Annies Crazy World

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and I wish one and all a Happy New Year.

To end the year I leave you with an image of a beetle that I photographed in the garden a couple of weeks back, the size (about an inch long) and shape as a Christmas beetle but even more vibrantly coloured than any I have seen before, he really is One of Natures Jewels.

Mine is the 3rd birthday I have blogged this month and that is less than half of my families October births.

I had a lovely afternoon visiting Sharon after which, with my niece, I mixed up a batch of cement for my castle (there is a castle update in the draft copy), I have been told how to mix it from the cement powder and sand rather than the premixed bags I have been buying and I just wanted to do a batch to see if it would work for me and it did.

I also spent a lot of time on the phone with family and friends. The image is my present from a friend who knows me well, knows that it is a long time since I had a pair of dressmaking sized scissors, it is ridicules to be cutting fabric with tiny scissors but whenever I do visit the Scissor Man, it is always the new embroidery scissors that I leave with…Maybe now that I have the proper scissors for the job, my embroidery scissors will stay sharp longer but I now have no excuse for not making the new curtains for my lounge…And with the scissors, a transplanting trowel, just the best tool for getting long rooted weeds out of the garden.

It has been a BEAUTIFUL Spring day and I spent most of it in the garden.

The photo is some of the Sweet Peas that I planted and recorded on my sampler on St Patricks day.

Today it is Sam’s Birthday, he cooked his own cake and after I picked my niece Lily up from school we iced and decorated it…again we were working with what I had in the house looking around for ideas I found the dinosaur button and when I showed lily she said we can put him in the middle and he can be standing on a hill with clouds in the sky and she was away.

Today is my daughters birthday, her brother cooked a cake for her and when I picked my niece up from school we decided to do a decorative icing…we had to work with what I had which was some tubes of icing for doing the writing, a bottle of icing flower shapes and a bag of mini M&Ms…It is hard to think of Jessie without thinking of the raiders so we picked out the team colours, the football is a button and to go with them I did a google image search for the flag, printed it and glued it to a skewer and a short time later we had a fun birthday cake for her.

On Thursday I went to the Craft and Quilt Fair with Sharon and another friend. The Canberra Quilters Exhibition was as wonderful as we have come to expect, a fabulous variety of exciting quilts all beautifully hung.

We met up with Doreen of Creative meanderings for Lunch and spent a small fortune on Linen for My Sampler, I also bought a few beads and charms and a new pair scissors.

On Saturday I went back out to the craft and quilt fair to meet up with a coupe of out of town fiends, had a lovely time catching up with them, found Sharon, who had gone back for a second look, and added some gold fabrics, some colour streams thread and some very cute miniature tools, that will fit nicely into my sewing box, to my purchases.

My visiting family have returned home after a wonderful visit, their time here flew by all to quickly…The house seems very quite without them here.

I particularly enjoyed the company of my nearly 10 year old nephew, he worked with me in the garden and helped us build the castle And when he showed an interest in my sampler I asked him if he would like to learn some stitching, I got an enthusiastic yes and he has started his own sampler, he is a delight to teach, he has a keen eye and good focus, I only had to show him once how to thread his own needle and knot the thread and he quickly mastered running stitch and backstitch…

It was then time to teach his little brother how to do running stitch, I don’t think little brother was understanding what he was doing but the instructions he was giving were good and it was a delight to see him wanting to share his new found knowledge.

Later that evening I was showing my brother the basics so that he could assist with the sampler when they get home, brother asked if he could have a strip of fabric to do his own sampler and a little later sister in law asked if she could have one too, I sent them home with their strips of fabric, needles and threads to get them started and we will correspond by email as to where on the net they can find instructions and may write the occassional post as a lesson for something that they want to learn.

As I said my nephew is nearly ten, his birthday is next week and we decided to have an early birthday party for him…having enjoyed his company while working in the garden I was inspired to make him a special cake that would remind him of his holiday in Canberra, and what better reminder than a castle cake…well it was really a castle ruin, I didn’t have much time to think it through so it really is a wonky castle but the overall effect still looked great.

My Mission is going well, on Tuesday Greg my tutor and the ABC 666 producer came out to my place, as it turns out my mortar is fine but there is a few extra things which Greg talked me through that will make sure that the upper part of my castle walls will be strong and safe…the edited pre recorded segment went to air this afternoon and it sounded great.

Greg also showed me how to split a brick using a bolster and hammer…I was pretty happy with my first attempt.

My life seems to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, after being sick for so many weeks I am now just about recovered and hoping that I havn’t taken on more than I can handle as I have a buzy week coming up…I have my brother and family (3 young children) visiting and in the mean time My Mission has been accepted.

you can read about the Mission at abc 666 radio afternoons.

My Mission is to learn basic bricklaying and how to mix strong mortar so that I can finish building the Castle in my front garden…When I heard the mission challenge on the radio I thought what a great opportunity that would be to learn the basics of bricklaying so that I could be sure that the upper part of my castle walls would be strong and safe and even though I was still sick at the time I felt compelled to reach for the phone to call in my mission and to have my mission accepted is very exciting.

I am not the only one that is excited my niece, who has helped me building the castle is also very excited and is having the day of school so that she can come into the radio studio with me when our Mission is introduced live on air.

To Listen in via live streaming…Log onto ABC canberra local radio (the live streaming button is 3/4 of the way down the left hand side of the page) at 1.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Friday 4th July 2008…Use this time Date Converter to work out what time that is where you live (Select Australia -Australian Capital Territory – CAnberra from the convert from drop down Menu and your own location from the convert to drop down menu)

There will be a pre recorded progress report at 1.30pm on Wednesday 9th of July.

And a live to air wrap up of my mission at 1.30pm Friday 11th July.

When we started building the castle in my garden it was just a castle but whilst building it we have had such fun and decided that we really need to have a castle party, I suggest that it would be nice to have it while my brother will be here in July so that Lily’s cousins to could share the fun, it also gives me a deadline to have the castle finished and I respond well to deadlines.

So party planning has begun…I am being guided by Lily as to what we need for a castle party, Pennants to decorate with are on her list and today we made Pennants…Lily went through my quilters cottons and pulled out the bright plain colours, I cut the shapes and then she zig zagged the edges and stitched a hem. After they were all sitched and ironed she arranged them into a colour pie.