting photo from the other night for you.
My dh has become a bit of an online shopper lately as well, I started it with the fabric, but I have a feeling he got just slightly carried away! here's his purchase...


Gotta love those husbands!! Have agreat New Year and see you next year, love Tracey

Christmas round up

I am laughing at myself here..I read how not to put your weight back on over Christmas and it's apparently important to not keep eating like it's Christmas day, just to leave the excesses to the one day...well that may be fine if you hadn't made up 2 separate dip and cheese platters for the 2 different family Christmas day parties...and came home with about half of each of them! I don't know about youbut I cannot let beautiful cheese go to waste...or caviar dip for that matter...so am slowly working through the platter(s)...this is exactly what happened after my 40th as well, and it is amazing how quickly the 6 kgs I lost crept back on!!

So I am heading out after blogging to resume my mini triathlon training regime, a couple of kms up the road on the bike..a couple of kms run/walk and 25 laps of the pool...surely that will negate today's debauchery!


I photographed my first paid wedding job yesterday, i was to provide the alternate view. How cute is this little fellow..

Christmas day meant that I could finally open my SSCS parcel. Chookyblue Donna ran this swap again this year, Thanks Donna, it was great. This is the parcel from Dawn that tempted me for weeks..and it was well worth the wait!

Here are the contents...

Gorgeous dawn..I love the wallhanging..the fabric and the book is brilliant, you clever shopper! I think the jelly belly pooping reindeers (not shown) were nearly the hit of my kid's Christmas...seen nothing like that around here! They loved all of it and want me to send you money for more particular candy they liked!They only see lots of animal's real thing!

My parcel went to Norway, to Anne-marie, here is what she received..

a plastic coated moda bag and purse, Roman holiday table runner, an apron and some of my cards

My girl also received her Christmas swap from Fairy girl, Chookyblue Donna's girl.

They had to include a needle case. This is hers, it's beautiful. The other things were eaten and dispersed by the time I got the camera out!

My girl had jessie girl, daighter of Oh sew busy. She sent this parcel, we tried to make the needle case look like a bag (Left)...and added in a real bag to match.

That is the Christmas round-up and if I am to get off my ever-so-slightly-getting-rounder-as-we-speak-behind and exercise, i better go now!

Hope christmas was great! Tracey

Happy Christmas from Australia!

Oh boy! How did it get to 12.20 am Christmas morning already!! I have to get to bed! Lunch with one side of the family, tea with the other for Christmas, a busy day! Kids were in the Church Nativity tonight, DD was a narrator and did a great job, her brother was very good as chief wise man...obviously not method acting!!
I am looking forward to opening my SSCS and i actually think DH may surprise me as well...who says they don't change!!
I finished a santa sack for niece Daisy in the last week, probably getting filled as we speak...got Magnum kitten to model for you!
I also had to make smaller versions for all the pets!!
Thought you may like to see them....

The things we do for our kids...knowing our luck, next year i'll probably be appliquing over the top of the names!! Should be more optimistic.

The first 2 canola paddocks are done, the hot fortnight has affected them, 0.75

tonne to acre in one and 1 tonne to acre in other. Not fabulous but fine~we're definitely not cancelling Christmas! rained today so DH actually had a sleep on the couch, a beautiful early Christmas present!

Wishing everyone a fabulous Christmas, wherever you are around the world...we are hopefully changing our internet in the next few days..in the hope of reducing our costs from in the hundreds every month to more like $50..and with a lot more downloads~ I may get around to everyone!! Stay safe, Tracey

Linseed and coffee...break?

As the harvester arrives to do the canola, our linseed is just flowering. I love these blue flowers, unfortunately they don't last like the yellow ones.

If it rained they may last a week, but it's to be 39 tomorrow so they will only last a day. Our linseed has struggled to get to this unimpressive height, got too much heat when it was in it's early stages. Does look great when all the flowers are open, like a blue sea.

I made a few things for my girl's coffee loving teacher to add to her present. A wall hanging and pot holders.

The kids are at their grandparents tonight so I have wrapped, organized and generally sorted all the presents and they are safely under the tree with a week to go...now doing the Christmas cards..in the traditional way!! and just got a call from the kids wanting to come home and it's a 2 hour round trip...think I talked them round. I thought we were past this! We even bought a Nintendo wii for the grandies. Note to Grandies, don't keep the kids up past bedtime or it all goes to.......

Hopefully i have a day to sew tomorrow before picking them up...hopefully!!

Have a great day, Tracey