Long time, no post - a catch up

Gee whiz I've been slack lately with my blog posting. So much has been going on and I've just had other things to do to be honest! Here's a quick catch-up (not necessarily in order):

1. John's parents came to visit the weekend before ANZAC Day, which was a great surprise;
2. We had our Get Scrapped Getaway (GSG) on the weekend of ANZAC Day. As always, I just enjoyed myself so much, and can't wait to do it again. More on that later in the post;
3. I've changed my craft/scrapping/sewing room around a little, to try to make the space more conducive to be staying organised and tidy. I'll take pictures and post another day;
4. I've been working a bit of overtime at work to try to get jobs finished before we go away, which I don't really like doing too much! There are too many other things I'd rather be doing at home (aah, the pitfalls of having hobbies);
5. John and I have been madly trying to get things sorted out with the business for when we go away.  As we do the books for the business, we need to make sure everything is in order, as the end of the financial year comes while we're away;
6. John and I have been finalising our plans for our trip, including booking things to do in London before our tours, and in Singapore after our tours. More on that later in the post;
7. We've also been having to arrange everything else that goes with being away for 2 months, including bill payments, real estate agents, banking/travel money, getting someone to mow the lawn, etc. Not too much of a big deal, but just a lot of things to organise and remember to do. Thank goodness for my 'Preparation List' in my travel journal (although you won't catch John admitting that);
7. I've FINALLY finished editing the photos I took at John's brother's wedding (and of course his sister-in-law's wedding too).  I'm so sorry it took so long, Jamie and Ally;
8. I've well and truly caught the sewing bug, and I'm glad we've got this upcoming trip as an excuse to make all sorts of bits and pieces of pouches, bags, etc. I tell you, I'm going to be the most organised traveller! More on that later in the post;
9. We bought a bookshelf, and I love it!! I've had a bit of a 'wish list' going since we moved into our house in 2007, and rather than see it as a list of things we need to go and buy, we see it as a list of things to gradually work towards. It makes it so rewarding! Our bookshelf (well, bookshelves really) is exactly what we'd sort of planned on, and it's already well on its way to being choc-a-block full! I've also finally got somewhere to put my scrapbooking albums, which means they're out and easy to look through when I'm in the mood, and it also gives me three extra shelves in my craft room to use for my ever-increasing sewing supplies! I told John that he doesn't need to worry, we won't need to buy any more bookshelves. I just now know the limit to the number of books I can have before I need to start giving them away;
10. The business is getting an office, which will make it easier when the new employee commences! Wow, our little business is going to be employing someone, and have an actual premises. The down-side is that it's all happening while we're away, so that's yet another thing we need to arrange and plan before we go away;
11. I've had 4 vaccinations in the last few months, and we've each got one more to go, which is apparently the most important one: the combined flu vaccination.  The 'authorities' are imploring everyone to get it, and not to be scared because of recent news. But, do you think it's even possible to get this vaccination? No. We've been trying to get it for months, and time is quickly running out. Apparently, there's a shortage of supply with the manufacturer, and there is nowhere here in Mackay or even in Rocky that actually has supply. So, well done 'authorities' for putting on the news every night that everyone needs to get the vaccine, but then making it impossible for people who need/want it to actually get it.  At least I know I won't get hepatitis or whooping cough, but I might have my holiday ruined because of the darn flu!

Whew, that's a lot of rambling, even for me! Well done if you've made it this far. 

We've now got only 11 sleeps before we leave on our big trip! Woohoo! The time seemed to go so slow for ages, and I wondered how I was actually going to make it without exploding withe excitement. Now, all of a sudden, it's only a little over a week away, and it seems like we don't have enough time to prepare everything before we go. I've been planning for this for a long time, and people at work were laughing at me for being so organised so ahead of time. I started crossing things off my 'To Do' list and my 'To Buy' list months ago, but somehow it just keeps getting longer!

