Pears

The neighbours pear tree is looking good. I like pears, do you?

Today

• listened (at 6am) to that Obama guy making speeches. He done good.
  
• there was a powercut. no power to run lifts or open security doors at work. lots of loitering in the lobby going on this morning.
• had inspirational meeting with medicos who would like to see less people doing crazy things that cause irreprable harm.
• read a lot. a lot.
• went for a lunchtime walk. Found some gorgeous $4 per metre fabric. I'm gonna give this jacket a whirl. I will not be beaten by this sewing to fit thing!
  
• made bacon and tomato pasta for dinner - boys ate it. Success!
• made roast vege salad for work lunches
• made caramel square - to spoil boys. I've had my one piece. No more for me.
• made bran/blueberry muffins for the good of my, ahem, system. Boys won't eat them. I'll freeze them, take them to work, one by one, for lunch.
• the Handyman put on his new clothes, carried his Mum's casket, said some words for her in a church. He sent me a text when it was over. I won't see him for another month. sigh.
• skipped swimming training. Big race on Saturday in Wellington. I have low expectations for a fast swim, but I'm going to have fun.
  
• Kitty caught a rat. Big handsome rat. Thanks kitty.
• Poneke said what I was thinking. PR overkill. Stop it now Air NZ.
  
• Oh, and there was that Obama guy. Watched some coverage with the boys. Talked about how they'd remember this when they were old men. Talked about Michelle's dress too, and the momentary abscences of bullet proof glass.
  

Sewing Lesson No. 1

I made a top today.
It's from a Burda World of Fashion Magazine. That's 7-2008 (108) to be precise. Burda says "This tunic falls comfortably over the hips thanks to its slight A-line shape. A curvy yoke and inverted centre front pleat add couture details".

Mine looks quite a lot like theirs, I was glad I found some similar fabric in a sale. Of course, I will look just like their model when I wear mine.
There are a whole lot more to see over at Pattern Review.

I like the curvy yoke. I thought I did a pretty good job of it, I only had to unpick it once. The whole thing went together really well, though I didn't follow Burda's instructions much.
It's a great top, it would be perfect for work over the next couple of months.
There's just one problem.

It's too small.
Sob!

stripes or plaid

Stripes or plaid, that's the colour week theme of the day.

This is the china I grew up with. Tam 'O Shanter, by Roydon. I think there are very few pieces remaining at the oldies house. I should retrieve them. I like it. It has lovely curvey green tea cups.

These are the stripey floorboards in my bedroom. Beautiful. They've been covered in carpet for the life of the house. One day, hopefully this year, I'll get them polished.

Vogue

I interrupt colour week to show you some new Vogue patterns. I ought to stitch me up a work wardrobe...they're "easy pieces" after all.


and how beautiful is this jacket?

Must sew. Must sew. Must stop dreaming and actually sew.

Pink

The piggy bank from the kitchen windowsill

The pink flamingo from the garden.

Everyone should have one.

yellow

I went to swimming training tonite. Swam laps, in lanes, between lane ropes....yellow. We did some work with flippers....yellow. The lights on the board are yellow. There are hundreds of stadium style spectator seats....yellow. The lifegaurd seats.....yellow. The camera was in the car, so I could take some yellow pictures on my way home.
Here they are!

No Parking

The supermarket. (The light's green Pixie, put the camera down!)

The bus depot is a great building. Almost all the buses these days are yellow. Can you read that one? "Go in drag to the sevens". Only in Wellington! That's the rugby sevens, a mad dress-up party day.

This is my tree, from my bedroom window. I love my yellow tree.

Ahh, and the Bay, looking south. Yellow is everywhere. I took all these pictures on my way home from the pool tonite. I'm a lucky Pixie!

Purple

Pixie: Is beetroot purple?
Jack: More kindof red.Pixie: What about blueberries? They're kindof purple aren't they?
Jack: Think about it. They're not called purple berries are they?

Pixie: I know! The amethyst, that's purple. And it comes in its own lovely purple box.
Jack: Riiiiiiigggggghhhhtttttt.

Please blame blogger for the lack of purple. It is purple. and the table, that's table coloured, not yellow, until it met blogger that is.

Purple was mad difficult around this house. There is no purple. Think I'll have to get some.

Blue

It's colour week over at Curious Bird.
Todays colour is blue.

Here's some blue for you, another detail from my new quilt. I think it's called Wave.

Keeping busy

• Swimming hard, in the pool and the sea. My goggles leaked today, so I spent an hour in the harbour with my eye bathed in sea water. It's still swollen. It will recover eventually I guess. Oh, that would be my new prescription goggles, the ones that cost a lot. Sigh. It was beautiful though, the water is warm. Well, comparatively. In a wetsuit that is. The lighthouse doesn't seem so far away these days. The Wellington ocean race is on the 24th.

• The Handyman's mum is dying, he thinks. He is surrounded by, and grateful for, his grown up daughters and his ex-wife, but battling with his sister. It's hard to hear the sadness in his voice.

• I've been quilt-making. Hmm...this is the right side of the quilt caught up on the back of another part of the quilt accidentally. I hate making those kind of avoidable mistakes. Doh!

