Quick breather between takes

It's funny how the busiest times in your life appear on a blog to be the quietest. The times when you are making loads of crafty stuff is the time when nothing craft related gets posted, partly coz you're so busy doing them but also coz you can't blog projects that are being given to people who read! I guess that explains why I haven't blogged in so long and also why I haven't told anyone about the things I have been making. Some of them I still can't show, but there are a few things I can now. Like this for example:

This is the first time I have ever quilted anything. OK it's not a full quilting job (and please excuse the fact that it hadn't been ironed yet in this shot) - it's only the top half. It was designed to be the altarcloth for Meg's wedding and had to be flat enough for people to sign documents on so it couldn't have a bulky padding on the back. Still, I found this half-a-job to be one of the most challenging sewing projects I've ever done. I never realised how much went into designing even a basic pattern, getting all the colours right and sitting in the right place, and getting all the measurements and cuts right. Just making the finished product end up not slightly wonky was enough to send me bonkers, and I had a couple of moments sitting at the machine or at the cutting table where I'd turn round to Hubby and declare in defeat, "Nup, I'm screwed, this isn't gonna work". But I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out and now feel I've crossed that scary "But what if I fail?" barrier into the world of quilting. I will definitely be doing more of that in the future. I don't know how many of my readers are into quilting and sewing, but I think there will have more of a focus on that in my blog for a while as knitting hasn't been inspiring me much lately.

Anyway, for now I'm focusing on getting to Christmas without going crazy. This year we have decided to take it easy. Instead of the usual last minute rush and long drive to see family, we are posting pressies out and heading for 3 weeks in Tassie just the two of us, camping and riding the mountain biking trails. Very relaxing, but still, I have so many projects I have to finish before I get to go away. Most of them are Christmas presents, but some of them are very overdue gifts for other occasions that had to go on the backburner to make way for other things. I hate that there are only 24 hours in a day sometimes! Here's something that's on the way:

You know those big green shopping bags you get from Coles? Yeah, well this is made from a pattern I made off one of those. I love those bags - they're a really good sturdy shape, but damn that green is ugly. This is only half made so far. The lining will be white and I've yet to make some handles. The picture on the front is made using a printable transfer and the picture is a still recorded on the computer from digital telly from a Sarah Blasko video. The video shows nature being taken over by industry, which I think is a very appropriate notion for a recyclable shopping bag.

Other things I am making include this small bag decorated with a stencil design. It's in pretty rough form here but you get the picture. This is one of the very late presents I was talking about:

Since coming back to it and looking at it with fresh eyes, I think it looks to big and bloomery and the neck too narrow for it to be useful. So I think I have to fiddle with it a bit. That turquoise thing you see laying behind it is the lining.

I think that's all I can tell you about for now as I have to keep some things secret, but before I go I have to direct everyone over to Libby's to get hold of her Fabulous Butter Cake Recipe. This was one of the cakes we served at Meg's hen's do, and my personal favourite. We put it with Nigella's basic vanilla butter icing and blueberries on top:

served with tea and shiny things, mmm...shiiiiiny:

Cleaned up and woolly

You won't normally see Courtney Love looking this, well, clean. I am loving her knitted gloves.

Tales of Mungo Brush: Part 2

We originally had big plans for this holiday. We were going to go up to Brampton Island and lay around with drinks in our hands while other people looked after us. When it came down to it though, it was getting too hard matching the dates they had available with the leave we could get from each of our respective jobs. The whole point of the holiday was to unwind after a fairly stressful period, so we figured let's just make it easy on ourselves and go somewhere we've been before that we know and like. So back we went to Mungo Brush campground at Myall Lakes.

We had much better weather this time. The water's still pretty cool but at least this time we had warm enough days to get in and enjoy it anyway. And the warmer weather also brought with it loads of wildlife. And I seriously mean loads. We had several dingoes milling about (especially at meal times when they could smell our sausages cooking), several pairs of ducks (that was very cute - they always travelled in pairs) one of which was a type I'd never seen before - the markings made them look like they were wearing little capes with button fronts, enormous spiders, so many birds with exotic calls that we would lie deafened in the tent from 4 'til 7 every morning, a couple of huge lace monitor lizards, a dolphin, and schools of australian salmon so large we could see the dark clouds of them moving through the water from our spot on the dunes. The ranger came round to let us know the latter was attracting enormous bull sharks and that some person had already been chased out of the water right up onto the beach by one. She also warned us to stay together around the dingoes who were a bit hungry at the moment (!!!) and to watch out for one of the local snakes, the death adder. So all in all rather death defying that we made it back home in one piece.

So here are the photos:

A view from one of the bushwalks - it's a very steep climb up and then nearly complete 360 degree views:

Perfect dunes that go up into the sky:

Hubby reeling in the big one:

Said big one:

The long, long coastline to nowhere:

Brushing teeth back at camp. Not quite Lolita but never mind: