glory day

In which I confound my own expectations.

De and I went shopping at Burwood Westfield today, and I bought skinny jeans.

Make the sound in your head like the needle is scratching the record, and that's just how I felt.

Skinny jeans?  Me?  I am not what you'd call skinny.  I'm a curvy woman, and I thought I was relegated to a life of wide-legged pants (to balance out my things and whatnot, I can't remember).

But De gave the thumbs-up for the purchase, and David certainly seems to appreciate them. 

Which leads me to two things:

~ don't assume that anything's off the table until you try it; and

~ always take someone who has your best interests at heart shopping with you.  Thank you De!

And tomorrow we shall lunch nicely

RUGBY:

Last Saturday we went to watch Uni play at North Sydney Oval.  The weather was perfect for rugby and NSO is such a pretty ground:

Uni dominated from the beginning of the game, and wrapped it up at 69-3.  Still top of the table.  Here are Norths on attack in the second half:

which sadly (for them) came to naught.

Rugby season is very difficult at the moment as I'm following the fortunes of Uni in the local Sydney competition, Otago in the Air NZ Cup competition (and a Shield challenge this week!  fingers crossed!) and the All Blacks in the Tri-Nations competition.  The AB's lost last week as predicted; until the coaching staff changes they are destined to be woeful, I'm afraid.

SEWING:

A whole pile of banded tops and overdue mending, not exciting enough for a photo.

MR PUSS:

He is currently yowling his head off downstairs, because he has just had dinner and isn't that a good reason to yowl?

Photographic proof that he once played with something!  (He does not "play".  We think he finds it demeaning).

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

De comes back from the States tomorrow, hurrah!

Now I must rush and watch 'Merlin'

SEWING:

A quartet of shiny knit skirts.

I have one more knit skirt to sew but I'm going to put that off for a bit.  Next up some banded tops (ie, plain tops with patterned bands around the neck to wear under other tops) before moving on to something completely different.

LOVING:

The weather.  It's been perfectly Goldilocks this week - not too hot, not too cold, but just right.  If only Sydney could always have this weather I would be very happy (and my whinging level would go right down).

Ah, and as I type this I see it has started to rain.

ADMIRING:

A thread-holder-thingie that a fellow volunteer put aside for me:

I love how all the spools of thread look like funky wee coloured test-tubes.

Words are, like ... jumbley things

HAVE DONE:

Went to stay with David's grandparents last weekend (she is still recovering from surgery) to bestow more casseroles.   And watch rugby THANK YOU All Blacks.

Last night we watched the Harry Potter movie with De and J at Gold Class Bondi Junction.  I do enjoy watching a kid's movie amid wine and chocolate sundaes!

SEWING:

So far I have sewn six different versions of this frock:

Now I am working on lurid knit skirts, as apparently you can never have enough.

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

~ seeing De when she gets home from work (she's off to the states tomorrow); steak for dinner.  Hairdressers on Friday.

RANDOM PHOTO:

De and I collaborated on a surprise! blanket for a dear friend who - in a fit of what I assume was brain-fever - ran a marathon.  As neither De nor I could successfully run to the corner we felt this feat was deserving of a blanket:

Peacock feathers, paua shell and loud loud prints

I have had the most vicious head-cold this week.  Thankfully it's getting a bit better now but I was like a lurching zombie for most of the week.

I did manage to make a couple more faux-wrap dresses, in red and purple, and to cut out another one in the loudest print imaginable:

I also made some xmas ornaments.  I usually make things in greens, blues and purples, like paua shell or peacock feathers, so I thought it was time to go to the source:

and make things out of paua shell and peacock feathers.

This is not the Perfect Wrap Dress

Oh, it's not too bad and I'll definitely wear it, but it's not The One:

Once you make it through the fairly crappy instructions it's quite easy to make, and I might make a couple more from fabric leftovers, who knows.

Also my phone isn't working properly, go figure

David and I went to see the latest Bond movie at Readings last night.  What's with the hetred?  We both thought it was quite good; not the best of the franchise but by no means as bad as it's been painted.

I am still puffy of eye.  The anti-histamines aren't doing as good a job as I'd hoped so tomorrow I schlep to the medical centre, oh what fun.

Also a friend is coming to stay tomorrow and I still haven't cleaned out the attic.

But I bought three black op-shop skirts for a total of $15, so win.

And a bonus picture of the frock I wore to the movies last night:

The mosquitos are out of control

SERIOUSLY this is unbelievable - a mosquito bit me on the eyelid and now my eye is swollen shut.  Never happened before in my life, now twice in as many months.  How. Bizarre.

And annoying, because I had to cancel my volunteering plans (I looked like a gargoyle, and I have no plans to be seen in public that way).  I decided to make an obi-type belt with my spared time which was an annoying project which took forever (conceptual mathematics turn out to be as bad as the regular kind) but will be useful.

FrockProject has ground to an understandable halt with seven completed so far:

 

I have bodices and skirts for another five but the urgency has gone out of the project.  Not to worry, they'll get done when they get done.

But when DON'T I sew frocks?

Today I sewed frocks.  One of the frocks is partially made from fabric I bought in NZ last year:

which is described on the selvedge as 'Crazy Paua'.  What's really crazy is that I bought three metres of it, like what was I thinking I'd make from it?

I really like it, but it's one of those 'only in small doses' fabrics.

Sewing and spies, oh my

I've been sewing all day today and while my back is killing me I feel very productive.  I also watched Cambridge Spies and Spooks while sewing, so I know everything there is to know about MI5.

I also arranged to get a parcel re-delivered on Thursday, on which day I will neither go into the attic or shower, two activities that have prevented me answering the door in time to receive the parcel on the last two delivery attempts.

Here is the bodice of one of the frocks I made today - the fabric is awesome and is printed with wee paua shells:

The fabric looks gorgeous close up, and I'm really happy with the frock.