Yesterday 14:28

I love a good thunderstorm and this one didn't disappoint. The clouds were swirling like something brewing in a witch's cauldron.

Within 5 minutes of taking this photo we were plunged into semi-darkness as the front raced in and the power went out.

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Clockwise from left:

• Dress toile in white calico
• Cut fashion fabric
• Report writing aids
• Kindergarten forms
• Rotary cutter with skip blade

This week my creative space is a jumble of competing interests. On one side there is a period costume; on the other, kindergarten responsibilities.

I am finally making progress with the period costume. Earlier this week I finished a second toile of the Folkwear Empire Gown and to my great surprise it fit the wearer. In hindsight my incredulous look probably did not fill her with a great deal of confidence in my abilities as a dressmaker. Note to self: poker face important when doing dress fittings.

I have finally been able to cut out the fashion fabric and will begin sewing the dress as soon as possible. But in a surprise twist, I have discovered that the wearer is now on holiday until about 12 hours before the gown is needed. Hear that sound in the distance? That's my heart sinking as I realise there is no chance for a final fitting. Now I really do have cross all my fingers and toes that everything turns out OK.

In the meantime, I am busily finishing all my kindergarten treasurorial responsibilities for the year. There are the books to be finalised; a report to be written for the AGM; fees to be chased for next year and a second-hand uniform sale to be organised.

And who says paperwork can't be creative? I had lots of fun making up the notice for the uniform sale - my skip-bladed rotary cutter was perfect for creating perforations for a tear off form.

Yep ... sad, but true. At least I am not getting creative with the accounting.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

Mutants

The day I shuffle off the mortal coil, I may be remembered for a number of things, but my green thumb will not be one of them.

You see, I am a known plant killer; coming second only to Isopropylamine Salt of Glyphosate (my rival, Roundup).

But please don't get me wrong. I am not a malicious person: I love plants.

For example, I dote on the beautiful hydrangea bushes dotted around our garden. They were established plants when we moved in and I have tried very hard not to cut their lives short. I have learnt how to prune and nourish them in winter and protect them in our harsh summers.

Every now and then I try and do a little reading to learn more.



This week, I discovered that hydrangeas need aluminum in the soil to produce blue pigment. But importantly, in order to take up the aluminium, they also need the soil to be acidic.

If the soil is too alkaline or there is not enough aluminium then the flowers will be pink.



Which is puzzling. Because apparently one of our plants is doing both.



One day my epitaph will read:
Here lies Hoppo Bumpo.
Even when she got things right,
they were still a little bit wrong.

Stand-back-and-throw: flamingo sorbet

About two months ago, 4-year old Argy told me how he hankered after his favourite fruit. Which one? I asked. Flamingo said he said earnestly.

Really? That's lucky, I thought. For a moment there I thought he was after mangoes and they were pricey at about $6 each. Flamingos, on the other hand, are in season year round.

Unfortunately I had little luck finding exotic wading birds, so we waited. Finally this week I made a move. Mangoes are in season and are awfully cheap - I bought them by the armful.

Mango sorbet


Take 5 or 6 medium-sized mangoes ...



.... and remove all the flesh.



Throw the lot in the blender and puree until nice and smooth.



Make a sugar syrup with about 1/4 cup sugar and 1.5 cups water. Warm gently in a saucepan over low heat until the sugar dissolves.




Throw in about 1.5 tablespoons gelatin and stir, stir, stir until it is completely dissolved.



Add the sugar syrup to the mango puree. Give it a good stir. Throw it in the fridge to cool down.



Place in a container and start to freeze it. After about two hours remove it from the freezer and give the mixture a good scrape and stir. Freeze again. Repeat the scraping process once or twice more and then leave the sorbet to freeze properly.

(Or use the lazy person's solution - an ice cream maker - as I have here)



Serve your sorbet. For the flamingo variation, consume whilst standing on one leg.

Eye spy ... joy

I am playing along with Bug and Pop's lovely "Eye Spy" each Sunday. This week's theme is from the gorgeous Aussie Waffler. She has asked us to spy a bit of joy.

