Isabella Golightly

Friday night too drunk

2012-02-12T21:47:00.000+11:00

That's part of a movie title, you know, Gentle Readers. I think it's an excellent title for this post, which explains quite a lot about my weekend. I wasn't really too drunk, just pleasantly happy. MBF Deb invited us up for homemade pizzas, and boy, were they delicious? Yes, of course they were. She's a fabbo cook, far more interested in the creation of beautiful meals than I'll ever be, and she knocked up the pizzas in about 20 minutes flat, making it all look so easy. Mind you, there was a very small amount of pre-work eliminated, in that she used pre-made bases, but, hey? Who cares? Is there a pizza-base police in the house? No indeedy.

I woke up on Saturday morning with a bit of a headache, easily fixed with two aspirin & a bowl of cereal (aspirin in a glass of water, not the cereal. Things weren't that bad). I spent a slightly uncomfortable half hour at the beautician, remembering all the while the story my mother used to tell me - when she was a girl, she had long, thick, beautiful hair, and one of her great-aunts, of whom there were a number, according to the family tree, used to comb it with a fine tooth comb, and say "you must suffer in the cause of beauty". Ouch. No wonder she wouldn't let us have long hair as children.

In other news, I got very inspired to make the cushion covers long promised to Miss Lyndsey. I threaded up the machine with white cotton, cut, pinned, stitched and got all the way to the final stitching of the side seams before it dawned on me that I needed to make buttonholes. I whipped an empty bobbin out of my jar, filled it with lemon yellow thread and dragged the buttonhole foot out of the drawer, and off I went. Well, kinda.

Image courtesy of Paradeofapples.wordpress.com.

First of all, the machine thread snapped. Then the bobbin thread got tangled up in itself & I had to take the whole bobbin race out to get it clear. Then it did it again. And again. Then the needle started making funny noises. So I got a new 90 needle out of the magic box, and popped that in. Nope. I rethreaded the machine. Nope. I tried sewing something apart from buttonholes. Nope. Eventually, and ever so slowly, Gentle Readers, I thought, "perhaps this is not the right bobbin?". Yep. Took it out, moved all the thread to another bobbin and rather quickly tossed the old bobbin in the bin. And guess what? Sewing like a dream, aren't we?

There's a lesson in this, Gentle Readers. Rethread machine, change needle, rethread machine, check bobbin, rethread bobbin if necessary, toss bobbin if all else fails. Actually, if all else fails, walk away & have a nap. That's what I did. Next blogtime, I promise pictures of the finished cushion cover.

That's it for me. Work tomorrow, then Tuesday off - upholstery school Monday & Tuesday night, with Lucas. Thank the Upholstery Ghods for good teachers. We're starting on some cushion making, so I expect to learn where I went wrong with the one I haven't finished yet ;-p

And now, I think I might even go & finish it. It's only 9.30pm & I'm not really watching the cricket, and now that I know what the problem is... who knows? Maybe pics tonight? Wow. And... ciao!

That list again...

2012-02-01T21:25:00.001+11:00

List Update:

1. Pouch for Anne-Marie (18 months ago)

2. Cushions for Mr Golightly's Big Sis (17 months ago)

3. Cushions for Lyndsey (6 months ago)

~~4. Seat covers for Mrs Autrey (at least 9 months ago)~~ Finished, just waiting for the Post Office to re-open.

5~~. Dog for Effie in Canada (only Monday)~~ Cheated just slightly & sent her nephew the one featured on the blog. Hope she doesn't mind!

~~6. Pouch for MBF's children's piano teacher (3 months ago)~~ Let off the hook, she'd forgotten too & bought something.

~~7. Pouch for MBF's children's dance teacher~~ (ditto)

8. Cushion for MGF Kaz (who knows, so long ago I've forgotten)

9~~. Dolls for the children of people in my team (2 months ago).~~ Finished, see previous blog post.

10. Christmas Scarf for Clare in the UK. Started but nowhere near ready.

11. Christmas Gift for Gill in the UK. Not even started.

~~12. Welcome gift for Mrs Autrey's baby (knitted but not wrapped or posted).~~ Wrapped & waiting for the post office to open.

13. ~~Welcome gift for Clare's baby (not even started).~~

~~14. Kris Kringle gift for friend at lunch on Sunday*.~~ Lavender bags X 3. Time? 20 minutes. Easy.

15. Kimono dressing gown for Arthur (1year ago). Mum & I made mine & hers, I made Kaz's. I'm sure Arthur's is coming soon...

As for #13, I went through my box of knitted stuff & found the following, all perfectly suitable for a new baby:

plus a bunch more I don't have photos of. I think I need to start knitting again (after I cross off a few more numbers!)

Ciao!

Sick. I'm fully sick. Really.

2012-02-01T21:10:00.001+11:00

Actually, in some cultures, Gentle Readers, that actually means "I am unwell". Amusingly I had a phone call from Miss BlueLambb this afternoon enquiring if I was actually still employed by the August Institution, as I haven't been there for a week (Thursday was the Australia Day Holiday, Friday was swapped for my regular Tuesday off, as we had a half-day offsite thingy scheduled for our whole team & my lovely Boss wanted me there), and today is apparently Wednesday. So.

I have acquired some stinky virus, which has given me a nasty wheezy cough, which is happily producing **TMI ALERT** yellow-greeny slime, a headache, pounding sinuses and lethargy. That's definitely the highlight. I'm still in my PJ's, (not too unusual, I hear you say...) for the third day running (that's the unusual bit - how did I get to the Doctor?) apart from a brief sojourn in real clothes so I could go to the doctor, get anti-biotics for the (wait. Is that hyphenated? Antibiotics. Anti-biotics. Who cares, really?) chest infection, and ... oh bugger, I've lost the thread. I'm sick, y'know.

Anyway, before all this happened, we spent a lovely relaxing weekend in the Hunter, and MGF Kaz and I took some nice pics.

Kaz's Sunday morning sunrise:

Strawberry?

Sit up nicely!

Who, me? On the furniture?

Gimme five!

On Saturday morning these guys were pictured having a bit of a sleep in, in next door's paddock. Quietly, oh so quietly, I tiptoed round the verandah in my LLBean slides so I could get a quick pic... obviously not quietly enough.

Hello?

Did you hear something?

Quick, let's go...

On another note, I took absolutely no sewing with me, which was a bit silly in hindsight, because I'd promised Master H that I would make a pouch for his mother's birthday (29th January, oops) - you can tell I'm sick, can't you? I just split that infinitive right down the middle. I promised Master H that for his mother's birthday, I'd make a particular pouch. It's still on the sewing machine. I started it before we went to the Hunter & tried to finish it when we got back from the Hunter, but due to an earlier-than-usual dinner start time, and the incipient virus, it's still sitting there. Very soon now, honest. Mr Golightly pointed out two rules of sewing that I broke trying to get it finished in time - measure thrice, cut once; and, don't sew when you're sick/tired. Very nasty.

Anyway, if only I'd taken it all with me, I could have had it made before I got sick, I wouldn't have let Master H down, and he could have given it to his mother for her birthday (29th January, did I mention that? Oh yes. I'm sick, you know.)

So, no sewing, no work, no fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark. Anybody recognise that? Me neither. I'm sick. Ciao!

PS Thanks to the Peppermint Penguin & the Chairy Godmother for the moral support. I'm still here, for now!

Oh dear...

2012-01-23T20:45:00.000+11:00

You know what, Gentle Readers... I think I've lost my blogging mojo. I had forgotten how much time is taken up with photography, moving the pictures from the camera(s) to the PC(s), the hard disk(s), sorting the photos in my filing system (by year, by month, by date of event), fiddling with them in Picnik (and what's that about, hmmm? Apparently it's been swallowed up by Google...) and Picasa, finding suitable images when mine don't quite measure up... and then, the writing... coming up with the witty titles, the theme, the tags, the content, those fabulous jokes, the clever and succinct lines filled with news of high import, low import and no import...

I started this when my father died, and I really needed a way to express my feelings about dealing with something completely unexpected... a dead father I hadn't spoken to in 27 years, and who died without bothering to make a will, but who, amazingly, was considered by the law to be my responsibility.

Anyway, I've made a vow for 2012, which is to stop saying "I can do that for you", and that includes a bunch of the things on the list... (remember that list?).

So... one of the things I want to do more of is sewing, and that means, less time for other things. I'm planning on a single night per week at Upholstery school, working from home the next day so I don't have to do a late start/early finish, and then my every-second Tuesday off at home to do the grocery shopping/washing thingy.

Where does blogging fit into this? Somewhere between the grocery shopping and washing, I think. That means, Gentle Readers, that I might go a few more weeks between posts. Or... I might not even post again. What do you think I should do?

Ciao... for now.

That list again...

2011-12-27T16:56:00.001+11:00

For those intrepid Gentle Readers still checking in to see if I'm alive, the rewards are all here. An update on the list, a small exposition on the prospect of breaking rules now that I've turned *gasp* 50, and some gratuitous photographs. What more could you ask for?

List Update:

1. Pouch for Anne-Marie (18 months ago)
2. Cushions for Mr Golightly's Big Sis (17 months ago)
3. Cushions for Lyndsey (6 months ago)
~~4. Seat covers for Mrs Autrey (at least 9 months ago)~~ Finished, just waiting for the Post Office to re-open.
5~~. Dog for Effie in Canada (only Monday)~~ Cheated just slightly & sent her nephew the one featured on the blog. Hope she doesn't mind!
~~6. Pouch for MBF's children's piano teacher (3 months ago)~~ Let off the hook, she'd forgotten too & bought something.
~~7. Pouch for MBF's children's dance teacher~~ (ditto)
8. Cushion for MGF Kaz (who knows, so long ago I've forgotten)
9~~. Dolls for the children of people in my team (2 months ago).~~ Finished, see previous blog post.
10. Christmas Scarf for Clare in the UK. Started but nowhere near ready.
11. Christmas Gift for Gill in the UK. Not even started.
~~12. Welcome gift for Mrs Autrey's baby (knitted but not wrapped or posted).~~ Wrapped & waiting for the post office to open.
13. Welcome gift for Clare's baby (not even started).
~~14. Kris Kringle gift for friend at lunch on Sunday*.~~ Lavender bags X 3. Time? 20 minutes. Easy.

Wow. See what you can produce if you don't have to go to work, Gentle Readers? Although I've now been off for 11 days, it doesn't feel like I've achieved much, although I have sorted out a bunch of stuff which is going into the roof pending the re-opening of the local high school - apparently they're always looking for dressmaking fabric, and I have a bunch of stuff which is not good enough to keep, and certainly not bad enough to put in the recycling... so come February, that's where it's going.

School holidays, I hear you ask? February? For those Gentle Readers who live in the other half of the planet, I'm in the other other half. This is the half where it's summer right now, albeit cold & rainy, and school holidays start towards mid-December and run until the end of January. Just like you up there, we make our kids go to school when it's cold & wet :-))

In other news of no relevance, I had a birthday. It ended in a zero. I'm now officially middle-aged, although I quite like Cordelia Naismith's* version of middle age, which is "always 10 years older than you are".

That's what's left of my surprise dessert croquembouche, with vanilla bean ice-cream. It was delicious, and having the whole restaurant singing along to "Happy Birthday" was lovely - it's a bit of a tradition in our local Italian Restaurant, everybody sings when a sparkler-encrusted dessert item wends its way out of the kitchen - that way we all get to join in the fun, if not the food.

Sadly, I had to drive home, so my intake of a fabulous Shiraz from 2003 was somewhat limited - it's sitting in a cool dark place waiting for another opportunity... which will be tonight, when we're zipping up to MBF's house for pizza - is it a crime against wine to drink a Gold Medal winning wine with pizza? Hey, now that I'm 50, I'm breaking all the rules, not just the wine rules. White wine with beef, red wine with pizza, socks with sandals, sling-back heels with panty hose, high heels with trousers that are too short, sock with heels, black bras under white shirts, showing my bra straps... wow, can't you tell I'm old? When I was a teenager (last century, no less), you were a real moll if you let your straps show. Phew.

Anyway, I'm going to put my lederhosen and wig on now, and go & watch India and Australia in the cricket. Nicely multicultural, that's me. Ciao!

*copyright Lois McMaster Bujold, some time ago.

Aliens amongst us...

2011-12-26T08:58:00.001+11:00

All lined up ready to go... and then.... gone! I hope you all had a fabulously festive day yesterday, with lots of food, drink and loved ones... we certainly did.

Ciao!

Don't look too closely, but...

2011-12-10T11:47:00.001+11:00

It's 11.47am on Saturday & I'm sitting down to write a blog post. I woke at 5.50am, got up & had breakfast then fiddled with my phone for about an hour (no wonder my data download bill was so high in November!), then I crawled back into bed to warm my cold feet on Mr Golightly's lovely warm calves, and slept until 8.15, when I crawled back out, threw on clothes & helped Mr Golightly load the industrial overlocker (which we acquired at the same time as the industrial sewing machine) into Mr Jared's van. Mr Jared does upholstery school with me, and he's very good.

Anyway, I've got one of the seat covers I foolishly offered to make in June for Miss Alix in London still to make. That's a hell of a sentence, isn't it? I had a bit of a mental block with the second one, didn't seem to matter what I did I couldn't get it to fit. Anyway, I skipped out of the work Christmas Party to come home & get it fixed, which I did... and now I have one left to make.

I've made a Christmas doorstop for the lovely lady at the Beautician, ~~along with cutting out a bunch of dollies, which I'm trying to make for the children of people I work with, and I'm going to spend all of tomorrow making them.~~

And since then, Gentle Readers, I've had a nap, a night's sleep, an excellent roast beef dinner at MBF's house, scrambled eggs & bacon for breakfast with two excellent cups of coffee (thank you Bilgola Deli) and have finished both the last seat cushion cover (yay!) and three dollies.

I realised when I was about to make the fourth one that the work christmas party is not on until the 23rd, and although I don't have to go, I am on holidays & can drop off the dollies then, which means I can also make enough for all the children - I got up to identifying seven (Jackson, Joshua, Zoe, Abbey, Chloe, Charlie & Charlie's sibling) and my bosses two kids who are a fair bit older... and then I went... phew. I can't do all this tonight, so next week (when I've got some time off) I can throw myself into it.

Here's some pictures of the effort so far:

Notice they're all a bit... odd? Some are odder than others, which is all good. They're all made form the same pattern but with different scraps from the scrap box. Nothing new was cut up to make these guys... except maybe some rik-rak. I like. I'm thinking of offering for sale, maybe if I open my shop again next year. Price indicators, anyone?

Ciao!

The list...

2011-12-02T23:34:00.001+11:00

This is the time of year when people make lists. Most people make lists of things they'd like for the Festivals that abound at the end of the year... some people, like me, make lists of the things they haven't done yet, and that they really really need to do before the end of another set of opportunities (read "year") flies by.

So, in the interests of depressing myself even further, here is my list, along with some indication of when I said I would deliver.

1. Pouch for Anne-Marie (18 months ago)
2. Cushions for Mr Golightly's Big Sis (17 months ago)
3. Cushions for Lyndsey (6 months ago)
4. Seat covers for Mrs Autrey (at least 9 months ago)
5. Dog for Effie in Canada (only Monday)
6. Pouch for MBF's children's piano teacher (3 months ago)
7. Pouch for MBF's children's dance teacher (ditto)
8. Cushion for MGF Kaz (who knows, so long ago I've forgotten)
9. Dolls for the children of people in my team (2 months ago).
10. Christmas Scarf for Clare in the UK.
11. Christmas Gift for Gill in the UK.
12. Welcome gift for Mrs Autrey's baby (knitted but not wrapped or posted).
13. Welcome gift for Clare's baby (not even started).
14. Kris Kringle gift for friend at lunch on Sunday*.

I'm sure there's more. I'm beginning to feel a bit overwhelmed by all this. I need to stop doing a few things, and spend more time actually sitting down at the sewing machine, rather than in the coffee shop. Tomorrow would have been a perfect day to do this, being Saturday and all, but here's the schedule:

8.00am - haircut & colour in Newport.
10.30am - drive to Dee Why for x-ray of jaw.
11.00am - xray of jaw.
11.15am - drive home. Go up to MBF's house to belatedly help with Birthday decorations for Miss Nelly's birthday party.
12noon - Madly wrap presents before Nephew arrives for Birthday Lunch at the Arms.
3.00pm - home to start on next round of sewing (see items in list above for a clue which one I'll be doing first - *pick me*) - any suggestions as to what I can make the friend? Quickest and easiest is jumbo lavender bags...

The chair continues apace, but I was one day short of finishing it. The front border is on though:

and all that remains is the two outside arms, the piping (all 1.68m of it) and the back, which has to be handstitched into place. Guess I'll be going back next year after all. Actually, Lucas, the fabulous night-class teacher was very encouraging & suggested I enroll, then at least if I do want to carry on after I finish this chair, I can turn up from time to time with projects and work on them at my own speed. I like the sound of that.

And now, Gentle readers, it is 01.04am, and I have to be up at 0700 to prepare for another long day, so I am going to leave you with the pictures of the first two children's softies I made, which went to a very good home:

See? There are aliens among us.

Ciao!

Squinty-eyed but gorgeous

2011-11-16T22:04:00.001+11:00

Some interesting things have happened in my life since I last dumped on you, Gentle Readers, including something that has made me question the sanity of my decision to return to work at the August Institution.

In other news, my lovely MIL tripped & fell off her platform stilettos*, spent 2 days in hospital, acquired some cracker bruises to go with the broken nose, fractured wrist, and dislocated & damaged thumb.

A good friend's mother died, and lastly, a piece of good news, my lovely friend Clare Carter, of Lulu Carter fame, had her baby! Yay Clare & Ashley!

In amongst all this, I did not go to Upholstery School, despite being off on Tuesday. Nor did I go tonight, which I probably should have done, because I didn't go last week (Mr G & I both having the day at home to keep an eye on his poor battered mother, and although Mr Golightly was going to have dinner with his lovely Ma, and I could have gone to upholstery school tonight, I wanted some time in the house with no noise.

I'm sure I've alluded to this before. Mr G likes TV. He likes movies, wrestling, the cricket, game shows, the news. He would watch paint dry if it was on TV. I, myself, am not so keen. I lived by myself for a number of years with no TV and never missed it. I may have spent a little time talking to myself, but generally, I like the sound you get between your ears when there's nobody in the house but you. Especially on a night like tonight, when it's raining, and you can hear the drops hitting the roof. At least, I hope that's what it is.

Anyway, tonight I did a bit of work on the Christmas Gifts I'm making for people in my team who have young children - I think there's about seven or eight of them (kids, not team members), and I've started making a bunch of these:

Some Gentle Readers who have been curious enough may have seen previous iterations of the pooch, including this one:

which I made for Nephew E's friend Lachie, and this one:

Which I made for MGF Kaz's niece Sharlene, and finally, Elliot:

So cute.

Anyway, it's 10.32pm now, and even though I haven't imparted much by way of news and information (apart from the "Battle Murder and Sudden Death" at the top of this little missive, I feel my eyelids starting to droop, and I must away, away to my bed. Besides that, there's a huge spider on the wall behind me, and although I'm not scared, per se, of spiders, I don't always want to share the room with one. Especially when they go like the clappers and can run up your arm & up your nose before you can say "what spider?"...

Ciao!

*Actually, they were more like this:

I've figured it out!

2011-11-06T19:40:00.000+11:00

What happens is that I can only write blog posts in the study, on the big laptop. I can't write them in bed, on the lounge, sitting in the sun or anywhere else on the small laptop, because the keyboard is too small, and the words don't come out right. So... I can only write blog posts when I can sit down, uninterrupted by life, the universe and Mr Golightly, and use the laptop in our dedicated study room. This room started its life as our bedroom, when we first bought the house, but it has since lost about 1.5 metres off its width to the hall, and is the perfect size for a study. Along with several hundred books, a couple of thousand dvds/cds and a large pile of miscellaneous junk, artistically arranged across several shelves, that is. Ghod help us if the archeologists ever get in here.

Anyway, I digress. The point of that useless little story is to confess why I don't post more regularly, such as every Sunday night, when I'm slumped on the lounge watching crap on TV, thinking "I could be writing a blog post about now". It's because this machine is too heavy to sit on my lap, and so I would have to leave behind Mr Golightly's excellent company, the warmth of the fire (yes, Gentle Readers, even in November it's been cold enough to have the fire on) and the noise of whatever is numbing our minds at the moment... and so I don't.

However, I have been sewing today, and so have snuck in here to put pictures of my work into the shop, and the lightbulb went on! Aha! Quick, get a post written before you get dragged out of here & into the slothly pit that is the living room.

Here's the pouches:

Beautiful lining by Robert Kaufman, called 'Tea Time', and nice thick Japanese linen for the outside. I appliqued the small teapot on the front for the finishing touch:

And the other one, in one of my favourites, the shot red linen:

Lined with some beautiful Momo Wonderland, now sadly out of print & very precious!

I hope Mrs Pudding likes these - they are for the children's Teachers, so if you're one of them, stop reading 5 minutes ago.

In other news, the chair progresses, slowly... I have coconut fibre-d,

Stitched all that down neatly:

Learnt how to do a stitched edge (from the Child Minder, no less!)

and added half a basket of flock to the top of the chair - and my sinuses kindly waited until yesterday before playing up. I look a bit panda-like today, dark rings round the eyes, but I feel much better than yesterday, when (once again), I didn't get out of bed until 3.00pm, but this time it was just the woolly head, not exhaustion.

But, here is the chair!

This week, calico, and much, much, much thumping with a mallet. Pray for me to your gods, Gentle Readers, for I fear the return of the Tennis Elbow.

In other news, I've discovered Words with Friends, and I now have five games on the go at once. It's keeping my brain going, that's for sure, and I just spent the huge sum of $1.33 on Doodlefit, which I'm going to go & play right now!

Ciao!

Yay for me!

2011-10-27T19:52:00.004+11:00

At 4.30pm today I powered my laptop down, put it neatly away in the cupboard (deliberately left unlocked in the hope that somebody will steal it & I can have a new one...), and went home. Yay! Needless to say the trip wasn't particularly quick, and when I finally lumbered into Newport, the newsagent had already shut. I was a bit peeved, I have to say, that nobody consulted me about this change to their hours. The newsagent was always really reliable, 6.30am to 7.00pm. It changed hands this year, to new people who I think may be struggling a bit with the reality of running a busy shop, and the hours entailed in a newsagent, and so... bam. Bugger.

Anyway, I missed out on the opportunity to spend more money on things I don't really need, because, since I'm working again, I've resubscribed to House & Garden & Homes & Antiques, which are a very guilty pleasure... and I certainly don't need any more magazines. I already have them in boxes on the living room floor, because all the bookcases are full.

Did I mention about my clearing out spurt the other day? I've been slowly identifying things I don't need anymore (define need, could you?), and those things have been working their way out of the confusing maze of stuff that is our house, and into the various charity bins, op-shops, junk piles, council clean-ups and garbage bins that surround me. Last Sunday (no, not the one I spent asleep, the one before that) I went through my wardrobe & pulled out all my work skirts. I never wear skirts to work anymore. I have several pairs of black trousers, none of which fit me properly anymore, [since I started Upholstery school, and lost that very unattractive 10 kilos that was making me look like Rosie O'Donnell... but I digress (for a change)], and they were just hanging in the wardrobe in the spare room, taking up room.

Why in the spare room, I hear you ask, Gentle Readers... well. Most of them are too long to hang in the normal wardrobe, which has four hanging sections, two top & two bottom, two for me & two for Mr Golightly. Well, actually, one for Mr Golightly, two for me & one full of stuff, some of which features heavily in this tale.

Anyway, I stripped down to the fundamentals, and tried every one of those poor neglected skirts on. Most of them still fitted me, but I looked at myself, with my wonky knee, my flat feet and my sandfly bite scars, and just went... ick. So, all the straight, knee length 'office' skirts, some of which had matching jackets, went into the 'give away' bag. Some of the matching jackets followed, including the awful maroon & beige boucle one I bought in a fit of madness one day, which was a crop style, with tight fitting sleeves, and made me look like...

this. Except for a few things - I'm not a blonde, I have no tan & I don't wear white shoes. And I'm also not quite that fat. Apart from that, the resemblance is quite scary.

Anyway, that went. Also, and I do regret this a little bit, a beautiful Anthea Crawford silk slub skirt in lilac, with a really discrete yellow, green & darker purple... but I hadn't worn it for over two years, and I wasn't going to. I know it in my logic brain, but my much larger sentimental brain is still going "I loved that little lemming". Sorry, Red Dwarf moment.

I threw out silk blouses I'd made, linen ones I bought with cap sleeves (way too irritating), some cotton shirts I'd had for more than 10 years which were never going to see the light of day again, and even some trousers (too small, too big, too flared, too straight, too long, too short). It was quite cathartic. Then I started on the shoes. Mostly clumpy ones designed to take orthotics, in the days before they realised that you could still wear nice shoes and support your fallen arches...

And then, Gentle Readers, I started on Mr Golightly's side of the wardrobe. Phew. I need to go & have dinner now, before I reveal all. Let's just say it was very scary.

