More stuff!!



I am beginning to do some creative things to my kitchen.
Lots of my house still needs finishing/renovating/even BUILDING (like the bathroom which is still 'temporary'!). I have written a bathroom blurb here.
The kitchen doesn't have any cupboards in it.
It never did.
Nor a sink.
Not much of a stove even.
My Best Sister brought me a wonderful old four oven Rayburn stove from Tasmania as a house warming present when I first bought the house. The concrete on the floor was put down with not enough cement in it so it is all flaky and dusty. The bathroom and laundry area (10' x 30') was the same but I have ripped that up and laid lovely old red bricks in it's place. I want to do that to this kitchen area too. Just need to get some energy from somewhere!

the left hand drawer of kitchen cupboard

Anyways! I bought a couple of entertainment units. Since everyone (else) in the world has gone crazy for enormous flat screen televisions there is now no call for the sort of cabinets that used to hold a 'normal' telly, along with drawers etc for CDs, DVDs, videos and all those other useless bits of wiring, remotes, waranty docs and manuals. I have one pine unit which will fit snugly into the pantry, and this one as a bar in the kitchen.

This cabinet has a pull-out drawer shelf at either end (see top photo) which had a couple of vertical boards with plastic thingies to hold DVDs and CDs. So I pulled them out, and cut the timber into lengths to make them into horizontal shelves, and nailed them in.



useful drawers full of jasmine

Just totally perfect for herbs and spices, and all the small things that get lost in a big cupboard.
The centre has two doors that fold back into the unit with another unit inside with shelves where the TV and DVD player etc sat, and more drawers.

interior of kitchen cupboard



One of the Woods Ware Jasmine plates (cups and saucers, jugs, bowls, whatever) which is tucked away in the bottom drawers and shelves of my new unit.

the Wood's Ware Jasmine china I collect



The answer is 42. Painted on 10.10.10 - 101010 or XXX

 On October 10 I made this painting to celebrate 10/10/10. There are 10 x 3 hearts cut from handmade Japanese papers, as well as three x 10, and three x X. Somewhere in there is perhaps going to be a shadowy 42 because in binary 101010 is 42! There are bits of gold leaf as well as a warm and cold cream (ha ha not Ponds...), and metallic sparkly paints. It is a long time since I painted. I think I shall have to do more of it (I need the practice for starters!)

Teddy, and a barbie - with new clothes

I have also been knitting dolls' clothes. And teddy clothes. This is my poor old Bare Bear who I have had since newborn. He is called Bare Bear because when I was three I threw him in the copper when Mum was washing clothes and all his fluffy mohair fur fell out...These are the first clothes he has had since I took him out of the nightie Nana made for Uncle Ernie 89 years ago. Still got that little nightgown, too! I have made a lot of barbie doll clothes, and even smaller knitted ones for a couple of tiny teddies who are about the right scale for the doll's house I am making (see below!). The tiny garments are knitted from one play tapestry wool on 1.5mm needles. I have also made some blankets for the doll's house beds in fine crochet silk, and the one ply wool. Good fun - fiddly but achievable when I am feeling tired!

doll's house bed with knitted blankets

OH look!!! a tiny doll's bed with knitted bedding! Next plan is a weeny small patchwork quilt using fine Liberty cottons and some silks I have stashed away!

This is a smaller scale doll's house that I have been making for years! It was a rather crude kit I bought in San Francisco when the boys were little. I put some of it together with their help a long time ago, and then put it away as it was rather too fiddly for little boys...

cutie pie doll's house and furniture I am making (yep that is a quilt!)

Some of the other furniture there is from the weekly installment doll's house I am currently putting together.
The quilt hanging behind is one I bought in SF back in the 1980s. It is hand stitched reverse applique and made by Hmong refugees who had gone to live in America from northern Thailand/Laos.

Tiny Teddy's new clothes

The very small teddy with his new cable knit jumper and woolly shorts!  That is a dressing gown on the needles.
The patterns are from the booklets that came with the weekly edition packs. We started buying this back about 1997 - it was supposed to be 100 weekly installments costing $10 each. Then it wandered up to $14 or $15, and to even monthly intervals. AND THEN - when it got to 100 installments it kept going for another 25 installments...