This is something that brings joy to Argy and Bargy on sunny days. Our loungeroom shimmers with "rainbows" cast from crystals I have hanging in the window. The boys love to chase the dancing colours about as the sun changes position through out the day. They never tire of their rainbows.

Poor Mr HB always looks uncomfortable about the whole rainbow thing. Being the boffin he is, he sometimes attempts to correct the boys. Blah blah ... refractive index ... blah blah ... water versus crystals ... blah blah ... Snell's Law ... blah blah ... not a true rainbow.

Rainbow or not, I have to say its hard not to smile when I see the myriad of beautiful, intense colours. And just quietly the thought of explain physics to a 3 and 4 year old also makes me smile.

Thank you to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy and to Tara for the theme. To discover other adventures, head over here.

Once smitten, twice shy

Our warm spring has been bringing early visitors to the garden.

There have been spiders' webs everywhere: criss-crossing the clothesline; spanning potted plants; tightly binding the strawberry and lime blooms; and trailing in floaty threads seemingly from nowhere.

In the past few days I have had my camera out recording the spiders' handiwork. The macro setting on my little camera has allowed me to point-and-click up close. Really close.

There have been precise and orderly webs; others, constructed chaotically. Some have been full of tiny ensnared insects; others filled with puffy dandelion seeds.

My last photographic venture took me to a large web spanning between two plant pots. And there ensconced firmly in the middle, was the owner. She looked quite big. I wondered whether she was an orb weaver - a wonderful spider that dismantles its old web at the end of the day and spins a new one each evening. My parents once had one in their garden and it was fascinating.

As I positioned my camera to capture her, I noticed her lovely long legs. I moved in a little closer and noticed her shiny black body. Then as the flash went off, my blood ran cold. The bright red stripe on her back was illuminated mometarily.

Ahem ... no, not an orb weaver.

As the old song says never smile at a crocodile ... or ask a redback spider to say cheese.

All garden spiders have since been served with notices to vacate.

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Clockwise from left:

• Pattern pieces (graded once; altered once)
• Original pattern (read: nemesis)
• Toile of empire dress (second attempt)

After a last minute reprieve in August, I am returning to work on a period costume. Its for another lady: she needed an empire gown for a Regency ball being held in September. Thankfully the ball was postponed. The fittings were going a little pear-shaped close to time, so it was going to be a prettty close call.

Anyway the news of the postponement was such a relief, that I quickly packed away the whole project. And ignored it.

But time marches on; stopping for no-one. Especially procrastinators.

This week I am trying to get back on track and am sewing another toile. The pattern isn't terribly hard, but the bodice - which is made up of 10 pieces - has needed a rather complicated alteration. An alteration which has taken me way out of my depth.

I have all my fingers and toes crossed that the next fitting will go smoothly. I don't know what I will do, if it doesn't!

To be honest, I may very well have a case of craft-gone-bad on my hands. I sense that I will never love this dress, even if it turns out well. If it weren't for the fact that I am sewing it for someone else (and its to be worn on 12 December) it would quite possibly be IN. THE. BIN.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

The compendium of fabric-buying justifications (Chapter 3)

Statement: Fabric? What fabric?

Situation: Passing off fabric as hardware to the Man of The House (MOTH).

Context: Chalkboard cloth.

Success rate: Clearly a high risk, but potentially high return strategy. Hinges on whether the MOTH subscribes to the if-it-looks-like-a-duck-and-sounds-like-a-duck philosophy.

Regarding the example above, I have only one thing to say: quack, quack.


You might also like my previous excuses:


The compendium - Chapter 2

Eye spy ... an adventure

I am playing along with Bug and Pop's lovely "Eye Spy" each Sunday. This week's theme is from the delightful Weezie's Woolies. Louise has asked us to show off an adventure that we have had.

Here are some photos from some snowy adventures in Canada a few years back.

The one above shows me tubing. If you are unfamiliar with this fast-paced thrill, it involves parking yourself in an inner tube and sliding down a hill. You can see here that despite using the tube from the tyre of a rather enormous piece of earth moving equipment, my bottom got stuck.