Ciao!

Now this is just silly...

2011-10-26T22:19:00.000+11:00

Sunday night it was too hot to sleep properly, tonight I've got the fire on. I love spring.

Progress update on the chair:

Progress on the exhaustion? Coming along nicely, thank you. I haven't made it to Upholstery school this week - my need for sleep having extended to spending most of Sunday asleep, coming home from work & going straight to bed on Monday & getting up only when Mr Golightly came home, and then going to bed at 9.30pm yesterday - and I'm hitting the sack right now, even though I'm halfway through watching an episode of Sanctuary...

Ciao!

Where do you go to my lovely...

2011-10-09T18:31:00.000+11:00

Tell me, loyal Gentle Readers, have we had that one before? I think we may have. I like to recycle my titles every now and again, just to see who's keeping watch.

Anyway, I'm posting this one today for all the blogs that are no more... when I started out reading other people's stuff, I was completely in awe by how funny, and clever, and creative they all were. I got inspiration for crafty projects, links to other interesting blogs and even made some new friends and an enemy or two, but hey, it's all good.

And now, some of my favourites are no more. I feel like I've lost old friends, or that one of my favourite authors has died much too young (RIP Sara Douglass), and I don't like it.

What're the options? Well, I do go through from time to time and remove the interminably cheery ones, the ones that always make me want to puke with their nauseating 'everything is lovely in my world' vibe, and the ones where the person writing it is just posed over the razor blade waiting for Australia to lose the Rugby so they've got an excuse to slash their wrists.

I got rid of 'diary of a nutjob housewife' before she bored me to tears with her tales of woe and how they couldn't afford to eat anything except hot dogs but they could afford a subscription to Fox... and I miss Felicity from All Toile and No Reward, and I wish she'd come back. Or somebody would tell me what's going on! I miss Gerald Gee, who used to put lovely 1930's music on his blog, but he's gone to the great Artists Studio in the sky and he won't be coming back. I miss Baino and her eloquent endless supply of 'useless as ...' sayings. I miss Sara from Streaks on the China, although I know she reads this from time to time, and is kind enough to comment, but I liked her writing and I miss it.

So... where does that leave me? Out looking for new blogs to read and enjoy. If you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear 'em. I quite like House on Hill Road but I think she might be a bit too foody/quilty/kids-y for me.

And in news of the other kind, I took some nice pics of My Lovely Ma's garden whilst in Perth (Oh, I'm back, btw, did you notice?), and spent most of yesterday asleep. Jetlag will do that for you.

And now, back to my knitting. Ciao!

Chairs, Chairs, Chairs

2011-10-04T21:08:00.001+11:00

Red, yellow, black or white, with a little bit of moonlight...anybody recognise that song? It was a one-hit wonder from about 1978 or 1979, by a band whose name has gone, long gone, from the pit that is my memory...

Anyway, I am in WA, Gentle Readers, that's Western Australia, visiting my lovely Ma and Hank for the first time since June, and covering their bargain buy, which I may have posted pics of earlier. If not, here goes. (Look away now if ugly upholstery frightens you...)

Mum attacked the chairs with hot water and sugar soap and they were... filthy:

But after a good scrub, a coat of varnish or two, and some new upholstery, they look pretty good, imho.

My Ma professes herself to be ... quite pleased.

Me too!

Ciao!

If a tree falls in the forest...

2011-09-25T13:43:00.001+10:00

Would anybody hear? Well, Gentle Readers, let me tell you that when a tree falls down in our street at 0149 on a Friday morning, pretty much everybody heard it. And popped out in various states of undress to inspect, surmised that a) nobody was hurt, b) no property was damaged, c) no electricity was off, d) no driveways were blocked and e) no accidents were likely, becasue it's a flat road and the tree was easily visible. So we all went back to bed. Except for the new(ish) neighbours to our left, who came home at 3.00am, and decided that the fallen tree presented an immediate danger to life and limb (ho ho ho), and promptly called the Fire Brigade.

I have no idea why the Fire Brigade felt it was necessary to come charging through the quiet streets of Newport with lights ablazing and sirens roaring, but they did. They parked right outside our house, proceeded to set up the generator for the lights, got the chainsaw out and spent a very happy hour and a half (yes, it was a big tree) cutting up the tree. Sleep? Not much, really.

They finished about 4.15am. I get up at 5.30am. Cranky? You bet.

Anyway, here's the evidence:

And here's Mr G watching from the safety of our bedroom:

And the best part (I think)? All the foliage and tree bits have landed on our verge/nature strip, and so when it finally stops raining, Mr Golightly is going to go out & mulch it all up & put it on our garden. Some small measure of compensation for spending Friday with a brain like marshmallow, yes?

In other news, I finally got MaddieGal's pouches off in the mail to her - and I have bits and pieces of Mendocino left, if anybody's interested. It is very thin, and really only suitable for small things like pouches or lavender bags. Definitely no good for doorstops etc.

In other news, the crazy hours continue, 44 last week. I have vowed that I will not do more than 32 this week, partly because I'm off on Tuesday (yay!) and am schlepping out to Villawood to eyeball some upholstery supplies for my chair-recovering sojourn to Perth next week...

I've been doing these stupid hours because I've been on a few courses in the past two weeks, but that's all finished now, so things should settle down a bit. I now know what makes you a Leader, as opposed to a Manager, and that my GSI is mostly blue and a bit green with not much red. Gah. Amazing how much money institutions spend on this stuff, isn't it? Our Management offsite dinner was... interesting, for a certain value of 'interesting'. I was home by 9.30pm & asleep shortly thereafter. All that lemon squash!

And yesterday, despite my head feeling like a slightly overripe rockmelon, I went up the hill to help MBF* and the Kidlets strip the hideous straw wallpaper from her dining room. We found this underneath:

Any ideas who Ruby was? Me neither!

And that, Gentle Readers, is about the sum of my week. It's 13.32pm & I'm still in bed. I
still feel slightly like a damaged piece of fruit, but the urge to sew is getting to unignorable levels, and I feel some lavender bags coming on...

And so I wish you all uninterrupted sleep and a great week! Ciao!

*My Best Friend

Just another manic Sunday

2011-09-18T21:21:00.000+10:00

So, the week apparently flew by without me or anybody else, noticing. Monday & Wednesday I went to Upholstery School, where we have a real teacher... and who took pity on me and helped me fix my chair's arms...

and I was able to start on the seat:

I'd forgotten how much fun it is hand-tying springs, the twine is a little bit hard on your hands, but it was somewhat nostalgic in the 'brown paper and string parcel' type of old-fashioned thingy...

Anyway, I've got to tie them all together, and I can't go to Upholstery school on Monday because I have to go to a Management Offsite dinner - can you believe this, Gentle Readers? Not only do I get to spend the whole day talking to my management colleagues, I get to have dinner with them as well. Yeehaw. Good thing the company's paying.

So, Wednesday is the last day of term, and this chair was supposed to finished this term. Oh well. Guess I'm not going to be ready for Third Year in 2012... unless something dramatic happens. Any suggestions?

In happier news, I took some photos for the very lovely kate, of Rapt! Upholstery, aka The Chairy Godmother. She's made this chair to show at the Warwick Fabrics Trade Show - I think it's fantastic!

And one of the teachers made this, which I also think is fabulous:

He made it by stitching pieces of fabric together at random, then cutting out what he needed for the chair & making it as it fell - I absolutely love it & would happily pay a lot of money for it - but apparently we aren't allowed to buy it. I have suggested a raffle, but somehow I think it's going to end up in the foyer of the Upholstery department.

In other news, I spent three days in the company of other 'new' or 'potential' team managers - we had a game to play, once a day over the three days, and the aim, it being a bank, of course, was to make money. I never cease to be amazed at those people who can spend three days in a course which is designed to make you a better leader, who then throw it all away and try to do everything themselves, rather than showing some leadership and delegating some of the bits to other people.

Our final round of the game was noisy, chaotic and disorganised, but it was fun. We made $414 million dollars, if anybody's interested. That was just our team. Together the three teams made $1.1 billion dollars - all good clean paper money. What kind of rewards and bonuses did we negotiate for ourselves? Well, none. What kind of negotiators were we? The crap kind. All the negotiating was done around the tools and resources needed to make more money, rather than share it around amongst the workers, equitably. I'll never, never make a capitalist. Can you tell?

Oh yes, and I made these:

Apparently this fabric is much in demand... and now, Gentle Readers, I am watching an episode of Stargate, and then I am going to bed.

Ciao!

Has-beans and pea-ing on the ground

2011-09-11T18:54:00.001+10:00

Well, a fabulous weekend in the Hunter was had, very relaxing (mostly because I forgot to take a bobbin for the sewing machine, so funny, ROTFLMAO, oops. No cushions, sorry Kaz.

Kaz excelled herself in the 'big fat fluffy bed' stakes this week - the candles were lit, the bed was beautifully made and even the vases and flowers co-ordinated:

Just beautiful.

We also had lots of fun upholstering the bench (finally):

And here it is on the matching rug:

It only took about 20 minutes to finish it off. I thought it looked OK, but Kaz said she thought it looked "bloody fantastic". It would certainly pass the Head Teacher pinch test... and Mr Golightly looks rather fetching sitting on it in his best working clothes:

And we picked some peas, had a look at the broadbeans, which Uncle Arfur pulled out a little prematurely... like, before they'd even sprouted, and I took a pretty picture:

The smell of the barrels we bought back for MBF* Deb in the back of the car was rather heady, a mix of oak and dried wine, but fortunately we didn't get stopped by the RBT** boys, and the trip home was quite quick, which leaves me here on the couch at 6.50pm, thinking about making pouches and watching Silent Witness...

All in all, rather relaxing. I'm going back to Upholstery School on Monday & Wednesday nights for the rest of this term (which is only this week & next), and hopefully a break will make me feel a bit better about how this is all going... and maybe I'll even get the seat started next week? We shall see. And see, not another thought about the Tuesday Child Minder!

Hope you all had a relaxing weekend too, Gentle Readers.

Ciao!

*My Best Friend
**Random Breath Testing Police

Damned by...

2011-09-07T19:19:00.001+10:00

Faint praise. Yes, Gentle Readers, the Tuesday Child Minder has excelled himself. I am overwhelmed by the encouragement and support he gave me at the end of last week, telling me that my chair would look good in a dark room. Hmmm. Some issues there, I think. I've taught people. You know that, Gentle Readers. I've done plenty of 1:1 coaching of people who have no business trying to learn how to use a computer, right up to standing in front of 200 fairly hostile people telling them about software which was going to make them all redundant. There are ways, and there are ways. This, I hasten to add, was not one of the ways.

I wonder what qualifications you need to be a TAFE* teacher? I know when I looked into doing it in the IT world, you needed a qualification at least one level above that which you were going to be teaching. For me, that meant I had to go & get either a degree, or some form of magic post-TAFE Diploma graduate qualification, which is what I did. The reality that I then couldn't get a job in IT was not a reflection on me, but more an economic wake-up - they pay these guys $54 an hour (if they're lucky), but they're casuals. They don't get any of the security of a proper job, and I didn't love teaching enough to give up my six-figure salary for $54 an hour, for maybe 6 hours a week... would you?

Anyway, having done Cert IV in Workplace Training & Education in 2004 as part of my quest to be a better teacher, I know that you don't tell your students that their chair looks like crap, and that they should have taken notes, and that nobody is going to employ you anyway because you're not a real upholstery student, not like the apprentices [and no, before you all throw up your hands in horror, he didn't actually say that, but it was implicit. Well, it was inferred by me, so I'm blaming him. That's how it works, isn't it?] You encourage them gently by helping them when it's obvious they're stuck, even if they are supposed to be doing it themselves. It doesn't get done if they can't remember what they're supposed to be doing (and let me tell you, Gentle Readers, in the grip of peri-menopause as I am, I can't remember anything. Except the two landlocked countries in South America, which for some reason, never leaves me). Bolivia and Paraguay. I know. You needed to know that.

So, here's the progress, and don't be too horrified to find out that this took me 8 hours to do. Miss Natalie & I left at 4.00, being thoroughly sick of standing around waiting whilst the Child Minder communicated to the builder about his renos**, the other male teacher about the footy***, and the apprentices about the very thorny issues involved in making a slip cover. Cranky? You bet:

A note of thanks is due to the lovely Kate, of The Chairy Godmother, who reminded Miss Natalie and I that the Child Minder's tenure as our teacher is finite, and that happier days await. Also, to the lovely Blue Lambb, who pointed out that a Vitamin B shot might help - I was thinking of a Vitamin R shot myself, as in 'Red Wine'!

