WET AND WILD SUNDAY

......it certainly is.  Not a day for going out, its a day for staying home and being creative. That is if I can get my act in gear.  I've been very good with the 20 mins a day, I can crochet one strawberry and get it all finished in 20 mins.  Once I get going I find it hard to stop - I just need to get going thats all.  The 20 mins helps me do that.

On Tuesday I got a crochet book from the library and made a comment about I'd whip up a few of the things in it and they could have a display on the shelves. "What a great idea" was the reply. OOOps, mouth running away from me again, I really should think things through before I say anything.  It fitted in quite nicely with my 20 mins a day and I soon had a orchard of fruit, couldn't stop myself.  So this is what I did this week when I got bored.  Last night I played around with motifs from the 250 Crochet Motif Book and using a rose as a base made up this pot holder, I was going to make it up into a cushion but got bored with it so I folded the corners to the back stitched them  up to make a double fabric and there we have it.  This took the last half  of The Bill and the first half of Taggert last night.

I haven't been and bought new yarn, I really should, I actually have to despite saying I wouldn't buy any more till the yarn box was decimated.  But (what an excuse and its a valid one ) if I submit the ami doll design I have to put in what yarns I used and since the ami's were made with scraps that I am not sure of the origins, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go to the craft shop and buy more.  The stash box is getting down, though, the lid still won't stay on of its own accord yet so theres a way to go.  I've been making flowers and leaves with the smallest balls of yarn and just throw them into a box when done.  I felted a few that were made with wool to make into brooches when the mood hits. 

I drove around Atherton yesterday looking for garage sales and didn't find one, which is good really since I didn't have any cash on me. So frustrating to find something and not have the money.  Theres a really nice antiquey place outside town but its not open, I was going to call in on the way home just for a browse and a drool.  Thwarted at every step.  So I'll just placate myself by drooling over blogs.


Jan

Handkerchief box

I found this pretty little hanky box this morning, its about 1 inch deep, burgundy covered board sides and the lid is covered by a etched and embossed tin sheet. It was so pretty and perfect for the hankies I bought for 5c each at an op-shop a few years ago.   The lady in the op-shop wanted the grand sum of 50c for it and as I only had a $50 note on me she let me have it for nothing as I am a good customer.   I rummaged around at the bottom of my bag and found 35c in change so I handed over that.

I haven't even crafted at all today so far, rushed into town and managed to round up enough money to pay the rego on the car for 6 months. Phoned Telstra and pleaded poverty and got an extension on the bill. I really should join the circus as my juggling skills are getting better.  I've managed to pay a little of each bill to keep them all quiet and have till middle of Feb to pay the rest.  With careful budgeting I should just make it.
All the departments I dealt with wanted to know why I couldn't pay with a credit card - cos I don't and won't have one. The only money I owe is for immediate bills.  Why is that so strange. If I can't afford it I go without or if its something I really want I save up - by the time I have the money I usually find I no longer have a need or deisre for it.

Just realised I haven't had lunch yet and its 2.30 p.m. already.  I was so good in the shop I hesitated over the chocolate, should I shouldn't I and I was so good and walked out with just bread and milk.  I'm denying myself all the goodies and yet the weight still refuses to budge. I park the car the opposite end to town that I want and walk everywhere.  I'm happy though that over christmas I didn't gain anything which is a plus. I think I'll just have a couple of crackers and a piece of low fat cheese and hang on till dinner.

Jan

20 mins a Day (Tulips)

Well, maybe not full blown parrot ones, but they are tulipish.  I'm going for jacobean style, that could change but at the moment its going okay.  I spent the day looking for stitch ideas and colours which of course led me off course.  Found some stuff I had been looking for.  20 minutes extended into a couple of hours and since I was all fired up after the drawing out, scrapping, drawing out again I put the first few stitches in.  It felt good knowing that all I needed to do was 20 minutes. I was allowing myself those 20 mins to craft anything after that was a bonus.  No guilt over me time, no feeling that I had to do it.  I still really would like to do the parrot one, but that would be a big job, one that would take me a while to do and I haven't found the right flower yet anyway. The design I'm doing now I feel could develop into one for submission.  So when finished it will go into my design folder.

Nothing much else to tell today, still raining, grass is still growing like mad and I'm lounging about in my jami's as usual.  School went back today after the long summer break.  I don't have kids that young anymore but we live just a few hundred yards away from the little village school so now I have my time keeping back. I know when to eat lunch and when I should be getting dinner on etc.