In the next photo, you see me trying out snow-shoeing. Approximately 60 seconds after this photograph was taken, I was upside down in a metre of snow.



Here I am perfecting my ice skating technique ... that is, staying upright. (Don't laugh ... Torvill and Dean probably started out with witches' hats too.)



In this snap I am dismounting the chair lift at the top of a ski run. Approximately 60 seconds after this photograph was taken, I was upside down in a metre of snow.



And finally here I am sliding gracefully along a cross country ski trail. On my bottom. Lucky for me, the snow wasn't a metre deep.



Thank you to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy and to Louise for the theme. To discover other adventures, head over here.

Tall poppy syndrome

The pansies were a happy bunch.



Until they noticed the high rise development.



Oh, how it towered above them.



Naturally, the pansies grew resentful.



So they hatched a plan ...

My creative space

I am joining in with Thursday's My Creative Space at Kootoyoo.

Clockwise from right:

• Quilt panel
• Button-hole foot
• Thread
• Christmas lights
• Batting
• Quilting cotton
• Polka dot print

This quilt panel is destined to be a Christmas wall hanging.

The print is a large Christmas tree, decorated with teddies, cats, dolls and what-not. The plan is to make a quilt and add 30 machined buttonholes across the tree. The lights can then be fed through the button-holes, to "decorate" the tree (an idea borrowed from an example at our local Spotlight store).

The kids are excited about the wall hanging. They helped choose the red backing and the polka dot binding. I drew the line when they tried to select the batting ... but then again they know about as much as I do about quilting (zero).

Mr HB has been watching proceedings from afar. He seems oblivious to the fact that there could be significant furniture moves needed to create a Christmas feature wall.

But as I make no secret of how slow my craft is, the furniture is probably the least of the worries. I am either starting this project quite early or very, very late. Mr HB might be safe until Christmas 2010.

Thank you very much Kirsty for hosting My Creative Space. Its great fun seeing what everyone is doing. To see who else is showing their creative space (or to join in), head over here.

Charming

Teddies and friends (circa 1960) rediscovered this afternoon at mum and dad's place.



The laminate board cover and thick pages of the Constance Wickham book have a familiar smell.



And I still like the look of the jam tarts.

I'm gonna knock on your door, ring on your bell ...

A little while back - in moment of unprecedented common sense - the Australian parliament passed the Do Not Call Act. This freeing piece of legislation, allows you to register that you do not want cold calls made to your home.

I duly entered my telephone number into the government database and for a while there, children's nap times were peaceful, dinner preparations were uninterrupted and I no longer needed to explain for the umpteenth time why I thought the free holiday/computer/car I was being offered was a complete scam.

But as time has progressed, telemarketers have wised up. And are striking back.

They have instead trained an army of late teens. They cruise the streets with clipboards, shonky laminated and lanyarded I.D. cards and floppy fringes that make it hard to tell if they have eyes. They frequently travel in pairs. They call at nap times and ring the door bell like there is an emergency. They press their noses to the screen door at dinner time. Sometimes they rattle the door handle.

In the past weeks I have been variously instructed to: go find my last two gas bills; recall off-the-top-of-my-head my current electricity tariff; sign up for karate classes; and pre-pay $200 worth of car services. My polite decline in each case was met with persistence, then complete condescension. Sometimes I am asked if they can come back and speak to my husband instead. What the .... ?!

Then there was the case of young man bearing a shopping jeep of energy-efficient light globes, who told me that the law said he must come into my house to switch over all my incandescent bulbs. Yeah, sure, right. Knock yourself out .... and while your at it, my jewellery and cash is kept in that drawer over there.

These cold callers are difficult to get rid of. Much harder to ditch than telephone callers.

They have hides thicker than a rhinoceros. The perils of waking sleeping children or dinner catching alight completely escapes them. And during their cold calling training they have been told to handle potential customer objections in the same manner as they deal with requests from their parents to move out of home.

Do you think it will all stop if I remove my number from the Do Not Call Register? Is it worth the risk? Maybe; maybe not.

