Still here

I’m still here!

We are currently in the middle of a big a** weather front, and last night the whole state – THE WHOLE STATE – lost its power.  Many don’t have it back yet.

By the time it got to us, it had fizzled out enough to be a lot of thunder and lightening, and a front of wind, and some rain.  But nothing too damaging, unlike other parts of the state.

They are expecting another wind front to come through later this evening, so who knows what the power will do then.  I’m amazed at the amount of people complaining on facebook about the lack of power.  If you’ve seen photos of the damage it has done, five or six hours of no power isn’t such a big deal.

The girls played monopoly by candlelight and we all had fritz and sauce sandwiches washed down with a glass of wine (wine for the grownups, not the children!).  We sat and talked together and no one played their technological devices, and it wasn’t the worst thing in the world!  I was in bed at 9.30 pm.  Unheard of for me.

I am getting quite frazzled with the wind though – it freaks the dog out and the kids go mental (does anyone else’s kids go nuts when it’s windy?) so I am looking forward to maybe tomorrow when hopefully the weather just calms the heck down.  Wind gives me a headache!

Bit of a hold your breath moment to see if the crops are affected – my husband’s work is directly related to wheat crops and this year was proving to be a bumper.  We are all hoping it stays at least a good year, if not a great one.

Anyway, shall chat another day!

Bye Bye!

The flimsy is a flimsy no more

I know I sound like a broken record but this week hasn’t been a good one for quilting.  We have finally crossed a major project (dance rehearsals and ballet concert) off of the To Do list, and the light of the tunnel is there!  Off in the distance a bit still, but there! 

(Until Christmas looms its ugly head but we won’t talk of such things yet, no we won’t)

I am currently sitting by the glow of the laptop being my only light, as we have had no power.  South Australia is being promised the worst storms in the past fifty years today and tomorrow.  Currently the weather isn’t too bad but I think it is quite literally the calm before the storm.  My girls are supposed to go to a school disco down the road for an end of school term celebration – I suspect it might not go ahead as there is not much call for a disco with no music and I’m not sure they’ll have a generator.

So – I’m here to show you my latest finish.  You’ve seen this quilt before, but as I have donated it to our local group, it’s now been quilted and bound and is finished totally!

We are running a small raffle in the next month to raise some money, and the group decided they liked this quilt, so this one it is!

I’ve decided now that I like it very much and might make another.  When out at quilting the other night one of our ladies commented that she didn’t know how to make the star points which really surprised me for a second – I thought that they were easy and this lady isn’t silly at all quilting wise and yet she’d never been shown.  So I figured when my life eases a little, I might do a tutorial for this quilt.  It’s such an easy one, really truly.

So that’s been my life lately – dance costumes, hair buns, school term ending and power blackouts.  I’ll pop back in tomorrow and let you know if we got through the storm unscathed!

No go for Bruce

I didn’t get the tickets to the concert.  I did get online (refer yesterday’s post) but let’s just say the way you buy tickets online now is DUMB and the way you pay for them is DUMB and the whole thing is DUMB and we shan’t talk about it again.

I’m not that bothered.  The only tickets I could get were standing ones, or ones behind the stage.  Given that Bruce regularly gives four hour concerts, I’m too darn old to stand for that long.  And who in their right mind would sit BEHIND a stage.  Nope.

And it’s on in Adelaide (three hours away) on the night before the girls go back to school for the new year.  It would have been a bit too hard to organise all around.

So there you go.  But I now have internet on my Ipad when I need it.  So that’s a tick.

Nothing quilty to show you yet.  I’ll try and stitch today.  Would like five minutes to myself really!

an exercise in futility

Can I tell you a story?

It’s all Bruce Springsteen’s fault.

He’s coming to Adelaide in January next year.  My husband has decided we should go (not like him at all to suggest a concert, so I grabbed it and ran!).  Tickets go on sale online today.  At three p.m.  Which is when I will be sitting outside a school waiting for children to be collected.  Not near my laptop at all.

No worries, I’m a technically savvy girl.  I’ll get the tickets on my i-phone.  Except my i-phone for whatever reason won’t let me log in to the ticket sales website.  I don’t know why.

No worries!  I have an I-pad.  That lets me log in to the website.  But I don’t have any data on that, we just use it through the wireless at home.  Easy fixed – I’ll just buy some mobile data from a shop and bob’s your uncle.  Sorted.  I’ll be online, outside school, I can buy the tickets then.

So off I go to the local Internet Shop.  She’s very helpful, suggests a good plan that runs out in two years, lots of time to use up my data.  All I need to do is pay for it and be done.

But her eftpos machine (the money taking thing) doesn’t want to work.  She says I’ll have to go and get cash to pay for it.  I think a better idea would be for her to work out what’s wrong with her machine rather than put the onus on me, but that’s just me.  Sounds like an easy idea, except the ATM in the shopping plaza is a generic one which’ll charge me a heap for the privilege.  But I had a brainwave, I can buy a $2 sim card, take it home and do it all myself while enjoying a nice cup of coffee.  Easy peasy.  I had $2 so I paid and left.

Then the fun started.

Apparently, my house doesn’t exist.  I needed to enter my house address when I tried to activate my simcard, and it’s just not there.  No alternatives – just ‘nope, sorry. Can’t do it.  Computer says no.’ 

I then rang the Company.  I get a very nice lady who wouldn’t listen to me, who kept telling me over and over again that the simcard I have is only for phone calls, not data.  Despite the packaging telling me it has ‘All you’ll need for your tablet’.  Finally, FINALLY she believes me, and then proceeds to tell me that we can’t do it because my street doesn’t exist.

Anyway.  After much haggling, she’s finally found me on google maps (god love Google Maps) so she’s confident that we are actually here.  She has activated my sim card and I shall receive a text message from them with my special code, and I can then get moving.  I shall receive the text message within ten minutes.

It’s now been half an hour.

Stay tuned.  My little job that I expected to take ten minutes is now rounding up to its third hour.  It’s no wonder I get so little quilting done.  I thought technology was supposed to help us!

As I said, I blame Bruce.

A real hoot

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

I had a terrible itch to do something small and bright and these little guys really hit the spot.

 

Now I have to stitch them all but they are very sweet, don't you think?

The white homespun was very thin and now I can see the colours underneath, but that’s the way it is sometimes, I think.

Have a lovely day!

Sunshiney day

Hi lovely readers.

Did we all have a lovely New Years?  I've been on a holiday of sorts the last few days, but hopefully life will return to normal soon and the diet, the exercise, the discipline I'm ready for will be able to get on track.

I've nothing Quilty to show you but thought you'd like to see my lovely Gerbera (is that right?, I'm not a gardener).  My lovely Nanna bought it years ago for my eldest daughter, and it limps along in the pot very slowly, but every few months blesses us with a lovely flower.  I'm surprised it still bloom but bloom it does.  Must be getting a helping hand from above.

Also, I've nearly finished my lovely crochet blanket!  Of course it is far too hot to use it but still..I'm loving it.  I've been trying to decide how to finish the edge, and I've settled on a fringe.  It'll take me ages, I'm sure but at least I'll have a plan.

Always good to have a plan.

Lucy Boston Number Four

Not my best photo, taken with my Iphone late at night.  But another one bites the dust!

A Finish–Finally!

Years ago, I started a Barbara Brackman block of the month – Grandmother’s Choice.  I never finished it, I never kept up with the blocks.  Does that surprise you?

Well, it should surprise you that I have finished it now!  Yay me!

I had to make a couple of filler blocks, and I didn’t do half the blocks that were on the website, but after playing with it for a few days, I finally have this to show you:

 

The red isn’t nearly as red as it seems in this picture, and the cream cornerstones are a much deeper cream. 

But I don’t mind it, and it’s finished.  And that’s a good thing!

A finish

I’ve had a head cold the past week, and whilst it’s not enough to lay me too low (life does go on!) it’s been enough to fill my head with cotton wool so I can’t really concentrate. 

In other words, the perfect time for some mindless sewing!

And mindless sewing I did, and I finished this:

It had all been glued down with a glue stick and Roxanne basting glue.  So I just sat at the machine and stitched, trying to learn the new technique I picked up at last month’s class.

It’s a little bit hard to see, but I have machine stitched around all the flowers and then stippled the black within an inch of its life. 

I ended up making a piped cushion with the panel.  I have enough small wallhangings to last many lifetimes, and I thought a nice, bright cushion in the ‘good lounge’ would be a real treat.  So that’s the plan.

It isn’t anywhere near my best work, but I think for a first go, I did okay!