Well, the GSG was such a great weekend - they always are.  I just love them, and after each one I just can't wait to begin organising the next one! (Well, this time I can because we're going on our trip between now and the next one, and I don't want to wish that time away!)  This time we did quite a few pages, and both Stacey and Na (my sisters) came rather than just Na.  As usual, Mum, Auntie Karen and Fiona all came as well.  Here are the pages we did (all inspired by other scrappers):

2009 in review:

Inspired by this page by Maggie Holmes:

A crazy bunch (New Years Eve 2009):

Inspired by this page by Kelly Goree:

Celebrate (Jamie and Ally's wedding):

Inspired by this page by Becky Higgins:

My heart (John and I):

Inspired by this page by Ali Russell:

Spoilt (Mum and Stacey's dogs):

Inspired by this page by Nicole Southworth:

'Tis the Season' (Christmas 2009):

Inspired by this page by Jill-Marie Paulson:

True Beauty shining through (my sister Stacey - I did one of Na last time):

Inspired by this page by Kelly Goree:

Two Hearts (my Mum and Dad):

Inspired by this page by .... Me!!

We also used this page as inspiration, for a page that I have not yet finished.  I channelled Auntie Karen, and printed out the wrong-sized photos! So I'm yet to reprint at the right size and finish my page.  I'll post it when I do.

Inspired by Amanda Probst:

I've done my page on my recent interest in photography, and the photos that I've taken to enter in the photo club competitions, that have either won, or I am really proud of.  I love how all the colours in all the photos look together - I was a little worried that it would be too piece-meal for my liking, but it's come together quite well.  It will probably be a little while before I print the photos and post the page here, but I will.

That's probably enough for this post.  I've still got heaps to catch up on, and I want to do an 'Inspiration' post soon too, showing the things I've seen around lately that I just love.  I also love the idea of Fiona's recent post, which I might try to do sometime soon.  I just need somewhere to put the list that I will be able to see it constantly enough to be reminded! I'm thinking somewhere in my craft room will be the winner...

And we're back!

I'm writing this post as a record for me more than anyone else, so if you don't want to read details of our Cyclone Ului experience, don't bother reading on!

Wow. I really do take electricity for granted. I mean, I know that we do (and I'm pretty sure I'm safe in saying 'we' there) but power blackouts had always just been an inconvenience more than anything. But I've never been in a blackout that lasted more than a few hours before.

I feel so bad now for all the times I've heard of storms/disasters etc that have resulted in thousands of people (or more) being without power and essential services for huge lengths of time, and just thought about it for a moment and not much more.  Well, after just coming out of a nearly 48-hour blackout (which isn't even that bad!) I can say that I have more of an appreciation of how much we rely on electricity and technology.  (Not that I didn't realise that before, though...)

Cyclone Ului crossed the coast about 100km north of us, so we were really lucky that we didn't bear the brunt of it. We are also very lucky in that we have great neighbours who took the threat as seriously as we did and cleaned up their yard/patios which meant there was not too much 'stuff' flying around that could damage our house. The winds apparently reached about 150km/hr, which was enough to rip out huge trees and of course immeasurable numbers of palm fronds from around the place. There were power poles snapped right off, and some fences completely snapped off and destroyed.  But the only 'damage' we had was some palm fronds from our front palm tree came off! Like I said, lucky. Our neighbours (across the road) lost the roof off their shed which landed in their neighbour's pool, and one of our side fences has a definite lean to it.  But, the only thing that looked really out of the ordinary when we woke up was an inflatable pool toy from next door in our backyard, which could have happened any night really.

We spent Saturday preparing for the cyclone.  We'd already bought some 'supplies' on Thursday (and luckily we thought ahead of time enough that we beat the masses to it), so Saturday was spent bringing everything inside, taping the windows and putting together everything we might need.  As silly as it might sound, I put together our little cyclone kit (in a laundry basket!) and had everything sitting ready in the hallway just in case we needed it. 

We lost power at about 10.30pm on Satuday night as we were lying in bed listening to the radio.  No worries - we'd bought batteries and loaded them into the two radios in the house in readiness for this so that we could still stay up dated.  We also had the torches sitting by the bed.  So, we tried to turn the radio back on using the battery, but to no avail.  We thought that maybe that particular clock radio only kept the time/alarm with a battery, so we tried the other one. Still no go. We ended up trying all three batteries in all three radios, and none of them worked. We had a pack of faulty batteries.  So, every hour on the hour I would go and sit in the car to listen to the radio updates on the cyclone. At least the car was in the garage and not outside.

