Tile wall

This wall is very moving. It is in NYC and we stumbled upon it on the way to .... I can't remember where!
It is a tribute to those who lost their lives in 9/11 and to the fire fighters involved. I like it because it shows a real sense of community.
Spare a thought for our firefighters too.

6th in the 6th

Lou tagged me in 6th of the 6th. The 6th photo in the 6th folder.
Mine is a cool wall painting/collage in San Fran. I really loved this wall - it looks better in real life but hopefully you get the picture!
I tag Oblong Craft Collective and the clever folks over at Designers Emporium.

Super lovely buttons

Louise covered some buttons for me, she turned them into brooches and now they are destined to fasten my beautiful Fibre Red wrap. Aren't they swell?

I gave her some fabric from my stash and I think that both brooches turned out perfectly. Very different looks but I love them both. Big thanks Lou!

On the table

Cute Japanese fabric (bought from Spottie for a bargin of $6/m- can you believe it?) waiting to be turned into a pair of hot mitts and matching pot holder.

My little boy at the cricket

Note this

What else is there to do on Melbourne's hottest day? Clean up and organise the house. This is a never ending battle. I love to be organised and love to have a place for things and things in their place. However, this trait does not always rear its head. But today I am trapped inside. It's 45 degrees (and climbing) outside.
I unpacked several boxes that had been gathering dust and what did I find. Notebook after notebook. I found about 8 in total, most of them were unused.
I need to write more notes!

My 101st post!

Even though I'm a slack blogger, I seem to have notched up 101 posts! To celebrate, here is 25 random things that I'm sure you are dying to know about me.

1. I love these kind of taggy things where you write stuff about yourself and read stuff about others
2. As hideous as it sounds, I really want a pair of yellow shorts
3. I love that Herb knows how to flash a fake smile
4. I have texture issues with wobbly food
5. It shits me that magazines like HOUSES never profile Art Deco homes
6. At parties I like to drink sparkling apple cider in a glass so other people think it's beer and lay off me for not 'having a beer'
7. I cannot stand Times New Roman and if I recieve a document in said font, I promptly change it before I begin to read
8. I miss my Nokia 3310
9. I think I love Duplo more than my son does
10. When I see a train or hear the boom gate bells, I think I get more excited than Herb does
11. I LOVE the name Herb
12. I wish my sis and Ade's would uproot and move to sunny Melbs. Hint Chinks.
13. I call my sister Chinks. And it is not racist ok?
14. My youngest Facebook friend is 20 months. Hi Lucas you tech wizard you!!
15. My New Year's resolution is to learn to knit
16. I love the city and all it's tiny lane ways
17. If I had the cash, I'd buy me a brownstone on the Upper West Side in NYC and live there for 6 months of the year
18. If I had the cash, I'd give heaps to my mum so she could go to Ireland
19. I don't get physics. At all.
20. I like to say thankyou to the driver when I get off the tram
21. I like the word Yikes
22. The Mr and I challenged each other to use the phrase 'And the rest!' as many times as we could in one day. It is surprising how you can work this phrase into conversation. Often.
23. I think that nice people get cancer. And that sux.
24. I miss shows like Charles in Charge. I love that you can get TV shows on DVD now.
25. I think ordinary people are sooo much more interesting than celebs.

So, to all you readers out there (there must be millions of you!) consider yourself tagged.

Cheating

On a whim I bought some great Denyse Schmidt fabric, County Fair Patchwork Promenade. I decided to make my first cheat's quilt. All my other quilts have been hand pieced, hand basted, hand quilted and hand binded (bound perhaps?).

This fabric is a single print and it's pretty groovy. My neighbour is a quilter too and swears by tagging guns to baste. You know those little plastic tags that keep the labels to clothes in shops? Those annoying little ones whose ends fly away when you snip them?

Miss Skeptical (moi) decided to give it a crack but hand basted the straight, across and diagonal before turning to the tagger. What a success - after 40 mins the quilt was tagged to within an inch of its life. And what fun I had shooting those little tags in and essentially going crazy with the tagger. You'll be pleased to know that said tagging gun is now safely in the hands of my neighbour.

Keeping with my cheating resolution, I decided to simply quilt it by stitching in the 'ditch' - well the fake ditch in this case. And I'm not doing tiny stitches like I did on the hexy quilt - these are big ones, about 1cm each.

Hoping that this one comes together quickly.

Pasquale

I've been itching to make a Sock and Glove softie from the book I gave my sister last year. She recently spent a week in Melbs and we went to my local oppie and picked up some UNWORN Scottish pure wool gloves. We also grabbed a used pair of cheap Chinese gloves.

The result? Well a few short hours later, two dogs and one strong personality were born: Pasquale and Unnamed.

Pasquale (left) is my creation, he has a good heart but is very misunderstood. He hails from France and enjoys topiary and jazz ballet - among other things. His abruptness can sometimes make others thing that he is being rude - but that's just Pasquale!

Unnamed (right) is a glove puppy made by my sis. He's alot taller than Pasquale, I think it must be the Scottish in him. Poor Unnamed - we couldn't settle on a name for him, nor could his personality shine in the midst of Pasquale.

These cuties are on their way to a good home. My friend is expecting twins in June. A blessing - Paquale and Unnamed will never have to be separated. Together forever.

New beginnings

Clearly February 1 2009 is a fabulous time to finally put into place those pesky resolutions that were floating around one's head in late December/early Jan.
Committing the resolutions to the blog is like going on the public record - practically forcing me to keep them. So here goes:

• learn to knit - and actually knit something
• learn to Granny Square and make a little blanket
• figure out how to take good photos on my camera so my blog pics look all profesh
• think about doing some community education
• get a bit more motivation in the kitchen
• make our garden a lovely place to be
• make gravlax
• swim, swim, swim with the Mr and the little bloke
• ride to work. Often.

Nothing earth shattering there - but it's the little things that make a difference isn't it?