And the winners are...

Take a look at my birthday roses. Aren't they lovely? Just as lovely as all my birthday wishes, so thanks, peeps!

And now, to keep you in suspense no longer, the winners drawn by special Galumph random drawing thingy magic are:
Stephanie - Modern Quilt Workshop
QuiteContrary1977 - Knitted Babes
Muralimanohar - Japanese Totes book
Nikkishell - Japanese Embroidery book

Well done! Sorry to keep you all in suspense for so long, poor old Grumbles has been rather ill this week, so in the haze that comes with looking after a sickly child and not getting much sleep, I kept forgetting to get the Galumph to do his random wizardry. Oops!

31

Oh my sainted aunt! I have truly been the most tardy blogger around. But fear not, I am back, and am turning 31 tomorrow. 31! Yikes!

This means several things:
(1) The bloom of my youth has well and truly faded, and that it's only a short trip here on in to hagged and crotchety;
(2) I can no longer say things like "When I grow up I want to be a blah blah blah", because it will only make me look dafter than I already am;
(3) Time is a'running out if I want to be an accomplished piano and trumpet playing bilingual diplomatic officer and bona fide chess master before middle age strikes;
(4) It's the Jorth birthday giveaway!

I suspect it's the latter that you're all interested in. Never mind me and my aging crisis, just show you the goodies, hey?

Firstly, the rules. Long time visitors know the drill - give me a bit of birthday love by leaving a nice message, telling me I don't look old at all and that being a diplomatic officer is vastly overrated etc etc and mention which gift you'd like to be yours. After the weekend I'll draw the winners out of the appropriate hats, send you an email requesting your postal details, and you and the pressies shall soon be one.

Rightio, first cab off the rank - Knitted Babes by Clare Garland. Lovely, sweet book, featuring these easy to knit up dolls that can usually be made from scrap yarn. I hope you have better luck than I did with mine, which resembled nothing but a burnt alien. Grumbles took one look at it, and crawled for the hills. Don't blame the poor kid, it did look pretty scary. Oh well.

Next up is The Modern Quilt Workshop by Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr. Fabulous introduction into world of quilting, with a heavy emphasis on colour and design. Very inspirational.

Third is this nifty Japanese embroidered handbag pattern book. The bags in here at to die for, and there are about 10 I'd love to make, but it's been sitting on my shelf for 3 years now, and in my heart of hearts I know I'll never get around to making one up. So I'll hand it over to somebody who hopefully will. Or somebody who will at least drool over the pics more often than I do. (See more of the projects inside here)

Lastly is another Japanese craft book, this one featuring patterns for tote bags. Some very, very cool designs in here.

Well, that's it. Hope you all have a splendid weekend, and good luck with the draw!

xo Jorth

Dream cardi complete!

Project Specs

Pattern: Dream Cardi from And So To Bed by Lucinda Guy
Wool: The pattern specified 9 balls of Rowan RYC, but I went for a more budget knit and used Bendigo Woollen Mill's Classic 8 ply in Musk (1 1/2 balls)
Size: 3 - 4 years
Notions: Three vintage shank buttons from my stash (thank goodness for yard sales!), 1 metre spotted pink ribbon.

I love this cardi, as does Grumbles judging by the number of times it's been worn since I finished it two weeks ago! I'm rather glad that my camera didn't pick up the spaghetti sauce stains on the sleeve *ahem*.

Despite adoring the cardigan, I did take a few liberties with the pattern. It originally called for the lower bodice to be knit separately using double yarn, but I felt it made the pattern (which was knit all in one) unnecessarily complicated, without any major visual payoff, so I rewrote the pattern to suit me, and worked it using only a single strand of yarn.

I also ignored the instruction for croched button loops, and instead made my own using this method from the lovely Anna, which I felt would be far more sturdy for the age group specified.

But other than those minor quibbles it's a great cardi, with a lovely stitch pattern, and I can tell it's going to be worn and worn and worn!

In fact, I rather fancy making one for myself! [Said whilst hunting around for a calculator and some note paper]

Four!

Dearest, darlingest Grumbles,

Today, four years ago, you were born. Four years! Where on heck has the time gone? I suppose it has followed that golden rule: Time flies when you're having fun, and since you have brought nothing but joy and and happiness and laughter into my life, then it's no surprise that time has zoomed by at an expotential rate.