As the time passed, it got less and less exciting listening to the wind, as at times it was so strong you had to wonder what exactly was going to be being destroyed. Also, as the time passed, I got hotter and hotter.  We had all of the windows and doors shut and taped, and without the ceiling fan on it was so hot and humid.  John didn't mind - he just slept through it anyway! I was having a very hard time sleeping - I don't go so well in the heat and need things to be nice and cool when I sleep.  So, traipsing out to the garage wasn't such a bad thing.  The roller door wasn't airtight so a bit of a breeze was let through.  I ended up spending most of my time in there to catch the breeze!

The wind was so fierce, but there was no where near as much rain as we thought there would be (about 130mm overnight).  But, if that was only a Category 3, we can't even imagine how scary and destructive Cyclone Larry (Category 5) would have been than hit Innisfail a few years ago.

At about 5.00am the radio gave the all clear and said that we were no longer under a cyclone warning, so I took that as the ok to open all the doors and windows.  There was still some wind around which gave a nice breeze through the house and I finally got a few hours sleep.

Saturday was spent doing not too much - cleaning up a bit, going for a walk around the neighbourhood to check it out (we've got underground power, not overhead, so there was no danger there) and just hanging out. Surprisingly, the wind died down very quickly, and most of the day and night was absolutely still and very humid.  I didn't sleep well Sunday night either as it was even hotter than the previous night with no wind.  Some of that may also have had to do with the three generators that the neighbours were running outside of our bedroom window.  I definitely don't begrudge them that - I would have done the same thing in their shoes, but it was still annoying and loud!  I actually looked forward to work on Monday to get in the air conditioning and drink some cold water (rather than tap water).

Last night (Monday night) our power came back on. That was so good! (There's still about 24,000 homes without power now though.)  We lost a heap of food in the fridge and freezer though, but that's all replaceable. The best thing was being able to have the ceiling fan on last night - hooray!  We still have no telephone landline or internet, which is a pain with John working from home as he can't get his work emails.  But it's still only a minor inconvenience.  As I write this, John is sitting at McDonalds using their free wi-fi network to check his emails.

We've still got a little bit of cleaning up to do, mainly leaf litter and debris on the patio and in the backyard.  The Council has asked people to limit their water usage to the essentials for the next day or so (as the water treatment plant is being run off a generator at the moment) so we won't start cleaning that off until the weekend probably.  The windows will need a good clean as they are now filthy too, but all in all we escaped unscathed and very lucky.

So, that's our Cyclone Ului story.  Very dull, really, which I'm happy to say!  Because the rain was spitting when we went on our walk around the neighbourhood I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have any photos, but there'll be some around on the internet and such which I might post later.  Now I can get back to sewing 'stuff' - I have to admit that my craft room was the room I was most worried about getting damaged!

Back on the horse

Well, not that I've actually fallen off the horse (in the last 8 weeks anyway).

I'm talking about exercise.

John and I joined the gym in the middle of January, and made a commitment to go at least 3 times per week, but preferably 4 or 5.  Those who know me know that I'm not a morning person at all; but, we do go before work (yes, that's a 6am start) twice a week at least and we've only missed one day so far (which was when I rolled my ankle).

Three times a week we do our program which is weights based, and once a week we do a boxing (for exercise) class which is very full-on! I then try to do a pilates-type session once a week as well.

While I'm noticing differences (that probably wouldn't be enough for most others to notice just yet) I found that the thrice-weekly weights session was probably not having the impact it should, which I am sure is due to the lack of cardio sessions overall.  So, when John and I had our re-program last Friday I told my trainer that I think I need to do more cardio and he agreed.  Our new program now has 5 x 5 minute cardio sessions incorporated between the weights exercise. It's a killer, let me tell you, but I like it. I'm hoping that, combined with the weekly boxing, pilates and my planned 'walking home from work' at least once a week things will start coming together.

I have to keep telling myself 'baby steps' - it's a lifestyle change, becoming used to exercise being part of my daily regime and not just an exercise kick. 

It's now time for me to take stock of what goes in my mouth. It's not like John and I eat takeaway a lot, or drink alcohol (apart from John having a beer or two occasionally) but that's not the point. I've found that my portion sizes are the issue, and that's my focus for the next two weeks (and after that of course, but 'baby steps').

