Sparkle

My Christmas this year was hosted by the next generation. It was peaceful and beautiful. J did a fantastic job of decorating to really make the occasion.

She has dreams of working in interior design--it seems to me she has what it takes with creative flair and an eye for detail. Thanks for having us J and A!

Congratulations

One thing I hadn't expected to see at the Quilt Show was this:

























A "Highly Commended" ribbon on a friend's quilt. Congratulations Jenny! I know how much work and love went into this quilt over many years. And the uncertainties involved at various stages, including the process of entering it into the show. How great to see that loving work acknowledged to some extent with an award. For me it's encouraging because I know that the effort went in entirely for the personal significance of the quilt. Entering it in the show was very much an afterthought. So this is a bonus.


Warm Fuzzy

I had no great expectations when I went out to check the mail yesterday afternoon. It was just one of those routine tasks as I was winding up for the day. There was only one envelope. It was a small one. The address was handwritten. I picked it up: thick and squishy. Excitement building! Inside was this: . . . and a handwritten letter from my friend T, aka Knitspingirl. She said she wanted to put a smile on my face. Well, you really did that my friend . . . and a warm glow in my heart. Thank you!

Acknowledgements: T tells me this was made by Julie from the Kyogle spinning group. That's all I know.

Comfort

These bags of small white pellets represent comfort:I'm still trying to complete the bean bag couch I started to make on the weekend. The lining bag is done. It just needs to be filled. Then there's the outer bag. I have the fabric, the zip and my pattern. A good hour in the studio should see it done. Putting it all together is a challenge. It's day's like this I really need an assistant. Hopefully I can recruit a friend to help me get the foam pellets where they need to be and not all over my house! Now my mind is listing off readers of my blog who live within recruiting distance of my house. You have been warned:)

Fortified

I've just had a call from my friend W. She's coming up after work to give me a hand with the painting. Thanks!!! With the promise of a helping hand and a strong cup of coffee I feel ready to get on with it. The painting is still white on white, so I've posted a shot of my one-cup coffee pot--all loaded with ground coffee and ready to give me a boost.

Light

Yesterday I finished undercoating the Studio. Patchy white on white isn't a great look, so here are some lovely flowers instead:My friend A brought these hydrangeas from her garden when she came to visit me and admire my progress yesterday. I love the delicate pink and green combo--a beautifully subtle take on the complementary colour scheme. The flowers were intended for my Studio, but it's not quite up to that stage yet. They're sitting on my big table in my living room giving me quiet encouragement.

Portrait of a Friend

If there's one thing I've learned over the years, it's that friends come in all shapes and sizes. Here's one I enjoyed yesterday:W had spent a couple of hours here on Saturday afternoon helping me get the protective stain onto my shed panels. I'd been at it since breakfast time, and was flagging when she got here. By the time she went home, we'd finished the first coat on all the panels. Then she offered to come for another couple of hours the next day!

When I woke yesterday morning I was sore and tired. All my muscles from my wrist to my shoulder were complaining about the unaccustomed effort the previous day. If I'd been on my own I probably would've groaned and tried to go back to sleep, but I had the promise of two more hours of W-time. I got up, made coffee and toast and tried to find some enthusiasm for another batch of painting. Just after 7.30 am my phone beeped--it was W saying she'd woken early and was on her way. Yes, this is 7.30 am on a Sunday morning! Together we managed the second coat on just over half the shed panels. As you can see from the pic, W is an experienced painter. This time she came armed with a tiny brush for cutting in the fiddly edges and a mat to sit on, as well as all her protective gear. After a few hours of enthusiastic work she raced off home to clean up, wake her teenage daughter and get on with her own commitments. I have to confess, at that point I did groan and try to go back to sleep. I curled up in the armchair for a couple of hours before I started to feel as though I wanted to do anything more.

Today I'm hoping to finish that second coat. Then I have a trench to dig--I need to get power from the back corner of my unit to the new shed. My electrician is semi-retired. I think he's been semi-retired for the ten years I've known him. He still has all his sparky skills, but his trench digging days are over.

Cedarcote

I guess this is the emblem of yesterday:A huge paintbrush and rubber gloves--I spent the day painting the raw cedar panels for my new shed. It was an all day job to get the first coat of stain on. 4.8 by 3.8 and 2.1 meters--you can do the sums if you like. It would have taken even longer than that if it wasn't for my friend W coming up to give me a hand for a couple of hours in the afternoon. After she left, Rob arrived to help me move the panels into the back yard. I didn't think I could lift one of those panels. It took both his strength and his encouragement for us to get them where they needed to be. Now I've just received at text from W, she's on her way up to help with the second coat. Augh! If it wasn't for her generous enthusiasm I think I'd just groan and try to go back to sleep. On the other hand it will be great to have so much done. But first, I'm going to brew myself another coffee. I need something more to propel me back out to the land of cedarcote, gloves and paintbrushes.

Bendigo with a Twist

This is the weekend of the Australian Sheep and Wool Show in Bendigo--usually a highlight of my year. This time I nearly didn't go. Somehow I managed to get myself all twisted up about it: I don't need any more fibre; it's a long way; I'm tired . . . I'd kept a couple of days free for the show, so there wasn't really a problem with conflicting commitments, though I do have a quilt working bee to run today. On Thursday evening I decided to see how I felt when I woke up. On Friday all I really wanted to do was sit in front of the heater and knit. I did that. Yesterday was similar, though by half way through the morning I'd had a creative burst and got a bit of my big table cleared. The phone rang just before 11 am: my friend M, just leaving home on her way to Bendigo, did I want her to pick me up. Yes, please!

