Complete!

Today I finally finished the quilt I started when I got my sewing machine over a year ago! Triumph, and a sense of accomplishment on completing it just now. It is just a 'Bohemian Window Pane' quilt pack from spotlight (no it was not pre-cut, I did at least have to do that) so I didn't have to think too hard about planning, but somehow the project kept stalling at various points. Now it is completed and hanging over the sofa. The picture is a little fuzzy, but it is difficulty to photograph a single bed sized quilt with a phone :-/

Holidays!

So it's holidays! Yay! I know it must be holidays, because my brain is letting me be creative. I decided based on an idea I saw on pinterest last week to make some canvasses with leaves from my garden. Bought the supplies and yesterday, did the painting. First time I've painted since year 8 art: loved it. May have to learn a bit more about this art thing...

Once they are completely dry in a couple of days, I just have to figure out where to hang them.

I also am starting to finish of fabric projects that have been on the go forever... there is a quilt that is only 1/3 quilted and still needs to be bound, but I've just about finished off a peice of fabric that I bought in Malaysia back in September to hang on our living room wall. It is now sewn up with hanging rails inserted, just needs to be ironed and hung... pics will follow once this is done.

On another front, our garden is starting to look nice and produce too. We've dug out a few of the (many many many) palms that were here, attached some monstera plants and put in some veg beds - some veggies are doing quite well already! I've made the first zuchinni slice with homegrown zuchinni which was yum and the spinach and chard just keep on giving. I'm carefully watching the eggplant now, as it has a fruit on it and hopefully more setting. The tomatoes have also set fruit. It's all go in the veggie patch!
This is the veggie corner when the raised beds first went in - things have already just about tripled in size in those beds since this was take a couple of weeks ago!

Christmas lunch is going to be here with us this year... for the first time ever, should be a fairly relaxed event with both sets of parents, my siblings, the neice and nephew and my 2 grandfathers. As long as everyone brings something to share we'll be set! The Christmas roundabout is not too daunting anymore. After skipping Christmas last year by flying out to Bali on Christmas morning, I'm actually looking forward to the festivities!

We are also heading off to Tasmania for a January driving holiday this summer - over "sea" but not overseas. More expensive than 3 weeks in Bali last year, but I've not yet seen the apple isle, so looking forward to it.

That's about where things are at for now.

House!

We bought a house!!!! Yay! And we've moved in! Extra Yay! We'll have been in for a month on Friday, and it's great. I love that it's our place (well, the bank's really but still) and that even though it isn't perfect, we can change what we don't like about it!!! Still haven't sorted out what is going where exactly, and we need to buy a new couch, but it's starting to feel like home now. I can't wait to get my sewing machine set up and make something for the house.

Also, I love school holidays. It's great not having to go to work for a couple of weeks :)

A little craft

I just finished a cute little crochet headband for myself! After making a couple for my neice last year, I thought it'd be fun to have one for myself. Also, I saw one on pinterest and thought it was worth a go! This one buttons up and has a little flower sewed on.

Frustration

I'm at work. Procrastinating. As usual.
Tonight are parent teacher interviews. I should be preparing notes on the students who I will be discussing with their parents. But instead I'm writing about it on here. Mainly because I don't like being at work from 8am to 8pm in order to tell parents things they usually already know, don't want to hear or don't much care about!!! And to add insult to injury we have to do it all again next week with some more!!! Very occasionally something worthwhile actually comes out of parent teacher interviews. Normally though it is nothing more than a process we go through so that we are not as easy to blame if a child does not succeed in a particular subject. Since when is education and learning all about processes and structures and crossing the t's and dotting the i's so that teachers don't get yelled at for a child not doing what they were meant to?
Rant over. Back to work.

Forms!!!

Today is ANZAC Day - Lest we forget

It is odd to have a public 2 days after going back to work from holidays... the very best kind of odd though! We've spent an hour or so today filling in all the forms that you need to fill in to accept a loan offer for a house. Sign here. Sign here. Initial all these pages. Give us your bank details. Sign here, here and here. Get a witness to sign here. Gah!
That is all.

Oops...

So I've been a very lazy blogger thus far in the journey - the best laid plans of mice and Miggins hey?
A lot has happened in 2012 so far. We went to Bali with friends over Dec/Jan. I was long overdue for my Indonesia fix, so had a great time! Pity it rained almost every day we were there, but still lovely.
Once we got back the house hunting started again in ernest, and we have finally found a place! Hurrah! Settlement is still 7 weeks off, but I'm so glad to have a house to move into and to not be renting in the very near and tangible future. Now I'm full of plans about what we're going to do with our 3 bedroom house on 1/4 acre block. So exciting.


The quilt  I'd started in the last post is now almost finished - the top is all sewn together, batting and backing are attached and it is 1/3 quilted thus far. I did make a mini-quilt for a friend who's expecting a baby later this year and that has been finished and passed on to the mummy to be, along with the usual assortment of booties, hats and a crocheted blanket that I've taken to making as baby presents. With so many friends having babies, the crocheting certainly gives me something to do whilst watching television of an evening!

I'm very pleased with the fact that my crochet skills now extend to booties as well as little hats and blankets. Maybe this winter I will finally finish the mohair blanket I've been working on for the last 2 winters! It is now about single bed sized... I accidentally started it with far too long a chain and by the time I realised, I was not going to go back and start again!!!  This is how it was looking by the end of last winter...

So, that's pretty much it with life at this stage!