Not a Skerrick

No sewing this past weekend ...nothing ..nada. I wasn't inspired to sew a stitch. This no sewing jag I'm on is now getting to the point of ridiculous. If I don't create something soon - I may just explode. I did however play a lot of Hayday and Candy Crush Mania in between doing other stuff so I didn't feel like a complete slacker. 

When all else fails I like to do a little organising because I can convince myself that's a worthwhile activity and so I started with my pantry and wardrobe. I seriously have a lot of clothes and probably too much food. The too much food thing inspired the thought that I could probably eat out of my pantry and freezer for a month so I'm going to give that a crack for April. Stay tuned-I'm sure this will result in some very interesting meals....does anyone know what I can do with two jars of redcurrant jelly? And why did I buy a jar of brandy butter? Did I have a plan or was I merely enticed by the 99 cent price tag post Christmas? 

One monkey that I got  off my back this weekend was finally finishing the curtains for our bedroom. I bought the fabric in November...hemmed the sides of one half- put it up to check for length and there it stayed until two weeks ago when I finally hemmed them , and then got round to doing the second half. The second half has been sitting in a scrunched up mess  on the sewing room floor since then because the idea of pressing 10 metres of heavy fabric with blockout coating was just all too hard.....

It's nigh on impossible to take a good picture of anything hanging at a window but I gave it a shot anyway. I'm pretty much thrilled that I can open my curtains again and that they ended up hemmed at the same length (more or less) 

A spot of cooking this weekend. Prep for Bun Cha later this week 

And I hand made some gnocchi that turned out to be so large I've rechristened them gnoccioli( a cross between gnocchi and unfilled ravioli) 

My greatest achievement for the weekend was finding a floor rug for the guest room at the first shop I went into ....this room is still not finished but here are some "in progress" shots for you. It definitely needs some wall art and decor staging.   

A chunk of my weekend also went into transforming this 

into this....

Currently masquerading as a towel rack - it's destined to be a quilt rack , as soon as I screw up the motivation to decide which quilts I want to hang on it...folding them to fit just seems too hard. 

RIP Irving....And Snippets from My Week

My iron had a rather unfortunate accident this week where he pulled a Humpty Dumpty and fell off the washing machine.  Mr. P subsequently found out Irving had died when he went to iron his work shirt on Friday morning. Guess who went to work in a slightly crinkly shirt?

So it was off to buy a new iron this weekend. Mr. P was dragged along with a lot of eye rolling happening. There are a dizzying array of irons available and I'm quite the iron snob (which is ironic given I don't iron clothes) so finding one that I could bond with wasn't an easy task. Anyway, eventually I found my sole mate (pardon the pun) so meet Izzy who so far is proving herself to be a real workhorse. 

The sole plate on this will look pristine for about a week and then it'll look like I haven't cleaned it ...ever. Even when I have.

There was also a trip to the hardware store this weekend and it was my turn to eye roll at Bunnings while Mr. P got excited about all manner of shit I have no idea about. We were buying paint for the guest room which I will be slapping on walls next weekend while Mr. P is off enjoying 4 days of motor sport at the Clipsal 500.  

I had a doctors visit last week. I got the anti smoking lecture which I tried to divert a little by pointing out that I'm also quite fat. Apparently this didn't come as any big news to Dr. Ben and so with the focus (temporarily) off my potential lung cancer and onto my possible heart attack, this week has been full of salad and vegetables and fruit and non white bread and healthy lunches instead of steaks slathered in butter sauce, and pies and chips and takeaway asian and chicken packs for lunch.  I seriously feel like murdering people most of the time and all I can think about are Tim Tams and chips , and massive wheels of cheese.

I slipped on Wednesday night and "accidentally" inhaled some salt and vinegar chips when Mr. P was out at 8 Ball. Then I took a bag of chocolate sultanas to bed with me and hid the empty packet in my underwear drawer before Mr. P got home. I felt so dirty - but it felt so good. I was totally busted when Mr. P got home because apparently I was angelically asleep with chocolate around my mouth. 

On Wednesday I made a snap holiday decision for 2014. We're heading off to stay here. I've already booked our flights and accommodation ( and yes - we are staying in one of those darling little chalets on the water) 

 And we're going to sit by this pool and drink cocktails...I promise I won't mention it again until at least three months before we leave. 

