Overlocker

 Now that I am sewing for charity, some are amazed that I dont have an overlocker to finish of seams. I generally sew the seam with a straight stutch and then zigzag the edges therefore taking twice as long.

The main organgisor of Uniforms for kids asked if I would like to borrow an overlocker as she had one that she wasnt using. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said that I didnt know how to use one.

Not a problem, I could visit and she would give me a lesson. This happened before Christmas. Trouble was that I didnt really have anywhere to put it and therefore I put off using it but felt as though I should get on to it.

Warren came up with a solution which involved moving my iron and irining board out and adding a fold up table.

Here it is in place.

Scary looking thing. With moving it and setting it up, a couple of the cottons got tangled. Luckily I have a resident techo here and with the manual and a head torch, he was able to thread it up and then I gave it a tentative test run.

Yay, it works! It does only do straight lines and as it trims the fabric at the same time, its no good for hemming but does save a lot of time.

Boxing day sales are on so after a bit more practise, I am going to buy my own.

Even with other stuff happening today, I managed to make three little dresses so I will probably make my self challenge of 42 items by 18 Jan.

Christmas lights

 There have been a few houses of note featured on the news about the Christnas lights. When local newspapers were around (bc, or before covid) addresses were advertised and it was a bit of a tradition of the Christmas season to drive around to check out the lights.

With covid, cost of electricity and general cant be bothered, there are nit as many out there as there used to be.

We havent put ours up for a couple of years but Warren was clearing out a cupboard and found some and he placed them around the front a few days ago. They are all solar, work for about three hours then turn off until the next night.

Nothing spectacular but they do make the place look a bit special.

They change colour every few seconds.

A display on our garage door, also change colour and formation.

Pirates of Penance

 Warren bought tickets to see this on Sunday afternoon. 

He did well with the seats, we were in row G on the end of the row. Usually we dont go out at half time but it was easier to do that rather than get up every time someone else wanted to go out.

The orchestra was on stage the whole time which surprised us, there didnt seem to be enough room for the players but they managed it.

First half was quite loud and mainly singing.

We had seen the preformance before in Canberra years ago but good to revisit.

A bite with Alice

 A 30 minute program on TV that we have been watching just before the news. Dont know who Alice is but she does some good recipes.

The other night she cooked a roast chicken. I have cooked chicken as a roast but bever to sure about it so usually buy a roast chicken from the supermarket.

However Alice had some good tips and also how long to cook it. I thought I would have a go.

First dry the chicken by leaving it uncovered in the fridge for a day or so. Place breast side down in pan and oil, rub the oil all over the bird. 180 degrees for 40 minutes then 200 for another 20 minutes. DO NOT turn chicken.

I did a pan of root vegetables as well and added to the oven.

We bought a new cooktop and oven just after lockdown in 2020, since buying an airfryer, I havent used the oven. Needed the extra space so had to dig around for instructions.  Oops, I forgot, oven has a timer similar to the airfryer.

Select fan forced 200 degrees, 70 minutes. I want my chicken cooked through.

So so easy, crispy skin, juices ran clear, vegies were moist.

Then I made a sauce/gravy, Alice called it a gravy. A spoonful of chicken schamtz, basically the bottom of the pan juices, add ginger garlic sweet chilli sauce blitz it and you have a pouring sauce. Yummo, never done that before either.

No photo but I will be cooking it again. Two chickens cost $8, roast chook from supermarket is now $13. Not that this was a money saving exercise, jyst wanted to see if I could roast a decent chicken and yes I can.

Aluce says not to turn chicken as the breast being the tenderist will dry out so needs to stay in the oil and the legs and thighs need more heat and will get that by being uppermost.

Good old Alice.

Plumbers visit

 Our toilets cisterns were plastic and after 20 plus years had become very brittle with bits flaking off at times. Time to replace them.

We knew friends had had some work done by a guy so we asked for his number.

Surprise, surprise, he was able to come and give us a quote in a couple of days.

Quote was reasonable we thought so went ahead. Still thought that it would take some time but no, a week later he arrived with new toilets and tapware.

I stayed out of his way by sewing.

I made this in the time that he took. The pickets are from polo shirts of police, therefore keeping in the vein of uniforms 4 kids. Lovely fabric, I discovered that the charity buys the fabric with money from grants and some is donated. Bit fiddly and it took me about 3 hours.

New and smaller toilets, the pipe is completely covered at the back so no trying to clean around pipes.

