Commencement de la fin

There really should be a word that describes the feeling of running full tilt into a brick wall that you experience on return to work after having a break long enough to remember what being sane is like. I tried the thesaurus, but it was sadly deficient in suitable lexemes or indeed even morphemes. Apart from 'crack of doom' there wasn't anything there that even came close to describing the feeling I was after. I found something in french, but then got distracted ranslating stuff in google translate. For example 'au diable, vous et vos stylos'... I wish I could rant fluently in french

That's not crochet, it's a bunch of knots

I can't believe the Christmas holidays are over already! I had such a great time sleeping in and watching movies.

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During the holiday, I found a great little pattern for a crochet shrug (it gets really cold in my unit and we spent a fair bit of the holidays looking like we were at the snow with all the jumpers and wooly socks. I was thinking of making a budgie cosie but the feral budgies probably wouldn't appreciate the effort put into wrestling them into matching jumpers), only the pattern resulted in a hideous mess.

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I spent a fair bit of today re-writing the pattern so it would look like the picture. The result is the sample to the right. I am really pleased with how it has turned out and I think I am ready to make the full sized one. Once I get all the bugs worked out, I'll post my modified version of the pattern (with links back to the original in case you want to give it a go).

It's the Classic Case of the four J's; Joey Jeremiah and his Jean Jacket

In true new years resolution style, I have already missed a day. Ah well, rules were made to be broken... I have instead been caught up watching Degrassi Junior High on you tube and looking at crochet patterns. Its an odd combination that is making me worry when I started thinking "those leg warmers look great! All I need is some hot pink wool..." I am sure it is a direct result of too much Degrassi (and the phrase "what a broom head" is sneaking into my vocabulary).

I blinked and 2010 was gone...

Since it is the last day of 2010, and most people seem to be doing the whole best-of-blah in 2010 lists, I thought it would be a great opportunity not to do one. To be honest I get a bit tiered of the retrospective thin that happens around this time of year, I much prefer the Nostradamus approach and make a whole heap of resolutions. The only thing guaranteed with this, is that most likely I won't actually achieve any of them but will have a great time thinking them up. As Jack so often tells me through his pet telepathy, if its itchy- scratch it (even if its the middle of the night and you wake everyone up with your coffee percolator impression). I won't share all my plans for the new year, since then I would feel obliged to actually do them. Instead I will share this one, I am intending to write more. I have been inspired by NaBloPoMo, and in the spirit of things will attempt to write something everyday. Apparently if you want to be a writer, you have to write stuff. Can you believe it?

Happy Chrismas Public Holiday

I have been a bit neglectful of my blog lately. I would like to claim that I was busily creating fabulous Christmas things to send out to everyone, but I completely underestimated the time it takes to make most of the things I envisioned making. So, I have quite a few half finished things and its already the 28th. As a consolation, I will start posting tutorials in the new year on my dismal attempt at a handmade Christmas...
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I must admit that my slackness is in part down to good ol procrastination, a skill I refined down to pure art while studying. I have been keeping busy doing a bit of sewing. After making the bird cage cover, I had some left over fabric that I thought would make a good dress. I thought I would have a second go at the shirred dress previously attempted that had disastrous results. The good news is the end result actually looks like a dress, the bad news is it would only fit a 7 year old. Hurrumph! So at some point I am going to attempt a third try, hopefully ending up with a dress that both looks like a dress and fits.

For Christmas we got the first proper rain of the wet season and it rained and stormed for hours. I tried to video the impressiveness of it all, but it doesn't quite translate too well. How frustrating that when you try to take a photo of an amazing sunset or video rain pouring down, it ends up disappointingly puny. Of course the thunder was always off cue no matter how often I tried to include it, and don't get me started with the lightning. The old show biz tip of never work with children or inclement weather certainly is true (wild animals on the other hand were no problem, photo above). Ah well, video attached of boring rain if you're interested...

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Time is running out!!!

It was with great optimism when I sat down to start writing out Christmas cards so they have some chance of making it to their destination before Australia Day, only to find its last days for online shopping. Damn! How did that happen so quickly? Oh yeah, its the 15th already.

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I have to say that online shopping is no substitute for the real thing, with the small joy of not stepping in spilt sticky stuff on the floor or having numerous children (and sometimes their parents) walking into me whilst wandering around looking in the direction they just came. I don't really understand this, and I might add its not just at Christmas either. I am not so short that its hard to see me, especially when I am wearing my work clothes with reflective strips. All I can say is a steel cap work boot beats a rubber thong any day, mwah ha ha ha! (that's an evil laugh by the way).

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In the meantime, we are getting into the Christmas spirit. I was thinking of getting Jack a tennis ball for Christmas, but he already has everything...

Christmas procrastintion

The past few weeks seem to have flown by. Last time I looked it was September! I am starting to despair that I won't get all my Christmas pressies finished before July next year. As cards start to arrive I am starting to have the panicky realisation that I had almost forgotten about sending them on time this year (last year I promised myself that not only would I send out cards on time, but I would even make them! Ha, I bought a box of them today).

Then in true procrastinating fashion, I made a cover for the budgie cage rather than write out Christmas cards. I was pretty pleased with the end result and it seems to work in keeping all the husks in the slidy tray. That's one task out of the way that I have been intending on doing for the last year and a half. Now, back to the Christmas presents...