It took YEARS to collect!

All up these five boxes of kit must have cost about $1,500 (I could have had a REAL bathroom for that price!). Sadly - or surprisingly! - I am missing only one installment (somewhere in the mid 50s). It is the one that has quilting in the booklet, too. I don't know what part of the house is missing.

Below is a photo of the booklet front page. It was developed by Del Prado, originally it seems from Spain, but then from the UK. Each installment came with a part of the house, instructions on how to construct said part, and a 6 or 8 page booklet that went together to compile a whole book about all sorts of aspects of dolls' house stuff.
Sometimes the wooden bit would be a chair, or a dresser, or half a wardrobe with the other half the following week (fortnight....month...sigh), or a piece of wall, floor, ceiling. Absolutely impossible to construct really until all the pieces were acquired!

Fortunately I DID get a ring binder with separators for each of the construction instructions to keep them orderly.
However, all the other bits are supposed to go into binders to make into about 6 different books. Don't have them, haven't been able to source them online either.
Nor did we get the transformer for the electricals - lighting etc. But that is probably cos it would have been different wiring or even voltage if it originated in Spain. But do have all the tiny light fittings and bulbs etc.

Cover of doll's house booklet

The bottom right hand house is similar to the one I am making. Mine has a narrower hallway in the centre rather than rooms, is two storied with two more rooms in the attic.

So far I have got the bottom left hand room done, and the downstairs hall as well as some of the dear little furniture. It is really lovely silly fun!

right side with new shelves

Oh will you just look at that!
Here is the photo from the top of the page that I thought was lost!
I am not going to risk trying to relocate it again...
This is the right hand pullout drawer/shelf unit. That is the pantry door in the background, and the sink is to the right, lounge area to the left on the other side of the unit.
It is high, high enough to lean on whilst entertaining guests on the other side and I am on the working side creating a meal!

And cheap as chips.
I bought this on eBay for about $80. It was a craftsman-built unit, solid timber as well as classy veneer (not crappy chipboard and plastic!) - weighs a tonne!

I thought I was immensely clever to think of upcycling one of those redundant units (or two of them really!).

Apologies if this is difficult to read and with a messier than messy layout. Suck it up. Next entry will be better I promise - I am at The Sweetheart's on the eccentric notebook to add insult to injury!

eBay Delights!

Since I bought the John Watts quilting frame etc back in June I have been slowly getting the hang of eBay.
Watching LOTS of stuff, and even bidding on a couple of things. Usually at the very last moment - I have been to enough auctions to know not to push up prices half way through an auction...

Recently, I bought ten Barbie dolls for $26 (woohoo- after spending $4,000 of Noela's money on the John Watts frame etc that was a good way to get the hang of a second auction!).
I have been making clothes for them from the Enid Gilchrist Teen and Fashion Dolls book and they will be for all the great nieces, and Moo the GK for Christmas pressies.
They are all gorgeous, and the seller had washed AND SHAMPOOED their hair and their clothes were all clean and a couple of them even had shoes (tho Trevor ate one I later discovered. Naughty Barbie thing must have kicked it off while I was taking the photo out in the garden...)

Next, I got a pair of the most delightful little Japanese dolls for $10.

They came from Tasmania near Noela's place so she picked them up for me.
While I was waiting for her to organise collection with the seller I bought a great stack of Lego blocks for Noela to hand on to her grandies as well. That was about 250 pieces for $20.

Aren't the dollies gorgeous? I have yet to touch them but Noela said they are really lovely. I thought they would be lovely toys to have when (future) grand kids come to visit. (There were special toys at Nana's for us to play with - a Mammy Doll with gold hoop ear rings, and a topsy turvy Red Riding Hood and Wolf, a long legged clown and an elephant. Nana had made them all.).


Last night I bought two quilt tops...
When I got the notice from eBay I realised I "knew" the seller. She is an Axe Murderer quilter who wrote to congratulate me on buying the John Watts.

This is the link to her blog with photos of the tops she sold last night. I haven't met her except here on the Net.

I got the lovely square one with yellow stars on purple and print which has coffee cups all over it; and the red Hunter's Stars on green background. As she says in her post last night that it wouldn'tbe possible to make them for the price they all sold for.