And garden plans abound at Maison Pyjamas. Various parts of the lawn have been poisoned in preparation for garden beds to be dug so some plants can go in over the next month or so.  This is my dodgy kindergarten style plan because I'm a visually creative type. 

 I went and raided Sister of Pyjamas Hibiscus hedge for multiple cuttings today because I want to bring this front yard re-do in for pretty much nothing over the course of this year. I hear that's possible if you're savvy - what I know about gardening at this point could be engraved on the head of a pin so it looks like I'm going to be learning as I go. Tips will be most welcome starting with anyone who knows how to strike and keep hibiscus alive.

And for my last trick of the weekend, the Postage Stamp quilt is all quilted. Now I just have to find the mojo to get the binding done.

May the start of your week be kind to you ..I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

It doesnt take a lot to get me excited (and to blog about it )

For 12 long years I've struggled every single time I've opened our back sliding door. The muscles in my left arm have become disproportionately over developed because of the force needed to open it. Yes- I have one superhero arm and one bingo wing.  The door rollers were dodgy before I moved in here and because some bright spark told us that we would have to replace the entire window, door and frame we've just put up with it. My father in law decided he could do something about that when he was here on Sunday and by last night for the first time ever I have a door that you can open with one finger. I can't tell you how happy that makes me . I've opened that door so many times over the last day that Mr. P keeps warning me I'm going to wear it out. The little things people - its the little things. Be thankful I don't know how to upload video because if I did you would all be treated to 10 minutes of YouTube video of a door opening and closing (and I'd fully expect you to get as excited about it as I am) 

I bit the bullet on Monday and bought some bulbs for the garden. I've never grown flowers from bulbs in my life. If I manage to keep them from curling up their toes, come Spring maybe my garden will look something like this. 20 bulbs should yield a vista like this - right? 

Image credit because mine haven't been put in the ground yet

 And I love the look of this clump of Hyacinths so I'm going to have a go at keeping some of them alive too. I may have just wasted $37.95 that I could have spent on fabric but I think it will make for an interesting experiment. 

Image credit 

And lastly there has been some plotting and planning going on here the last few weeks that I've refused to get excited about until I knew whether it was likely to come to pass. The crane and transport guys came yesterday and advised they could get this into our yard by removing part of our back fence  and using a crane to drop it down and it wont cost us a trillion dollars. Now I'm keeping everything crossed that council will play nice and approve it. ( If you could all keep your fingers and toes crossed for us that would be great -thanks) 

I figure this would be the perfect place to store my fabric and other sewing related items as well as everything we have in our current (very small) shed. Now do you see why I'm so excited?

Deja Vu

This post feels a lot like the posts I wrote when we were renovating the laundry and the kitchen. It's been so long since then that I'd totally forgotten the potential agony and wanting to "rip my own hair out by the roots" feeling of a major project. I don't think I'll ever be able to find the strength to do our bathroom ...70's retro is coming back in ...right?

One of the projects that had been germinating in my mind for well over a year was a new outdoor setting. Our old one was a hand me down, and had definitely seen better days by the time we were finished with it.  I wanted something different and at about bar height to prevent the dogs from using it as a dance floor. And my idea was simple - wine barrels and planks of wood - it doesn't get any easier than that.

As usual, I imagined the whole process of doing this to be a lot easier than the reality.  I'm an idea and concept person. I don't bother myself with details when it comes to hammering and painting and gluing. That's Mr. P's job.  I just tell Mr. P what the idea is, what material he needs to use and then go merrily on my way looking for finishing touches to make it look pretty. 

This whole project has been fraught with minor hiccups which included waiting for the barrels to be delivered before we could think about buying seating because we weren't sure exactly how high the barrels would be. Then we had to find bar stools I actually liked that could be delivered 4 weeks out from Christmas. A couple of sales people actually laughed in my face when I mentioned that little detail because apparently organised people buy their seating for Christmas in August. 

Never mind that we asked twice if the bar stools came assembled and that the display model in the store had a sticker on it stating they came "fully assembled". When Mr. P picked them up this is how they came. Apparently this is "fully assembled" which is very interesting since it took Mr. P 6 hours to put them together after they arrived.  

