A fellow West Australian Etsy crafter just featured one of my red watermelon luggage tags in her Australian Red Treasury (http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107927), just in time for Australia Day (which is tomorrow, January 26). Update: Then I was featured in another one a few hours later (http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=107908).
Because Treasuries disappear after only a few days, here are the pictures:
My friend Michelle, officially opened her new quilt store in Midland, Western Australia yesterday! The store is called ‘Handcrafters House’ and it’s just down from the Centrepoint Shopping Centre and the railway station, almost opposite the Junction Ice Creamery (everyone knows where that is!!).
She had the store in another part of Midland, but it was not easy to find and was pretty cramped inside. Her new store is about three times bigger, and has two workshop spaces for classes.
I was lucky enough to visit the day before she officially opened, and the store is amazing. Everything is so well laid out, and there’s no more bumping past people as you negotiate the aisles.
Congratulations Michelle. You and your team have done a magnificent job. May every success come your way!
Part of Handcrafter's House -- Michelle's new shop
… with a diamond drill bit.
Yesterday I drove up to the city to go through stage 3 of the 4-stage process in getting my tooth replaced. This time it was for the preparation work for the bridge — and payment of the bill.
The preparation involved taking multiple impressions, removing the old crown on the adjacent tooth, and removing the enamel and some of the dentine from the tooth on the other side of the gap where the old tooth used to be.
I usually have dental work without any anaesthetic — that worked well for the removal of the old crown and removal of about 60% of the good tooth material on the other tooth, but then I jumped! My dentist gave me a jab and I felt nothing more while she continued to grind down that tooth.
More impressions, then she made some temporary teeth out of an acrylic that she glued on over the stumps and I was done, some 90 minutes or so after I lay down in the chair.
I get the proper bridge when I return in about 3 weeks time.
Oh, and I got the bill for these two stages too — some $4400, which, coupled with the around $1500 already spent, means that that damned ‘pitted’ date will have cost me about $6000. Arrggghhh!
See also:
I just got the news that the most recent healthy female cockroach I sent to Martyn at the Australian Museum in Sydney has laid at least one egg case! Here’s an excerpt from his email:
Good news – she WAS being sneaky. I noticed she had been getting surprisingly shy and was scurrying away and hiding whenever I went to check on her, while she had formerly been quite unconcerned. The local related species (Polyzosteria limbata – broad margined form) she is currently sharing a cage with is as docile as ever, so it was unlikely to be some recent disturbance.
On the weekend just past, she was a little slower off the mark than usual and I could see she was carrying an ootheca (egg case).
[The egg case was] smaller than I would have expected and of a relatively shiny hazelnut colour. I would think this is not her first so I will have to watch to try to see where she is hiding them but she is very alert to being watched – more so than I would have thought. The P. limbata simply dig a shallow hole and bury theirs and don’t seem to care if [they're] being watched or not.
I don’t know if this makes you a granny for 2010? Just thought you’d like an update of good news!
I was surprised it took so long — I always thought cockroaches were prolific breeders and as she hadn’t laid an egg case some weeks ago, I suspected that she wasn’t pregnant when I sent her across in November. Looks like I was wrong!
Update later the same day: After asking Martyn about the gestation period and commenting that I thought it was a long time and maybe she’d been impregnated by her ‘roomie’, he wrote this:
She is in with about 20 of the P. limbata but most are still too young to breed and all have their own species present anyway – it’s usually only unmatched males that try to impregnate females of a different species and in invertebrates cross-breeding is either very rare or physically impossible due to the ‘key and lock’ systems of most invertebrate reproductive structures.
I’m pretty sure she was impregnated before she was caught but as to ‘gestation’ I suspect these are a bit of an unknown quantity as to both how long the eggs take to hatch (maybe not until next spring) or how long they take to develop within the female. The life histories of most of our native animals are poorly understood and even more so with insects and other invertebrates – we know far more about the pest species than any of the natives.