So, over the next fortnight, more cardio exercise plus reducing my portion sizes will be the name of the game. Perhaps posting this on the blog (which only a handful of people read, anyway, but those people are all important to me) will help me keep my commitment.

I'll keep you posted.

A newfound interest

I've well and truly caught the sewing bug - I am loving sewing little bits and pieces lately.  I'm finding that it's also helping to take the edge off some of the excitement about our upcoming travels - actually getting in and doing things that I've been thinking about in preparation for our trip is definitely helping me to quell the excitement to a manageable level!

I still have a list of things to buy/do before we go away, and when I realised that it was the beginning of March today it just seemed that much closer! We still have a number of weeks left to go yet though, so there's no need for me to start panicking just yet though!

I had a dream the other night that we arrived in Europe and we were in such a rush to pack that we left behind all of the extra SD cards for the camera, my travel journal, and the second little compact camera! Hmm, do you think I'm thinking about our packing list much?!

I've made a list of the little pouches/bags that I want/need to keep the little bits and pieces in and have started working my way down that list.  (We've got a heap of SD cards that I want to keep together in a zipped pouch, we've got four chargers and the power point adaptor that I want in a drawstring bag together, etc.)  I'm really using them as an excuse to sew things and hone my skills I suppose - things like sewing with zippers, gathering fabric, inserting linings.  I'm learning so much from tutorials posted on various blogs all over the internet.  It's amazing what you can find by typing in 'zippered pouch tutorial' into Google!  I'll post a list of some of my favourite tutorials that I've learnt at the end.

By the way, the fabric that I've used is just so beautiful - I am in love with it! Spotlight has nearly sold out though, so once I finish what I've got that will most likely be it!

This is the first one I made with a boxed bottom. I was so excited to do the boxed bottom and give it some width, and I think I did the 'box' too big.

This next pouch was my first go at gathering fabric, using a great Vimeo video from someone that I can't find now! I had previously tried to gather some fabric using a long stitch on my sewing machine, and found it hard to get exactly how I wanted and the thread kept breaking.  What I found was a great method, which used two rows of long straight stitch - one either side of the finished stitching line. The fabric to be gathered was then pinned in the centre and at the end to the piece of fabric that you wanted to stitch to (this made sure that the end width was correct). I've found out that my bobbin thread is looser than my top thread, and was easier to pull.  The final stitch to the 'flat' fabric was done in between the gathering lines which made it really easy to stitch down nicely.  I won't bore you with the rest of the details (well, probably too late), but the bottom line is I'm so happy with my little gathered detail, and I think I'll definitely be putting some more pretty gathered fabrics in my upcoming pouches!

I'm definitely happier with the size of the little 'boxes' at the bottom of this pouch.

I then saw this and this and decided that I really like that type of boxy pouch.  I had trouble with the finishing of the boxed seams being concealed, and could only work out on method that was really really fiddly.  I finally found this one with french seam finishing which worked so, so well.

I then decided that I needed a matching luggage tag, and made this:

Just don't look too closely, it's a bit of a mess! (The white is a piece of paper beneath a clear vinyl front for me to write my details on.)  I used this tutorial, but struggled a bit with the casing around the vinyl (the teal bit).  It was my first time sewing with clear vinyl, and I found that the trick is to stick a post-it-note to the edge of the vinyl so that the foot will not wreck it.  The post-it-note then tears off really easily.  I think I would use bias binding around the piece of clear vinyl next time as it may have a nicer finish - or maybe I just need to be a bit more careful. 

The piece I was most looking forward to making was my document wallet:

I used this tutorial and instructions that I had previously posted to make this, and I'm really happy with how well it turned out, considering I've never made anything like this before!

My only disappointment is how floppy it turned out - I didn't have heavy duty interfacing, so I just used what I had.  I've inserted some pieces of chipboard into the pockets to make it a little firmer.  (I've pulled the chipboard pieces out a little so that you can see the pockets more easily - they normally slip in out of sight.)  My passport actually fits, as does my drivers licence (which has been substituted for the back of an ANZ business card in the photo).  My credit card actually fits in the purple pockets, and the little pouch is for loose change.  I've since bought some heavy-duty interfacing from Spotlight (and it really is HEAVY duty) so I might give it another try.  The instructions and pattern were really easy to follow.