I rather wanted the autumnal coloured pineapple - for The Sweetheart's Dad for his summer quilt. It would match the flannel one I made him when he first moved in to Happy Paddocks Retirement Village. However, it went very high - as much as I paid for the first two tops.

She says she has 50 more to quilt. I don't feel so bad about the 13-ish WIPs I have here... And I want her to send me a label so I can acknowledge her creativity when I quilt the tops.

I have got such bargains. I will have to sell something, but I really can't see what is going to make me any money when things are so cheap!!!! There ARE lots of quilty books that I have outgrown so they really may be the first things I flog off...

Squishy Day!!!!!

Today I got armfuls of lovely squishies at the post office!!!



First, 36 (but two of each) more Sister's Choice blocks from Trish.
18 of them are for my Best Sister - because over the last two years we have each made about 100 blocks for each other.
So we will, in theory, have identical quilts. But of course we wont because we have been playing with them as well as whipping up Sister's Choice quilts for our other sisters and sister in law for their birthdays last year.


Here is Trevor checking out the blocks that I just got - laid them out on the bed, went downstairs for my camera and came back to find the Self-Appointed Quilt Expert making himself at home!!!

I have about 100 blocks now, I think - they are real Magic Pudding blocks cos I seem to have far more than I made!




And then there were the ten Barbie dolls I got for cheap as chips on eBay to make more clothes for and give away as Christmas presents to various younger members of the family...


One has some weirdness happening round her back. It may well be normal but then - I am not aBarbie expert at all!!!
Apart from a weird hypo-thermic look to much of her skin, she has a screw in panel on her back that maybe contains a battery but I haven't yet looked. Her hypo-thermic skin is also rather translucent and she seems to have some robot wires in there. (If she is a little alien thing I hope she knows how to do ironing...).


And then a big bundle of material from Miss Vikki Frou Frou who was having a stern clean-out of stuff she didn't think she would use. And I thought I could.
I think Mum's Christmas present is in here...


And I had to get the Mary Engelbright jelly roll for two very good reasons.
Firstly, I haven't ever bought a jelly roll before, and secondly I have a sad old ME t-shirt I bought in Ann Arbour when I was there in 1990 which is falling to bits so I need to replace it...
Actually THIRDLY - they were so cheap it would be rude not to help Miss Vikki out!


I took a photo of the lake that is the septic tank, but I wont post it today either...

The rest of the day was too lovely!!! Lots of material to fondle!

When I crack the shits...

Yeah, sometimes I really crack it and burn a bridge or two.
Not very often, however.

Nearly three weeks ago I cracked it and deleted my Facebook account.

AND NOBODY HAS MISSED ME. Well, one person did, but ten days later.

I started on Facebook years ago, maybe when it was only six months old.
There were only small thousands of people on, and no Scrabble, or Wordscraper, nor any of the stupid applications, viz who are you going to marry/how many children/what famous person were you last time around/will be/what wild animal are you (will be eaten by), blah blah.
Not to mention all the other foolish farms, fairies, sheep, fuck knows. All sorts of stupidity.

I had hundreds of friends (most of whom I know in real life too) and it was taking me half an hour every morning just to 'hide' all the idiot applications that other people had taken on in the previous 24 hours.
And then I had to see what everyone was up to, and check photos, and comment on both, answer mail...
It began to take up far too much time.

So, one evening I had one martini too many and scrubbed me from the face of Facebook. I am still alive however!

I miss everyone's photos.
Nothing else, though.

And that is an inspiration for me to start adding photos to my gallery again. Not that I have yet - but I shall start with photos of Maldon Folk Festival this weekend.

And if you do miss me on Facebook then just email me and we will be REAL internet friends again!!!!

Today I won my second thing on eBay. A handful of ten Barbie dolls. I have been making Barbie doll clothes from my Enid Gilchrist book and having so much fun I reckon I shall make a wardrobe and dollies for all the great nieces I have, and for Moo too for their Christmas presents.
Never had a Barbie when I was growing up, no dolls at all actually.

Ooroo - maybe my Friday Flaunt will be the clothes I have made so far.
Or what I did this week.
Or something else...