Meet Captain Bullseye

Call him an early Xmas present.

The garden centre at Mr G's hardware store has the most fantastic garden ornaments; I really could spend a small fortune there. They have a whole range of these - bulls, cows, sheep, roosters - in different sizes. We just fell in love with this one and had to bring him home. Now all we need is a garden to put him in. :-)

Busy

Yes, it's that time of the year (again!!) when we are busy, busy, busy. Here's a small rundown of what's been happening since my last post...

• Miss R finished school on Dec 1. Yes, ridiculously early. The school holds their End of Year Eucharistic Celebration (EYEC) and Year 12 Graduation on the first Tues of December, and then it's all over, red rover. She's been in Vac Care/at Grandma's/at friends since then....ah, how I love the school holiday shuffle.
  
• We've run the Scout BBQ a few times to raise funds to send the kids to Jamboree next month. Only problem is that we haven't actually seen any of the money raised yet! Just can't fathom what is happening there....in the end I paid Miss R's fees in full and am hoping to get some kind of refund eventually.
  
• We've had the Glenelg Pageant (Miss R waved the Scout flag) and the Scout Xmas break up.
• We've had the dance Xmas break up.
• We invited a few families over for a BBQ....nice to catch up and we must try organising them more regularly.
• Miss R had her drama performance. Now, I don't get to brag about Miss R very often but I think we've finally stumbled upon the thing she is good at. She's only been doing drama since Term 2 but she ended up with the most lines - she was the Pirate Captain - and performed extremely well. Spoke clearly, projected her voice, didn't rush her lines....and no apparent sign of nerves before hand. I was very proud. She's been invited to join the Youth Drama group next year, which is for age 13 upwards (she'll turn 12 in January), so that was another proud mummy moment. Of course, she doesn't want to do it....we'll have to go to a different group for that and she absolutely hates change but I think I'm going to insist on this one.
• We've got Mr G's work Xmas party on Sun which is lawn bowls and sumo wrestling.....sounds like an absolute hoot!
  

I'll leave you with this pic of the quilt I'm racing against the clock to get finished by Xmas. Present for my mother....I should be doing it right now!

My lastest WIP

The quilt I'm currently working on is for Miss R to take with her to the Scout Jamboree in January, so I really need to have it finished by Christmas if possible. However, this one has been an absolute NIGHTMARE to quilt. I don't know if I've lost my quilting mojo or if it has something to do with the backing being a heavier weight. It's 100% cotton, but it is a furnishing fabric rather than a quilting fabric. I thought it would be perfect as it would be sturdier but I've done more unpicking on this quilt than any other!

I always have trouble getting my layers firm enough. I can't lay the quilts out on the floor to baste together as I have no floor coverings yet and the unsealed floor is just filthy. I usually use large clips to hold them on my table and this seems to work ok. For this one, I took it up to my Mum's to baste and did it the recommended way ( ie taped to the floor) but when I started quilting, the seams were puckering really obviously. I foolishly kept going thinking it wasn't too bad, but by the time I'd quilted about 3/4, it was looking really crap, so I unpicked it all, pinned it again and started quilting all over again. The vertical lines look fine, but once again, the horizontal lines are puckering as the backing fabric is too loose between the lines of stitching and the top is looking a little stretched out of square.

The backing fabric is the only real difference so I'm hoping that's the issue. I can't remember if I've actually used the new Janome to quilt yet - I thought I had but maybe not - so hopefully the machine isn't the problem......it's a model advertised for quilting and that's why I bought it! I guess the next one I attempt will give me the answer though.

Anyway, the quilt will turn out ok; I know that I'm just being overly critical.

Oh, and in my desperation, I actually attempted some free motion quilting and it was TERRIBLE. Seriously. Embarrassingly bad. Before I started, I envisaged what I wanted to do, did some practice loops on paper and in my head and then once my foot hit the pedal, my brain just disengaged and it was like I had no control over what my hands were doing. It looked like scribble. Ugh!

Heatwave + Un-Airconditioned House =

very little getting done.