Jan

Tulips

I love tulips,  especially the big flashy parrot ones. When I was a little girl in the UK I used to go to a big park, I wasn't supposed to go there on my own but I did. I loved the sunken italian gardens, in spring full of tulips, I loved how the rows and rows moved in the breeze, if I squinted all the colours blurring together. One year there were builders in one part of the park - they were going to build a miniature village.  All the rubble lay for months. Then come spring out of the grey broken pathways and piles of earth came shoots of green, in the midst of all this upheaval came colour. The parrot tulips bravely reaching skywards, I managed to pick a couple of the blooms and took them home to mum, telling the smallest of white lies that a lady had given them to me from her garden.  I have loved them ever since. 
When I asked Vicky to choose another flower for me to do, I was saying over and over - please pick tulips, please pick tulips. Thank you Vicky.

Well my time here today is short. Its Australia Day today and I was going to go down town for the big barbi but unfortunately we have rain, lots and lots of rain, thank you ex-tropical cyclone OLGA (who despite fizzling out and moving towards the Northern Territories is still causing us grief). Its thundering and lighning now so I'm going to switch off the puter, grab a shower and then look through lots of garden books to find the perfect tulip.  There is a design in one of my craft books that I have always wanted to do. Maybe I'll do that, maybe I'll scan a picture and make it into a crossstitch.  So much possiblities. OKay I'm off before this storm gets any closer.


jan

SNOWDROP

It took 30 mins and I'm not happy with it but its done.  I tinted it with crayon and really it should be washed out so that just a hint of colour remains. But I wanted to get it photograped and out of the way.

So Vicky whats the next one.

20 mins a day

I have joined marmalade Roses '20 minutes a Day challenge' marmaladerose.  Theres actually a fair bit you can get done in 20 mins, its not just hands on crafting job,- weavng in loose ends on crochet, winding yarn, cutting out fabric and if the 20 mins wants to go on a bit longer then let it.  Some of us have lost our mojo, our passion. We've just got a little bogged down in everyday life. For me I created because it helped me get through the hiccups, speedbumps and upsets of a not so normal life. I could lose myself in the stitch.
My life is now normal after years of being a wife, mother and carer. The only person I am responable fr now is ME.  My health is doing okay.  My finacial situation sucks bigtime but apart from needing to pay this months bills and get my car rego next month I owe no money to anyone.  I have a craft room full of material, threads and yarn.  I have wonderful friends who are always there for me, my family support me in anything I do.  So, life is good.  What I need to do now is get back my passion for crafting without the drama and stress I escaped from by immersing myself in stitching, just plain old simple passion for the stitch, I need to do this for me.

The SNOWDROP will be my 20 minutes for today, theres probably only 20 mins left to do on it.  I've gone back to the simple outline stitch. I tried to do it in thread painting but despite two attempts that looked like they were going to work it refused to allow me to do the flower.  I tried crewel, it didn't just look right, I couldn't get the correct tension on the shading on the thread painted one, I frogged and frogged.  I'd chosen a silk fabric for the thread painting, the light was so bad yesterday I had to turn the lights on, which reflected off the fabric, then the bursitis started.  I gave myself a good talking to, it was no biggy if this wasn't going to work, if the the basic outline stitch works, then go for that.  Why did I have to do something I was in no mood to do.  The snowdrop made the decision for me, as soon as I redrew it on a tatty piece of fabric, as soon as I put those first few stitches in the flow happened.  Its basic stitches, its just four colours, it gives me pleasure to sew.  I know I can thread paint, I love crewel work, but it just wasn't the time to do it.

Olga like Neville fizzled before it hit the coast.  Its now a LOW, but we are getting plenty of rain from it. I put back all the verandah furniture and rehung the plants,   en I was woken by the house shaking and banging. My heart raced, the dog was quaking, then the room lit up followed closely by roaring thunder.
The wind howled and the rain lashed the house. Okay, I thought, so its not a cyclone just a LOw, don't panic.  We were just on the edge of the weather system, if this is what we were getting from just LOW, what were the poor things who were in its path getting.  It was 4 a.m., I did a quick tour of the house, laying down towels on the window sills in case the rain came through. The furniture I'd replaced on the verandah had blown over, the cushions soaking wet, I just threw everything in the house, some of the plants had blown over so theres soil to clear up this morning. JUst a normal monsoon storm, something that we get a few times a week during the WET. The thunder and lightning stayed around for a few hours gradually moving away. I read for a bit and then dozed off again.  The BOM says we will get a lot of rain and storms out of this system, doesn't bother me, I'm going to stay curled up with my book and my stitching.  I'm not venturing out today. 

