15 minute crafting

Quick is the name of the game these days people.

Cushions that seriously took 15 minutes. Admittedly the pieces sat on the floor of my sewing room for about a month... but the bit where I actually sewed them into a cushion cover, very fast.

I'm becoming a crochet flower machine. One day these will make it over to Norway and France respectively. One day. Don't hold your breath Meegs and Pip. heh.

Right. I'm being attacked by worms in my brain. Or so it feels like. Must go lie down while I have some peace. The kid is next door destroying their house. Yusss.

P.S. Lots of rather empty snail shells in my garden this morning. *muhahahahahahaha*

P.P.S. Used phone to take photos. Extremely lazy. My apologies.

Flakey flake

So. New plan. Now I think I wanna be a teacher when I grow up. History/social studies to be specific.

Anyone got any reason to talk me out of it? Go. You have approximately 1 week. Actually, more like an hour.

Mother trucking slugs and snails

Well, slugs and snails is what I'll start with... no bloody idea where I'll end up in this post as it has been a while. It's like a really fun game. Except more rambly and boring. So less fun. And gamey.

Anywayyyy... so I lovingly planted out a vegetable garden made with supplies unceremoniously nicked from the abandoned building materials around our neighbourhood. Little tiny plants nurtured from seeds: beans, peas, tomatoes, zuchini, silverbeet, and capsicum. They enjoyed their newfound home for a few days until one by one the poor little seedlings started disappearing. Like, I mean, I knew I'd planted 6 zuchini plants. I raised that shit by hand so I freaking knew there were 6. Then I head out to water them and there is a whole plant just gone. GONE. A tiny little stalk sticking out of the earth but that's it. Decimated.

Apparently we have the whole of Auckland's population of slugs and snails living in our garden. Then they've all told their mates from Hamilton who have been all "Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet. I'ma get me some of that leafy goodness." And so they've all come and have been taking out a plant per night, hoping that I wouldn't notice. But I'm way to enamoured with my little plants to not see that they were vanishing. Little pangs to my heart alerted me to it. So I'm all "NOOOOOOOOOO! Feck offfffff evil slugs and snails!" Quite an ineffective method of getting rid of slugs and snails, might I add.

Now I'm on a rampage. Well. I talk about being on a rampage a lot. I've yet to go all kung fu on their asses. In actual fact, I saw a giant slug sliming its way up the wall outside our laundry last night and all I really did was shudder a bit and then run away. Also quite ineffective at slug and snail extermination, just so ya know.

What I have actually done is completely abandon all hope of a nice, organic, nasty-stuff-free garden and threw a million tonnes of slug killer pellety things all over the garden. It said not to put it anywhere near the edible part of your plants but I decided I'd be way happier dying of slug poison knowing that I probably took some of those bastards with me, rather than dying of potential slug-slime contamination and knowing they'd got the better of me. Except that I really couldn't die of slug slime contamination considering they'd have eaten all my damn plants! But I could potentially die from the plants allowing them to grow to super size and then invading my house and eating me. It's possible.

At last count I was down 2 pea plant, 1 bean plant, 6 tomato plants, 1.5 zuchini plants, and my silverbeet is looking suspiciously chomped-on. Tonight I am forgoing sleep so I can sit out there with a torch and mallet and show those mother trucking slugs and snails who's boss.

Oooo. Look. I stayed on topic. I'll be back to bore you to death with more rambling tomorrow. And maybe some pictures of severely squashed slugs and snails, all things going to plan.

Argh

No internet again. I am currently hanging at the library blogging while everyone around me does useful stuff like job hunting. Hrmmm. Back to it then.

I will return.

At some point.

Where have I been?

Well. In slow internet land. That's where. It's near impossible to blog without tearing your hair out when you live in slow internet land. Honestly, how the hell did we ever survive on dial up? How do some people STILL survive on dial up? Insanity.

Right. So. The birthday. There aren't craploads of pictures as I wasn't the photographer but it was so cool having all the family and others up here at our new place. Increased homeification by 100 fold. And that's not the gangsta kind. More the 'Home sweet' kind. Apparently my great-Grandad grew up out here and a few of the family are buried nearby so weeeeeeeeeeeeee connection to the land! That improved things too.

Anywayyyyy... the boy surprised the girl with a trampoline and has forever earned himself a place in her heart. Nothing like buying off a kid! Oh yeah, Jute and Gaz visited from Wellington (that's them on the right) which Han was well stoked about. And then well sad about when they left.

Bouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebouncebounce is basically all she's done since Saturday
And oooooer, please observe: my new vege garden in the back. Yussssss.

Then we had some fab facepainting action from Fairy Godmother Extraordinaire, Gembee. She even came complete with wings! Awesomeness.

I forced everyone to bring a plate to minimise my stress levels and it worked beautifully. We may be living on a steady diet of cupcakes ;) So thanks to everyone who came out. We had the best day EVER.

Anddddddd yesterday I finally got around to putting up Hannah's heart fabric behind her bed. I saw the fabric in a window display at Habitat in Welly before I left and HAD to have it. Even if it depleted my savings by a shitload. Now I'm off to make a couple of cushions out of the remaining fabric and oooooer Han's room will be all hearty and colourful and stuff. I may have a bit of a heart obsession at the momento. Or as Hannah calls them "lovehearts".