We had pre-selected some beautiful wood for the table top. But then I decided the table needed to be 60 centimetres longer than I had originally planned. Apparently the selection of wood available to you diminishes rapidly when you want three metre lengths instead of 2.4 metres. There was another delay while we found a supplier that had timber in the required lengths.  I completely abdicated at this point to play candy crush saga on my ipad because I was pretty much fed up with the whole thing.

It took Mr. P all day to stain one side of the planks for the table top. I don't know why. Maybe its because I'm a girl and I don't understand something crucial about the process. Mr. P has his own way of doing things and I generally don't interfere even when I see him doing things in a way that's going to take twice as long. Plus when the Queen abdicates to play Candy Crush Saga because she's fed up she really doesn't have any right to bitch and moan. 

And then my Father in law dropped over to look at Mr. P's handiwork and gave us the bad news that we were going to have to make a frame for the table top so it didn't sag in the middle. I don't have an engineering degree so that was news to me.  But he made the frame idea sound so easy that Little P probably could have knocked it together. Clearly I looked doubtful and more than a little pissed off because he took pity on us and made the frame the next day while we were both at work. 

It took Mr. P two weeks to stain and varnish the table top.  By that stage I was having kittens about it not being ready in time for Christmas. I had visions of us all squeezed inside Little P's new tent eating picnic style. But it finally got it's last coat a mere few days before Christmas because apparently there really is nothing like bringing an essential finish down to the wire to ensure your wife inherits a few more grey hairs. 

And here it is - a bit like Texas - the largest outdoor setting in the history of outdoor settings. Able to seat 12 people at once in comfort. I'm thinking we might need to buy megaphones so people at opposite ends of the table can talk to one another. 

Barrel legs 

But I really do love how this turned out. And no I'm not taking orders. Once was enough!

I'm praying for Sunshine (and less boogies)

It has been a very unfunny week  here at Insanity Central. Winter is cold. Not Northern Hemisphere cold- but cold all the same. At least if it snowed here I could have fun making snow angels or snowmen or snow cones.   We just get freezing with none of the associated awesome-ness.

This week  the Pyjamas household experienced something like bubonic plague  because everyone besides Mr. P got  sick, including me. Gordon Gekko said "Green is Good"...but green is not good,  especially when it's coming out of your nose. Constantly. I'm putting the Kleenex heirs through an Ivy league College with my tissue consumption this week. What? Gordon Gekko said "Greed is Good" ? But that quote doesn't work for my post....

I practiced free motion quilting this week and am considering taking up a new hobby like scrap booking  or drinking. Or both. Simultaneously. I really am fated to forever quilt in variations of straight lines.  The sane rational part of me knows that I am not the only quilter in the known universe who is yet to master the  skill of free motion quilting ,  but the sane rational part of me went into hiding on about Tuesday of last week. So I learned that new skills take time to develop and I should stop arse kicking myself because I can't do this yet.

I realised this week,  I will still be sanding the kitchen chairs when I move into a nursing home, if I live that long. I'm not sure what possessed me to think stripping furniture was a good idea. Perhaps I smoke crack without my knowledge and that's when I had the original "wouldn't it be cool to take some old furniture and give it a new life" epiphany. But I'm not a quitter so I'm going to keep going and just keep reminding myself of how gorgeous it will all look when I'm finished. While I look at Early Settler catalogues for french provincial buffets and dining settings. What? I'm just looking. I'm allowed to look. 

This is as far as I've got with sanding the Blackwood Chair,  so I'm making a vow to get this chair finished this week. Then we'll talk turkey on the time frames for the million other things I need to get done for this kitchen renovation. I'm totally in a place where I need to break tasks down into small bits at the moment. If I think about the big picture I am likely to completely lose my sanity.

This weekend I tried spray basting  a quilt for the first time.  Let me just say that's two hours of my life I'm never getting back and spray basting is utter garbage. The quilt, backing and batting stuck everywhere except to each other.  I am  now missing a cat. I heard plaintive meowing coming from the pile of backing that glued to itself and my sewing room skirting boards ,  so I'll try to find  Mordecai later.  And, I'll be on my hands and knees at some point  taping the backing to the floor and pinning the quilt as usual.  Lesson Learned. Now I can check "Try Spray Basting " off my list of things to try before I die.