You and Daddy and I have sure done a lot in those four years. You've gone from a chubby bundle who could projectile vomit 6 feet across a room without batting an eyelid to a hilarious girl with an infectious laugh who can hold her own on the dance floor with the best of them. We've done bike holidays together, and music classes, and gymnastics, and kindergarten, and so many other wonderful activities, with you growing taller and more confident with each one, and me standing quietly by your side, collecting each memory and holding it in a special place in my heart.

Fantastic as all those things have been, it's the quiet, unexpected moments that I treasure the most. Like yesterday, for instance, when you instructed that I draw on a large piece of paper a mummy crocodile, a daddy crocodile and a baby Grumbles crocodile, and then you painted them in blue and yellow and brown, making them talk in funny voices like I do when I read books to you. And I watched, feeling so stupid with pride over you. Or each night, after we've sung "Moon, moon", and I'm turning off the light, and I say "I love you, Pumpkin-head!", and I hear you say through the darkness in a deep, growly voice, "I love you, crazy Mummy Pumpkin-head!"

I also like it when we walk down the street, and you say hello to somebody, and then before they have even finished passing you tell me in an extra-loud voice that "I have very good manners, don't I, Mum!" That one never fails to elicit a slightly embarassed guffaw from me.

Or when you insist that I play the Amelie soundtrack, and we dance and dance and dance around the loungeroom until I'm too out of breath to hold you up anymore, so then you lie down so I can play the 'piano' on your back, and we both lie there, giggling like crazy.

And the way that you are really, really crap at bargaining. I'll say "Ok, tiger, time to pack up, dinner's ready! Pop your colouring away please."
"How about five more minutes?"
"Now!"
"How about two more minutes?"
"Now!"
"How about next week?"
"Sure!"
"Ok!"

Like I said, it's the quiet, unexpected moments that I love the most. They're like a shiny, beautiful gift, comfirming to me how brilliant and wonderful you are, and how I must be the luckiest thing ever to share these days with you.

I love you, Pumpkin-head!

xo Mum

Never smile at a crocodile...

...especially one as badly drawn as that! I mean, c'mon - when was the last time you saw a square mouthed croc? Talk about crikey! Lauren Child, you have nothing to worry about.

Even Grumbles has turned from it in digust and shame. And this is after she tried to cover the horror of it with paint. Don't blame the kid, really.

MixTape goodness

As I may have mentioned before, I write a regular column for MixTape magazine. So if you've ever wondered what's in the mag, then go take a sneak peek. Go on, you know you want to... it's full of crafty goodness, including my oh so fabulous 'Green' column, and proudly produced in Melbourne.

Take a look, take a look! You won't regret it!

A bear, a bike and a basket

(and some washing on the line in the background, but I didn't really think that fact worthy of a post title mention)

Dropping a massive hint

Urgh. I'm still residing in the Valley of Snotty Nose, but am keeping myself cheerful by gazing at these gorgeous works of art by the supremely talented Louise of Art & Ghosts.

I mean, seriously, what's not to love about red stockings? And rabbity hats! And soulful eyes? I think I'm in love.

Oh, Galumph? She has an Etsy shop. And my birthday is soon... I'm not saying, I'm just saying, you know?

(COUGH COUGH HINT HINT)

Small but productive (and I'm not talking about Grumbles!)

I had a list as long as my arm, detailing things I wished to accomplish this weekend. Instead I was struck down with a sore throaty, feeble cough lurgy, so my accomplishments amount to snapping a few pics and doing lots of moaning about how sick I felt.

However, the Galumph was on a roll, and under the watchful of eye of his temporarily invalided wife he cleared out our front garden, and planted out our brand new vegie patch. Previously the front garden was a wonderland of odd weeds, with a few tomato plants in summer time if we were organised enough, but with food prices going through the rooft, plus lots of thinking about the negative impact of excessive food miles, I decided it was time we dug for victory and did our bit. And by gosh if I was going to do it at all, I was going to do it properly. I wanted decent beds, with paving to help control weeds and darn it, I wanted it to look pretty!

We have spent the last few weeks keeping a weather eye out for stray bricks, and on Saturday hit brick gold when we discovered a family down our street doing some renovations. We asked very nicely and they gave up all their crappy bricks ("Trust me honey, you're doing us a favour by carting them away!" I was told in a big booming Italian baritone), which we promptly laid down in the garden, forming four mini beds.

