BicentPOSTiale

Yes! today marks my 200th post and the first Blogiversary will be upon us soon ... but more of that later
Don't expect cohesion or seamless segues today. There's simply too much to fit in. In fact there's stuff from last weekend that I can tell I'm just not going to be able to cram in here.
So:
can you tell that I went to Bendigo today?
I was actually on a mission to try to find a particular pair of shoes for Nadie at the Rivers Superstore, and to pick up the latest Quilting Arts that Nicki was holding hostage, but what's a trip to Bendigonia if you don't also:

• realise that Nicki is having a major sale and add a few choice cuts to the single lonely magazine. Just in the interests of keeping it company, y'know?
• hit a second hand book store and score a 1930s Weldons for Maz for the grand sum of $8 complete with paper dress patterns and a Mabel Lucy Atwell frameable print. If she's already got it ... meh... it's mine. Not a problem.
  
• traul quickly through Spotlight, manouvering around all the whiny anklebiters less than impressed at being dragged there on the school holidays. I was actually after a casserole for Nadie but they'd sold out. A good thing as you will see later :] So the actual damage: a couple of Christmas stocking stuffers, one Blog prize and 5 totally illegal balls of claret red Patons Zhivago to knit a certain something from the Zhivago book that Donni from Good Yarn Karma sent me a while back.


• have a major blowout at the Woollen Mills but it was all from the magic sale room out the back so it doesn't count. Except for the 1 kg of spin ready navy blue roving. [ sorry about the big, shiny plastic bag in the photo that makes it look grey but I'm not game to open it. It's stuffed in so tight, the whole house could well disappear under a sea of fluffy blue stuff ] That was from the front room ... but spinning supplies don't count either. It's a RULE I tells ya.

Sheepish Annie will back me up on this I'm sure. $35 AUS for 1 kg [ that's 2.2 lbs ] of superfine ready to go, beautiful slightly variagated blue ... and in my own defense I didn't grab the purple and I DID put the jade back. Eventually.

What else?

• hit a couple of Op Shops of course. Nothing much at the first but scored a vintage thread spool and a couple of little bits and pieces at the second... a vintage paper of pins and a reel of Clark's Thread. Oh and a huge [ 450 grams ] ball of frogged blue 8ply wool for $2 but when I got it home there were knots every few metres. Back in Castlemaine with half an hour before picking up David, I found a very big white lidded casserole for Nadie for $5 at the Salvos and a couple of vintage baby pattern books.


• Still had a few minutes so I was heading for the newsagents when the eponymous Brenda from the woolshop popped her head out to tell me that Nadie's charcoal Zhivago was in. More yarn!! Just what I needed :] Still it's for a gift and she really wanted Zhivago and that particular colour so it's [ chant it with me ] Knit From Your Stash Legal !!! The project she's chosen is also from the book that Donni sent me.

While I'm on the subject of Good Yarn Karma, Sally aka Librarylass was after a Tunisian hook in a size that I just happened to have so we arranged a swap. I scored THIS in return. Alpaca. Yuuuum.

Now aside from all the retail therapy, there is also actual quilt progress. I tweaked the left vertical insert a bit with watercolour pencil and the rocks are quilted. I've 'written' the second verse of Dorothea McKellar's poem My Country in variagated tan/brown thread so the words appear and disappear depending on which fabric they fall on. This poem is almost unknown outside OZ but is probably the single best known and most frequently misquoted in the whole aussie poetry canon [ and I think it would be fair to say that most of us can only quote that second verse, although I can also manage the 'core of my heart' bit ]

Okay now if you're still with me

IT'S COMPETITION TIME

to celebrate the 200th post and the forthcoming Blogiversary, all you have to do is leave me a comment on this post between now and midnight August 4 [ Aus Eastern Standard Time ] telling me what you're obsessive about. It can be as general as 'quilting' or 'knitting' or you can be more specific. Also I need to know if you're a quilter, knitter/crocheter or spinner as that might influence the prize. If you're none of the above you can still enter. I promise I'll find you something 'noice'

Final choice will be made using a random number generator.