A pretty parasite

I don't think I'd ever consciously noticed mistletoe until I moved up here.
In fact, li'l 'ole ignorant me, if I had thought about it at all - which I hadn't - would've probably assumed that such a quintessentially Christmassy icon existed only in the snowy climes of the Northern Hemisphere.
Not so
Round here it's quite common to see huge gumtrees festooned with multiple clumps and managing to survive.
Smaller eucalypts aren't usually so lucky - especially the ones that have been stressed by drought conditions - but mistletoe is an important food source both the Silver-eyes and Mistletoe birds.
This is the first year that I've managed to catch them at the height of flowering ... maybe because of the recent rain ...


and - before anyone asks - yes, I do bring some inside at Christmas :]

Happy Birthday Baby!

Rather than be sad that everyone was working on her birthday while she had a perfectly good day off, Nadie jumped in the car and came up to spend the day with Mum.
... awwwwwwww
The fact that she also needed to reclaim the grandkittens was almost completely incidental [ my story and I'm sticking to it ]

We made ourselves Falafel-with-goat-cheese wraps for lunch
and went for a walk with David and Bear
There was a leisurely pot of Chai
There was some unwrapping of presents [The two latest Charlaine Harris books, which I get to borrow back later, and a cherry red handbag ]
and then Thai Tofu Fried Rice for dinner

and I totally forgot to pick up the camera for any of it

Nadie and the furrbabies are currently en route for home ... and Sophie has re emerged from her hidey hole under my bed

a minor CATastrophe

Every grandma I've ever met says the same thing:
that grandchildren are wonderful, the joy of one's life, but the best part is that you can hand them back at the end of the day

the same apparently goes for grandkittens [ who are going home tomorrow ]

Sumi misjudged the leap onto my bedside table - or maybe she didn't realise that Bear and Sophie were on my bed - in any case the net result was a coffee-soaked piece of antique linen-and-lace, a very wet patch of carpet, a dead piece of Royal Doulton

and a damp cat who at least had the grace to look repentant

" Sorry Nannie"

What's On Your ... ?

This week for 'What's On Your ...? Wednesday' it's an easy one:

So show me /us

What's on your desktop ?

usually I have a picture of my gorgeous grandson [ what ? biased ? me ? never ! ]
or one of the animals
but it just so happens that today it's a picture of a seasonal visitor who apparently loves my garden as much as I do:


If you decide to 'play', please mention it in the comments so we can all come over and visit

Playing with threads

Knitters and quilters can be divided into two groups:
namely those who stash and those who don't

It is a fact generally acknowledged that I very much belong to the first camp

My quilt stash requires its own room
and while the wool and fibre stash is slightly more modest, it is still threatening to break out of the good-sized wardrobe that houses it

I own several sewing machines, more than one spinning wheel, dozens of knitting needles and a substantial collection of scissors.

So I was a bit mortified to realise that my darling daughter was making do with a pair of supercheap plastic handled embroidery scissors.

Obviously that situation could be, and should be, easily remedied
and so it was
... a bit of playing with fabric and threads and one of those cute little flexi-frames ensured that her new scissors didn't go to their new home naked
and to make sure that they didn't get lonely, I made them some little friends
a needle book
and a
pin cushion

What's On Your ... ?

I'm instituting a new feature for Wednesdays when I don't necessarily have anything else to post [ although I actually did have an alternative today - but it can just as well wait for tomorrow ]
I'm calling it - as you can see up top there - "What's On Your ... ?"

and I'm hoping that if you are similarly challenged for blog-fodder, that you'll perhaps follow my lead. Sometimes it will just require you to post a photo. Sometimes there might be backstory needed. You don't need to wait for a Wednesday to join in either.

so today I want to know "What's On Your ... FRIDGE ?"