Far too hot to sew anything, too hot to spend much time on the computer; we've been doing a lot of lying around watching tv.

Thankfully, most nights have cooled enough to open the house up and flush the heat away, so Mr G's house design will clearly work, but until we get gardens established and verandahs and pergolas built, the house will struggle to stay cool during the day. So on Monday, Mr G will be organising air conditioning installation, hopefully before Xmas. :-)

I'm too old to put up with this heat......

A Weekend Away

Mr G and I went away for the weekend while Miss R went to stay with the lovely Theresa.

We were on the 6.50am flight out of Adelaide on Sat am and the 6.20am flight out of Melbourne on Mon am, so an early start both days but everything went smoothly and we didn't miss our flights - which was my biggest fear. I'm not really a morning person.

We didn't do a lot, as dh has still not fully recovered from his broken rib & shoulder. (In fact, he only went back to work today.) So we had to head back to the hotel each afternoon for a little nap. But we did manage to check out the Sunday markets and do a little Christmas shopping.We stayed at the Stamford Plaza which was very nice and I'd happily stay there again.

But the weirdest thing?? I left Mr G to have a nap on the Sat afternoon while I ducked into the Mall to find some hair care product. There is only one store in Aust that stocks it and it happens to be in Melbourne, so off I toddled only to find that they are no longer stocking it, so all stock was 50% off. So I bought the last 3 bottles - bargain! - and was hurtling through Myer to get back to the hotel when I heard someone calling my name. I ignored it - who would *I* know in Melb??? - but turned when it became more insistent and there was an old friend that I hadn't seen in about 5 years. And yes, he lives in Adelaide and was over in Melb staying with his sister! How bizarre was that?

And as no post is complete without a photo, I'll just leave you with a shot of Mr G. :-)

Procrastination

I'm supposed to be listing stuff on eBay. I just don't feel like it.....

Gotta rid this house of coffee machines though!!

Dance Extravaganza 2009

Well the dance concert is over again for another year, and once again, I took no photos. None. Such a bad mother.

Miss R has been a Preps B since she started at this dance school 5 years ago. She was supposed to go up to Juniors at the beginning of the year but many of her peers left and there weren’t enough to make up a troupe, so she stayed in Preps B while her school friend, Miss M who is the same age, went up to Inters. So initially Miss R looked like a giant amongst all these little 8-9yo’s (bearing in mind that she’s as tall as me now) but a couple of new girls joined that were around her age so she didn’t stand out quite so much. Anyway, the result was that Miss R ended up in the front row for all dances, all the other girls have followed her lead and Miss R has actually practised all year. She has improved so much and is far more confident.

She assures me that she wants to continue next year but she’s also talked about going back to calisthenics, so I’ll wait and see. I don’t really want her to be a Preps B for yet another year, so I’ll keep our options open. I've never had a problem with this dance teacher (although I gather she has ruffled some feathers) but I'm getting a little miffed at how the "troupe" girls - those that are entered into local eisteddfods - tend to be favoured. I'm sorry, but those less talented (ie Miss R) still pay their way, and are really the ones that keep her dance school going.

I also volunteered to help as a dresser this year and despite how time consuming it was (hadn’t considered that I also had to attend all the practices) I actually quite enjoyed it. Might even volunteer again next year. Dh thought for a nano-second that meant he didn't have to go to the concert, but Miss R had invited a school friend, so he had to attend after all. Someone had to point her out in the crowd....

The only downer.....Miss R was convinced that she was getting her 5 year medal at the presentation at the end of the concert but she was forgotten. The teacher sent me a text afterwards, apologising for the mix-up and she will get her medal at the Xmas break-up when she gets her trophy, so Miss R is happy with that, but I know that deep, deep down she is disappointed that she didn’t get it on the night in front of an audience.

I'll leave you with this picture from the 2006 concert......and while I'd love to say that glossy curly ponytail is all my own work, in reality it's a hairpiece. And she wears it every year, so just imagine her 3 years older.....