Our trip so far...

I'll keep this fairly short and sweet - for me, anyway! We're having an absolute blast in Europe, but our trip is really only just getting started.  We've just finished Day 7 of about 55 days - there's still a long way to go!

At the moment, we are in Barcelona (Spain), having arrived this afternoon from Lyon (France). We've got tomorrow in Barcelona, before we head on to Nice (in France) the next day.  So far we've spent 4 days in London when we first arrived, two days in Paris and an evening in Lyon, and nearly the whole day today driving.

We've been doing heaps of great things, and trying a lot of new experiences too.  Something that you'll probably never believe if you know me - I actually ate escargots (snails) and grenouille (frogs) in Lyon last night. Yes, the fuss-pot of the Universe did actually eat them.  And, believe it or not, they were actually edible.  I'm not a huge fan of oysters or mussels or scallops because I don't like the texture, so snails are not something I would eat again.  The frogs were nice enough - a little like chicken.  The problem was that they leave them as a whole frog and fill your bowl with them, so I could see their little heads and legs and everything! Once I got over that though, I was fine.

On the first day of our tour (when we left London for Paris) I was so sick - it was a miserable day.  Whether or not it was something I ate or a bug, I don't know. But all the signs pointed to food poisoning. It took about 2 days to get over it, and by that time, John had it too. We're now both over it though, and hopefully that means there'll be no more sickness for us on the trip.

Anyway, I don't intend on writing a whole blow-by-blow account of what we've been up to.  I just want to post a few photos.

Tower Bridge (London):

Roman Baths (Bath, England):

Stonehenge (England):

Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum (London):

Abbey Road Beatle's crossing:

Eiffel Tower (Paris, France):

On top of the Eiffel Tower:

Moulin Rouge (Paris, France):

Napoleon's Castle, Fontain bleu (outside of Paris, France):

And a premium vineyard in the Bourgelais wine region (outside of Lyon, France):

As you can see, most of the photos are either taken of one of us (while the other took the photo), or they're 'self portraits' with John holding our camera.  Now that we've started out tour, there should be more shots of the two of us that aren't only a foot away from the camera, as we now have 48 other people going everywhere with us.

Oh, and if you've made it this far, one last piece of news:

Of course, I said yes. What place is more romantic than a little cafe on the Champs d'Elysee in Paris? I'm the happiest girl in the world right now!

While there is so much to say, I'll leave it there.  I'll be back again soon with some more photos, but I can't promise when. So far, the motels have all had free internet access, which has made it really easy.

Adios, amigos!

Leaving, on a jet plane...

...but we know when we'll be back, again. The day is finally here! We leave for Brisbane today, and fly out of the country tomorrow. Despite normally being a sleeper-in-er, I woke up at 6.30 this morning, and haven't been able to get back to sleep.  We drive to Rocky this morning (after we do a few bits and pieces first), and we leave Rocky for Brissy just after 5.00 this arvo.  Our BIG plane (which we believe is an Airbus A3380) leaves Brissy tomorrow at about 1.00pm.

Our bags are packed, the house is completely clean, the washing is done, the lawn is mown...etc.  It's been quite a preparation, but I think we're ready!  What a day we had yesterday. John has been working madly every waking hour the last week or so to get all of his jobs and work to a point where they can be handed over.  Yesterday afternoon, he was just finishing everything off, when our hard-drive malfunctioned. We keep EVERYTHING on an external hard-drive, and we network all of our computers to the hard-drive. We have nothing on our actual computers. The hard-drive itself consists of two separate drives - one as the original, one as the back-up. We then back that up again. Well, when our hard-drive malfunctioned, both of the drives died. And we haven't backed up since February. So everything John has done since February is g.o.n.e. On a day when time was going to be tight to get everything done in the first place, we didn't need that.

We ventured down to Harvey Norman to see what they could do. Without going into detail, if we got a replacement hard-drive, we should have been able to copy things onto it using the right cables....etc. The guys at Harvey Norman were GREAT - they really couldn't have done more to help us. Despite their 'Tech Team' being closed on Sundays, our guy took in our drives, tested them on his special machine so that we knew whether or not buying some new parts would help us. It wouldn't. The drives were gone.

Luckily, our guy said that the information could definitely be recovered, but it would take quite a number of hours to recover 300GB worth of stuff. At 3.00 in the afternoon, we didn't have that sort of time. So, we've left it with them for them to fix and do whatever has to be done, and we'll have to leave it up to John's business partner to pick it up while we're away. At least he will then have the files that we were intending to copy to give to him in the first place!

So, needless to say, despite my super-organisational skills to date, we lost over 2 hours of valuable 'doing' time yesterday, and added a whole heap more stress on top of that! It also means that there are a couple of things John wanted to do which now can't be done. There's nothing we can do about that, and it's now out of our hands. But boy, was it tense for a while there yesterday afternoon!!

Have we learnt our lessonn? Despite reading so many stories about information and files being lost from peoples' harddrives, we thought we had it covered. We'll now be considering an on-line back-up and restoration service, and we'll definitely be more vigilant with doing our second back-up, that's for sure.  The stupid thing is, it was only Saturday that we were going to do a full back-up, but we decided we'd leave it until Sunday after John had finished everything. How annoying.

Well, on to some more fun stuff - the final installment of the 'Things Caitie has made to go on this trip with, despite probably not really needing to, but enjoying it just the same"...

A cover for my passport, so that it doesn't get torn up and tatty while we're travelling. It's reversible, but I like this side the best!