Jan

Wet Sunday

One of the things that annoys me when there is cyclone around is the uncertainty. The one time I will get complacent is the one time a big one will hit - when 'LARRY' was heading straight for us nearly four years ago we were on a plane flying to Brisbane.  (is it really nearly fours years ago that our lives were turned back upside down again). That was a pretty scary plane ride, we must have hit every pot hole in the sky. Especially when the pilot came on and told us we were flying right past the eye of the storm.  That time we left all the preperations to our sons, we had other things to worry us.  We watched news reports as the far north received a battering like no other, at the hospital when my beloved was waiting for his PET scan we listened on the mobile phone as we called home, hearing first hand the noise of the area being ripped apart.
Then all phone coverage was lost, no way of finding out if our loved ones were safe. 
Flying back in later that night was so eerie, no lights at all in the City, drving through it was an impossible task to even drive on the right side of the road, constantly swerving round fallen trees.  We couldn't get back up the mountain till the next day, one range road had been cleared but the winds had shredded all the leaves and they lay like a sheet of ice making it perilous to drive on.   We had to drive through 3 towns and the closer we got to home the worse the devastation got.  Innisfail on the coast was the worst hit, the banana industry totally ruined, our little towns on the Tablelands up in the mountains got off fairly easy compared to the coast but it was still the worst cyclone the Far North has ever seen.  There was no power for days, a neighbour plugged in our fridge to his big generator and on alternate days we did the washing, I cooked on our gas barbi for the neighbour on the other side, the boys were out every day helping with the clean-up. Roads down to the coast were blocked and the coast roads that brought all our food up were cut-off by flooding for weeks.  The damage to our house was minimal, a leak in the roof where the tin had lifted and the whirly bird blew off, a couple of broken windows where flying branches had hit, the big soursop tree broke in half (luckily falling away from the house narrowly missing the sheds) and since it was dangerous had to be chopped down.  The big shed got flooded and the beer fridge was the only casualty.  So if I get complacent over this latest one I just remember LARRY.   OLGA is going to make land further north now, but we will still get the gale force winds and the driving rain and our rivers will get flooded.  The good side is that if the power goes off I can't do anything, no telly to watch, no cleaning to do - all that spare time to sit and sew.

Every morning I try to read through at least one blog on my list.  Who needs books when there are so many wonderful ladies who can weave magic with words.  If I need a recipe or an idea for dinner - just go to the blogs, the same for a crafty idea.  There is soooo much inspiration out there, so much so that I tend to just look and not do, filing it all away in the "ONE DAY" basket.  Scrapbooking has never really gotten hold of me (I'm still annoyed that the one craft shop in the area went over to the darkside and doesn't stock anything other than beading, patchwork and scrapbooking items) but I am drawn to all the vintage cards being used in the blogs.
So i phoned home and asked mum if she still had all the cards from the 40's and 50's - YES.  I don't care what you leave me in your will mum, just make sure I get those cards. I've instructed my bro to scan them for me as well.  Just in case one day the scrap booking bug bites of course.

Another little part of my craft room.  All my ami dolls wanted to pose so I had to let them, they are getting quite fond of the camera.  I had made a few granny squares for a cot blanket but gave up after 10, the pink was tooo dark. They lay in the UFO box for weeks until I made 9 of them up into a little doll blanket for one of the girls.  Now I have one little square left, all on its lonesome, what shall I do with it.

Wonderful weather for Ducks

.....and the rain came down. Not unusual since we are in 'The Wet Season'.  The cyclone that was, then isn't, then was and now isn't again is hovering off the coast further north and I'm not going to worry about it any more.  My neighbours ducks are splashing about in their little pool, quaking and thoroughly enjoying their little selves. Taking their lead late yesterday afternoon I went out into the garden, walking down the driveway was like walking down a river bed, the rain felt so good, who cared if the neighbours saw. I was actually rescuing some lillies that had chosen that moment to open, I didn't want them getting ruined so I picked them. It was invigorating. We got 80mm out of that little downpour and since it has been raining steadily ever since theres probably another 80mm from overnight.  The only downside being that it is our villages market day today and there is no way I am venturing out to a muddy paddock. I wanted to buy some more gem stone beads but I reckon most of the stall-holders will have peeked outside and just gone back to bed when they saw the weather.  Some old die-hards like the old italian small holders will have braved it - even after "Larry' they were their selling there produce out of the back of their ute.