The postman adored me this week. My shutter arrived and is positively gorgeous in person. I bought my final Hushabye charm pack and it arrived via post in under 48 hours. And Hancocks of Paducah sent me part of an order I did a few weeks ago of Christmas fabrics because people it's June and I have to start thinking about Christmas quilts. Look at this luscious gorgeousness just waiting to be joined by a matching jelly roll and fat quarter pack and some inspiration.

 

It hasn't been a totally sewing free zone around here this week. I did cut some more fabric for my snowballs. More about that tomorrow. And, I started a special project using these fabrics  that I'll talk about when it's a little further on.

Hear me everyone. This week is going to be sunshiney and happy , and I'm going to achieve some amazing things.


P.S. By the way, my gorgeous sister will be here in three sleeps....and I don't smoke crack.

Weekend Misadventures of Q.I.M.P

Ha! Tricked you! The weekend sailed along smoothly. Relaxingly. (Blogger says that's an actual word). Stuff got done. Nothing broke.No disasters. There was no blood and I didnt set fire to anything.

I have realised  I don't have original meal ideas anymore-  I'm copying everyone else's meals. If you post a recipe I'm probably going to make it. Aside from Marg's Cannelloni I made  Elizabeth's Grandmother's meatloaf for dinner on Saturday and it was the best meatloaf I have ever tasted. Another keeper. Mr. P practically inhaled it ,  so sorry,   no pictures. I have a spare in the freezer, along with two curries, and 2 chicken cacciatores I also made this weekend.   I feel like I'm turning into the savoury version of Bakerella.

I picked up an antique blackwood chair on Saturday to strip and re-paint for the corner of the dining room. Isn't she beautiful? It probably won't look much different by the time I'm finished since I'm planning on refinishing her in antique white again. Can't you just see this in a corner with a quilt draped over it, just inviting you to take a load off?

This morning I picked up my "new" dining  chairs that have been partially  stripped and with a little more work will be ready for painting. These chairs are over 100 years old. As I'm getting older I really see the sense in re-using and repurposing beautiful old furniture. All of this means the kitchen renovation has officially commenced. Bring it on.  If I stop posting you'll know it's because I had a nervous breakdown or drowned in a vat of paint stripper.

And yes, that's another set of dining chairs in the background. At last count we had 16 dining chairs...what can I say? ...I collect them.

I transformed  a box of 324 quilt bits

into a basket of 81 quilt bits. (Slowly getting there )

I think this little lady brought me sewing luck because I didn't swear once...

I made these this afternoon. Jam Donuts. Mmmmmmm. Totally delicious.  Too bad none of you live close by or I would have shared.   We had them for lunch. Healthy....Damn you Masterchef!

 And, from the random department I would also like to announce I am  still eating Easter Chocolate here. That either means I'm rationing it out well, and have amazing self discipline  or I got so much in the first place that I am  truly piggy.

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend doing something you love.

Houston.... We Have a Laundry

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful Princess who wanted a sparkling new laundry. She had tired of having a laundry with a 1980's olive coloured sink , non descript paint, and peach floor tiles, not to mention a ceiling with mould spots because of inadequate ventilation. Aside from the ugliness of it all, it had become a health risk...

The Prince, who loved the Princess beyond all reason, wanted to make her happy, so he set about giving her a new laundry. He was looking  forward to the challenge and at least it didn't involve slaying dragons to prove his love. (those dragons are nasty beasts with smelly breath and a propensity to breathe fire at inopportune moments , and the Prince really didn't fancy getting burnt to a crisp or eaten by a dragon with a bad temper)

So the Prince set about doing some sums and came up with a budget of $500.00 to make the Princess's laundry trendy and gorgeous, and he worked out a time frame of around three weeks to complete this easy task.  

But alas, many misfortunes did befall the hapless Prince in his quest. (not the least of which was the whiny, nagging Princess who turned into a shrew around week 5 ) The poor put upon Prince could do nothing right, as walls fell down and grout refused to dry.  The final indignity for the Princess  came when she had to wash her knickers on the castle patio in full view of all the commoners.  Finally,  after 11 weeks, 6 days, 12 hours and 53 minutes, the Prince  reported the laundry completed, at a cost about double his original estimate.  It's kind of hard to believe the Prince works in International finance and deals with bazillions of dollars every day. Perhaps he thought he had that kind of budget for this project. Never Mind...all's well that ends well. 