We got to the showground just after 2 in the afternoon. Admittedly we'd had quite a successful visit to the Woollen Mills on our way. The Fashion Parade was over for the day. I decided not to try to see all the exhibits. I didn't have a shopping list. What about just focussing on fun and friendship? That was a good plan. I talked to people, saw some great fibre and bought one or two things that I don't really need.

Right at the end of the day I found my friend Charly, tucked away in a shed right at the end of the showground. To think that I nearly missed this:

If you're looking for Charly at the show: she's in the Flower Shed, right down the bottom of the showgrounds, past the back gate. Can I say, her fibres are even more spectacular than her green plush bunny costume. Note to self: when in doubt, try letting go and having fun.

Phew!!

Ah ha! I found the motivational key to my mending dilemma. The combination of public accountability and human interest did the trick. Here's the repair, done:Once I started, it was a case of tackling the problem step by step. First weave in the broken ends. Then thread the needle with the repair thread and join it into the work near the holes. I've copied the treble stitches by making a double strand of yarn and working a couple of half hitches over each one. Then I've woven in the repair thread. That's the technical detail. The human detail is that I picked up the phone and chatted with my friend D while I did the job. That gave me an instant reinforcement on why I was being so crazy as to try to fix such a fiddly thing!

Guest Appearance

My friend D is visiting for the weekend. The plan is to enjoy a quiet crafty weekend together.

D's main craft is embroidery, particularly silk ribbon embroidery. Just now she's exploring stumpwork. This 3-D embroidery uses incredibly fine thread. Here's one panel of her sampler: That's a single strand of embroidery thread you can see draped across her fingernail. Here's the sort of thing she does with it:

The petal is "painted" in on fine fabric with a single strand of thread. It's then cut out and applied to the main piece--Wow!

Team Effort

I've been overwhelmed by house mess lately. It seems as though the everyday tasks that you'd expect to be straightforward are huge. Feeling paralysed and doing nothing just results in more mess--believe me, I've tried it! The other extreme of doing a blitz to get things under control takes more energy and determination than I can find right now. There has to be another way. So I've been trying to isolate small projects amongst the general chaos. I'm not even really prioritising, just pretty much picking a random task and getting it done. One such task is clean bedding for my dogs. As much as I love them, I cringe at the realisation that my whole house smells like an old kennel.

Last week I bought a few metres of calico and made up these bean bag cushions. I bought a bag of "beans" to fill them. I must be getting wise in my old age, because instead of attempting to fill the cushions by myself, I rang a friend. As it turns out one of my weaving buddies was here as well when V came over yesterday afternoon, so the three of us tackled the cushion filling task. With three pairs of hands on the job, we got these bags filled with only one or two stray bits of styrofoam reaching the floor--yay team!! Now to close off the gaps and make pretty covers. My plan is to make two sets of covers so I can easily wash and change them frequently. I'll see how I go with that.

Unfortunately the afternoon didn't end so happily, when my friend R went to go home, she found her car had been smashed--so badly that she couldn't drive it home. There was no note and none of my neighbours had seen or heard anything. So she spent several hours calling her insurance company, a panel beater and a tow truck before I drove her home. So this morning I woke to the satisfaction of the bean bag cushions and the disappointment of some-one's carelessness and lack of consideration. I'll try to hang on to the former and let go of the other . . .

A Friend is Someone Who . . .

The phone rang unexpectedly yesterday morning. It was L from the Neighbourhood House. She was ringing because someone had brought a bunch of Irises from their garden to cheer up the House kitchen. The purple ones were dripping colour--literally--all over the kitchen floor. Did I want to try dyeing with them? And the others were just irresistably gorgeous. Would I like to come down with my camera to capture their beauty?

Yes, and Yes!

Here one pic of the intact irises:
The purple ones are in my dye pot on the stove as we speak. From my hurried research, I'm doubtful of getting a good colour from them, but what the heck, it's worth a try.

Friends

As I type this my friends D, A, A & E are on a plane from Brisbane coming to visit me in Melbourne. Tomorrow J & A will join them. I usually keep a quiet life and rarely have more than one or two people at my place at the same time, so what's going to happen here with six visitors? Well I've been asking myself that question and I'm glad to say it all comes down to friends. My friends W & R are currently holidaying in Cambodia--and they've generously made their house available for the Crowd. Then my friends M & L came to my rescue with beds and bedding. Here's L arriving yesterday afternoon with just one of several armloads: Another friend is helping with the airport run this morning--there's no way all those people plus luggage are going to fit in one car. And at the end of the day, the reason these people are on a plane today is because we're friends, so it's going to be worth it. I won't promise not to get anxious at times, and crave my personal space, but I expect they'll understand that. They've known me long enough. And with two houses and two cars at our disposal it should be feasible and we'll still be friends at the end of a couple of weeks.

Oh and yes, I do have spinning and weaving to do and I promise to post a shot of the double-faced twill sometime soon. But my textile reflection for the day is that all that linen and bedding and stuff that filled a couple of cars yesterday--yep, it's textiles at their everday basic level.

The Kindness of Friends

I've called on my friends a lot in the past couple of weeks. And they've been there: giving me a place to stay, a listening ear and muscle power--physical and emotional--to deal with the chaos at my house. I guess the biggest thing is having people who get where I am and what's important to me.

L from the Neighbourhood House is one of those friends. And as a token of getting it, she gave me this cup this week--just to warm my day:)

Coffee cup in the background, knitting in the foreground. The coffee is yesterday's mid-morning sweet decaff with milk. The knitting is the bamboo-wool neckroll with a twist which I've mentioned a few times lately. And the table has just a big enough clear patch on it that I could take the photo. In fact I pushed various piles of stuff out of the way.

Today I need to find homes for a bit more of my stuff. Also do some weaving and spinning so I don't get totally left behind in my courses. I've cancelled my weekend commitments, so I'll have a few days to get settled and re-oriented. I really need that.