In other news of the happier kind, the house is looking slightly less bomb-damaged, with clean washing only in one place, the industrial sewing machine having de-camped to the workroom and the food fairy having been [yesterday, amongst other chores post-upholstery school].

And finally, I took myself out of the office today at 3.55pm, if only to visit the Doctor. It was lovely to be home by 5.30pm, which I celebrated by getting the bin in, doing some recycling and meeting Butch, the new Dog Next Door. The unbridled joy of scritching a warm soft puppy under the chin took away any remnants of tension. I want me a dog!

Ciao!

*TAFE - Technical And Further Education - Technical skills such as building, carpentry, upholstery, mechanics etc.
**Renos - Renovations.
***Footy - Football - Rugby League, a game played in very few places on the planet, but still considerably more than American Football, which is played, I believe, only in America.

Routinely bad...

2011-09-04T09:58:00.000+10:00

So, Gentle Readers, it really is time for me to get my merda together and get back into some semblance of a routine. The house looks like a bomb has hit it, there's nothing in the fridge, there's clean washing all over the house, there's dust all over the floors, there are piles of stuff to go to the charity shop, magazines and books to go to the library and the only clean thing is my bathroom, because I can't stand a dirty bathroom. Where's the cleaner, now that I'm working, hmm?

Trouble is, it's all built up a bit in the first 2 months of working, and I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all.

Mr Golightly has been absolutely no help because he has been, and is now, in the final stages of making this, which is going to turn our pretty much unused guest bedroom into a workroom for me, until we can come up with the $40k needed to excavate our under-house space & turn that into a workroom for both of us! Then, he can help with the house. Maybe.

My lovely Ma spent some quality time in an institution known as a hospital, and I felt frustrated and angry that I couldn't just pop over to be there, like I could when I wasn't working.

Because I'm working a 9 day fortnight, I've been going to upholstery school on my off day, and then on two nights in the alternate week, and that's left me pretty much exhausted. My etsy shop is still open & I've been selling stuff, slowly, and one of my customers from 2009 has just popped up again with some custom requests, so that's got to fit into the schedule somehow...

The new job is good, but I need to stop going in at 0700 and still being there at 1645 - that's just ridiculous. I seem to be more productive in the afternoons, so maybe I should start at 10.00am? Maybe.

Last weekend I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to re-cover a piece of furniture for MGF* Kaz, and we are going back to the Hunter Valley next weekend so I can finish that off... it's a bit of a tale of woe...

No, I think I'll save it for another post. But we did have some nice morning weather:

And I had some lovely news, my good friend Clare, from Lulu Carter, is having a baby. I know she's wanted another baby for a long long time, and I'm thrilled for her. Her lovely sister, Alix, also had a baby this year, and that's adding to my guilt because I have things to send and can't get myself organised enough to send them off in the post. Gah!

Anyway, that's it. I've got to go and fold, wash, clean, sweep, dust, put away, tidy and shop. Ick. I'd rather be sewing.

Ciao!

*My Good Friend

Squeeeezing in a post...

2011-08-30T19:19:00.000+10:00

Just to let you know, Gentle Readers, I have found the time today to squeeze in the following:

Breakfast
Shower
Dress
Make a flask of coffee
Pick up lunch out of fridge
Pick up upholstery stuff out of car
Let Miss Natalie drive to TAFE (her turn today)
Sit in warm car for 25 minutes waiting for the workroom door to open
Spend an extremely frustrating day putting my cover on and taking it back off again to the satisfaction of the child minder they give us on Tuesdays instead of a teacher...
Leave early
Get home early
Do a load of washing
Sweep the kitchen floor
Empty the kitchen bin
Put the garbage/trash/rubbish bins out
Cook dinner
Empty the suitcases from the weekend & put them into the spare bedroom, for Mr G to put in the roof
Talk to my lovely Ma, who has purchased these:

And this is the state they were in:

And I'm going to reupholster them when I go over at the beginning of October...

And I've sold two pouches to a lovely person in the US, who also bought some of these:

So, perhaps life is returning to normal? This is a very good lesson for me on what can be achieved if I leave work at 4.00pm instead of 4.45pm.

And after all that, how are you all, Gentle Readers? I've missed talking to you, I admit. I know that only a few of you hardy souls ever comment, but I know you're out there, still checking in, and I appreciate that, especially over the last few weeks (well, since I went back to almost full-time work, really)...

Anyway, it's back to work, as I have to check on Dinner. See, a Golightly's work is never done! Ciao!

Is this what it takes?

2011-08-09T19:12:00.002+10:00

Hello universe, I'm back (just for a short time, I'm sure). I'm a bit bemused by some things that happened here on Monday... I lost two friends and I just can't begin to comprehend how something like this could happen here in Australia, where we don't normally get text messages at 7.00pm on a cold Monday night telling us friends are dead, in terrible circumstances.

Anybody got any answers? I've never been a believer in that old saw "everything happens for a reason", because, yanno, we never get to know the reason. We just have to take it on faith that my friends died for some higher purpose. Not seeing it, you know?

I don't believe that there's any such thing as fate, either. You get given a life, and you make the best of it. Yes, some of us get given better starts than others, but it's yours, you own it, you drive it. You can piss it all up against a wall, or you can start from nothing and build yourself a big shiny wall. You choose.

Some choices are good, that's a given. You check the traffic before you step out. You take your library books back, you stick to the speed limit. You stop going drinking all night when you hit 30. You take responsibility for your reproductive health. You learn, you grow. And yet, here you are, on a Monday night, dead. That's not a choice you made, I'm sure. So there are definitely limits to how are this whole 'determinism' thing goes, especially when you share your life with another person, because suddenly the capacity for making smart decisions is halved, not doubled.

Good advice welcome.

Cat? What cat?

2011-07-30T19:36:00.002+10:00

Look at me, I'm tired. Don't look at me , I'm tired. Look away, I'm tired. No matter how I look at it, I'm tired. Five nights being woken at 3.30am by the cat, three mornings getting up at 5.30am, two mornings of starting at 5.30am and working through until 9.30pm (with two whole breaks of 30 minutes each in between), and then hitting the sack at 10.40pm, and guess what? I'm tired.

We're cat-sitting for my lovely MIL*. It isn't the best thing I've ever done, because, by and large, I'm not a fan of cats. There have been cats in my dim & distant past whose company I've enjoyed in passing, but I've never offered one a place at my table, nor am I likely to. I side with whoever it was who said "Dogs have owners, cats have staff". Currently, Mr Golightly and I are butler and housekeeper to Munchkin, he of the beautiful blue eyes (photo somewhere, too tired to find it), whilst the current provider of food and board to the beautiful spoilt one is in Queensland, defrosting.

Anyhoo, the return of my WMIL* is imminent (Monday), and I've just had three glorious hours of afternoon nap, and I feel almost hooman** again. I still wouldn't have a cat though.

Progress is being made on the latest chair, it is currently covered by extremely ugly orange fabric, and I have really enjoyed the Monday & Wednesday night classes at Upholstery School - we are lucky enough to have a fantastic teacher those nights, and I'm quite sure I learn more because he's so enthusiastic about what he's doing!

And finally, Gentle Readers, some of you may have noticed that my output has dramatically dropped off, and I think it's only fair to warn you that until I get into the groove of starting early, having two night classes and some semblance of life beyond that, there isn't going to be much more. So, I'm officially signing off for a while, until I can dredge up some more energy!

Take care of your loved ones!

Ciao!

Tempus is doing that thing again...

2011-07-17T10:28:00.000+10:00

Flying, that is. Tempus Fugit. Time flies. Ah, the paucity of public education.

So, Gentle Readers, I have survived my first week back at the August Institution, and although I know it was a bit cruisey because it was my first week, it was nice & cruisey. I had one-to-one meetings with people, I carted in stuff to personalise my desk, I ordered a footrest, I pined for upholstery school (only 3 more days, including today), and I bought this:

And hopefully, when we go with the car today, we'll be able to fit at least some of it in!

And! This:

Which isn't working, but may only need a service and some oil. Hopefully.

Anyway, we're going off this morning (as soon as Mr Golightly raises his head from the warm and comfortable pit he's in, aka the bed) to try & disassemble the machine from the table, so we can get it into the car. Otherwise it's a ute, a portalift & copious amounts of swearing:

Anyway, I've found a website which has manuals for sale, and I've paid my money via PayPal, so we're just waiting now for the email to show up... hopefully it'll show us how to take the thing off the table... and then all we have to do is try to get it in the house. I'll keep you posted!

Ciao!

Pouches...

2011-07-01T10:52:00.000+10:00

Oh yeah, if all of you people who are popping in to view my Lined Box Pouch tutorial would leave some feedback, I'd be very happy. It would be nice to know if you found it useful, useless, too long, too short, not enough pics, too many pics... something! I keep seeing people pop onto the page from there, but nobody ever says hello!

Come on now, don't be shy, we're all friends here. Or we will be if you bring the cake and watch where you sit! But at least there's plenty of chairs :-).

Ciao!

Ciao!

il mio problema è rifinito!

2011-07-01T10:39:00.000+10:00

Finally, Gentle Readers, our issues with the router are fixed (apparently). I feel the pain and suffering of Mr Golightly, who had to deal with not one, not two, not three but four, yes four, links in the chain of service - his IT colleagues, Exetel, Telstra and then AAPT. Isn't it good to know our telecommunications are safe in the hands of some stinkin' multi-national?

However, at the risk of being disconnected again, I won't go any further than that. Even the VOIP works, which is great, because our phone bill was creeping up again - we pay about $13/month for the VOIP, which charges a whole 10c for a National call (to Perth, for example), and has reduced our landline bill down to the basic line rental charge for many months now.

If you can do it, Gentle Readers, and you live in this country (that's Australia, in case you've forgotten), talk to Engin about a voice box. It connects to your wireless broadband modem (or wired, even) with a network cable, and with the aid of an ordinary telephone handset plugged into the voice box, gives you access to the cheapest national phone calls you can imagine. I love it because it lets me keep in constant contact with my lovely Ma for peanuts. This is an unsolicited, unscripted ad. Can you tell?

In other news, it was my good friend Doc Rosie's birthday on Wednesday - I've known her 27 years, which amazes me. We've been through quite a lot together, and I am still amazed and awed by her basic human decency and her ability to tell dirty jokes - the first one she ever told me, about Maud and Mildred and the bunch of flowers, still pops into my head at the most inopportune times..

Anyway, I made her these:

Which I hope will hit the spot - aren't those fabrics lovely?

And now, having just spoken to my lovely Ma on the VOIP, and having a number of jobs I can do today, I am going off to shower (yes, it' only 10.37am, I don't want to rush into it!) and then pick a job at random. I can see new curtains on the horizon...

Ciao!

La sedia è rifinita

2011-06-26T16:09:00.000+10:00

The chair is finished, Gentle Readers, long live the chair. Also, the semester is finished, my time off is finished, and it's all out, all change.

Here's how the chair ended up looking:

I think I'm happy with it. It's for sale, if anybody wants it.

In other news, I have accepted an invitation to take up a role as the manager of a team of lovely bodies out at the August Institution, starting on 11th July. I was very flattered to be asked, especially as my last engagement with that August Body ended fairly badly (remember the mind-reading woman? One day I will tell you a very funny story about how last week I had a nice petty-minded moment of revenge at her expense, but that story's not for today!)... Although I must add for the sake of probity, I did have to go through not one, not two, but three interviews, to get the job...

I have to say my feelings about going back to real work are very mixed... I've really enjoyed just pottering round at home, being chief cook and bottle-washer, making nice dinners (some days) and having time on the weekends just to spend with Mr Golightly, without the spectre of washing & housework hanging over us, but I have told Mr G that the cleaner, who has of course been coming along very quietly for the last 9 months, will be coming in full view now. His only comment was "better put your good teapots away then". What an easy victory that was!

And now, Gentle Readers, I am going to lie down in front of the fire with my copy of "Icefalcon's Quest", by one of my favourite authors, Barbara Hambly, and eat cheese. What more could you ask for on a Sunday afternoon?

Ciao!

Reasons to be cheerful, part X

2011-06-21T05:19:00.000+10:00

So, Gentle Readers, here we are less than two weeks away from my return to work, and by work I mean the paid kind, the unpaid kind not garnering any kind of recognition in the universe I inhabit... and I'm up at 4.44am. Actually I woke up at 4.03am, but tried very hard to avoid getting up until something more closely resembling a decent hour, and failed. Obviously.

So, is it linked? Well, in the determinist view of the universe, probably not. In some of the more esoteric views of the universe which are out there, probably. I'm not really a fan of the 'everything happens for a reason' theory of life, because most of the time us poor saps never get to find out what the reason was, leaving us angry and frustrated. That's why I can't do the whole 'organised religion' thingy, because the fundamental requirement of faith kind of leaves me cold.