If you're particularly game, you can post a photo 'as is' but I promise that I won't think any less of you if you feel the need for a bit of pre-photoshoot tidying-up [ and who's to know unless you tell them ?]
Even if there's nothing on there - which I find difficult to visualise - prove it !
Anyway
here's mine
you can just make out the corner of the computer there to the left [ it lives in the space that would've originally been meant for a free-standing freezer ]
and I'm sure it will come as no great surprise that it's covered in things like this:


I especially love my set of 'create-a-cat-poem' word magnets bought over at Daylesford
even though they make cleaning the outside of the fridge an absolute pain in the bum
people leave me little messages
and it's fun to watch them hunt for just the right word ... to ponder whether they are 'allowed' to disassemble someone else's poem in order to create their own.
Some ask first
Some don't
One particular visiting little person was kept occupied for almost an hour and protested strongly when she had to go home
On the next visit she checked to see whether anyone had moved 'her' words and was first incensed that they had, and then slightly mollified when I told her that they'd been saved for posterity in a photo.
Sentiments range from the poetic

to the enigmaticSo I wonder ... what does my fridge say about me - other than the obvious bit that I luuurve felines ?
and now it's YOUR turn
please show me
what's on your fridge
and come back here with a link

Cat Wars

MissC is not a happy girl



- I suspect Sophie

Here comes the rain again !

This is the time of the year when we expect statements like " the state is a tinderbox" ... when daily maximum temperatures are over 30C for weeks at a time, and my garden languishes, then bakes and scorches

January 2009 was the driest on record for this area - precisely 0.00mm of rain -
so the 20 something mm [ bit less than an inch ] that we received in the first 30 days of January 2010 may well have been piddling, but it was a whole lot better than last year.

Lunchtime yesterday rolled around and it had already reached and exceeded the expected max in the mid 30s, the sky was a clear cornflower blue that almost reconciled me to the outside temperature.
Almost
but not quite
and I have to say that I was a little sceptical about the 'possible thunderstorm' forecast

Oh ye of little faith!
... how could I have doubted the Bureau of Meteorology?

Even with the curtains drawn, by mid afternoon, I could tell that it was clouding over


then the wind picked up and the temp dropped 10 degrees in as many minutes
so I took camera [ and dog ] in hand, and went out to sit on the verandah to enjoy the man upstairs' light-and-sound show


Thunder and lightening a plenty for a while [ which I tried to photograph without any real hope of success ]
and then, as quickly as it had rolled in, the rain was gone


leaving as much in the rain gauge as had fallen for the whole rest of the month
a happier garden
less dust
four sodden and complaining goats
and this:
which is a pretty spectacular way to say good bye to January in my book

Nothing to blog about ... but has that ever stopped me ?

I miss blogging for all of two days and get multiple queries as to my status ... and that strikes me as a very good thing.
It's a very comfortable - and comforting - thought that people are watching out for me ...
but there's really no news today
no quilting, knitting, crochet or spinning has been happening [ because I'm procrastinating about the awful moment when I have to come to grips with unpicking the hand quilting on the current project, unbasting it, and changing the batting. Then rebasting and starting over again.]
There was a modicum of gardening, and a modest amount of goat wrangling
but basically I continued to do what I've been doing most of since January 1: namely a lot of reading.


**January:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - JK Rowling
The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown ( disappointing )
Loving Richard Feynman - Penny Tangey ( Young adult - okay except the weak ending )
From Dead to Worse - Charlaine Harris
Living Dead In Dallas - CH
Green Mill Murder - Kerry Greenwood
Blood and Circuses - KG
Ruddy Gore -KG
Urn Burial - KG
Raisins and Almonds - KG book 10
Death Before Wicket - KG
Away With the Fairies - KG
Murder In Montmartre - KG
Queen of the Flowers - KG
Murder In The Dark - KG
The Persian Pickle Club - Sandra Dallas
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul - DA
Cocaine Blues - KG
Forbidden Fruit - KG book 20
Dead Until Dark - CH
Club Dead - CH
Skin Trade - Laurell K Hamilton
Seventh Son - Orson Scott Card
Red Prophet - OSC

and yes, I am a fairly fast [ some might say voracious ] reader. I'm also trying to get out of the habit of slouching in front of the idiot box till the wee small hours.
Well, at least when there's no knitting, etc. in the offing :]
It's not like there's actually anything on worth watching most of the time [ although all bets are off once the Winter Olympics starts ]

It has also been pointed out that there have been no pictures of the dawg for a while, so, mainly for Glennie and Moggie, here's a couple of totally gratuitous pics of his Beariness: one taken mid '09,

and here's his Lordship with the current [ half grown out ] summer haircut

The Postcard Project revisited

I've written before about the remarkable Elizabeth McClun

Here is a young and highly educated woman who knows that her time is very limited, and is not only facing that with great courage; she is determined to spend what is left to her in making the world a more joyful place for anyone ... ANYONE ... who makes the choice to contact her and to ask her for a postcard.
About a year ago, I made that choice ... to ask Beth to write to David, rather than for myself, because he almost never gets mail.**
I certainly didn't realise until his first card arrived, that it would be a mini work of art, filled with stamps and stickers to create a complex layer of images.