The front two have been planted with silverbeet and beetroot, and the back beds have broad beans and snow peas. Keeping these company are a couple of pots containg rocket, Freckles Brunte lettuce and Mesclun lettuce mix. All seeds are heritage ones from Diggers - not only do they ensure that genetic variation isn't lost, but they also perform like crazy!

Not bad for a wee space measuring 2 x 1.5 metres!

Darwinian, that's me

Every time I plant something I do exactly the same thing: I scatter far too much seed around, then a week later kabam! Hundreds of tiny little seedlings emerge, hopefully poking out of the soil and into the sunshine, eager to grow, little aware of the awful fate awaiting them.

I'll be outside, anxiously hovering over my pot (in this case rocket), when the Galumph will stop by. He'll peer in, sigh, look at me, look at seedlings and then say, "You know you're going to have to thin them."

"Noooooooo!", I'll wail. "I can't! I'll be a murderer of innocent plants. Don't make me do it!"

And the worst of it is that I only scatter so much seed in the first place because I so desperately want the plants to germinate, and figure the more the better. I'll be standing there with the seed packet in my hand and think "Oh well, bottoms up!", and before you can say Eruca vesicaria three times quickly half the packet is in the pot. But then my misplaced enthusiasm turns into this horrid survival of the fittest scenario when every single seed comes up with the goods.

Eeeeeeek! I'm so sorry, little plants. I'll just be over here with my eyes closed, letting you sort it out for yourselves.

Waste not, want not

Petrol prices going through the roof? Check.

Gas and electricity prices rapidly escalating? Check.

Interest rates on loans going up every single quarter? Check.

Basic essentials - bread, dairy, rice etc - skyrocketing in price on a weekly basis? Check.

House prices and rents climbing steading upwards? Check.

Wages going up? Dude, don't make me laugh!

Of late I've been realising that our household budget only has so much give left in it, yet I'm also faced with the undeniable fact that Grumbles was still in dire need of winter clothes. Apart from her two tops and two pairs of jeans, everything else was bought/made two years ago, and hence are all sitting mid-calf and above her wrist. This is not only a very unfashionable look, but a rather chilly one.

So I put on my thinking cap, assembled all my scraps and got to work. Ta da!

(Scraps from here and here respectively)

Project specs
Pattern: Ottobre Design Magazine, 4/2007, design #17
Fabric: Left over denim, left over Amy Butler cotton print
Notions: 8 buttons, found in stash

Rosy cheeks and so much more make life very good indeed

Almost a year ago (only two days over, actually!) the always inspiring Jane was pondering her own 'small pleasantnesses' - the little joys in one's life. Whenever I chance upon one of my own, I always remember that blog post, and spend a few minutes happily thinking of them: bamboo knitting needles, really good hot chocolate, the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, birch trees with leaves turning red, warm summer days filled with the scent of freshly mown grass, sitting in a darkened cinema, the shadows of trees on my bedroom wall, putting flowers in old milk bottles, passionfruit spiders, reading Anne in bed on a cold wintry afternoon, watching girls in cute dresses riding bikes, orange flavoured dark chocolate and getting on down to cheesy pop music in the comfort and privacy of my loungeroom.

Oh, and getting Grumbles up from her nap and giving each warm rosy cheek a wee little kiss.

What are your small joys?

Drawing a name out of a ramekin...

...because I was too lazy to walk up to the bedroom to find a hat. So, drumroll please:



Congratulations, Audreyjay! I hope you enjoy the tix, and thanks everybody for entering.

That book meme

I've tagged by the lovely Nichola with the literary meme, the rules which are as follows:
1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

Since I'm reading two books at the moment you get them both. Bwahahah!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

"They took frequent excursions to the Alps. Franz would bend over, the girl hopped onto his back, and off he ran through the meadows, declaiming at the top of his voice a long German poem his mother had taught him as a child. The girl laughed with glee, admiring his legs, shoulders, and lungs as she clasped his neck."

Memories of My Melancholy Whores by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

(Um, only just noticed that this slim volume only runs to 113 pages, so you get that page instead.)

"It has to be, at any price, I shouted in terror. She hung up without saying goodbye, but fifteen minutes later she called back: "Alright, she's here." "

I'm hopeless at the whole tag thing, so if you feel like doing the meme, be my guest and tell them Jorthy sent you.

Speaking of all things bookish, does anybody have any book recommendations for me? I'm after something light-ish, with a nice bit of humour. Suggestions?

And, finally, don't forget to enter the competition. Go!

Miss Pettigrew Lives, I tells ya, lives!

