The weekend in review
Sunday night BBQ
Lamb, chevups, with sweet corn, capsicum and zucchini all cooked on the barbecue.
With some side salad for good measure.
The perfect end for a hot day in WA.
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Sunglasses and bows
This is probably my favourite DIY.
Super easy. All you need is a wire coathanger and voila! Instant storage for sunglasses and hair bows.
It doesn’t work so well for bows on bobby pins, but anything with a clip works well.
It’s currently holds my trio of modcloth sunnies. I love floral sunglasses.
A collection of hair bows from around the place, but the big striped one I found in a boutique in Mandurah. It’s from the Davie Bow-ie collection. I just couldn’t resist.
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Comfort food – bacon is not a vegetable
Nothing quite like snuggling on the couch, with new Parks and Recs. Me casting on a new minion while my boy cooks me dinner.
We both had pretty crappy days so the image of Ron Swanson swiveling around in his idea of hell (a circular desk) was just what we needed.
The mashed potato has bacon in it.
It’s nights like this I’m so grateful I have found someone so wonderful to share my life with.
I’m one lucky girl.
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slowly, sewly.
Well disaster’s probably a bit strong. I can probably save it, but I have to do a crash course in dress design before I would even attempt looking at this again.
I think I mentioned that I had a feeling that I had bit off more than I could chew? Well guess what! I bit off more than I could chew.
Some shaky seams, some terrible measuring, a wonky zipper, and a very low waisted garment means that it’s not going to be finished for a very long time. But I’ll post some unfinished pictures anyway.
So without further ado, here are 5 things I learnt about sewing.
Also titled, things Sparkles should have researched better or looked up along the way.
1) Basting means sewing it first and then unpicking it. Not just sewing the seam twice. It’s very difficult to press flat when you have two seams.
2) When transferring a pattern to fabric you actually cut out the triangles. That and transfer all the marks, even if you don’t know what they mean at the start of the pattern it generally becomes clear half way through.
Things like ease, I now know that’s important.
3) Cut slowly. Actually, do everything slower. You know how much you hate making mistakes and unpicking things, so just slow down.
4) When sewing something with lining make sure that the lining and the real fabric are the same size. Measure, measure, measure. You’re dating a carpenter, you’d think you would have picked this up by now.
5) If you think it doesn’t look right, don’t worry. You haven’t got the skills to write a pattern, so trust that companies that manufacture these things for a living know what they’re talking about.
I think my next project will be one that comes with step-by-step instructions, with actual photos, not a diagrams and a schematic.
But I had a lot of fun making my so-called dress.
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It’s a good thing I love a green thumb
I don’t have a green thumb, but my significant other does.
As we were on the go on Saturday we stopped at a garden store.
Picked up a couple of bags of potting mix to fill some Tuscan style pots that my mum had given us a while back and were unused.
We also picked up some veggies and some flowers (because all my flowers I had previously planted had been destroyed by the storm which always follows me planting anything).
We (I say we, but I was more of a supervisor), planted some roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, celery, carrots, and begonias.
We get so little sun it’s really hit and miss as to whether they’ll flower or grow or die. But I have a reminder in my phone for the 10th December. If everything goes all right we’ll have some home grown carrots for dinner.
And my boy being the handy man he is, is building me a little fence for our garden.
It’s going to be our home sweet home.
I love domestic life sometimes.
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Driving along in my automobile
And putting the time to good use.
After weeks of not having a washing machine, and waiting (not so) patiently for a spare that was coming from the in-laws rental property we had a washing machine to pick up.
Not the one from the in-laws which we were hanging out for, but one from the Mr’s brother, who had one sitting in their spare room for about the same time that we had been looking for one. The Mr and his brother play golf together on a fairly regular basis, in which time I’m sure they have to talk about something, but it wasn’t until his girlfriend and I were talking and the penny dropped and we now have a washing machine.
Sunday mornings at the laundromat had become a little stale. It’s a strange crowd of people waiting for the liquor store to open.
So we had a washing machine, all we had to do was pick it up. So we drove to the in-laws, picked up their trailer, drove to the brothers, picked up the washing machine, dropped it off at home, and then dropped the trailer back. A pretty long round journey. A one dishcloth length journey.
I had picked up this pattern before we set off. It was short enough that I could view it on my phone and easy enough that I wouldn’t have too many dropped stitches to try and pack up whilst driving.
I’m not too happy with the pattern. It’s not really as symmetrical as I would like. The increases and the decreases don’t really match. The grey wool is Homemaker Acrylic from back before I knew what good wool was. It’s really whetted my appetite for washcloths. I like the instant gratification of them. In fact I’ve knitted a few more between Saturday and writing this post.
The finished one in Moda Vera Marvel Orange is for my mumsi. That was started and finished on Sunday. It’s her birthday soon, but after I finished it I remembered I’m meant to be buying her a GPS because it’s her 50th. I might wrap the GPS in a washcloth?
The one on my needles in Moda Vera Marvel Blue is waffle knit dishcloth. I’ve had a bit of trouble with this pattern. I’ve frogged it 3 times now because I missed a pattern row. But my concentration isn’t all that great after 3 wines and watching a game of football which is decided in the last minute.
I wish we had another driving holiday planned. Last years drive to Adelaide and back (7100kms) would have been great for knitting. I don’t think it will take much to convince the Mr to go driving somewhere, it’s just a matter of when.
And just to make it clear (if anyone was thinking otherwise) I’m not actually driving and knitting at the same time. I make a very good passenger.
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Weekend recap
Some gardening, some knitting, some reading, some sewing, and most importantly some eating.
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A sunny spring afternoon
* A good book
* A cute man
* Some pretty flowers
* A home made skirt thanks Gertie!
* Goblin Green fingernails (see the little goblin)
* Listening to The Decemberists in the sunshine
* Fish tacos
* Cold beers
* Repeats of scrubs
* a neapolitan sundae in a teacup
* Mouserat songs (in the pit)
* Happiness
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weekends pass too quickly
Another weekend has ended but no photographs to show for it!
But I made a beautiful polka dot skirt, put together a flat pack desk, spent some quality time with my best friend and her new squeeze, had a father day lunch with the in-laws, watched my football team avoid last place, and went and saw Wicked! the musical.
I think I’m back at work for a break.
Wicked! was absolutely fantastic (or wonderful!). I know i’m a bit late to the game but I have always loved musical theatre. I was always involved in musical theatre in High School and it brought back a whole heap of memories.
I would have loved to have been at Port Adelaide’s first game at Adelaide Oval, but tickets were too expensive ($700+ from Perth to Adelaide return!), but we scraped our third win for the season and avoided last place.
And I’ll do a full post on my new skirt this week. I can’t believe I wore it non-stop all weekend and not one single photo.
So overall a very good weekend, and I can now start looking forward to this weekend (..And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead… excitement!!!)
beks xx
polka-dots & sparkles 