Anyway, I have had two job interviews for my return to the August Institution, and on Wednesday, at the worst possible time, I have the final interview with the Head Kahuna herself. Why is it the worst possible time, I hear you ask? Well, Gentle Readers, I was planning on going to Upholstery School on Wednesday (which is not normally a day we attend) to finish the Slipper Chair. I lost half a day yesterday to the Dentist (warning: TMI Moment approaching: acute periodontal infection), and I had planned to be there all day Wednesday to get the damn thing finished.

Well. The interview is from 3.30pm to 4.00pm on Wednesday afternoon, not in the conveniently located, only 10 minutes down the road, by car, Olympic Park. Oh No. The interview is In town. So now I have to leave at 2.00pm, take a change of clothes, change, drive to the station carpark, get the train into town, walk up to the office, have the interview with probably the scariest woman on the planet after Angela Merkel, then do it all in reverse, wasting at least 3 hours of solid slipper-chair time.

Let's hope I get the damn job after all that. Do I really want it? Well, no. But it pays well, the hours shouldn't be too demanding, certainly not as demanding as the last time I worked there, and as I'm only going to be doing 4 days per week, how bad can it be? Hah. Famous last words. I'll let you know.

Ciao!

Catching up with me, catching up with you...

2011-06-19T11:51:00.000+10:00

My poor, loyal Gentle Readers. I feel very bad that I've hardly posted at all in the past month, but the up- and downness of the internet has a lot to do with it. It still isn't fixed, because we went to Perth for what was supposed to be five days, but ended up being six, as our fixation with volcanic ash flared up again, and stranded us. And what has that to do with the router? Well, unless you keep on the case, the provider closes the ticket, and we have to start all over again.

I don't know whether to ramble on about being sick again, or the joys of dealing with Qantas - perhaps we'll start with the illness. The sore throat turned into a chest infection, which I just left alone because, well, I'd already been to the doctor, hadn't I? and I wasn't going to go again, because that would make me a hypochondriac, right? Well, no. I suffered on with great lumps of slime and a terrible cough that kept us both awake for about 10 days, nearly driving poor Mr Golightly to uxoricide. Look it up, I had to!

Then, just when I was over it, we had to deal with linters, at upholstery school. It's cotton fibre, not very far removed from the cotton boll, and so quite unrefined, and very dusty. I started sneezing, and the next day I had a full blown sinus infection. Co-incidence? Maybe. I don't attribute any significance to the chain of events, but rather, I'm blaming Miss Badhair, who has been really sick all term but insists on coming to class and giving it to us.

Anyway, the sinus infection (also unrelieved by a visit to the Doctor) came with me to Perth, home again, and is just fading into insignificance, thank the Ghoddess. It made a significant contribution to my fading desire to blog, in that I was so tired I'd be falling into bed at 8.30pm, when normally I might spend an hour or so perusing my bloglist & composing endless witticisms to delight you all with. Ahem.

Now, Qantas. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to catch our 12.20pm flight. We checked in. Mr Golightly printed his bag tag, I stood there looking slightly smug and superior, because I bought an electronic one some time ago with FFP*, (and so no more hard-to-apply bag tags for me), then we dumped our bags on the belt, whisked through check-in and sat down on the incredibly uncomfortable chairs they have in Perth airport, to wait. At 12.40 (note the time...) they announced that our flight was cancelled due to the ash cloud. Anyway, we had to retrieve our bags, see the staff and then go somewhere else. We took a cab back to Mum's, and kept a close eye on the website, as instructed.

Well. Let me just say that the Vatican gives out more info on how to commune with the Devil than Qantas gave out about what do do. Not only did they say absolutely nothing about how we were going to get home, they didn't even offer up information about how to get our money back.

So, in order to get home, we ended up buying tickets early on Thursday morning at the very reasonable cost of $574.00 each (versus $189 to get there), and hopefully our insurance will cover the difference, after we get our money back. Apparently we have to go to the Qantas website and beg, nicely, for that to happen.

Anyway, I missed another day of upholstery school, and so I now have to abandon my slipper chair to start on the Club chair, which we need to get to a certain stage before we go into Second year, to make sure we aren't too far behind the students who are already working on theirs.

I'm going into school on Wednesday (all day and half of the night) to get the slipper chair finished, because there's not that much left to do... blah, blah blah. You remember the list from the other week? All that's gone from it is 'cover bottom of the seat with calico' (which I don't even think was on the list), 'put the border on' and 'attach the box and the chair'. Still a way to go, but I should be able to finish it on Wednesday. Hopefully.

And here for your delectation is a picture of Miss Caroline's finished chair - absolutely gorgeous, in my opinion.

And that, Gentle Readers, is where I was last week. I promise more later, after I've crawled out of bed. And yes, it is 11.43am. I like to live it up, you know.

I'm still alive...

2011-06-13T23:06:00.000+10:00

Here we are, Gentle Readers, in Perth, visiting my lovely Ma and Hank for the Queen's birthday long weekend.

There's still no progress on having our router fixed, but Mr Golightly advises it has escalated to our national carrier, who are, theoretically, responsible for the provision of the copper wire upon which all our broadband signals are run. I am so very sick of the whole issue, having bought & failed to successfully use not one but two mobile broadband sticks... the reception in the back of our house is terrible... and the router just keeps going up down up down up down up down...

Anyway, the chair continues apace:

And all that's left to do is:

Make a circle of the piping, fit it to the box, sew it to the skirt, put the skirt on, cover the bottom of the chair, attach the box to the chair, cover the box in calico and handstitch the back down. Not much work, really.

Miss Natalie has finished her chair already, partly as a response to the suggestion of the Head Teacher that she's too old to successfully continue next semester in the day class... me too, and also Miss Caro, who is 4 years younger than Miss Nat. I'm 10 years older than Nat, and 14 years older than Miss Caro. That makes us geriatrics, and unemployable, to boot, apparently.

I think that the Head Teacher could have handled the situation a little differently - apparently the number of vacancies for the day-class was fewer than he thought he would have, and so he chose the youngest class members to continue in the day class. It would have been nice if he'd checked with them first, but he didn't... to cut a long story short, after he'd gone round & checked with the rest of the class, he found out that he could actually fit us oldies in because the youngsters didn't actually want to do the day class. Don't you love the methodology?

This is the back of the chair, waiting to be hand sewn...

I promise I'll be back after we return from Perth... and hopefully the line will be fixed by then...

Ciao!

This is going to be the end of me...

2011-06-07T22:39:00.000+10:00

Well, maybe not. But it is doing my head in - we've had a new router, we've had some close attention from the ISP, I've now got two mobile broadband sticks, one of which only works in the front bedroom, the other of which is still waiting for the company to activate it - why does this process take 24 hours? Somebody needs to explain this to me in words of one syllable...

The other news is that the new neighbours appear to have nicked our internet cable. Their network now shows up on our router, so I suspect the previously mentioned dodgy-brothers contractor who installed their broadband didn't bother to investigate if it was already used. Which it was. At the time. Hah.

Anyway, Friday was probably the worst day I've had at upholstery school. Not only did I completely frack up the cutting out of the skirt for the slipper chair, I cut my last piece of fabric for the outside back too small & had to cut another one out of the piping fabric, which I also cut too small. Then I sewed up the skirts & put the inserted piece on the wrong side, so I had to unpick it and restitch it... twice. Then I cut out the calico for the skirt, and cut it too short. Then I cut the missing piece. Too short. So then I had to cut another piece, and my calico now has three pieces, instead of one nice smooth piece. And finally, I cut one of the corners for the box lining too short, and had to spend most of Monday trying to fix it, eventually throwing myself on the mercy of the Upholstery Munchkin...Hah. Why did I think this was going to fun all the time? Well, actually, it was, until Friday.

I have no idea what was going on, but I'm going in on Wednesday to finish the chair seat - webbing, vinyl, white plastic trim round the edge, four layers of foam, linters, calico & fabric. I'm also going to unpick the skirt, because, guess what? I found the missing piece of the skirt, and I'm going to unpick the skirt & reinsert it so I don't have six pieces, just the regular four. Then I'm going to fit the skirt, attach the piping, and then I'll be up to the same point as everybody else. Well, nearly everybody. Some of us are still putting stuff together on the chair, so I don't feel too too bad about my progress. I have a photo for you, but my toolbox with the camera is in the car, waiting to zip off tomorrow morning.

I have injuries to relate, too, but that will have to wait. It's 10.25pm, Gentle Readers, and I'm off to bed. All this sitting, watching the router has exhausted me.

Ciao!

Quick, be quick

2011-06-02T19:24:00.000+10:00

I've been so bad this week and it's not my fault, Gentle Readers, but the fault of either the weather, which has been rather wet, or the new neighbours, who moved in about the time the weather started, and who may or may not have, just saying', you know how it is, been given our broadband copper wire by some dodgy-brothers telephony contractor, because, our wireless router is up, it's down, it's up, it's down... It has more ups & downs than the roller coaster at Luna Park. Roll on the National Broadband Network*.

Anyway, not only have I fallen waaaay behind on my blogging obligations, I've also fallen behind on the Facebook scrabble I play with my lovely Ma & MGF Kaz, correspondence with a number of other people, lurking on blogs, reading blogs, wasting time on the interweb, and of course, being amazed when I realise how much I've actually achieved by not wasting time on the interweb.

Upholstery school continues apace, I had a good day and a bad day today... mostly good, because I went in specially on Tuesday to finish the practice back of the Slipper chair - they make you do one in crap fabric before you slice your own, expensive fabric up - I'm doing some fairly complex pattern matching, and this is the mid-point of where I got up to:

It took me about an hour to get the positions of the outside pieces right. I actually got them stitched on, and then did something so stupid I'm still kicking myself... All the staples for the outside edge of the inside back are supposed to go on the back of the chair (got that?), where they won't be seen when it's finished. Miss Dummy here managed to staple on the side, putting big holes in the side fabric, where it will be seen. Agggh. Anyway, I had to pull the entire inside back all off, unpick the rhs piece, cut another one (thank the goddess I bought lots of the fabric) and then reposition it (remembering that it took me an hour to get the position right this morning!). Sniff. Whimper. I'm now behind again, and will need to work like a navvy to get back up to the rest of them.

Well, when I say the rest of them, I mean the three other people who've done more than this. John, Dean & I are still wrestling with the sewing machine, and Jo is still trying to get the inside back webbing & hessian on her chair.

Miss Sulky actually managed to have a conversation today with one of the four of us she doesn't normally acknowledge, which made the sky fall in (and I guess that might explain all the rain?), and I'm wondering if she's realised that treating people in a completely contemptuous way isn't the best idea if you've got to work as a team? Anyway, I quite enjoy being in Upholstery-purdah, it certainly means I don't have to be polite to people I think need a good smack round the head...

I will take a photo tomorrow of the finished inside back so you can see the fruits of my labours - but here's a shot of how it might look, so you can have an idea of what I'm agonising over:

Curse you, Amy Butler.

More later. Dinner calls, plus Spicks and Specks. You gotta love that Alan Bro', eh?

Ciao!

*No, seriously!

Did I mention...

2011-05-26T22:44:00.001+10:00

That in the middle of all of this good fun, the three Upholstery Musketeers (Natalie, Caroline and me!) went off to Burnt Street Upholstery on Tuesday morning for an outing of sheer unbridled fabric porn?

Caroline was looking for the perfect combination of pattern, stripe and plain for her Slipper chair's front, back & piping, and I was looking for some plain cornflower blue to match the Amy Butler Temple Doors, to use as piping... and also some aqua to go with the Joel Dewberry for the sprung footstool. That's why I walked away with 30 metres of powder blue cotton damask, at only $10/metre.

And why, I hear you ask, do you want 30 metres of curtain material, when you're supposed to be buying fabric for a fracking chair??? Many years ago, when Mr Golightly and I first moved into this house, my lovely Ma and I went to a [much missed] shop called Hart St Fabric House, and bought metres of beautiful camel coloured cotton damask, in a very subtle print, which she made into curtains to hang in the guest bedroom. They look fabulous, classic, subtle, expensive (but they werent'!). So, I could barely believe my eyes when I spotted the very same pattern, but in a blue!

Gentle Readers, the back of our house faces north, which is, of course, ideal in the Southern Hemisphere. We get lots of lovely warm sun in the winter, and good shade in the summer because of the angle of the trees in the back yard. But at night, when the sun is gone (oh dear, did I just say that?), it gets cold. All that glass, you see. So, we have curtains. Lined curtains at that, which I made, this time.