But who needs veggies from the market when I have these beauties growing, going back to the house after my stroll around in the rain I noticed something red in the veggie patch near the house. Aren't they gorgeous, they remind of the sour apple lollies we used to eat when we were kids. I think these will be going into a tuna and pasta salad. I'm out of olives and I just remembered there was a market stall holder who sold the most wonderful dried herb and spices mixes, dare I get dressed and wander down, chances are he won't be there, I forgot to go to the bank yesterday, oh poo, so no money anyway.  Oh well, they'll be other markets he'll be at.

When I make a conscious effort into being motivated I can do it, I stuck at the snowdrop, not rushing in and losing heart early in the game, I did the preparation.  I am gradually rediscovering my deep passion for embroidery.   I love thread painting and jacobean work and even just doing the outlines for the snowdrop fired me up, beacuase the outline stitches are just used as a guide and padding for the surface stitches they are not too neat but I think it would look good as an outline and maybe just one leaf and the flower petals filled with a crewel stitch.  I might work another one in stem stitch later today and just see what it would look like. 

Doesn't seem to by many cars around, usually the road is chocker block market days, so I think I'll just stay home today, I'll drive down to the library later to stock up on some feel good books, then go get some chocolate and a packet of Grain Waves and hole up for the day. Got Adam Sandlers Bedtime Stories to watch as well.  All thats missing is a pot belly fire to curl up in front of. 

Update:  Ex Trocial Cyclone Neville fizzled out, typical of a bloke and Tropical Cyclone Olga category 2 flew in. She's hovering off the coast and expected to hit land maybe tomorrow evening,  This one will hit the area I live in if it does as predicted. I have a son living on the coast so maybe I should get the spare bed made up just in case he decides to head up the mountain where it will be a little bit safer. Better rush around like a headless chook getting prepared, I wasn't intending to go back into town, looks like I'll have to.

jan

Is it or isn't it

Yesterday the cyclone was downgraded to an ex, it hovered out at sea and the BOM predicted it would head back towards land further north, it was also predicted to reform as a cyclone overnight but just looking at the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) site its still an ex, heading out to sea again but will come back towards the coast for weekend and maybe reform then. We are sure getting plenty of rain from it. Just steady rain, which is badly needed after all the bush fires the Tablelands have had over the past few months.

I tossed and turned all night, the dog was restless (she hates the wind) and insisted on sleeping as close to me as she could get. In the end I slept on the other side of the bed (which is something I don't do - even after 3 years I still keep to my own side) but she followed me.This morning there she was all wrapped up in the covers and the bed looks like a tornado has hit it. Normally I sleep very tidily but I have a bad case of tennis elbow, it kept me awake most of the night. Won't stop me stitching though since I taught myself to embroider with my left hand - one boring weekend when I couldn't settle to anything.  A few years ago I was most upset and disappointed when the magazine I had submitted my designs to said that I wasn't 'country' enough for them.  So to get the prim naive look I stitched the design with my left hand, I had tried and tried to get the look they wanted but the obessive compulsive part of me had to have neat, perfect stitches, I just couldn't bring myself to do anything less than perfect.  Doing it with my left hand gave everything the look the required and its a good skill to learn just in case of a sprained wrist etc.

Jan

Snowdrops it is then

Okay next challenge - snowdrops

Despite the BOM saying that the chances of the low developing into a cyclone one developed overnight, I could feel the change in the air, the wind felt different. Its way out to sea at the moment and will probably head north heading for the Cooktown area, we'll get the rain from it hopefully.  But as I said before these things are unpredictable.  Ones formed over in Western Australia as well. Ours is called Neville and their is called Magda.  It goes alphabetically and they alternate between boy and girl names. We always have a laugh when one has the same name as someone we know, if the cyclone has their attributes or failings etc.

I love my grandkids immensely, they have brought great joy to this family but they are so tiring.  Jessica looks like not only inheriting my crafting skills but also my gift of the gab, from the moment I put her in the car to the time I drop her off again she is never quiet, my head spins from all the chatter. I stood at the kitchen sink washing up after the dinner my son had cooked (using leftovers from the previous nights dinner - I taught him well), made myself a cup of tea and then decided I couldn't stay awake one moment longer.  I quickly tiedied up my books and got ready for bed. Then remembered I hadn't washed up, dragged myself over to the sink and stood there wondering where all the pots had gone.  I haven't been that tired for a long time.  As soon as my head hit the pillow that was it I was out for the count.

I'm going to rush into town early, I have to go to CentreLink and take my forms in, rush round to the veggie shop and get more veggies and then home again to clean and then get some serious stitching done.

Jan