Look at this! The walking foot exploded across the room. Luckily I found that screw and it all went back together again just fine. Lucky too that I wear glasses because a piece of the needle bounced off them. Dangerous sport, quilt making. It's a day for eyes, obviously.

What would we do without these gizmos? There have been about 2 million ends to pull through and tie off.....
But look...here's a sneak preview. This is my entry for the national quilt symposium 2009. It's finished now, and I think it's fantastic. It looks great on the fresh painted white wall in my hall.

Here's a detail shot. That colour is lavander in real life, not pink.

I'm sooooo pleased with it. I've had it in my head for a year or so, and now it is real. I discovered ages ago that if I make quilts like this to please myself, they generally find favour with someone else too, and I've been lucky to have many accepted for previous symposium exhibitions. I thought, for an hour or two, of putting it up for sale, but I decided I like it too much and I don't want to part with it. Entries close on Wednesday, and for once, I won't be sewing mine urgently the day before.

Happy New Year

....and merry christmas too!

It's been very quiet here, just me and the boys. Some other families to visit, but mostly just me at home doing things, and them not getting out of bed til the afternoon.
I've been tiling....or trying to, it isn't going well, tiles are much harder to cut than fabric. The bathroom is close to being finished. So much painting has been going on, but it's lovely. So fresh and clean and bright! There are handles to hang and towel rails and things.....and a couple of coats of paint on the scotia, but it will be finished next week. I'll show you then, promise!

I've been sewing, my entry for the Wellington Quilt Symposium. It's due on 14 January. It wasn't going well either, made two rejects, but I'm onto a good thing now....I'm in love with it, the top is 3/4 done. I'll show you that next week too.
and go and see Helen and cheer her on! Go H, we can do it, we can enter at least!

I'm going to Christchurch today for some quality time with the Handyman. I'm taking some tiles for him to cut. He sure knows the way to my heart!!

I'm looking forward to announcements from Wanda and from Kirsty (who has the best blog name!).

Then it's off the plane and back to work on the 5th. It's going to be a huge work year, and I'm excited!

2009 will see me still painting! The boys rooms first, and as soon as I can, my bedroom will be plastered so I can paint it. Then maybe the kitchen. Only I think I probably need a break from painting, so maybe it will just get a good spring clean.

I'm going to sew more clothes in 2009. Lots more clothes. becos I'd rather spend my money on paint of course! (yeah, right!)

I'm going to be swimming more, back to my dedicated 3-4 times a week, and I'm going to beat that 1 hour barrier for the 2.8k ocean swim. (Though the next race is 24 Jan, so I'm not sure how I'm going to fit that training in......might have to try early mornings or something!). I'm going to take my (heart) medication, religiously. Raising my glass each morning to a friend who has had a minor, but scary, bleed in her brain. (She's going to be fine). and I'm going to eat better. Toast is not dinner.

2009 will be the year of the garden. It's a large wilderness at the moment, and the summer growth is threatening to overwhelm me. It will be conquered this year. When I'm not painting that is........

What you got planned?

Choices made without you!

The paint shall be Resene 'Haystack', a little richer than it looks on my monitor, but it sits happily between the probably-going-to-be-polished floors and the dark chocolate of the vanity, and it makes the whites sparkle.

The tiles shall be enormous rectangular glossy white things, and I shall have to cut each and every one of them so they fit in the desired manner, and they shall look fabulous of course. I'm going to lay them (do you lay tiles on a wall...guess not!) in a brick pattern, or subway style as they would say in New York.

The tiles go on the front of the bath (the apron...ha ha) and above the vanity.

The beer is just lovely, and I've earned it! It is a difficult thing to paint a bathroom. A very time consuming and difficult thing.

It's also helping me chill out, cos I was going to show you a picture of New York subway tiles, but I can't find the disc they're stored on. Shan't panic, shan't panic.

Stuff...

I'm filling in time (can you tell?) waiting for the plasterer to turn up. He said he'd be back this morning to sand back his fine work. Rather him than me, but I can't paint til he's done that.

The big news that I haven't blogged about so far is that I have a new job.

No more road/rail safety for me. Did you guess that was what I did? Well I don't anymore. So make sure you bloody well drive safely, don't speed, do up your seatbelt, don't drink and drive, rest when you're tired, put the cell phone down, and STOP at level crossings. All right?

I left that world with a heavy heart, but the new job is a great opportunity. So off I went to save the world from something else. There were heartfelt farewells that moved me to tears (but I'm a soppy kinda girl I guess), a gorgeous clock and photo frames, very nice letters of thanks from important people, and then a welcoming ceremony (a mihi whakatau) at my new place which was beautiful and humbling (me? they're talking about me?).

It was weird being the newbie, going from being the expert surrounded by friends, to knowing sod all, surrounded by strangers. So after 5 weeks of getting settled, sorting out my chair and the printer drivers, reading everything ever written about the subject in question, and getting to enjoy the company of some great new people....they seconded me to another job.....for 18 months. Which is a long time.