The laundry is now a magical place with nary a mould spot in sight and is indeed a laundry fit for a Princess.

Before

After

Before

Same wall now , with a Princess-worthy decal.

Before

After

Yukky tiles....

Tiles fit for a princess to step on

The Royal dogs charged in as this photo was taken leaving grotty paw marks on the royal tile.

The princess is currently being serenaded by the sweet sound of her washing machine and  laundry day can resume whenever she pleases without all the planning of a military campaign, or without fear that the neighbours will see that some of her underwear is pretty ordinary.  The Princess is happy.  Very Happy. She is off to stare at her laundry now.

P.S. The Prince is looking for dragons to slay in future figuring surely it's gotta be easier. 

P.P.S. Using the laundry renovation as a guide the Princess  almost pissed in her royal  pants when she  realised that probably means her  kitchen renovation will probably cost around $48,000 and will be completed sometime in 2014. 

Laundry-Less in Adelaide and Other Catastrophes

Actually it's just the one catastrophe. I haven't got laundry pics to show you because we are waiting for the grout to dry (for 72 hours do you mind?  We can put men on the moon but nobody has invented a grout that doesn't take 72 hours to dry? Someone needs to get on this immediately because I'm doing a kitchen reno shortly  which includes more tiling ) before we can move everything back in there. Mr. P is insistent we wait...so I am waiting... grudgingly. I'll post pictures if the  grout  ever dries.  

 My contribution to the laundry project aside from concept/design/nagging and spray painting our laundry hamper  was this hooky thing to hang my laundry basket on. Hooky thing is it's technical name.

So today I decided to visit my sewing room. Thank goodness I left a trail of salt and vinegar chips when I came out of there last time or I might never have found my way back. I finished quilting and binding Little P's quilt (If I EVER mention again that I think doing another chenille quilt is a good idea can someone please slap me in the side of my head and remind me how many frustrated tears I shed doing this one) But I finished it, 9 months late - but less than the predicated time frame of Little P's high school graduation.

And I finished the back for another  quilt, which I'll show off when it's totally  finished. I'm considering hand binding that one....Does anyone else  hate binding as much as I do?   (Confession: I once used a quilt for 2 years before I got round to binding it ...I only did the binding in the end  because it needed to be washed and I was afraid it would unravel in the wash  if I didn't. )

Another  bright spot for today was finding out that Lindsay from Dinosaurs! And Other Unemployment Adventures (how cool is that blog  title ?) has graced me with this award.

Thanks Lindsay. You are THE shit. (You'll have to go to Lindsay's to see what that means -All the cool  kids are saying it )

Lastly, I wanted to introduce you to Clare's Craftroom. A few weeks ago , Clare visited QIMP  and left a comment so I moseyed on over to her blog  to have  a squizz. Remember how I couldn't get my Nanna's sewing machine to work? Clare had a picture of  a similar  machine on her blog so I emailed  to ask if she could tell me how to thread it. Clare generously offered to send me instructions,  ...and she also sent me some fabric, matching  ric rac and buttons, just because she is an awesomely nice person. Thank you Clare. It was so cool expecting paper and having other really sweet  stuff fall out of the envelope. Now maybe I can get that sewing machine to work. (If I have two working sewing machines does that make me a serious quilter?)

I am going to try and spend some time sewing this week,  instead of sitting on my derriere reading all of your wonderfully exciting blogs. Every single one of you is like that kid in class who distracted me when I was trying so hard to be good.  I see you blogging and can't help but wander on over for a sticky beak. Then I see how interesting you are and I'm distracted for hours.   So if you could all arrange to have a boring week so I don't miss too much that would be super. And if anything exciting does happen please email me....

I'm going to make this really fast ...

We are so close to actually having a laundry, I can feel it! . By this time next week, barring unforseen tragedy, major illness or the end of the world,  I'll be posting pics. As a teaser, I finally broke down yesterday and put my vinyl decal up. I couldn't wait any longer.

That will mean my laundry will no longer be here outside on my patio.....I cannot tell you how excited I am . As will our neighbours be when they don't have to watch us washing our undies and other unmentionables outside like hillbillies.

Back tomorrow with Translation Tuesday. It involves chocolate. 

 Have a great Monday!