Last WOW for 2010

A well-loved childrens' story....we used to listen to it on radio, the voices were very funny. Wombat is described as being "a square animal with thick hair like a door-mat, stumpy legs and no tail to speak of, brown eyes and a comfortable leathery flat nose like a koala". His friend Mouse is a fat-tailed pouched Bush Mouse, another little Aussie animal, and his other friend is Tabby whose favourite fruit is sardines. The stories were written by Ruth Park, who died recently.

We had a lovely Christmas, our older son and his girlfriend visited for a few days, and we talked to our younger son in Canada via Skype - oh, the wonders of the interwebz! We received some lovely gifts, mine were of the pretty fabric, yummy food and beautifully smelly variety, and I have a gift certificate for a local quilt shop too. We ate, drank and were merry, and had a great time. And now it's only 361 days until we do it all again.
The challenge quilt I finished a while ago when we were having computer issues, so no pics have been posted until now. I made it for Kevin and gave it to him for Christmas, his maternal grandfather was born in 1849 - that's right, 1849 and only two generations back - and was a sailor in the days of sailing ships.
The challenge was to use a 12in block, a 6in by 12in block, a 12in by 6in block, and a 6in block, with the rest of the quilt top made of nine patches. I had a fat quarter of this lighthouse and beach scene so it was the 12in feature block. The yellow fabrics picked up the colour of the sand, seagulls fly in a bright blue sky (how poetical!) and ships sail through the water.
The backing is the rest of the nautical prints I had collected over several years.....I always had it in mind to make Kevin his own quilt, and it had to have ships.
Not sure if you can see, but the quilting in the border is whales and waves. Or waves and whales, if you prefer. The only fabric specially bought was the blue wavy stripe, everything else came from my stash. And has left scarcely a dent.......

At present we seem to have a plague of biting insects, they seem to be leaving Kevin alone but love me.....I am so uncomfortable......bought some cream this morning that the woman at the chemist assured me would take away the itch, but so far it's not doing a great job.......I am trying hard not to scratch because then I will have scabby arms and legs and will look as though I have some sort of dreadful plague. I am also taking anti-histamines but they seem to be swimming uphill against the tide of itchiness. The little buggers attacked me while I was sleeping in my bed of rest, and if one is not safe in one's bed - then where can one be safe?

Oh well, hopefully they will all be gone by winter..........apparently we are having a bad bug season because we have had so much rain, everywhere is very moist, just right for insects like sandflies and mozzies to breed. And bite. Roll on June. At least we are not flooded, unlike those poor folk in Queensland who are suffering the worst flood for a century.

I even found a blog background with frogs, to honour our garden frogs....makes the blog look a bit busy, I'll see how long I can live with it.

Recently Kevin found a gold ring while he was digging in the garden! It is somewhat mangled by mower blades and has no stone. I took it to a local jeweller who (rather disdainfully, I thought) told me the stone would have been synthetic and would have shattered to the four winds when hit by the mower, and the 9 ct gold was worth nothing. Bummer. And here we thought we had found buried treasure.

The current sewing project is new pyjamas for me in a plain gold knit and a deep blue and white print knit, just tee shirts with shorts, but cool and comfy. The tops (I am making two pair at once) have a vee neck, and I followed the pattern instruction for sewing the neckband although I had misgivings about it. Should have listened to my instinct and used another method, the outside looks good but the inside of the neckline looks like a dog's breakfast. Ah well, it is the inside, and the world won't see it. It's a Kwik-Sew pattern and I have usually found their instructions to be good, but there are better ways of sewing a vee neck than theirs.

"Dress at wedding receptions.

At wedding receptions in the evening, guests should wear full evening dress. No one should attend in black or mourning dress, which should give place to grey or lavender. At a morning reception of the wedded couple, guests should wear the richest street costume with white gloves."

Probably shouldn't wear my new pyjamas, when they are finished. Even though they could be termed evening wear.

Enjoy your days!