I've also made a couple of lined drawstring bags:

and a new camera strap cover. 

The last camera strap cover that I made was really a bit small and didn't sit nice and flat.  I started off with the idea to make a pocket to fit my lens cap and also a smaller one to fit a spare SD card, and I lined the back with some corduroy to make it a bit softer.  As with the last one I made, after everything was done, it had magically shrunk quite a bit, and the width was nowhere near what I wanted.  I am at a loss as to how to make these things wide enough!! This is the third one I've made now, and it started off soooooo wide just so that I could make sure it ended up being what I wanted, and it still found a way to become too narrow! Needless to say, my lens cap definitely won't fit in that teal pock, and my SD card won't even fit in the pink pocket! The cover actually fits the strap though, and I just think of the teal/pink as being some decoration! This is probably something else that I will try again, and cut the strip of fabric 12" wide if I have to!

I made a pouch (with a string to hang around my neck) for my iPod last night, and it was my first attempt at quilting a 'quilt sandwich'.  I don't have a walking foot, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.  And, it's a miracle, the iPod actually fits! I'll post pictures of that later.

Now that I've bored you all to tears with my blow by blow acount of what I've been making (which only I'm really interested in, I know that) I'll sign off and be back later with some more.

Apparently quilting is for grandmas...!

I've been working on what was a secret project for a little while now.  It was a gift for my beautiful cousin who is having a baby, and I didn't want to post it here until I had given it to her.  My cousin lives out of town, but her parents (my auntie and uncle) live in the same town as John and I.  She (and her husband) came to visit my auntie and uncle on the weekend, so I went to visit.  Now I can finally post some photos.

(By the way, they are John's hairy legs poking out, not mine!) 

For some reason, I got it in my head that I wanted to make a quilt for her as her baby gift - I don't really know why, as I've never quilted before.  I found a heap of different ideas on the internet, but got the basic idea for what I ended up doing from here at Make Baby Stuff. 

I did initially have intentions of having the strips all different sizes like the photo, but it just didn't happen!  The placement of the colours is just random, but looking at it now I wish it was more random - I can see gaps of each of the different colours (for example there's not much yellow on the right down the bottom) but I'm guessing the baby won't mind.

This is the backing, which is a bit piece-meal, but I didn't like the idea of just using one plain piece of backing fabric when so much work and colour went into the front. So I just used the same fabrics that I used on the front and just randomly sewed them together until I had a large enough piece.

As this was my first quilt, I didn't feel confident doing the actual quilting myself - plus, I don't have a walking foot for my machine yet. So I took it to a local lady who does quilting with her long-arm machine and she did a great job.

(The green looks a bit neon in this photo, but it really isn't.)  When I dropped off the quilt to Maria, she said that it was probably going to be a few weeks before she could get to it, which was fine.  It just so turned out that on Saturday morning she rang to say that it was ready to be picked up! I had already bought the fabric for the binding, but hadn't made up the binding.  So I spent Saturday afternoon and evening making the binding and sewing it on so that I would have it finished in time to give to my cousin before she went back home on Sunday.  Otherwise, it was going to have to wait until May when we see her before we leave on our trip.

You can see the overall quilting pattern a little better in this picture:

I even hand-made my binding using this tutorial from Heather Bailey using the same blue fabric in the quilt. 

It was quite laborious (John's word as I was at the iron for a LONG time).  I didn't cut it on the bias (jus selvedge to selvede) but I did do the whole 'fold in half and then fold each edge to the centre' thing so that there were no raw edges showing.

I used the sewing machine to sew it on one side, and then hand-stitched it to finish it off. 

I am very proud of my hand-stitching!  I'm not a big fan of hand-stitching, but I decided that I'd put so much work into it so far, I would be disappointed if I finished it with visible machine stitching just to get it done quicker. I managed to get it so that the stitching was all but invisible.

Yes, the side next to the big orange piece in the above photo is the hand-stitched side.

Overall, I'm thrilled with how well it turned out - for my first quilt, only based on things I've seen on various blogs that I visit.