I confess that I bought the original living room curtain material in Spotlight, after spending more quality fabric porn time with Miss Cathy at KA International. I had found my dream fabric there for the living room curtains, but it was $178/metre. Ouch. Given that we need about 24 metres, it was going to be mega-expensive. So I bought this other stuff instead, cheap, from that store whose name starts with S and ends in ...light, and I have always regretted it. It's the colour of cocoa, with a tiny little woven blue square in it. Even with the lining, all you see is the lines of the blue weaving, so it looks like a horizontal stripe. Icky. Also, I didn't buy enough, and the curtains are not wide enough. Curtains need to be at least three times the width of the window to look any good. Having two drops just doesn't cut it.

Note: not my house!

Anyway, I squealed like a girl when I saw this powder blue Damask, and the nice lady gave it to me for $10/metre. There's enough to make the curtains, nicely full, and have some over for cushions or whatever. Which is just as well, because I think I'm going to have to sell off some of the more expensive soft furnishings in the house to cover it.

Anyway, it's 10.37pm now, I've been up since 4.15am (the coughing thing again, don't ask), and I'm pooped. Off to bed, hopefully to sleep through until 5.30am, when I get up and do it all again. I've got pics, tomorrow, of the progress on the chair, too, so stay tuned. Same bat time, same bat channel. (How old does that make me????)

Ciao!

Oh yes, where was I?

2011-05-25T09:21:00.000+10:00

Before I was so rudely interrupted by the need to schlep off to Upholstery School, and, I might add, even with getting up at 0415 I was still three minutes late out the door for Miss Natalie...,I was explaining why we went to Pearls on the Beach on Saturday? Because my lovely Bro, my DSB* is turning 50 in June, and this was the only day we all had free to celebrate.

A few words about the Bro. I don't have a brother. If I had had a brother, he'd be what I want. He's the middle child, so of course he's incredibly well adjusted. He's funny, he's smart and he's got about the biggest hands I've ever seen. Plus, he's a redhead and he's married to one of the tallest women I know, so that means he's even more incredibly well adjusted. I just made that up, there's no scientific basis at all to that assertion. But it must be true, because I said so.

Here's a pic of him showing proper reverence for the fabulous wine we bought him for his birthday (and those huge hands!):

Happy Birthday Bro!

In news of the Upholstery School kind, I finally finished the arm exercises on Monday - I have to say that inserting decorative tacks into vinyl in a straight line, perfectly aligned, is an incredible pain in the arm, and if I never have to do another one, I'll be happy, but then I'll never create a fantastic piece like this:

Oh well. The head teacher is currently joking about what we will actually be doing in our shops when we've finished, and we've eliminated stripes, velvet, checks, pleats, skirts, vinyl and possibly leather. So far we're offering cushions and buttons, and church pews. Lots of upholstery on these...

And here's a picture of Miss Natalie starting work on her slipper chair. This is a chair which sits on a box, then the box becomes a secret compartment (you can't see the box for the skirt when it's finished)...

Here's a kind of similar finished version:

Mine's going to be covered with this:

which should be a very interesting exercise in pattern placement - the pattern is huge, and the inside back of the chair (the bit of the back that faces you when you look at the chair) is actually three pieces - lots of fun & games, careful cutting and some bad language, methinks. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, my hands are cold, I haven't had breakfast, and I need to go & do my cutting out plan for this chair. Ah, back to the heavenly salt mines.

Ciao!

*Defacto Step Brother - my mother's partner's son. Got it?

Up with the lark...

2011-05-23T05:34:00.000+10:00

Or, more accurately, up with the cold. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! TMI Moment approaching! I woke up with that horrible sensation of something needing to remove itself from my lungs, and rather than wake the soundly-sleeping Mr G, I (being completely awake, you understand), decided to get up.

So, it's now 5.01am. I've put all the pictures on both cameras into Picasa, and I'm about to make a food collage for MGF* Kaz, who kindly sent me the pictures she took yesterday. So, I hear you ask, where did you go yesterday? Well, Gentle Readers, MBF* Deb kindly took Mr G & I up to Palm Beach, where we got on the ferry to Patonga, a little community which is reachable by car, but is a very long hour and 41 minutes away... whereas via the ferry? 30 minutes. Hard to resist, especially with views like this along the way:

And we were then picked up by the excellent folk at Pearls on the Beach, a lovely restaurant set in an old weatherboard building, on the edge of the water, where we ate and drank mightily, and I have to say not being constrained by the obligation to drive was extremely pleasant...

And now, sadly, it's 5.30am, and I have to get up - small, very small, joke there - but I will share the picture of the beautiful food with you, before I rush off to make a very ordinary ham & avocado sandwich for lunch and throw myself into Upholstery School today:

As to the occasion? More, later. I promise!

Ciao!

Today I... wagged school

2011-05-19T19:03:00.000+10:00

That's a uniquely Aussie expression for 'didn't go to school' - the nice doctor peered down my throat yesterday, reeled back in horror at what she saw and immediately climbed into the lead-lined suit in case she picked it up herself.

Anyway, I spent an extremely lazy day today sleeping, knitting, reading (just started Hanging Hill, by Mo Hayder, one of my favourite authors - got it via Amazon/Kindle for US$7.95, a tiny bit cheaper than A$39.99 at the local bookstore) and ignoring the 'Present that cannot be named', which is now waiting for its b********.

Yesterday I spent a pleasant day with MBF before frightening the doctor, and on the way home from Town on Tuesday, where I had a quasi-farewell lunch with Miss Mary, who is off to the UK for an undefined period, I bought some this:

and some of this:

One of which will go on the 'Present that cannot be named" and one of which won't. Sorry, no prizes.

I also made discreet inquiries of Miss Mary regarding her car, which is somewhat larger than the Silver Flash, and a stationwagon, or estate car to boot (no pun intended), or whatever they're called where you live - and she's offering it up for a very good price, so some kind of trade may be made. I did offer up Mr Golightly, but she demurred gently, saying she couldn't fit him in the luggage. Shame, that.

It's the ideal size for picking up furniture, a practice I am going to go into RSN. Miss Rosie from School has told me about a Secret Squirrel warehouse way out west where bargains may be had, all of which need love and attention of the upholstery kind. Our garage is about to overflow...

MGF Kaz just rang me to say they've been in the beautiful Hunter Valley 17 years today, so
I may have to make a tribute Treasury & put it on the blog... stay tuned. And that's it for me, Gentle Readers. I have to go now & cook dinner for Mr G, who is going to come thumping up the steps any minute, catching me wasting my time once again. Tote that barge, lift that bail, hey? Back to upholstery school to bang in the nail. Love it!

Ciao!

The Daily Nag

2011-05-15T09:42:00.000+10:00

So, Gentle Readers, the lovely and erudite Peppermint Penguin (aka AJ, aka The Thick as a Plank One) wasn't kidding when she said she was going to remind me every single day to get off my slowly shrinking butt (7 kilos since Christmas, but who's counting?) and do something about getting a job with a real upholsterer .. which is fine, but really, AJ, Sundays??? I don't know any upholsterers {and this sentence could stop right there} who work on Sundays!

Anyway, I can't do any more about it until Tuesday, when I'm free again (Monday being a School day), but I will make a list today of Upholsterers in the district, and on Tuesday I will start making calls.

Yesterday I took a couple of pictures of my nice dining room to share with you, just so you can share the joy of upholstery:

Not so nice, really. Fabric everywhere, supplies everywhere, a half-finished drop-in seat and a half-finished footstool... I need a workshop! Whilst on the way to School on Thursday morning, Miss Natalie had a brilliant idea about people with sheds... and I know one.

Mr Golightly's lovely sister Miss Cathy has what we in Australia half-jokingly call a 'granny flat'* in her backyard. It's got two rooms, a teeny tiny kitchen, a bathroom and a double carport out the front. It's got "My New Upholstery Workshop" written all over it, only she doesn't know it yet.

There's a small problem in that her Number One child and his partner are currently living in it (If you work for Warringah Council, forget you read this!), but I know they're going to move closer to lovely Miss L's work very soon, and then! Shazam! The makeover magic begins...and she has two chairs she wants recovering, so I think I could even do some kind of contra deal on the rent! Maybe. Maybe??

Anyway, I have to go & get dressed, partly because it's 0937, partly because I need coffee for my hangover, and partly because it's only 10°C/50°F and I'm freezing [read: still in pyjamas], and I've got to get on with the present for He Who Cannot be Named... so, more, later!

Ciao!

*Small dwelling detached from the main house with the locks on the outside (just kidding).

Hypothetically speaking..

2011-05-14T10:03:00.000+10:00

I started to write a post detailing the joys of having Little Miss Sulky in the classroom, and how she's managing to infuriate some of us with her antics, but then I thought that perhaps it might be too close to slanderous, and decided against it. Suffice it to say, I have not worked with somebody quite so ... special... for a very long time.

But, Gentle Readers, I'm not letting her bother me. I'm still having a good time cutting, stapling, nailing (whoo hoo, yesterday we got the big guns out to use on our Slipper Chairs), pulling said nails out, band-sawing, sanding and, yes, even sweeping the floor. Pretty exciting stuff. Although I was a bit frustrated with our lovely teacher Mr G because although I told him I already knew how to use a band-saw and a belt sander, he still took away one half of my bits [so to speak] and did them himself to demonstrate what I already knew. I guess I need to be more forceful when explaining to him that I learnt how to use those tools in our garage, when I was somewhere between 12 & 17.

Anyway, the back of the chair now has rails, I still have all my fingers, and I'm not too bothered by the fact that I got the positioning of the rails completely wrong and had to remove the nails with two huge screwdrivers (used for leverage) and re-do it. Hah!

However, yesterday was not quite so much fun. probably the worst day I've had so far... and it's all to do with flock. Flock is defined as "A soft material for stuffing cushions, quilts, and other soft furnishings, made of wool refuse or torn-up cloth". Yes, well, it is. But it also has the very annoying quality of being huge. Here's a picture of how we started out, after finishing off the stringing of the springs:

These wicker baskets are about a metre/3.28 feet long, and about 50cm/1.6 feet wide. They're not particularly heavy, but they hold heaps of flock... and half a basket of this stuff goes into each footstool:

And then you have to pound it down, and pound it, and pound it, and stretch the calico (and remember! Calico has no stretch!), and pound it, and I could go on and on, but I won't - my hands are still sore from all the stretching, and my elbows are sore from the pulling, but this is what the almost finished thing looks like:

See all the holes in the calico? That's from the constant undoing of the staples as you restretch it. Gah. When this was taken, all I had left to do is the corners. Once I'd done those, it became ready for covering, which I'm hoping to do on Monday. I've chosen this:

because I've decided to keep it. I wasn't going to keep it at all, but then I thought... there's so much more work in this one than there was in the foam-topped one (for work, read "sweat, tears and swearing"), I should cover it in something nice & keep it. The other one is going off to a good home at Mr Golightly's younger sister's house.

And now, Gentle Readers, I must get clean, dressed, respectable. We're off to the 21st Birthday (barefoot bowls, whoohoo!) this afternoon of the son of one of Mr Golightly's oldest friends, and I have made a commitment to the Peppermint Penguin that I will go & see the man at Pittwater Upholstery to talk about job options... and on that front, Miss Natalie had a brainwave, but I need to talk to Miss Cathy about that first.

Secret Squirrel and more, then, later!

Ciao!

Questions, questions

2011-05-11T19:16:00.000+10:00

So, Gentle Readers, the very lovely and erudite AJ, aka Peppermint Penguin, has raised the thorny question about what I'm going to do when I finish this course, and, for that matter, when the course actually finishes. It's a bit complicated, so if your eyes glaze over when people start talking about the multi-verse theory, or the parallel universe theory, it's time to go & get a cup of tea.

The Upholstery course I'm doing has the same content as a first year Apprenticeship course. I'm not actually an Apprentice. You have to sign away your life, a kidney, your first born and several year's wages to be one of those, (I believe the Guvnmnt has just offered up a $5500 bonus for those hard working souls who actually finish one, finally recognising that unless we train more plumbers and electricians, our toilets are going to go fizzpop and our lights will back up [or something])... and I don't have that much time. So, this course goes for six months, or one academic semester, three days a week, and at the end of it, I will have learnt the same as an Apprentice who has turned up one day a week for a year. And perhaps even more, but that's a whole 'nother topic.

Then, (and this is where it gets complicated...) I can either sign up to do Third Year next year [that's 2012), one day a week for the whole year, and then, in 2013, I can do Second Year, which is one day a week for six months (got that?), or, next semester, I can do second year (ditto), and then, in 2012, I can do the previously mentioned Third Year. My preferred option would be to do Second Year next semester, and then Third Year in 2012, but of course, many things depend on this actually happening.