Last Tuesday the Galumph and I had a date night, and trotted off to see Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day, and had a marvellous time. The movie was exactly my sort of flick: gorgeous costumes, wry humour, toe-tapping soundtrack, with a sweet ending.

So desperate was I to see this movie that I also entered a competition to win two tickets to it. Of course, a mere week after paying to see it, I won the bloody tickets. Oh, the irony! I never get to the flicks, and then when I finally get to see one, I also win tickets for it after the event.

So that's where you come in. Lucky sods! Leave a comment, telling me why you deserve the tixs, and you might be lucky enough to find them in your hot little hands. Take your partner/best friend/favourite cat! The tickets are valid at all participating cinemas within Australia (sorry everybody else).

What are you waiting for? I'll post the winner on Thursday, so chop, chop. Comment away!

The NQR Jeans

I have rung up all my friends, and issued them with the following order: If ever I decide to make jeans again, and start to shoot my mouth off about it, can they please slap me until I come to my senses.

It felt like everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The number of times my machine just grunted at me in exasperation, as if to say "How the heck am I meant to sew through THIS thick el cheapo denim?" soon reached double digits (there's a good reason the stuff was only $5 per metre, and trust me to find out why the hard way). I couldn't even put the buttonhole in, as the fabric on the waistband was too thick to even sit under the machine's foot! All my topstitching seemed to be crooked, and required unpicking, and then to be unpicked some more, and the zip - oh, it simply doesn't bear thinking about how agonisingly awful it was to put that in. And to top it all off the bloody things didn't even fit properly, so I had to unpick the waistband and put some elastic in the back. GAAAAAAAAAAH! If I managed to sew a seam without hauling out the quick unpick/stabbing my finger with the pin/jamming the feed dog on the machine/breaking a needle I quietly sat there, waiting for the herald angels to burst into celestial arias because it felt like a @%#$ing miracle.
Still, Grumbles thinks that they are pretty sweet, and happily tells everybody within earshot that her mummy made them. I guess that's all that really matters (although can you really trust the views of a kid who runs about pretending to be a rabbit? See second pic below)

But seriously - SERIOUSLY - next time the kid needs pants, I'm going to make like a normal parent and go and buy them. These may have only cost $8 each to make (yes, stupid me made two pairs), but they also cost me my SANITY. If anybody wants me I'll be recovering in the winged area for acutely afflicted sewers.

Gone away

One of my beloved uncles passed away suddenly on the weekend, so I'll be away for this week, journeying back to my hometown to bid my farewells.

xo Jorth

Get cracking

Time to crack the whip. So far these jeans (admittedly I am making two pairs, a la production line style) have taken me 6 days, and I'm only just putting on the yokes. That means the fly fronts and waistbands - notorious amongst sewing circles as being the most fiendish to do and do well - still have to be done.

However, like a scandal-tainted harpy with her eye on the biggest prize, I am determined to get these done by the end of the week. I'm officially making getting these done the happening thing.

Really!

PS Nifty pocket, hey?!

For all the sewers out there

And that would be SEW-ers, not pipes of effluent. I can see how that could be confusing, especially since I am wacky enough to potentially post an entry all about effluent.

Anyhoo, enough of the idle chit chat - let's get to the point. Looky see what I treated myself to last night:

Three miniature ladies! I mean, a vintage pattern. Ahhh, I couldn't resist! Look at the nifty straps! And the pockets that are gathers that are pockets that are gathers - so smart! I purchased it from So Vintage Patterns, and let me warn you now: that site is a dangerous place. It quite often sucks not only time but money away from me, never to return, but like a lover who can't resist the bad boy, I will happily concede that it's always, always worth it.

Red. Definitely the red one. With some dressy vintage buttons. Lovely!

New York Times Sunday Magazine - The Green Issue

"Why bother? That really is the big question facing us as individuals hoping to do something about climate change and it’s not an easy one to answer. I don’t know about you, but for me the most upsetting moment in “An Inconvenient Truth” came long after Al Gore scared the hell out of me, constructing an utterly convincing case that the very survival of life on earth as we know it is threatened by climate change. No, the really dark moment came during the closing credits, when we are asked to . . . change our light bulbs. That’s when it got really depressing. The immense disproportion between the magnitude of the problem Gore had described and the puniness of what he was asking us to do about it was enough to sink your heart."

Absolutely fantastic article on why we should bloody well care by Michael Pollan for the New York Times. Read more here.