As I was sewing on the binding, I just kept saying to John that I didn't know how I was going to part with it - my first one! But I really wanted my cousin to have it, so it wasn't too difficult in the end.  I'm thinking that I REALLY don't need any more hobbies (and John agrees whole-heartedly!) but there was just something so lovely about making it - and particularly finishing it off.  John is a very cold person who always has a blanket or doona with him once we hit Autumn, and even through to Spring, so I'm thinking a smallish one for the lounge during the cooler months wouldn't be a bad idea...  we'll see though!

When I took the quilt over to show our neighbour across the road (who is always interested in things I'm making) her husband said that quilting is for grandmas, and I'm too young to be doing that!  (The two of them are grandparents themselves.)  I told him that I get enough of that from the guys at work - they think it's hilarious that I spend my leisure time sewing and scrapbooking! (Apparently it's not so funny when myself and other ladies in the office laugh at them for spending all their free time on the computer playing computer 'shoot 'em up' games against virtual people in cyberspace!)

I've been very creative over the past couple of weeks, so I've got some more photos of things I've made coming up soon.

The great unveiling of... the journal!

Well, I got my travel journal back from the binding shop (if there is such a place) and I am very happy with it.  Unfortunately, as it was so thick, every binding shop I rang told me that the would only be able to do spiral/coil binding rather than the wire binding I wanted.  I'm a little disappointed in that, and that the coil has to be so huge, but overall I'm very happy.  Plus I like it more than I like any journals I've seen for sale on the net or in a shop, so that's got to be a plus.

For those of you interested, here it is:

I really love this fabric, and I've used other fabrics in the same 'series' to make some other bits and pieces that I'll post over the coming week.  You can see what I mean by the binding being so big, but it's not too bad.  The pages are A5 in size, so it's quite portable and compact.

I've covered the inside of the covers to hide the folded over fabric.  I started off just gluing another piece of fabric, but it looked horrible and the glue showed through.  So I ended up ripping that off, covering a piece of lightweight chipboard with fabric and sewed it on.  It's turned out to be quite neat.  (Covering the chipboard instead of just plain fabric was John's idea.)

Each of the writing pages is slightly smaller than the country divider pages, and the binding shop centred them all for me.  I've adhered an envelope to the back of each divider to put bits and pieces in (like tickets, receipts).

My requirement with the binding was that the journal lies flat when open, and the pages turn quite easily.

The back is done the same way as the front, except of sewn a piece of elastic between the back cover and the inside covered chipboard for closing.  The button at the front is covered in a white drill-like fabric (pre-bought, not made that way).  It keeps it all together nicely.

It's a little bit sad, but this journal is what I've been thinking the most about over the past few weeks - I was so excited! It doesn't really look like it, but it took a bit of planning to get all the pages done and exactly how I like them, and then there were so many ways I could do the cover! I'm happy I've done it this way.

I'll post the other bits and pieces that I've been making shortly.  In the meantime, it's my little sister's birthday (well, she's 22 - not so little) so happy birthday Stace! Your pressie/card will be in the mail soon - I've been so slack, but it's here I promise!

Another photo club success

Our February photo club meeting was on Monday night, and I only really had a couple of photos for one of the sections to enter.  I tried some a little different with one of them, and I thought it turned out a little tacky, but entered it anyway.

I entered this in 'What Tha', which is for any photo that you take that makes you look twice at what it is.  You are allowed to use any photoshop manipulation on it.  I won first place! In case you can't tell, it is a photo (with a very shallow depth of field ie a lot of blurry foreground and background and only a strip in the centre in focus) of the little crab sand balls that you find on the beach.  Sort of like in this photo:

I also entered this photo of a cactus/plant thingy at the beach:

The competition wasn't that great as there was only about four photos in the whole competition! There are normally much more, sometimes up to 30 or so, but Monday's meeting was full of 'newbies' and not many 'oldies' and I don't think many of the newbies brought photos.  Nevermind.

I've just taken my travel journal down to the shop to be bound - I hope it turns out ok!

I'll leave you with this, which I how I plan to cover up a bleach mark on a favourite black top of mine.  My Staz-on black ink didn't really work.  For some reason, the material went bright orange where the bleach touched it?  (Note to self - don't clean the shower with domestos while wearing clothes you actually like!)  (From Make it and Love it.)