A travel wallet. I've already made one of these - it was the first thing I made. But I wasn't happy with it, and it was too floppy. So I made it again using different fabrics. I used SUPER interfacing, that has made it soooo stiff. The only thing I would do do differently would be to cut it smaller than the seam allowance, so that it wasn't included in all the seams. When I've turned it the right way in and handstitched the opening shut, it was an absolute mammoth effort to get the needle through the now 4 layers of this SUPER interfacing - it's thicker than cereal box cardboard!  The front has a strip of pink corduroy (the same as in the picture below), but of course I forgot to take a photo of that...

Because I still wasn't happy with my last attempt at a camera strap, I decided to re-do it. I did some gathering, as I just loved it on one of the zipper pouches I'd made, and I'm so happy with how it turned out. I backed it with corduroy.  It's a little bit wide this time (all the other times it's been too narrow), but it's still really comfy and looks better than the ugly black-and-yellow Nikon strap.

One last zipper pouch (well, if I was being completely honest, it wasn't the last...) that I'm really happy with the size and the proportion of the 'boxed bottom'. I love this fabric line so much!  I was running out, and Spotlight had none left. I just couldn't stand never making anything with it again (I have visions of using some of the larger and less garish prints to cover a canvas for my craft room wall).  I found some at an on-line site that was a really good price (even cheaper than Spotlight in the first place) so I stocked up on it. Now I'm too scared to cut into it!

Quite a while back it was John's brother Jamie, and his wife Ally's birthdays (one day apart).  As they're both from the land (I'm not allowed to say 'from a farm') and still live on the land, I decided it would be funny to make them these:

For those of you not 'in the know' like I am on all things 'landy', that is fabric with John Deere tractors on it. And it's even in pink for the girls. While they're a little silly, and I doubt either of them will ever be seen in public (unlike my awesome zipper pouches!) hopefully they'll at least be useful for something.

Finally, I managed to finish something I've been meaning to do for a while. An 'armchair' caddy, or some such thing. I've been doing a bit of embroidery (which I haven't yet taken photos of - that will have to wait  until we get back) and the armchair and coffee table were looking a bit of a mess. So, I found this tutorial by the lady who writes Oh Fransson! at Sew Mama Sew  Seriously, if you're interested in making stuff, go here - so many things to see and make! I love this site.

Anyway, I made this:

and boy has it been handy! Not only do I now finally have a pin cushion (despite having had plans to make one for quite a while), but it's heavy and doesn't move, plus it keeps my scissors and quick-unpick (which I need often) close by!

There's still quite a bit to post - I haven't even shown you the page I had done for me by Nicole Southworth or the little bits I made for her and her girls in return. That will have to wait, but you can go to her blog and go to this post and see it if you want. It's one of my favourite photos.

That's about it for me. I've just successfully passed about an hour of time, which means there's less time I have to wait until we leave! Yay. Can't wait to see Mum and Dad, John's parents, and my two sisters for lunch today.

I'm hoping to post some photos on here while we're away - no promises though.

See you all soon,
Caitie (and John, of course)

A baby gift...

Let me start by saying that I'm 99% sure that the new mum won't read this - first of all, I don't think she even knows this blog exists, and secondly, I'm sure when you've just had a baby, there are better things to do than look at my blog!! 

My cousin, Chrissy and her husband Andrew welcomed their first baby into the world on Friday morning (about four weeks early).  (We grew up calling her Chrissy, and even though she is now 'Chris' or 'Christine', I still think of her as Chrissy.)  So, welcome to:

His middle name is Shar, which I think is Andrew's grandmother's maiden name?? I might be slightly wrong there, but I think it's a lovely idea. 

Here is the gift I made to go with the card (well, the card was really made to go with the gift):

Because I am (and always have been) one to blow my own horn, I'm just going to say that I absolutely LOVE how it's turned out.

The polar fleece feels so nice, and he's so snuggly. I hope this is something that Linc grows to love.

I decided I wanted to make this elephant before I started the quilt.  I then did the quilt and felt a bit embarrassed to give the elephant too, because I didn't want Chrissy to think I went overboard! I had a lot of trouble finding any sort of polar fleece back in February when I started making this.  All I could find was this colour, which was actually perfect for how I had envisioned it.  I had the elephant half finished for a long time, and I thought I'd get around to finishing it sooner or later.  Well, Chrissy had the baby on Friday, and I was going to be taking Auntie Karen and Uncle Gary to the airport on Saturday so that they could go and visit Chrissy, Andrew and Linc.  I was in a mad rush on Saturday morning to finish the elephant and to make the card so that I could give it to them to take down with them.  Well, there was a change of plans and I didn't end up taking them to the airport, which means this is still sitting here, ready to come down with us next week.  (We will be seeing them during our one day stop-over in Brisbane before we head out.)

I can't wait to see Chrissy, Andrew and especially Linc.  I'm hoping to take some newborn baby photos while I'm there.  I've been noting some ideas and looking at baby photos that I really like, and I could only hope in my wildest dreams to even come close to something like this:

(from http://www.ashleymcnamara.com/)

(from http://www.carolineghetes.com/)

(from http://www.garlandphotography.com.au/)

(from http://www.iriscreationsphotography.com/ )

(from http://www.kaylaphoto.com/)

(from http://www.kaylaphoto.com/)

from http://www.windwardskies.com/

Of course, I'm hopeful but not stupid - I don't have any cute hats or blankets or anything like that! I'm just trying to take inspiration of some of the poses that I think are gorgeous (of course, Chrissy and Andrew might have other ideas!) and I'll do my best!

I'll be back to post soon with the other things I've been up to this weekend, in amongst getting the last minute things ready for our trip.  Please, Mount Qeoifghhnklafgnvwapruogh (or whatever it's called) - stop spewing your ash and lava everywhere so that all the airports may open again!!

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.