New tapware

Shorts that I finished this morning. I had some dinasoar fabric so cut some out to add to the pockets. Enough of this piece to make five pairs of shorts so trying to make them more interesting.

A trip to the city

 It was a hot day so we packed an hat and a fan for the train. We caught the train intending to get off at Central and have some lunch. I had heard thaf there were track closures somewhere but not affecting our travel or so I thought. 

Whoops, yes it did, instead of going to the city, the train went a different way to Roma street. Ah, not a problem, we could change platforms and take the Gold Coast train getting off at South Brisbane.

Did a search for a Japanese restaurant that I had been too before, it was within easy walking distance.

Mine was pulled pork over rice with a free miso soup.

Warren had sweet and sour chicken again with miso soup. 

Meals were good and reasonably priced, $16 each.

While we were enjoying our meal, it started to rain and then it poured!

Ended up walking back to the train station still raining, in two inches of water on footpaths.

No escalators were operating so up the stairs we go onky to be told that all trains were cancelled, due to the rain.

Car was in the centre lane as the water was pooling at the gutter which couldnt cope with the volume of water.

Train lines with the water being the height of the rails.

We had to walk about 500 metres to catch a bus back to Roma street and wait quite awhile for a train home as soms trains couldnt get through.

On the news tonight it was announced that 57mil of rain fell in 30 minutes, at home, no rain had falken at all.

Prawns and brocolli

 Watching a program the other night, called A bite with Alice", I dont know who Alice is but she makes a dish and a celebrity arrives and helps her cook another dish using something they like but in a different way. Then she brings out something that they hate or would never eat and makes a dish with that.

Only a half hour show but food seems to be quick and easy. Last night, she had a comedian on that we had never heard of and he hated beetrrot. Well, she turned him around of course by making chocolate brownies with the beetroot. Not anything that I would do but it did look interesting. She had a sizable beetroot about the same size as an orange and boiled them together. They both went in a blender, skin on irange but beetroot had .come off. Then it was melted choc buttons, butter, almond and gluten free flour. Cooked in a slice tin with raw beetroit slices on top.

Anyway the prawns and brocolli, roast some cashews, 50grams look a lot, slice a spring onion on the slant, reason being if cutting in rings they can roll off the chopping board. Such a simple thing but never realised that before. I added four or five sliced mushrooms. Take/cut the flowers off a piece of brocolli, cook until just tender. Add some sesame seed oil and a little oyster sauce, add salmon and cashews at the end.

I know I said prawns but I couldnt buy any so salmon was the sub.

Which way fillet

 There is a guy called Fibre Spider who does crochet on youtube. Which way fillet is one of his patterns. 

We couldnt find a written pattern but I have made four of these blankets using this stitch.

Its quite easy once its started, only two rows and if you can count to six, theen you're laughing. Six stitches between holes.

At crochet class last week our tutor was away she had rung in sick but was sending us text messages. One was that she wanted to know what we were all working on. I was doing this blanket using up some wool from other projects.

This is not the finished article, I used all of the blue then a ball of white so it measured 125cms square. Any bigger than this and it becomes heavy and hard to work on. 

I use the tutorial from Fibre Spider to start and then I'm off, this one took just over a week to do.

Big dog park

 Took a drive to Beerwah on the weekend to visit this big park. Lucy enjoyed it and met a couple of other dogs there. 

Cant see them from photo but there are play equipment fod the dogs to run up and over, even a tunnel. Lucy chased a ball for a bit. Her version of ball playing is ran after it, grab it and come back a little. She waits til someone comes to get the ball off her. 

When she had had enough, we walked back into town about 800 m and had coffee. We took Lucys travel bowl and water which she used but there were dog bowls and water at the cafe. We see that on a regular basis now.

Busy sewing week.

 One of the members was making book bags for Christmas but life got in the way and she didnt get them all done. They were cut out including Christmas puctures to put on the front. 

I had made a heap of them before so offered to finish them. Quite a bit of red fabric left over so I made a two year olds dress. Thought I took a photo of it but no, I didnt. Made two dresses this week using the police uniforms as the facings.

Then I moved on to shorts.

The three on the left were all made from pillow cases, used the last pieces of the two police shirts that I bought home. The two on top left have a dark pocket made from a polo shirt.

I had a piece of stretch material to make a Tshirt with neck and sleeve trim. 

I have also been making coloured panels out of the left overs to make quilts.

Banana Benders Hotel

 I had an apt up the coast last week and we decided to leave earlier and have lunch at this pub. It is nearly four years since our last visit.

