Bloody feet

It's been eighteen months since I broke my toe by dropping an ipad on it, so I was probably due for more feet-related disasters. So Wednesday morning, as I was running late for a physio appointment, I didn't see a slightly lowered brick in the pavement and rolled my ankle a beauty. Honestly I thought I'd broken it, it was that painful, so let rip with some scorching profanities and dropped elegantly into the gutter. Such a STUPID thing to do, and it always happens when you're racing around with your mind somewhere else, not when you're running 10km or anything you can boast about. Anyway the construction guys across the road gathered my stuff, got me a chair and an ice pack, then I rang the physio and she came down and helped me hobble across the road, then strapped my ankle and we got on with the lymphoedema in my arm, which is what I was actually there for.

This is it yesterday - two days afterwards. Not a bad sprain (I know sprains, thank you thirty years of netball, I think I did an ankle every second year) but sore and swollen and going an interesting shade of purple. Thank heavens for a teenager with driver's license! I still can't drive so he helped my husband with the car shuffle on Wednesday, and has been running himself around ever since. I went to work on Thursday on crutches but it was such a pain I took my laptop home on Friday and worked from the kitchen table. Which was fine, but kind of boring.... the little three-person team I'm in are all in one set of rooms so we just shout at each other when we want something (there's no-one else around) and it's tedious having to email. So this weekend is going to be very quiet, no run, no shopping, no driving ... luckily it's footy finals!!! Beers are in the fridge - how's that for a silver lining.

Apple Bottom Jeans

Another medallion! There is something very enjoyable and soothing about picking out eight - twelve different fabrics that look good together, putting them in a pile and then going around and around with borders until you're done. This time I decided not to do any triangles; just squares and rectangles. Which I think has made it quite boring, although that could be the slightly subdued colour palette.



It's a bit smaller than the last one because I wasn't finding it very interesting, so stopped. It's quilted in a rectangular meander - I haven't done it before but might use it again. Good coverage and a reasonable amount of visual interest but not difficult to do.



The name is yet another ear worm that I couldn't get rid of! Such a catchy song, and vaguely relevant because of the apple-green .... maybe? They are not apples in the middle square, they are tomatoes. Green tomatoes.

I had a lot of trouble trying to focus a photo on this quilt. I think my phone is getting a bit old ... but I refuse to upgrade dammit, new phones are way too expensive. Here is a blurry distance shot.

Busy busy week

I've spent the week working and not doing much else, sadly. Both this week and last were quite busy so I took the opportunity to go down the coast on the weekend and do absolutely nothing. In the end I did even more nothing than I'd planned - I've been waking up in the night so got some over-the-counter sleeping pills and took one Friday night. The chemist said the packet says two but just take one if you haven't had them before, so I only had one and not only did I sleep well Friday night but wandered around like a zombie all day Saturday as well. God only knows what two pills would have done to me! Kept me unconscious until dinner time probably.

So it was a very relaxing weekend but not a great deal of housework and/or gardening got done. I did a little bit of sewing, and went for a run on Sunday when I felt a bit more myself. It was really warm - 26 degrees when I left to drive back to Canberra - and then Monday the cold change came through and it SNOWED in the night. Nothing at our house in the morning but the hills all around were covered in snow and very beautiful. Such strange weather. 

A Domestic Conversation

This is what the pink and yellow medallion I was working on turned into. I like it a lot - it is cheerful and pretty and was fun to make. I thought when I started it it would turn into more of a purple quilt, picking up the purple and pink in the middle, but it ended up quite yellow. Which my quilts are prone to do.

We've been having some serious spring winds lately! There's only one photo of the whole quilt because every other one I took was like the photo below. Great weather for drying the washing, but not for quilt photography. You can see the drifts of blossoms blown up against the stairs.

I quilted it in a random swirl type thing.  You can't really tell from the front so I wasn't going to put too much effort in. And it is called "A Domestic Conversation" - I meant domestic as opposed to international, rather than domestic as opposed to outside the home ... but it doesn't really mean anything so I don't think it matters.

Grey silk jacket thing

I sewed myself a grey jacket / cardy thingy. These are not very good photos, but trust me, it is actually quite a nice garment to wear to work, when you want something a bit nicer than a knitted cardigan, but can't be bothered with a proper jacket.



This is at the end of the day so it's showing a few wrinkles at the back. The pointy bits float nicely and don't look too strange. It was an easy thing to sew - I might have made it slightly too big in the arms but I worry about my fat arm (lymphodoema) and tend to overcompensate. The fabric looks like a hessian sack in these photos!!! But it is honestly a lovely medium weight silk, with a bit of a sheen, and the slubs look much better in real life.



This is the pattern - Kwik Sew 3181 - this time I did google before I sewed, but there was NOTHING!!! This pattern is so daggy that no-one who reviews patterns on the internet (i.e. hipster cool people, like me) had ever made it. It is an old lady pattern.

I bought this fabric when we were in Melbourne in September 1995 for a friend's wedding. I remember being struck by the colour, and buying four metres for a suit, which I never made. But I didn't ditch it because it was lovely, and so the last weekend at the beach I thought for crying out loud, just sew something with it. So I did.



But thinking about the weekend in Melbourne made me go to the photo albums and find evidence of my younger, fresher, less wrinkly self. Here I am with  my husband.



And this is with another friend we shared accommodation with - look at us all dolled up in our wedding hats. The wedding was quite posh; inner city big stone church and fancy hotel and we had a very good time. The marriage didn't last ... which frankly blind freddy could have seen at the time, but what can you do. Other people's relationships are ALWAYS weird.

A baby quilt

I have had so much fun making another baby quilt! I haven't done one for ages, and they are so quick and small and delightful to do. This is draped over the footstool - I was having trouble taking a photo that showed the colours properly.



This is for a friend at work who is due in a few weeks. The baby is a girl, but I don't think they're going all crazy pink, so this is reasonably gender neutral.



Although I did quilt it with flowers.



I remember being eight months pregnant ... what a nightmare. Kind of cool in that you were actually growing a baby, but eight months is definitely the point at which you can't ignore it any more! Every time you try and do any damn thing - even sleeping - that baby is there. Galumphing from side to side and hiccuping.

The weekend gallops past

I didn't do anything exciting other than enjoy the very start of spring. My run around the lake was completely windless and slightly too warm - there are blossoms on the trees already... I prefer the depths of winter but the blossoms are nice. Here is an arty shot of under the bridge. It's hard to describe how still it was - normally I run either clockwise or anti-clockwise to minimise the headwind on the exposed stretches but on Sunday it made no difference.

I did go to a craft de-stash at the Yarralumla Uniting Church which was AMAZING. Rooms full of tables packed with everything everyone crafty in Canberra has been gasping to get out of their cupboards ... and into mine :) There were hundreds of middle-aged and elderly ladies moving very slowly amongst the goodies (so an exercise in patience) but well worth the wait. I ignored the yarn, which took some effort, and the scrapbooking stuff, which took no effort at all, and just focussed on the quilting cottons and the dressmaking stuff.



This is the quilting haul - some good basics that I'll know I'll use for literally just a few dollars.



This is the sewing fabrics - I want to try and make more outerwear so looked for wool and wool blends. The green is a much lovelier colour in real life than in the photo - the woman who sold it to me said her mother had bought it to make a pair of trousers when she was in school ... and she was older than me so it must have been the 1970s or earlier. Fabulous! I was very happy to take it off her hands, and she was very happy to see it go.