So now I've been at new job no. 2 for two weeks. And again, dealing with figuring out where to get off the bus, what to wear, who to have coffee with, plus how to deal with two email addresses, and two diaries. I thought scoring new job no. 1 was pretty stunning, but new job no. 2 is going to be fabulous. I have a gorgeous office with a great view. There are high profile movers and shakers filling my days (and turning out to be just lovely to be hanging out with) and best of all there are deeply philosophical and academic questions to be researched and debated and written about. I am, quite frankly, pinching myself, this is a dream job for a policy adviser in this little city. It's a bit of a bugger that I can't tell you what it is, but we don't blog about work, no we don't.

Is it any wonder I'm feeling a tad worn out and weepy today! I should've gone swimming, but I was saving my energy for painting, which will be an all day/evening effort. I shouldn't talk with that handy man into the wee small hours either.

Bloomin plasterer still isn't here, so I'm going shopping for tiles and test pots. You may be called upon to decide the paint colour.

found it!

I found the fabric that I talked about in this post.
It's by Anna Maria Horner.

Lookee!It's from her 'drawing room' range. The whole range is gorgous, but that one at the bottom right, that's the one I've seen skirts made of. I could make me one of those (if I wasn't too busy painting of course!).

and look what the designer herself does with it...

It's called the cookbook apron, and like she says "you would look so good in it! Really! Totally your colors and would look great in your kitchen". ha!

Do you wear aprons, dear cookists out there? You'd think your sewist buddy would stitch you one up sometime, wouldn't you? (AOF, Sagittarian, Flea Girl I'm talking to you, I'm just too lazy to link).

Here is Anna Maria's blog.
and here is her website with fabfabric (that was a typo, but I like it!).
Santa can bring me one of her rugs, any one will do just fine. I'll base my bedroom decorating on it.

I'm going tile shopping now. The ones I love the most so far are only $20 each. So yeah, I'm still shopping.

Friday bathroom

Friday

Loving the shiny taps, shiny shower walls, dark chocolate vanity...

Not happy about the scratch on the brand new bath, a few holes in the floor, a stray nail sticking out of the window framing (looks like I hammered the nail in, not a builder). Sigh. I'm getting to be 'had-enough' of this process. I have got painting to do all weekend. Lucky I can start with sealer coat and undercoat, and take some time with choosing the colour. Buying the test pots tomorrow. The tiles will be white. But what size?

That vanity is great though, isn't it? It's got drawers, not cupboards, and look at all that storage!
Yay!

more bathroom

Thursday

The plasterer came today. He talked with me about my bedroom too.
That's a whole other job. Sigh.

Wednesday

It didn't look like much happened, but the electrician came, and they also relined and plumbed the laundry.
Lovely.

The bathroom

You should read this post from the bottom up!!

Tuesday

New walls, new toilet, new bath.
They made sure we always had a toilet. Most thoughtful. We went to the pool for showers today.
I have to choose paint and tiles.

Monday

The house is full of men. They cleaned up as best they could and took lots of rubbish away.

Sunday

Really, the bathroom was much worse than this picture shows!

The stairs

How did I do it? Did I do it myself?
Did I ever!!

I pulled up the carpet. It was hard, I had to do 2 or 3 steps a day to look after my hands.
I removed the carpet tacks as I went.
I sanded the stairs. 3 times. 3 different grades of sandpaper.
I put four coats of polyurethane on them.
I sanded the skirting boards.
I painted them, 1 undercoat and two top coats. They need another. I'll get to that.
The black and white wallpaper came from Resene (who have a great website and even better sales!).
Because the wallpaper isn't as wide as the stairs, I had to cut the strips from the length rather than the width. There wasn't enough repeats in one roll to make them all exactly the same so I cut two different versions and alternated them. I like how that made a new pattern. I used it all up though, so I think I might buy another roll, in case I need to make repairs.
I pasted the strips to the stairs, and I'm thinking I might seal them somehow to make them more hardy.
I still have skirting boards and a couple of hall walls to finish ....

The handyman came to visit for the weekend and he said I'd done a good job. He said it more than once. He's incredibly fussy, so that's high praise from him. I think he meant it!

The house is full of men this week. Builders, plumber, electrician......I told them they had to look after my stairs.

and you wonder why I'm not posting...

I have the prettiest stairs in town!

Procrastinating

If I actually did some sewing, instead of wandering through blogs full of wonderful sewing ideas, I could make me one of these......a very pretty dress by Andrea Moore

With this gorgeous fabric by Amy Butler

or this one, which Ms Moore has also used for the dress (or something very similar anyhoo).

The Miriam Gibson store has some skirts by another designer who's name I don't remember,in some fabric that I've also seen on the net someplace...but I can't find it to show you......so you'll just have to take my word for it. They're really nice.

Ms Gibson does however have this covetable dress in her collection, which I could whip up in a weekend, with this pattern...

Kwik Sew 3575

The most noteworthy thing about this post is, of course, that I have ventured into not one, but two of Wellingtons finest designer stores, the kind of places where an article of clothing sells for the kind of money that equals two weeks grocery budget in my house.

and I liked them.
a lot.
but I didn't buy anything.