At least my standard response is likely to work more effectively back on the phone, than it has at the door: The Hoppo Bumpos aren't home just now. Please leave a message after the tone. Beeeeep ......

My vintage childhood

Vintage Enid Blyton book collection

This is a public service announcement: you might want to check the cupboard / attic / shed / roof / under-the-house.

There's a phenomenon (natural, I'm told) occuring in spots where childhood treasures have been packed away. You see, I recently opened some boxes and all my toys and books had vanished.

In their place was something else altogether. Something from another era. Something that evoked a feeling of nostalgia. Something, quite possibly classified as collectible.


Vintage Lego people

I meant to warn my younger sister too. I really did. It looks like I was a bit too late. Look what I found at her place.

(She is quite possibly going to kill me for refering to her books and Lego as vintage)

Eye spy ... a favourite gadget

I am playing along with Bug and Pop's lovely "Eye Spy" each Sunday. This week's theme is from the delightful Kellie of 74 Lime Lane. She has asked us to show off a favourite gadget.

I'm a bit partial to gadgets, but this would have to be my current favourite. Its a free-standing, re-chargable Thomas The Tank Engine night light with inbuilt torch.

It is the magic cure for a small boy who had been getting up at 3am, turning on the lights and singing. It must remain fully charged. At. All. Times.

Thank you to Cindy for hosting Eye Spy and to Kellie for the theme. To discover other shoes, head over here.

The compendium of fabric-buying justifications (Chapter 2)

Statement: You never, ever, ever see this one on sale. I've made such a saving.

Situation: Rationalising why you purchased 2 metres with absolutely no project in mind.

Context: Liberty lawn at less than half price.

Success rate: Variable. Depends on whether you subscribe to the glass-half-full or glass-half-empty outlook.

In the example above, it was ascertained that while I saved $33, I also spent $33. And to my great surprise apparently one does not cancel out the other.


You might also like my previous excuses:



The compendium - Chapter 1

A quick-and-dirty knit neckline refashion

Something that really stuck from early sewing lessons, was my teacher explaining that round adds pounds. The round she refered to, was the shape of a neckline. Now personally I think its chocolate that adds the pounds, but I have indeed found that a V-neck is a little more flattering to my ... ahem ... "shapely" shape.

So when I picked up this cute little sleeveless tee (shell) for $5 at the op (thrift/charity) shop recently, I knew the shallow scoop neckline was probably going to be all wrong for me. The knit fabric was lovely and I really liked the applique, but a couple of wears really confirmed that I might look more stylish in a flour sack.

So I got brave and decided to change the neckline. The binding around the neckline was a knit fabric too and I could tell it had a fair bit of stretch in it. I realised I could probably stretch it a little to fit a new shape.

I took out my fabric shears and stitch unpicker and got to work. First, I unpicked part of the top-most part of the applique, to make way for the new neckline.



Then using a very fine stitch unpicker, I very carefully undid all the stitching from the front of the neckline. The binding was separated from the garment from shoulder seam to shoulder seam. I tried to take care not to snag the knit fabric with the unpicker.



Next I folded the front of the top in half. I carefully matched seams and stripes as accurately as I could, to find the centre front. This way I could cut the V on the fold.



Once I found the centre front, I used tailor's chalk and a ruler to mark up where I wanted the new neckline to be. I knew I couldn't afford to make the neckline too deep or I would run out of binding!



Then I took a deep breath and went snip-snip and cut a V.



Next I pinned the binding back in place. This involved carefully easing the binding out to fit the new deeper neckline. It only just matched. If the V had been any deeper, I would really have needed to unpick all the binding and put a new piece on.



Using a three-step zigzag stitch I secured the binding in place. (The three step zigzag stitch is good for stretch fabric as it has some give in it.) The most difficult part, was making sure I didn't stretch the binding and fabric as I sewed, otherwise this would warp the neckline and make it sit out from my neck. The neckline looked a little wobbly when I finished so I gave it a little press.



Finally I stitched the last piece of applique back in place at the bottom of the motif. Et voila! A more flattering top. Better than a flour sack anyway!