I may have also gotten a bit carried away playing with the filters in Gimp. Fun times tho!

Oh, and the gorgy stripy sock monkey is a Miss Millie creation. Apparently her name is Rosie. I was angling for Herbert but the kid wouldn't have a bar of it.

The universe reponds

Well, a fairy godmother does. I don't quite know what to say! Well... thank you is a start. And maybe here I admit that it set off a little crying episode because my friends are truly truly fantastic. It just so happened it was mid-mascara application which wasn't terribly advantageous.

I received a package in the mail this morning from my "Fairy Godmother" who happens to have a post box in Lower Hutt as far as the return address says. They also have connections to The Nappy Network which doesn't surprise me in the least. The people that frequent the forum there are some of the most generous people I have ever met.

Right, sleuthing aside... I really didn't expect that my whinging to the universe would cause someone to send through a package as thoughtful as this. As well as the things above, there was a pile of clothing for Hannah and vouchers for food... it seems we won't be living on two minute noodles just yet :P

I have been feeling a smidgeon down about being totally unqualified to do anything that I want to do. As well as this parent-of-a-school-kid bizzo being a bit more difficult than parent-of-a-kid-that-you-can-throw-in-care-all-day-and-not-stress-about-homework-or-school-holidays stuff. But as of today, I've decided to embrace opportunities that come along. On Monday I'm starting a trial as assistant to a dress makery sort for a few days a week. Hopefully I'll learn something craft wise and give me time to try out some ideas I have. If all else fails I'll pester temping agencies.

There is still hope!

And fantastic people!

Thank you fairy godmother. I don't know if I particularly deserve it, but I do appreciate it.

xo

The little cosy that couldn't

So, I have planned for ages to knit a tea cosy for someone after they happened to send me something that I had expressed an interest in learning more about.

A couple of weekends ago when I was on a car trip I started to knit, not quite knowing what I would create... and a tea cosy came out. Which was quite convenient, given the situation above.

I lovingly cast off and sewed in all the ends... crocheted a little tie and sat down to stage a photoshoot despite the fact that I didn't have a tea pot to model it on.

BUT my friends... the story does not end happily ever after. This little cosy was lacking something. Something kinda important if you want it to actually cosy. Something that I only figured out when I sat down to take the photos of this colourful knitted creation adorning a roundish tin. Perhaps if I had a tea pot I would have figured out that YOU NEED TWO DAMN OPENINGS. One for the handle. And one for the spout. Just like the song dictates. Argh.

So. Anyone here have a tea pot with a broken off handle who needs a little warmth and loving? Otherwise this poor little cosy that couldn't is resigned to my pile of what-the-fucks* which are going a big fat nowhere.

*You can thank Claire for that one. It is officially my new favourite word for miscellaneous items that just kinda irritate.

Devil Child does school

The child doesn't do nice photo poses well. It's either catch-her-off-guard sort of poses or child-being-a-doofus sort of poses. ha.

But anyway, my little devil child is off for her first day at school today after turning 5 on Saturday. Ain't she sweet all dressed up in her tragic uniform, pig tails and roman sandals? ha.

She was so damn excited when she left this morning and I was just glad she'd be able to spend some time with people other than me! I pick her up in a couple of hours and I have a feeling the kid is gonna be shaaaaaaaaattered. Didn't help that her wayward mother took her out for a night of partying on Saturday. heh

The kidlet's birthday celebrations have been delayed til next weekend so party pics will follow that.

Man. Can't believe I have a 5 year old. I turned around in the car when we arrived at school and said "Right, out you get Roo!" and she looked at me all stern-like and said "Mum. You have to call me a big girl now - I'm 5."

Right. I've got some study to do. Exam on Wednesday. Eeeek!

P.S. I soooo haven't figured out this new blogger post thingy. Bear with my excessive gaps and weird font sizes. Much appreciated :P

Brilliant idea

So, I'm meant to be leaving for Napier in hrmmmm... approx 10 minutes. But in the mean time I thought I'd show off a dress I just made for the kid (instead of packing) mostly based on this tutorial.

It was very very almost a sack like creation but I managed to rescue it by taking it in a pile and then adding an elasticated waist. Quite cute I think!! Pity my guess-the-hem game didn't pay off. I did my usual trick of deciding it was too long and then just hacking a pile off the bottom... it seems the kid has grown more than I thought and it was a biiiiiiit on the micro mini side. So then I decided to procrastinate some more and made her some little black leggings and wooooooooooo yeah. It looks good.

Fabric was a genius score from the Global Fabrics sale. It's a fine wool with the coolest print. I'm in love with it! It was originally chosen to be a dress for me... but now I've made the kid a dress I may have to think that. Somehow I don't think matching mama-daughter clothes have gotten any cooler.


Right. Time to pack now! Off to a friend's wedding for the weekend so I'll catch ya back here Monday when I'm all gushy and mushy and mostprobablystillhungthefreakover.

Crap. The boy is home. I'm in trouble.

Dear Universe

Fuck you.

Love,

Nikki