It used to be an Ettamogga pub with an old jalopy on the roof, when it changed hands, the new owners couldnt get the license for Ettamogga so they had to change the look of it.

They went for an Aussie beach theme with kangaroos and koalas and surf boards.

Koalas and kangaroos

Huge light fittings made from different beer bottles. 

Flags dolphins and surf boards, there were a set of four above our heads, swinging as a fan.

Lunch out is good but I need to study the menu more, Warren ordered the seniors fish and chips, I choose an entree of chicken kebabs with a peanut sauce.

Warrens meal arrived with a small pavola, all part of the seniors apparently, he did offer me some but I declined.

Christmas stockings

 

These are the stockibgs I made for Uniforms for kids charity. I was given the red and green fabric plus sone fabric with the decorations. I drew out a pattern, doubled the fabric and then drew around it straight on to the material. The white ones with ginger bread men on was a table cloth that I bought cheaply at a bargain store. 

Made 28 stockings and 14 drawstring book bags. This week, I bought home some dark polo shirt fabric, probably make shorts out of those.

Book Bags

 This fortnight for uniforms for kids I am making Christmas stockings and book bags. I was given some red and green fabric and Christmas themed fabric.

They also gave me some scrap material. 

There was some talk about needing book bags with handles and drawstrings.

These are what I have made, great looking fabrics. The longest is making the handles.

So much thread of my floor, time to vaccumn again tomorrow, I only use the stick not the head to suck up thread and sometimes cut offs of fabric

Uniforms for kids

 Bit of a strange name but it is a charity that I have become involved in. I went alobg to a meeting/gathering and the founder happened to be there that day.

She is a retired police officer and she was cutting up her uniforms after retirement when she had a lightbulb moment. The fabric could be used to make kids clothes. Uniforms esp of police officers need to disposed of properly to avoid being used improperly.

Badges and insigina must be removed but the materials can be used. I came home with two police shirts to use for clothing, supposed to be 50% but a frill, pockets etc is acceptable.

A largèr sized dress using the button up plackard, saved me doing buttons and pockets.

Pillow case dresses with added frills

Shorts with pockets

Also made draw string bags. These will be used either as laundry bags or filked with goodies for disadvantaged kids.

The clothes are sizes 2 to ten.

The group mets every second week for a couple of hours, I have been to two get togethers now and each time I have helped stuff toys. One member takes the T-shirt fabric and makes soft toys. First lot were small bears with Hug me written them. This weeks were white snowmen with embrodered faces.

I came home with red and green fabric with a request for Christmas stockings

Lillys in the garden

 Our lillies are flowering everywhere it seems. We only gave three flower beds and there are lillues flowering in each of them.

This bed is actually Lucy's bed and Sherrols. We put it in years ago, bought thd bricks and good soil, it was going to be our vegie patch. We didnt think about the size of the bricks so it is smaller than we wanted. 

We planted out and waited for vegetables to grow. Great healthy looking tomatoes, then they died. Our neighbour over the back at the time, told us that there had been a large tree in what became our yard. Contractors took it out and then poisoned the ground before they built our house. 

We didnt use it for any other vegetables. Lucy likes to lay in there when its hit and she sometimes digs a little to get to the colder earth.

Warren had taken out a tree in the foreground and he put the tyre there to protect the hole that it left.

Plants seem to be growing okay in there now but still dont want to use it for vege.

Almost voting time

 Early voting opened on Monday fod ths state election which is being held in two weeks. We decided to go and vote today.

We are just inside an elective which runs further north so we had to vote as "an absentee voter" luckily though tgey gad all the paperwork for our area. I always take the how to vote papers off all of the members. Today tgey had a bin to collect them after, I hope that they reused them but probably not.

A very quick park, collect our voting papers, mark the boxes, post into our correct box and off we went again.

Warren had told ms that there was a sheltered cafe there, selling coffees. Not sure if it was for disadvantaged of unemployed people, we bought two coffees, it was take away only so we decided to sit in the nearest park and enjoy the weather.

I had never seen half grown 

Goslings before.

We waljed around the park after and at one point we stopped and leant on the railings, the ducks thinking we had something for them made a beeline for us. Turtles are on a rock out in the middle of the water

A window of shorts

 My latest sewing contribution.

Shorts dont hang as well as dresses. Think there were nine pairs of shorts, another three pillowcase dresses, these are so easy to make.

I have joined a charity for sewing, meet once a fortnight so I am committed to making things for them. More on that later.

Boxes in the park

 These seem to have appeared in the last few days. They are quite high, by mg reckoning about 12 to 18 feet above ground.