His cards are the last thing he sees at night and the first thing in the morning.


I'm not at all sure that he understands their significance, but I read each one to him as they arrive and he chooses which side will be displayed and precisely where it will be placed.

It makes me happy because it makes him happy

and then

not so long ago, a beautiful, ethereal postcard arrived

- made of special Japanese washi paper - and not for David but for me

it arrived at a time when I was feeling less than stellar



and then this week there were two more cards ... one each ... but these had been posted back in November and had gotten 'lost' at the post office along with several Christmas cards and some very overdue cards for my birthday. I suspect that they'd probably all been sitting in the wrong box [ maybe an unused one ] and had just been discovered and hastily shoved into the right one.
However it happened, now I have two reminders of Beth's love, compassion and bravery ... and David has three.

Go visit Beth
Read what she has to say.
and ... ask for a postcard. I know some of you will hesitate
but don't.
They say that you don't get something for nothing in this world. That everything comes with strings attached.

The only 'string' attached to this, that I can see, is that perhaps you will make a connection with, and end up caring about, someone that you might otherwise not have met.


** The trickle-on effect:
After the first time that I wrote about Elizabeth's Postcard project, lovely Tracy from Zimbabwe contacted me through Ravelry and then sent Dave a card to add to his 'collection'. Thank you Tracy from both of us.

and just bye the bye - I used PSP - pretty ineptly - to 'white-out' my address, I haven't actually taken to the postcards themselves with the Tip-ex [ just in case anyone was worried that I'd defaced them in the interests of internet privacy ]

what p****s me off

Someone needs to tell the male presenter on ABC News Morning that the l in Australia is not an optional extra
... neither is the t in seventeen

Anyone speak Norwegian ?

The 30-somethingth annual Fryerstown Antique and Collectibles Fair is on again this coming Australia Day weekend, and a fair percentage of the stallholders are already open for a bit of 'Early Bird' action.
There is the usual mix of the genuine and the not-so-genuine, the overpriced tat and the occasional genuine bargain - all covered with a fine, fine layer of Fryerstown dust.

As usual, I set my budget [ and then added an extra $20 'running-away-from-home-money in the back pocket 'just in case' ]
As usual, I ended up spending every last cent of it.

It is entirely possible that there may have been a few purchases of 'not at all antique' blue-and-white china that just happened to match some already in my kitchen cupboards
but that was just bye the bye.
It is also entirely possible that there may have been a couple of things that were vaguely cat shaped.
Also completely bye the bye.

What I was really hunting for, and signally failing to find, were vintage Christmas postcards [ couldn't seem to find vintage postcards of any sort really ]
until
I was almost ready to admit defeat and haul my hot, sunburned and weary carcass back to the car
and then there they were
on the penultimate stall - and under cover, with a handy chair and a fan - four shoe boxes of old postcards.
Most were only a dollar or two, and joy of joys:
a vast number of seasonal ones, mostly American, and none of them ones that I recognised ... Woo! and, may I add, Hoo!


Somewhat predictably there followed about an hour of me sitting, and sorting, and culling, and counting, and calculating, and checking the contents of my purse to see if the amount of money left had somehow magically increased in the last ten minutes
... at the end of which my formerly quite modest collection of Christmas postcards had increased about threefold.

and yes there are a couple of ring-ins at the bottom

I shall have to come up with a new method of display for next Christmas.
Oh dear, now won't THAT be a hardship?

All of which brings us to the explanation for the title of this post


This card is Norwegian and, thanks to the wonder that is Google, I know that the first bit says " Happy New Year"

... anyone able to enlighten me about the rest : Med Frid Och Hop !

and the moral of this tale ?
It is NEVER too early to be thinking about Christmas !

Finally! - as promised part deux

Back in early November, I posted about the first of a pair of goth inspired gauntlets that I was designing/making for Nadie's workplace Christmas 'do' which was to be held at Witches In Britches Theatre Restaurant
I didn't ever post a photo of the finished pair - and of course there were several pointed requests to see Nadie all 'gothed up', so here she is:
Can you believe that she used to get teased at primary school about her luscious Angelina Joli lips ? Bet those mean little coots are all eating their words now !!

and the knitty stuff for those who care about such things:
Because the gauntlets are constructed lengthwise, working out the matching increase/decrease for the point attached to the finger loop - while simultaneously maintaining the eyelet pattern - was an interesting exercise.
The increase side was easy enough - the YO to make the lace pattern was done without a corresponding K2tog - but the decrease side was a totally different matter. Now I can't remember whether I solved it by doing a YO,K3tog or whether it was k2tog, YO, k2tog. I'm inclined to think the latter and I'll know for sure if I get a chance to have another look at the finished article up close and personal.