What are these things, I hear you say? Well, seeing as you asked so nicely... Firstly, I have to find a job of some kind for four days a week so I can ease Mr Golightly's mind about the impending-ness of Debtor's Prison [probability? zero]... but also I want to work using the skills I have so painfully just acquired - why wouldn't I? So, the options are:

A) Work four days a week in Upholstery
B) Work four days a week in IT, doing some contract work until the end of 2012...
C) Work four days at week at the August Institution,
D) Start my own business
E) Win the Lottery.

Obviously Option E) is really my first choice, but it's at the bottom because I don't want you to think I've completely lost touch with reality, Gentle Readers.

So, of course I either need to find somebody to take me on, preferably for four days a week, or two somebodies to take me on, two days or a week, or some combination that makes four... and because I have to notify the August Institution of my intentions by the end of May, that means I have to extract the digit PDQ. Ouch. Reality bites.

The other option, Starting my Own Business, sits there largely ignored. All those lovely souls who've offered up their old & lumpy furniture for me to work on have the absolutely right intent, but I think the outlay for the basic equipment to start myself off in business would be about 10,000 shekels. I could probably sell the other kidney to raise it, but you did note, I trust, that this was not high on the list of options.

There is another option, which has been bandied around by the Three Musketeers at School (Nat, Caro and myself), which is to go into business together... any thoughts on that? I have never worked for myself. Mr Golightly has many, many sad and bitter thoughts to share on this topic (some other time, honest), and I'm wondering if (l'orrore) I might be [shudder] a bit too old to venture into self-employment? I can't believe I just said that.

Anyway, that's where it's at. And now, I'm off to have dinner and some quality televsion (joke). Ciao!

It's the weather, you see

2011-05-10T22:47:00.007+10:00

So, there's no excuse now, except for the slightly pathetic one that it's too cold in the study, where my big laptop lives, and it's too hard in the living room/loungeroom, because the keyboard on the small laptop is so small I can't type properly. Oh, life is so hard.

Also, a busy few days had me rendered immobile by Saturday night (Sydney traffic, yum cha, Archibald Prize, more Sydney traffic, bed by 8.30pm)... Sunday was Mother's Day and we had a delicious lunch at Mr Golightly's elder sister's house, along with the nieces and nephews... Miss Cathy did try to talk us into a cat, but Mr Golightly demurred, saying they didn't really have enough flesh on them to warrant eating... I'm not sure if she believed she'd heard him correctly, but needless to say we didn't come home with a cat.

Upholstery continues apace. Yesterday I got stuck in to stripping a drop-in seat which Miss Cathy had - I counted 60 old tacks, three lots of webbing, some very nasty looking flock and coconut fibre and some dodgy fabric... the frame is actually quite nice, with a lovely bevelled edge, but it needed an application of new glue, and I had a good time taking to the frame with the wire brush, redrilling the holes and getting it into a stonking big clamp to leave until Thursday, when I intend to take to it with elastic webbing, vinyl, foam, linters and that evil of evils, calico (remember? Calico has no stretch!), and finally, some fantastic fabric from KA International, which Miss Cathy has had tucked away in her magic storeroom for about five years - no pictures yet, but soon, I promise...

And speaking of other fabric:

I confess to buying 2 metres of the last fabric here - the other two did not quite meet the 'PrettyDog Test for Redness', which it needed to pass to be considered for the footstool I'm going to make for Az - however, the two fabrics I bought on Etsy also have failed the test, one is the same red as tomato soup with a can of half milk & half water in it (the usual Golightly tomato soup recipe), and the other one is just raspberry pink...

So I'm still looking...

What else - I'm learning more about what a pain in the arm vinyl is to work with, having made absolutely no progress on this from last week:

and how much fun traditional method upholstery is - a sprung footstool, with coconut fibre and flock - very dusty, prickly, irritating, but very satisfying...

And the class is shrinking, we had a whole five people on Monday, considerably down from our original 11. Madam Late is apparently quite unwell with previously undiagnosed gall stones. Having had my own gallbladder out some five or so years ago, I don't quite understand how you can have them and not know - I only had to look at a piece of blue cheese for mine to start howling from the rooftops, but then...

In other news of unparalleled excitement, the doorstop man didn't leave any feedback on Etsy to say he'd got it - hopefully it turned up OK. The postage on a 900g/1.9lb doorstop was, surprisingly, $10.00 - is this good, do you think? Oh yes, and I'm making good progress on the surprise (for he who cannot be named), but more on that later.

And now, Gentle Readers (and hello to the lovely Peppermint Penguin, who has escaped the tangles of Ravelry to catch up on the ultra-thrilling world of the Golightly household, and also to my other new followers - I'm very happy to see you on my list, hope you're not too disappointed by the reality of it all...) I'm going to bed. I've got a lot happening tomorrow, but more on that... later! Yes, you guessed it. Later.

Ciao!

Where was I?

2011-05-04T09:50:00.000+10:00

Oh yes, back to reality. The very funny Antonia, from "Yetanotherbloomingblogspot", or 'Whoopee', has joined Facebook. She swears, so if you suffer from delicate ears, be warned. I have actually snorted coffee through my nose reading posts on her blog, and am extremely jealous that I am not as funny, erudite, rude or clever as she is. But I know how to hammer in tacks, and she doesn't, so there.

Speaking of tacks, the very lovely Kate from Rapt! Upholstery, is in the the third year of the course I'm doing, and has her own blog, which is well worth a look - she's done some amazing things with furniture that was on its last legs. We only see each other once a week, on a Monday, when the third years venture in with these huge bits of furniture they're all working on - enormous chaise lounges, wing chairs, whole Parker sofas - incredible, really. Hopefully when my turn comes around next year I'll be able to find something equally fab to work on.

My Monday at Upholstery School was spent wrestling with red vinyl, and I managed to stab myself under the fingernail with a staple. I swore like a navvy, it bled like a stuck pig, and of course the only comment that's made, by anybody, is "Don't get blood on the work". Good thing I'm not the sensitive wilting flower some of us are, isn't it?

Anyway, here's some pictures of what I was trying to achieve, which was:

All the pleats in one direction;
All the pleats point towards the centre point;
All the pleats are the same size;
The start point for each pleat must be on the front, not on the top, of the arm.

Not sure if I succeeded:

Much soreness of fingers, after this lot. Vinyl is a real pain to work with... nice for stool tops, but thank the Upholstery Gods that nobody wants their lounges covered in it!

Last night I made a doorstop for a nice man who bought it through my Etsy shop - I used the beautiful Echino linen, and it went just fine, but the problems I had filling it have resulted in sand all over the sewing room floor, and the bathroom floor. Why the bathroom floor, I hear you ask? I had a brainwave about drying out the sand using the hairdryer. Aha, I hear you say. Yes, Gentle Readers, Miss Incredibly-stupid Isabella got the hairdryer a bit too close to the sand and it flew everywhere. Sadly, the finished result didn't even make a bit of difference to the bulk of the sand & it's still damp. Next time I send the boys off to the hardware store for a bag of sand, remind me to specify I want the dry stuff.

And that, Gentle Readers, could be it for me today. I have done the first slices into the Birthday quilt top, so I need to sew some sashing strips together so I can stitch the quilt top back up... I may emulate yesterday's effort by having a mid-afternoon nap, but my final set of Lumiere de Noel layer cake blocks arrived from Texas this morning, so I may be spending nap time thinking about how to make a double sided quilt... Inspirational ideas welcome, of course!

Ciao!

Royal Wedding Fun

2011-05-03T10:53:00.001+10:00

My lovely neighbours, Lyn & Eric, went to a Royal Wedding Party. Whoever was giving the party had a great sense of humour, because everybody had a title, and everybody had to come in character. Lyn was the Arch-Duchess, Eric was the Admiral. Lots of inspiration, and Lyn found the perfect dress, which was bottle green something, maybe rayon? with a velvet bodice - this is the closest approximation of the style I could find:

Except the bodice on Lyn's dress was velvet... and a bit tight. Lyn is.. quite well endowed... shall we say, in that department? Anyway, she popped around for inspiration on how to get the dress to fit a bit better (read: looser), so I set to with the seam ripper on the lining, and gave her another couple of centimetres. Then I had a stroke of inspiration, and whipped out the two lovely rhinestone brooches I just bought (I've fallen in love with Rhinestones, did I tell you that (although if you look up Etsy Treasuries made by me, you'll figure it out pretty quick!)?

So, the Rhinestone brooches were going on the dress as decorations, a la other Royal occasions:

They look so similar, don't they? Then there's this one:

Emeralds, Sapphires.. Rhinestones. I think the finished result was like this - not sure she could borrow the tiara though!

And then I lent The Admiral a sash, so he could pin his own decorations and medals (purchased from the Warriewood Two Dollar Shop) onto his uniform. I'm sure he looked just like this:

Except for the chair, of course.

I, personally, hopped into my jammies & put the electric blanket on, then watched it from my lovely warm bed. Mr G was out on the town celebrating the impending wedding of one of his boys (as we call the poor sods who slave under him in the IT mines all day), so I had no reason to hide my desire to watch it. I loved her dress, classic, simple, chic.

So, you see, it is possible to enjoy Royalty - but only until the Revolution!

Ciao!

Too much of nothing happening...

2011-05-03T09:35:00.000+10:00

And yet, not. I feel very guilty that I haven't written anything for your delectation since the 26th April... I haven't really been doing anything much except a spot of socialising, a smidgen of sewing, a crumb or two of craft, a something of upholstery... nothing to keep me from writing another thrilling post about it all... but, as I get started, I realise I could have written three posts - one about the Royal Wedding Party my lovely neighbour Lyn went to, one about Upholstery School, and one about the rest of this rubbish...

So, let's see.

I finished Kaz's dressing gown & she sent me a picture - I think she was happy with it, apparently she wore it to a Royal Wedding party:

There was nothing particularly hard about it, the sleeves were a bit tedious because I was trying to do a piped cuff, but my brain would not go where I wanted it to, so I ended up just sewing the bands straight on. I think it looks OK. I also cheated a bit & used fabric glue to stick the mitred corners of the hem down, next time I'm up in the Hunter I'll stitch them in place, but I wanted to make sure it got to Kaz by Friday, and if I stitched them, it wouldn't have. I did do a fabulous blind hem, so I'm sure the transgression of fabric glue will be forgiven. Don't want anything to hold up my beatification...

I made a cushion for Kaz on Sunday to go with Archie's chair - I found some sew-in piping I've had for a few years, tucked in a drawer - I dragged the drawer out when my lovely neighbour Lyn came by seeking aid for her Royal Wedding Party outfit (but more on that in the second post for today!) - and thought to myself, as you do, you know, "Oh! Cushion!"... anyway, Kaz wanted brown birds on one side & green spots on the other, so here 'tis:

I think the brown piping just finishes it nicely. And I worked out how to put the zip in at the top, with the piping. Quite easy, really [quick tute: sew the piping all the way round one side first. Then put the zip in as normal, using the sandwich method, then, before you sew up the side seams, make the flap - about 1/2 centimetre (5 ml/.1968"), pin it into place & top stitch it down. Then sew up the side & bottom seams. Easy! Drop me a line if you get stuck, isabellagolightly[at]gmail.com]...

If I was making another one, I'd also top-stitch the green side, just to make sure it didn't flop open, but as it's going to have the bejezus stretched out of it by a cushion insert, I don't think it'll matter.

What else? I made pencil cases for my colleagues at Upholstery School, did I mention those previously? Yes, I think I did. Actually, I've just checked and I didn't. Here's some pics:

Brown for me, green for Caro, white for Nat.

What else? I started on the quilt for somebody I can't mention, and I'm doing the same pattern as the one I did for Nelly, the Cathedral Window one:

The fabrics are really nice, gender neutral, (I think), but I've had a bit of a headache putting them together in pleasing combinations - unlike the blocks above, there are only five colours for 36 blocks (cream, white, blue, coffee & brown), so it's been very tricky to make a 6 X 6 pattern which doesn't duplicate any of the pattern/colour combinations - and although I've stitched all the blocks together in 1 X 6 strips, I'm not sure I've got it right:

That's my task for today, to get the quilt top made. Dinner is sorted (last night's lamb curry, good thing Mr Golightly loves leftovers), the washing will get done in dribs & drabs, my upholstery school assignments are up to date (but more on that in the third & final post for today), so, in theory, nothing will stop me.

So, Gentle Readers, I must go away now & put a load of washing on, then I can come back with a semi-clear conscience to tell you all about Isabella Golightly's Adventures at the Royal Wedding. Betcha can't wait!!

Ciao!

