Time Flies....

...and I'm not even having fun! The boring stuff taking up too much time and not much of a look in for the fun stuff…so what has happened since August?…August!! and now it's November, seriously! would the person with the calendar remote control please please take the finger off the fast forward button!!!

I did get to go play at Crafty Hijinks in Ballarat in September...Jodie & Gilly put on a fabulous inaugural event and I got to hang for the day with Merrilyn, Christine, Melody and a whole bunch of other crafty peeps for a lovely day out…for pics that convey to me the feeling of the day go to the second half of this post on Nicole's blog…she has captured the day perfectly (and I don't have pics)...

I won pretty bag handles from Katherine back in August, thank you Katherine...I bought a skirt pattern from Nicole Mallieu at Crafty Hijinks which revived my want for her book "You Sew Girl" so I gave it to myself for my birthday…

I have been to Spotty (because it is 500 metres up the road from a work site and I gave myself a 10 minute window of opportunity while running around doing that day's out and about stuff) and purchased some cheapish $6/metre fabric for the test run at the skirt pattern (a combo "toile/but something that can be worn" to get the fit right), but it's still a cut length and has yet to make it further than being brought home and tossed in the sewing room...

Early October I wandered back to the Home Country and met Mistea for an afternoon at the NOTY quilt show followed by a yummy late lunch at the Tea Pot Cafe…lots of lovely quilts to look at and be inspired by, a chat or two with people not often seen, some "who is that person, she looks so familiar" and, for me, a giftee for my birthday…

Crochet squares craft bag with flower fabric lining…pretty…

the chocolate it held at the time of giving didn't last, he he he...

A project a year in the making finally reached a conclusion including actually putting in the post and sending to intended destination…a team project that came about when Kerry had a clean up and, while discussing who would benefit from excess fabric for charity projects, we thought it would be a plan if she sent me some of the fabric and I sewed up laundry bags for Aussie Hero Quilts…I was expecting enough fabric for maybe, oh, say 5 bags…nope, 17! 17 pieces cut to size...the owner of a business I was doing some work for, Broadford Curtains and Blinds, helped me out with some remnant fabric to add to the linings pile and also donated the thick piping cord for the drawstrings…thank you Cherille…worked on in definite fits and starts in production line method…but eventually...

I've had a lovely email from Jan-Maree to say they arrived and were suitable…whew!!!…Jan-Maree also conveyed her thanks to the other members of the "team".

"Anna" is spread all over the kitchen table, has been for weeks, resulting in some progress…

The top border is actually stitched on, the sides are just modelling, the bottom border is semi-put-together and didn't want to appear in it's state of unstitched nakedness.  I've been so tired that it's just too hard to concentrate or see properly to hand-piece so progress is very very slow although it has been interspersed with hexie preparation for the large borders...

Apart from that it's been work, study, head wobbling exhaustion, rinse and repeat...steps have been taken to rectify the imbalance (the indicator needle during the year moved from moderate, to high, to very high to reaching catastrophic and threatening to tip me off the edge completely) and compress the working part into the days between Monday and Friday with only the occasional Saturday/Sunday thrown in rather than one or both every week...yay!!!!...looking forward to getting some sewing time back into the roster...especially I need to get back to the priority of finishing my SSCS main present...

Hope you get to have crafty time in your day...

Happy Stitching...