I stood on the path taking photos and without leaving the path, I could count twelve of these boxes.

It is planned to take out some trees because a larger water/sewerage pipe needed to be laid. We can only assume that the boxes for nesting birds are to make up for sone trees coming down.

These are the bare spots of where trees gave been removed. Lucy and I counted 23 trees gone from here. I counted, then did it again for Lucy, coming up with the same number.

Welcome to the world of diabeties

 Which I dont know too much about yet but learning. Last year my doctors sent me for a blood glusoce test which involed three lots of blood taken an hour apart.

My blood sugar levels didnt go back to normal as quickly as they should have, it would be monitored. I know that thirst is a symptom and about six weeks ago, I did start to experience sudden thirst so organised a blood test. The levels were higher than last year which offically made me a diabetic.

Dr gave me a script for one daily tablet a weekly injection, I also needed to have an eye test, another blood test and a wee test to check my kidneys and a further apt with her in two days, that was today.

I went to two chemists who both told me that the injection is unavailable and has been for some time. Saw a care plan nurse today then the dr again who just needed to sign off of nurses suggestions. Dr also suggested a chemist who may gave the injection, they did so I was able to get it and give myself the first dose.

So care plan is, two visits to exercise guy and a diabeties person in two weeks a follow up with dr in a month.

Basically stay away from sugar, chocolates, etc and high fat foods.

My blood sugar level was 6.4 today when I saw the nurse which I thought was pretty good.

This week I have seen Dr, eye dr, had blood test, had a hearing test, seen the care nurses, (they did suggest a dentist visit until I said I had false teeth) back to dr and tomorrow I am having a mammogram, not connected.

Cub club

 We own and travel in a Cub camper trailer and a couple of years ago Warren joined a group on facebook of Cub camper owners.

Its mainly for people to ask fir help or suggestions to fix or make things better when setting up or whatever.

A few months ago the organisor of the club advised of a get together not that far from us.

We said we would go and booked in tk the caravan park for two nights.

There was a plan for the weekend. We got there at lunch time and early birds had gone to visit a neighbouring town and cheese factory. After setting we decided to drive there as well but factory closed at three so we missed out there and did some other things so not a wasted trip.

Happy hour was at five and we met the other group members about 20 or 22.

Saturday morning was a viewing of each others Cub, they are all so different, some were very new and a bit bells and whistles.

Trivia in the afternoon followed by bare foot bowls then dinner at the club house. Two guys from Cub and they put up the money for every ones dinner, very nice and unexpected. 

A row of camp trailer, twelve in all.

A bowling green just behind  our camper.

Taking Lucy for a walk last night, saw a Jacaranda tree out in flower.

Crochet bag

 My third project finished but with some changes. I was going to make a hexagon bag which needed 13 squares. 

I had ordered some cotton yarn from Hobbi based in Denmark. I bought a pack of ten balks in shades from white to a dark teal.

Working it up, I figured that I wouldnt use the small hexabag very much so I would need more to make a square bag. Nine by nine for front and back and then three for each side, 13 jumped to 24. Putting it together, I had done 25, hum, do I make another one and make another chook? I used a bigger hook so the fill could have come out. Made two more squares for the base, I wasnt goung to worry about a base as it is lined with fabric, 27 squares made altogether.

I made straps from the same fabric that is the lining.

I expected it to have more of a definate shape and its bigger than I was thinking. I dont think it would hold lots of groceries, weight wise not size but very suitable to transport my projects to class.

Angels

 Another of my holiday projects finished. I had done the crocething part last week but had not put them together.

Today I got out the glue gun and twenty minutes was all it took to tranform circular pieces into angels.

All eight laid out and only one burn.

I put the glue on the first puece and smoothed it over with my knuckle. It does say hot glue and it was and now I have a blister on a finger. Lesson learnt, I didnt do that again.

 O

Here is a close up.

I think I am going to do a long chain and thread it through the wings so that they can be strung on a Christmas tree.

No thought of what I was going to do with them, I just saw a picture on line and wondered if I could make some.

Bush Turkey

 We went to North Lakes for lunch last week, they had an enclosed area as well as an open deck. The open deck looks out onto the lake.

We shared a plate of calamari salad and coffee.

We strolled around the lake after, thankfully the rain had stopped.

Warren saw the mound first and pointed it out to me.

It was almost a metre high and about four or five metres around.

This was the bird, still working on adding to the nest, he/she was very busy scratching leaf litter towards it to add to it.