Home again home again jiggity jig II

2011-04-26T07:19:00.000+10:00

Well, Gentle Readers, it would appear that half the population of Sydney decided to return to the Big Smoke at the same time as we did - we got half an hour into our journey on Sunday night and realised that because of the volume of traffic, it was probably going to take us 5 hours or so to get home - a trip that normally takes 2.5 hours... so we turned around. Lucky for us Kaz & Az are pretty laid back, and we hadn't worn out our welcome. Monday morning came & 8.08am saw us on the road - we were home by 10.20am.

What did we do? Well, as usual, Mr Golightly toiled mightily in the vineyard, winding up wire, splitting wood and help Az build some raised vegie beds, and I worked on Kaz's dressing gown, getting it 98% done, with the only bit remaining the really fiddly bit, which is to put the piping on the sleeves. Being the fussy creature that I am, I want to use a method which will allow me to have only one visible seam, but I want the outside fabric to show on the inside of the sleeves too - I believe Vogue Sewing has the answers, so I'll be checking that out today, especially as it appears Autumn has hit with vengeance, and it's going to be cold and rainy all day... perfect for sewing!

For the first time in ages I didn't take any photos with my actual camera, only one rather nice piccie of Mr G with the pooch, her in her favourite spot, ie, right on top of Mr G, with her ears up, waiting for him to move so she can lick him into immobility... she's such a softie... although when the people on bicycles rode down the driveway & sat down to have their picnic, she set up such a barking & carrying on that it dawned on them that the land wasn't actually a park, despite the close resemblance, and scurried back up the driveway, with a "sorry" floating back our way. Didn't do much to stop the dog from barking, but it did give us all a bit of a chuckle...

I have ordered some fabric, to make Az a footstool - I took my project up for show & tell, and he was so impressed he wants one. Now all I have to do is find time to squeeze it in - I'm sure I'll manage! This is what Kaz & I found trawling through upholstery fabric on Etsy:

and this one, which is also fantastic:

which I am just waiting for the owner to make me a custom listing so I can buy it & then Madam Kaz can choose her favourite. I think they would both be amazing, but we shall see.

And now, given that I've been awake since 0430, I think I'm going to crawl back into bed and thank the Guvnmnt for my extra day off. Enjoy it, Gentle Readers, I'm going to!

Ciao!

Heavenly Hunter

2011-04-21T11:58:00.000+10:00

Hooray Gentle Readers, we're off to the Heavenly Hunter Valley for Easter. It's always lovely to go & spend quality time with the Dog, the Chef, the Maker of Big Fat Fluffy Beds and the Mountains, and I'm taking the Chair (finally) - and also the footstool so she can see my skills in action...

I'm also taking the sewing machine, so I can make dressing gowns for the Chef and the Maker of Big Fat Fluffy Beds, and also a cushion for the chair, and whatever else pops up.

I got some fabric in the mail today:

This has quite a bit more yellow than I was expecting, but it's still very nice.

And this also arrived:

Which I love, and which I think will become the slipper chair cover, and this:

Which I think will be the tub chair, depending, of course, on the teacher's advice.

My lovely neighbour Lyn popped in to ask questions about how to renovate her op-shop frock for a Royal wedding party (what? who?). She was very impressed with the chair and suggested I try hawking it round the children's wear shops on the peninsular, especially to those shops where parents with more money than sense shop - which I think is a great idea (the chair, not the parents)... I might see if I can upholster another one in the spare time I have at Upholstery School...

And that, Gentle Readers, is it for me, as I have to shower, dress, wash up, pack, chivvy Mr Golightly into action (although he has already mowed the back lawn, showered, dressed, packed and is now eating. It's only 11.53am - he must be on holidays!)

Ciao (and have a fabulous Eostre, all of you!).

Keys...

2011-04-20T11:04:00.000+10:00

When I was in Primary School I got a bit of a key fetish & started collecting them from all over the place. I think it stems from my unquenchable desire to open locked doors & find out what's inside. I still think a locked door holds the most interesting secrets. Don't ever invite me to your house, I'll be snooping before you can say "cup of tea?"...

One of my fondest moments (and there were very very few) of high school is that at our Year 10 Farewell (that's Fourth Form, or when we're 16 for those of you who labour under the incomprehensible American high school system), I was presented with some cheap, nasty green and blue plastic keys from a baby's rattle. No idea where they are now.

Anyway, I made a key treasury the other day, which I thought I'd share with you, and also a picture of this beautiful key, which I bought on Etsy:

Too gorgeous for words, and infinitely better than green plastic.

Ciao!

Pussy cat pussy cat II

2011-04-19T13:57:00.000+10:00

Perth. I've been to Perth. I feel a bit ashamed, Gentle Readers, that I didn't advise you in advance that I was going to be off the air, or even off the planet, but I've given up my fabulously expensive Qantas Club Membership ($400/year is fabulously expensive, no?) as part of my regime to save money until I get a real job, along with the daily newspaper ($300/year), and various magazines ($150/year X about 3), and so I didn't do what I usually do in the Qantas Club lounge, which is use their free internet to update my blog with my 'going on holidays' post.

Not being too thrifty, I do still buy two of the magazines, but I don't get them delivered any more. I discovered that the English one, British Homes & Gardens, which I love, because it has fabulous furniture, fabrics and wallpaper in it, cost about $17.00 per issue when I subscribed. It costs $9.95 in the newsagent, about 3 weeks later. I can bear the wait. Just.

Anyway, I did take my laptop to Perth, meaning to update my blog whilst I was there, but my lovely Ma & I fell into the Scrabble abyss, and spent most of our time making up ridiculous words according to the dictates of the dictionary on Facebook scrabble. If any of you can suggest an alternative venue for online scrabble, I'd be thrilled to hear about it.

So, what did we do? We spent a day in the clutches of the medical profession, the less said about which the better, we made two fabulous dressing gowns, using a McCalls pattern, and because we're both clever and thrifty, we made them from quilt backing fabric, which was 118" wide, meaning we only needed 1.75 metres - mine is almost to the floor, Lovely Ma's is to her ankles... and at $27/metre, that was a bargain. Except, I just found a place in the States which has nice wide backings for $12/metre.... and people wonder why Aussies have taken to shopping on the internet with such fervor?

What else? We visited the Hendys, we searched the local shops for an actual physical game of Scrabble (no such luck), we talked about the possibility of a holiday in Bali in July when all the medical madness is over for my Lovely Ma, we ate, I played with the dogs, did a spot of cooking (garlic prawns, yummy) & we pottered. The perfect week off, really.

And now, Gentle Readers, as it's 1.48pm, I suppose I should schlep out of my fabulous new dressing gown & into the shower. I am a bit jetlagged, so I don't want to rush it :-)... more posts this week, I promise.

Ciao!

Calico has no stretch

2011-04-05T09:05:00.000+10:00

And so, Gentle Readers, the balls of my thumbs actually ache from the effort of trying to pull calico down over a layer of conglomerate foam:

Can you believe this image was found under 'conglomorate upholstery foam' in Google Images? Which part of this foot and particularly unattractive shoe is foam, hmmm?

And a layer of linters, which is a cotton by-product used to provide the softness in your seat:

Yes, Google Images is excelling itself today...

and a layer of 20mm/.78" green foam:

That's so nicely green and foamy, isn't it? All on the top of zig-zag springs...

Damn. They found one!

Anyway, it's hard work and my thumbs are a bit sore from all the straining, holding, stapling, and digging out the staples when it wasn't quite smooth enough to keep the Upholstery Munchkin who teaches us on Mondays, happy.

He's a lovely man, beautiful green eyes and a great store of knowledge and skill, but he loves a chat. He gets started on something, and Bam! he's off on a tangent and we're stuck 375 years ago when he did his apprenticeship, fondling coconut fibre and visiting Rapunzel in her beautifully upholstered tower...

In other news, Madam Late is so far behind the rest of us now she's almost still in the other room, and we can't decide if the root cause is

a) self-medication (as in "she's zonked")

b) alcohol (as in "she's permanently bombed/pissed"),

c) deafness, or

d) she's just plain dumb.

She knows how far behind she is, so she can't be that dumb, because she wanders round the room like Lady MacBeth sleepwalking through the castle, rubbing her hands saying "Oh, I'm so far behind", which means that her projects have become a bit like King Duncan, where she was keen to take them on, but a teeeeny bit regretful after the deed was done... "Out, damn'd chair, out I say". She hasn't finished her second child's chair, her footstool, her two vinyl stool tops, or her drop-in seat, which is what we did yesterday. Although, we have two days until the end of term, so if she can alter time, speed up the harvest and get teleported off this rock, she may be OK. Use the Force, young Late.

My, aren't we a cultured Golightly this morning?

In other news, Mr Golightly is at home today, slightly unwell, and all my damn' fine plans to go into town for a visit with the bank and lunch with Ms Creek are up the ... creek. That's fine. He's a bit 'in-his-cave' when he's unwell, a fact I may have alluded to in previous posts, so my plan is to ignore him completely, except for throwing food into the cave opening at regular intervals, and spend the day in my sewing room, coming out only to feed the animals, and put more washing in the machines. It is raining, so it's quite justified to use the dryer for some things... honest.

I have an order for three doorstops made from this (and don't think I'm relying on Google images here, nosireebob):

and I made these for the lovely and glamorous lady who sold me (amongst other things) some new face cream:

Do you like the button accessory touch? I know people tie things onto them like sea-shells and such, but I don't have a ready supply of those. I think the accessorising button is quite a nice idea. Hopefully BJ will too - she's going to collect them tomorrow... so I will report back.

And now, it's 9.00am, the office is open for business, and I must away to the shower, the laundry, and then, so exciting, the sewing room!

Ciao!

Knife, Box, Inverted...

2011-04-02T09:56:00.001+11:00

Any ideas? Pleats, Gentle Readers, pleats. This week at Upholstery School we learnt how to make a skirt for a piece of furniture (any piece, really, based on a little algebra [see, Mrs Imberger, you were right, I will use maths one day] - length of furniture (l), size of pleats (your choice, really), type of pleat [box pleats are calculated as size of front of pleat X 3] (s), divide l by s, bob's your uncle. Got all that? Good.

Actually, the technique is made easier if you make a template out of a piece of skinny cardboard which is usually used for backtacking (see previous post for description of backtacking, really, I don't want to actually bore you)... mark out the pattern for your pleat - for box pleats, the pattern is 'return, pleat, return', hence the calculation which forms (s). Then you get your material, sit down with a suitable marking pen & the cardboard, and draw it up on the material. Carefully. A fine-point pen is ideal, because these lines have to be joined up with a pin when you come to sew it.

You also have to calculate how much material you'll actually need, and you can't do that until you start to mark it out, because the joins are not allowed to show in the front, they have to be hidden in a return.

This is a good example of box pleats, and you can see that they've gone to the trouble of making sure there isn't a pleat over the corner, which is not the case here:

So, you need to make sure your joins are all hidden, which sometimes means cutting the last bit of the fabric off before you might otherwise have, then sewing on your next piece before going on with the marking up. It's a bit time-consuming. Did I mention that?

Anyway, then when you've got it all marked up, you have to sew on the calico lining at the bottom, press it nice & flat, making sure all raw edges are even, then stitch it again at the top. Then you get to pin it. And pin it. And pin it. And pin it... then, when you're confident you've got it pinned right, you can try it on the piece of furniture to make sure it fits... then you go back & repin it until it does.

Then, finally, you sit down at the sewing machine, refill the bobbin which the last inconsiderate soul left almost empty (see, upholstery school differs not at all from the office, where the person who printed the 495 page document leaves you five pages in the photocopier & you have to fill it up, not them), and very, very, very carefully, stitch it up. Of course, if it's velvet, you won't get it right the first time. Or the second...

Then, you try it on the piece of furniture again & see if it fits... and so on, ad nauseum. I thought I'd get my second one (yes, we had to make two, one with instruction & one by ourselves) finished by lunchtime, but it actually took me until 3.00pm. Phew. Glad it's over.

Next week we're going to do drop-in seats, which look like this:

You can bet your bottom dollar we won't be having nice Georgian chairs to work on, that's for sure... next week is our last week of term, and then we're apparently half way through. Bloody hell.

In other news of paramount importance, I bought a new phone. Don't tell Mr Golightly. I got so tired of having my old one 'force close', which is mobile-phone speak for 'crash' that I splashed out on one independent of my provider, and spent a very frustrating few days learning how to get around the technical glitch which appears to have infected these phones worldwide... anyway, I did, it's working beautifully and I'm feeling very geeky again...

I'm sure you get the hint.

Now it's the weekend, and I'm off to make doorstops for the lovely Belinda, but first... breakfast, possibly a shower :-) and maybe even out of my pyjamas. Oh, the glamour.

Ciao!