Coming Soon a tutorial.

I was looking at my ironing board cover the other day and thought that maybe it's time for a change. It is still in excellent condition but I'm ready for a colour change. I looked up my old blog to find the tutorial I did, oh my it was 5 years ago! I had thought of copying and pasting the tutorial but think it maybe better if I rewrote it seeing as it originally had been written at 2 am and looks it.

Here is a slide show of the original construction.
Ironing Board

A time of joy and sadness

Last week there was a new addition to our family, I have a new Great Nephew, Kurtis. I got to meet the precious bundle a few days ago and held him in my arms. So sweet. Mum thought he looked like how my sister and I looked as babies but I can see a lot of his father in him.

We've also suffered a loss to our family, today one of my Dad's older sisters passed away. Dad was the baby of the family and his sister was over 10 years older than him. I really think she was ready to go, she lived a life beset with medical problems from birth and lived well over 80 years. I like to think that her husband and parents took her home.

RIP Aunty Ruth.

Why you should always wash fabric

I found this delicious apron pattern yesterday, a free tutorial complete with printable pattern. I do loves my freebies. I want to make this for my niece as a Shower Tea gift, ooh and one for me too. Bought red/white and white/red spotted fabrics today. Click on photo for link.

With my washing machine looking like this at the moment, I was going to forgo the washing of the fabrics but had second thoughts, thankfully.



The below pictures were taken on the third rinse, after intial washing and 2 salted rinses. The salt is supposed to help set the colour. The below colour is good compared to the first wash, imagine about 10 shades deeper.




I've left it soaking while I enjoy this, a Soy Chai Latte.

The Third thing broke

I cleaned out my laundry the other day, it was a mess and I didn't want any service man seeing that. It had been on my list for that day anyway. While I was sweeping the lint off the walls and floor, I thought it would be easier to use the vaccum but then decided that I wasn't going to risk breaking that too.

I got up the next morning, opened the curtains in the loungeroom and the cord broke, was so relieved that it was the third thing and that I could now believe it was all over.

Mum tried telling it wasn't my fault the machine broke, I had no idea the door didn't open for 3 minutes after the machine turned off and she said it had been getting increasing hard to open. They had a serviceman out and he replaced the parts, told her that the part had been wearing thin.

He refused to do our machine at the time, he doesn't fix that brand of machine. Yesterday a workmate of my husband came out, they pulled the machine apart and spent ages trying to work out what was wrong with the door lock. In the end they pulled out the computer card and noted scorch marks on it. He's taken it away to see if he can repair it.

We cleaned out the garage yesterday, it's a real dumping ground, anything we (meaning I) don't want in the house gets dumped out there. I hadn't been able to get to check the vacuum system for ages and as soon as that was clear I was able to do it. The bag had broken, I am glad I didn't use it the other day. I ended up having to vacuum out the vacuum, using Mum's vacuum which thankfully went back home intact. We were hoping to make enough room for one of the cars, in fact we made room for both. Now if only we can get the driveway finished to be able to get the cars into the garage.

Got the washing machine blues and knitter's delight

As I lay in bed this morning thinking about the day, I had such plans.

First thing was to put a load of washing on, I have heaps to do and then walk to our nearest Spotlight, about 5 km away. That would force me to get some exercise. Of course it didn't go to plan, first off my washing machine won't work, it just sits and clicks then puts up an E40 error, if I try perservering eventually it will start draining and then the screen goes to 000 and it starts beeping. Yup just what I needed.

Then my son realises he is running late, so I have to drive him and decide that seeing as I have the car out I should just drive to Spotlight and then get some food for the cat.

I've actually been to Spotlight everyday for the past 3 days, first was to buy yarn for a new cardigan, second was to take back said yarn and third was to buy more yarn.

I have really had the knitting bug, almost finished the last cardigan but found a pattern for one I couldn't resist. These are english patterns and I was happy to find a yarn that matched the tension requirements which knitted up beautifully. The new pattern uses larger needles and the tension works out extremely close to this yarn so I bought more of it. Was disappointed when I started knitting, apparently the differs in thickness and texture between dyelots. I took the new yarn back and last night tried it out on the leftover yarn which knits up beautifully of course. Just means I end up with 3 cardigans the same colour, which doesn't worry me because they are very different styles. I was even able to find the last ball of that dyelot at Spotlight today.

While I was out I saw a cute outfit for my new Great Nephew and took the time to take it over. It was our first meeting, he is 10 days old and very cute.

This past week has been blissful, I am relishing this unemployed malarky. I have put a couple of applications in, both for chain stores but really I want to either work for a single person or for myself. It'll come.

There is a little more pressure to get a paying gig, my husband is buying a new car. His car, bought second hand last year, has some niggling problems that will cost to fix - non working AC, fan not working on anything less than the highest setting and as a 6 cylinder it has a bit of a drinking problem. He's dumping it for a younger, smaller, more economical model. We went out to look at what he had chosen on Saturday, a Kia Soul. It's a demonstration model, the salesman said that when Kia hosted the tennis they used these cars to ferry around the players. There were only a couple of colours available, White and Red. I am not a fan of white cars, no idea why I just don't like them, he prefers white but he let me go with the colour. Now we are just waiting to hear back about finance.

This morning I decided to head out for walk, we gave our sewing class a miss, my daughter is trying to get over a cough and the drafty area the class is in isn't good for her. I walked to our local shops, bought a knitting magazine and a bottle of water before heading to a local reserve. I found a steepish grassed hill and walked up and down it 10 times before heading over to the lake and found a nice spot by the waterfall to meditate and then I listened to a hypnosis session. I've been listening to a lot of these lately, they are free sessions from Free Hypnosis Treatments.
I am finding them very beneficial and enjoyable.

Unemployed.

This afternoon was given the "there have been cutbacks and we are letting you go" speech. I'm not that worried about it really, it wasn't just me, another was given the same speech. What isn't logical is that we are both work the same section and are the only ones really experienced in the section, you'd really think it would have been one or the other not both. But I am not worried for myself, though more for the other lady who really needed the job.

I've been feeling the pull to move on and this is the shove I needed. There are a few things I want to try, but where to start. I actually did a visualisation during a Hypnosis session last night about where I wanted to be in 6 months time and this job wasn't part of the visualisation. This is confirmation.

I know we need the extra income at the moment and have applied for a Christmas Casual job to get us through to the end of the year. After that who knows.