As mentioned though, she may have been hiding her earlier egg cases as the cage is about 50 cm square and has a number of pots filled with different soil types, a leaf-litter floor and some dead wood – all provided as potential egg laying sites. In most species kept you can see where activity has taken place but this one is certainly behaving in a different manner and so may be camouflaging either the site or (as occurs in some other species) ‘hiding’ the ootheca in plain view by glueing bits of detritus all over it. Unfortunately with their need for sunlight she is currently at [my] home on a deck until we are better set up here [museum] – so I only get to observe activity on the weekends and in the mornings and evenings. Mind you the others normally carry the ootheca for several days before stowing it away somewhere and are therefore easier to keep tabs on – this one doesn’t seem to do this – mind you it MAY just be this individual too!
I’ll keep you informed if I find any hatchlings. From the size of what I saw I’d guess about 10 hatchlings per ootheca.
For other related articles on this cockroach saga, see these articles (in the order listed):
I had another creative spurt over the Christmas/New Year public holidays, and made some journal covers out of a landscape quilt I decided I’d never complete, as well as some other bits and pieces. Here are my latest Etsy store offerings:
A friend of mine (hi Steph!) has a debilitating medical condition, which means that many days she doesn’t function very well or at all. In her blog she’s talked often about what sort of ’spoons’ day that day is for her — sometimes the spoons reference is to how she feels at the beginning of the day; other times it refers to how many spoons she had by the end of the day. I sort of got the gist of the ’spoons’ reference, but until she put up a link on her blog the other day, I didn’t really understand it. Now I do. Thanks Steph.
The article she linked to was http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/navigation/BYDLS-TheSpoonTheory.pdf from the ‘But you don’t look sick’ website: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/the_spoon_theory/.
I just finished reading We need to talk about Kevin, by Lionel Shriver. In a word, “Wow!” Words can’t describe what a powerful book this is.
If you haven’t already read it, get yourself to your local public library or bookstore and do so.
I believe it’s being made into a movie. Unless done sensitively, the movie might just fit into the ‘watcher’ role that Kevin eloquently says gives ‘the public the excitement and scandal that they secretly crave’.
My friend Bobbie gave me some of her sample quilt blocks made when she was doing workshops and had an online store for her patterns. They were all in colours that I love and that she doesn’t! Bobbie’s very much a autumnal, country girl when it comes to colours, whereas I like brights (ya think?!). So as part of her Christmas gift to me, she passed along the blocks. I’ve now made them into plate mats and coasters, and they’re now for sale from my Etsy store (Bobbie will get half the proceeds!). I also added a few things I made a week or two ago in a fabulous chilli print fabric — oven mitts and bookmarks made from the remaining fabric I used for the oven mitts.
Here’s a screen shot of the latest additions — the seven quilt blocks of Bobbie’s are at the top:
Spotted on a vehicle in our little country town the other day:
I’m not tailgating; I’m drafting!
LOL!
I can never remember which sewing machine needle size I need for which task. So I decided to find out and publish it here so that I always have it!
I found this nugget of information amongst lots of information about sewing machine needles and how they work here: http://www.threadsmagazine.com/item/3751/machine-needle-know-how
Here’s what Lydia Morgan, the author of the article, has to say:
When selecting a needle for regular sewing, start with needle size. European needles range in size from 60 to 120, which refers to the diameter taken on the shaft right above the eye. American needles are sized from 8 to 19 in an arbitrary numbering system, and paired with corresponding European sizes: for example, 60/8 or 70/10; the larger the number, the larger the needle.
Determine needle size by fabric weight. Choose a size 60/8 needle for lightweight fabrics similar to georgette or organdy; a 70/10 or 80/12 needle for medium-weight jersey, Lycra, linen, or calf leather; a 90/14 and 100/16 for heavy fabrics like jeans, vinyl, upholstery or canvas; and 110/18 or 120/19 for very heavy fabrics. After choosing needle size, match the needle point to your fabric. The needle type and name is usually determined by the characteristics of the needle’s point.
Now it makes sense! Especially that 90/14 stuff.
See also:
(from Threads Magazine; click to go to article)
