Sewing help

On a forum that I belong to, a lady asked about some sewing help. Long story short, she visited on Monday with sewing machine and what bits and bobs she had. Now she had said that her hubby had bought her an embroidery machine eight years ago but she had never used it, I have one but it is a different brand but I hoped I could help in some way.

I had some material cut out for her to make a shopping bag. Nothing worse than sitting at a machine for a few hours and all to show for that time in several rows of stitching which do nothing. I had told her that I would help her make that and then she would get the feel of the machine and then move on to other projects when she felt comfortable.

All well and good, pinned up and ready to sew. When she said she had never used it, she was telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She wasn't sure how to thread it and neither did I, luckily she had brought the manuals as well, four of them. twenty minute went by and yes, we think it was done right.Next was the bobbin, she remembered being shown that and so that was much quicker.

First seam looked good but it was cobbled underneath, try again and again, same. we both decided that it was probably the tension, so we read up on that, didn't make any difference. Finally I said that maybe the machine should have a service. My machine is seventeen years old, is used on a regular basis and never been serviced but all machines are not the same. Instructions did keep saying, must only use such and such cottons. Nether of us really wanted to admit defeat, after all it was only a little machine for goodness sake. J said "I might change the cotton as I dont know what brand this one is" yep i was happy to her to give it one more go.

Well blow me down, it then sewed perfectly, who would have thought a brand of cotton would make all the difference. We has spent about an hour and a half before getting a decent stitch from it. We didn't get the whole bag done as her husband called to collect her but I will go to her place next week and hopefully we will have a better outcome. At least now she can thread the machine, both top and bottom and sew with it.

For one who sews a lot and has for many years, I was unprepared for a complete novice but what J said was that she didn't use it and then she kept putting it off and it had become a bit of an elephant in the room.

Pre-loved sale

We (our red hat group) had an invitation to attend this and also sell if we wanted to do so. It was advertised as moving on some Red Hat clothing or accessories and maybe replacing, so it was only reds and purples.

I offered to man the stall as it were and a few of our members had things that they either didnt like any more or didn't fit any more. I know that I have bought things just because it was purple but find that I don't wear.

Lots of red and purple and food, noise and chat. I sold a pair of shoes that I had bought in China because I liked them, not because they fitted me, they didn't! Luckily one of our member bought them so hopefully I will still see them occasionally Morning tea was supplied with the entrance fee of $5, I was expecting a cup of coffee and a scone but no, it was a scone, jam and cream, a cup cake, two different slices and a biscuit, oh boy I didn't need lunch!.( I actually didn't need all of that but funnily enough the plate was emptied.)

Usually its 'like father,like son"

Or however the phrase goes. in this case, its grandfather or Grampy.(Warren)

Youngest grandson is staying a little while with us and this morning I was doing something and AD says to me, "Nanna, come look" "What am I looking at?" (yes, I know excellent English!). He says "I cant tell you, you have to come." So being the most wonderful Nanna that I am (very tongue in cheek) I go with him. In the lounge room he had all the toys lined up that he wanted to play with and the "baby" toys were off to one side. I had told him last night that he could help sort out what toys we would keep and which ones we would donate to someone else. "Well done" I said before wandering back to whatever I had been doing.

Morning tea time and warren decided that he would take his outside, he came back inside and said "You'll never guess where a cane toad is!" "No, I probably wouldn't, where is it?" I ask, "No, you'll have to come and look!" Humm where had I heard that before? (cane toad was in a 5 inch (13cms)  square pot of mint, hunkered down so only his eyes and a little of his back was showing, the dirt on the floor was the give away) Yuck, wont be using any of that mint any time soon!

Dayboro

The bakery at Dayboro was calling and as we had cancelled bike riding for the weekend, it was the ideal time to go. Its one of our favourite places although in saying that, its about two and a half years since we have been there for lunch.

The bakery is quite a large building in the main street with a sheltered verandah to devour the goodies, very pleasant to sit and watch the traffic go by, a few birds drop in too..

This was lunch the weather 

was coolish and a pasty and coffee really hit the spot. Dayboro also has a great little craft shop, this is craft that have been created by members of the community and it is also run by those volunteers. I have bought a few things from there before but yesterday nothing really spoke to me and said "Buy me!" I did buy some pickles and tomato chutney. I was amazed at the number of eating places and this was outside another cafe.