Jackson Pollock eat your heart out

I decided that Dave needed to spend a little less time in front of the tv today
and I had a long, thin pre-primed canvas that I had no immediate plans for.
So
I undercoated it in pale blue/grey and then turned David loose with the paints.
The colour choices were mine and I limited his palette to teal, white and copper.
I think he was humoring me as much as anything, but he obliged with a few swipes at the canvas and then got the giggles when I showed him how to make spatters by tapping the brush.
If we'd had a painting session on paper the result would probably be stuck on the fridge, or used as wrapping paper for the next outgoing birthday gift
but instead it is hanging in his bedroom and I think it looks pretty damn good

Isn't it interesting how working on a proper stretched canvas immediately imparts ... something ... a weight ... a validity ... to the result ?

Pumpkin Scones anyone?

Last Saturday I felt compelled to make pumpkin scones for afternoon tea ... albeit very heavily modified ones.
Due to the food sensitivities and outright allergies of a certain visitor, we left out the sugar ... and the egg ... and used dairy free margarine and gluten-free flour.

I'm not sure that Lady Bjelke-Peterson would approve ... but, if nothing else, they proved once again, the adaptability of the humble pumpkin scone. Even if they were a bit flat.

Anyway, as that certain visitor wasn't up this weekend, David and I made a batch this afternoon that was a little more in the spirit of the original.


Although I still left out the sugar - pumpkin is sweet enough for me - and there may have been a few herbs ... and just a touch of garlic ... and it was still the dairy-free margarine.
... and I'm not sure what Lady Flo would've thought of the fresh goats cheese that was piled onto the piping hot results

but

despite the liberties that I took with an Aussie icon, the result was totally soft and moist and completely yummo

and with a nice cup of Lady Grey


What more could one ask for on a Saturday afternoon ?

Aussie Pumpkin Scones

1 tablespoon butter
1/4 cup sugar [ i generally omit this ]
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 beaten egg
1 cup cold mashed cooked pumpkin [ Jap or Kent for preference ]
2 cups self-raising flour

Beat butter, sugar and salt. Add egg and pumpkin.
Stir in flour by hand
press or roll and cut into rounds.
Place on greased tray in a very hot oven [ 230C] for 15-20 minutes

serve hot or cold, split with butter

I sometimes add a little grated tasty cheese to the mix, but omitted it this time in favour of spreading them with fresh creamy goat cheese

Stash busting of the fabric persuasion

Six years or so ago, or about the time that the drawer of seasonal prints exploded, spawning an additional large box of bits and pieces, the detritus of 20 odd years of making Christmas 'stuff', I had the bright idea of cutting the smaller bits into random width strips about 6" long.

The aim was to make enough to join them together into a nice simple strippy Chinese-Coins style Christmas quilt, quickly done with the brain more-or-less in neutral.
Then I moved house and they got 'misplaced' ... only to surface just before Christmas '08, when I made a few more, and got as far as pinning them up on the design wall.
... and there they sat until that Christmas was over.

If I'd gone ahead and finished it at that point, it would've been somewhere between a cot[crib] quilt and a lap sized one.

Of course, if I'd done that, you would have already seen it, so the fact that I'm bringing it up now kinda confirms that I didn't give it another thought. At least, not until a couple of weeks ago when I yanked the tub out again.

and promptly decided to discard quite a few of the ones that I'd already done.

Fast forward through intermittent bouts of mindless cutting and sewing:
the' cot quilt' is now a large queen size


and I decided to do a pieced back as well

rather than go out to buy another 8 metres of fabric

At the moment it's just a top - no quilting yet - but it still looks pretty good spread out on the spare bed

It has been CAT scanned and deemed worthy



and y'know what? I didn't buy so much as a fat quarter of new fabric for this piece and that blasted Christmas fabric drawer is still full.

... and I haven't worked out whether I'm really, really late with this quilt ... or doing spectacularly well for Christmas 2010