In the photo, the bottom line is a bit hard to read but it says "and False Advertising" got to give them ten points for having something different.

Sleep or lack of!

From a young age, I have suffered from not being able to go to sleep. This seemed to be about once every six weeks or so, nothing that I worried about particularly. Later on in life,I would spend  many hours planning things and therefore my brain would be going nineteen to the dozen. My sleepless nights were getting closer to together, maybe to one every two or three weeks.

About fifteen years ago, I was with a couple of friends and suddenly they were talking about something that I wasn't aware of, the subject had changed I didn't say anything to them but it appeared to me that I had zoned out. It worried me that I may do that while driving so arranged to see my then doctor.

He put my mind at rest, saying that yes probably my body was tired and as i was relaxed, it shut down for a nano second he suggested no coffee late at night and some sleeping tablets to catch up on my sleep. I didn't like the idea of sleeping tablets until he assured me that they were natural and non addictive.

Most times, I don't have coffee or only decaf and I do keep the natural sleeping tablets if I need them. The two weeks I have had three nights a week of not sleeping, one night was okay i got a good nights sleep but the next was a shocker, I do read a lot of books during my night awakeness. I had run out of Sleep tablets, was it mind over matter, possibly.

I bought a new bottle and decided to take the tablets for 3 or 4 nights and get up at seven each morning, often if  don't get to sleep then I will sleep in a bit which doesn't make for a good sleep pattern. I did that three nights with tablets, slept well, alarm went off at seven am no more tablets two nights slept well, last night I was sleep and something woke me at midnight, I guess I had been to sleep for 30 or 40 minutes but the body decided that I had had enough sleep so i ended up awake for a couple of hours.

When I cant sleep, I lay for awhile and then I get up,(f I don't get up then my mind gets very active and I will have full on conversation or plan a full on menu) pay a visit to the bathroom, make a hot drink and read for 30 minutes or so then try to go to sleep again, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I know that I am tired now, late afternoon but I will stay up until my normal bedtime and hopefully i will sleep okay tonight.

Pink Buns

One of my favourite things to eat but I know that if I am trying to weight then they are not the best for me. (I always seem to be trying to lose weight!) A couple of weeks ago there was an advert on TV regarding these, which made me decide to buy some and put them in the freezer for afternoon teas. If Warren and I share one then they are only 145 cals so ok for a snack. The pink finger buns are part of a fund raising for National Breast Cancer, any of these buns sold by Baker's Delight, a large percentage of the price will go towards NBC and research.

This poster was on the train this morning. The buns are on sale until the middle of may and there is a Mothers day fun run on Sunday 11 May. I will stick with the purchase of the buns!

Yum! They did go straight into the freezer to be rationed. 

The end of April

I made it! There were times when I didn't that I would manage to make it. I agreed to do two challenges in the month of April.

 One was called the Ultimate Blog challenge and that was to blog every day for a month. I remember writing on a face book page that it was day 6 and I had no idea what I was going to write about for that day nor the coming days but I did complete it. Some days were better than others, some days the words just flowed, there were other days that I really did have to think about it. Going into a new month, the challenge has finished and I may continue to blog every day or I may not, I do enjoy the writing but its whether or not I have something to write.

The other challenge was called a photo a day and there are prompts for each day to lodge a photo that fits the prompt. Yesterdays was called "something silly" and this was my photo for the day.

I made several of these (its a bunny, can just see the ears and whiskers) on the eve of Easter and delivered them to foreign teachers when we were living in China. Just a bit of fun and silliness to remember Easter than people at home would be experiencing. There are 15000 people from around the world who join in with PAD (photo a day) and there are some fantastic photos being generated. It is a closed FB page and people need to be a member. I will be continuing this month, some of the prompts for this month are Pet, Create, side view and blue. This was fun and made me think about what I was taking and why, I used some old photos and took some new ones as well for a particular purpose in mind.

During the month, I also finished editing the book that I wrote last November, I didn't touch it for two months and then I did a couple of chapters every few days. My darling daughter is going to do the final formatting part of it and then it will be sent to the publishers. I need to find a cover pic for it.