Em's niece turned 21 on Saturday so we all headed over to Mansfield for lunch. Perfect sunny day, lots of laughs. Mansfield is "snowy" country & where much of The Man From Snowy River movie was shot... anyone still remember that film?

21! I'm just starting to get old enough to think...wow, my 21st was quite some time ago and it's funny, cos when I made my speech I forgot to thank Mrs Donohue for my 21st cake! Thank you Mrs Donohue, it was beautiful. I remember we had my party in the local hall, lots of 80s music and after, my friends and I went dancing at Metro nightclub in Bourke Street....my hair was big and frizzy.

Anyhoo. Promised some craft books shots: here they are: This is the first of four books. The elephant was very easy to make - small, but not too small to whip up on the sewing machine. Plan to make more.

A Lovely Little Getaway With Harbour Views...

Em and I went to Sydney for the weekend. Em for work (yuk), me for fun (yay!). I jumped off the MonoRail and happened to see a sign pointing towards Kinokuniya Bookstore. I was curious...who knows - maybe they stock some of those lovely Japanese Craft books. Do they? DO THEY? Yes they do.

The shop is massive. I was directed to the Japanese section and found literally 100s of craft books. I spent over an hour just looking, then I started "selecting". It was like the best Craft Dream ever - the one where you wake up and find yourself in Japan surrounded by outstanding Japanese Craft Books. Will take more pics tomorrow. Oh and yeah, the rest of the weekend was fab, too.

The sun came out and bathed us in brilliant sunshine while we drank G&Ts, looking at the bridge and harbour.

Beautiful photos by Emma.

She's crafty. She's funny. She's talented. She's very generous. She's CRAFTAPALOOZA!!!!

Here's Nicole's end of a Crafty Swap. Please excuse the bad photography but if I waited for a ray of sunshine, well, it would be ages. Aren't they amazing?

Each dress is so well made; tiny neat hems, even smaller buttons and loops. I love them. Thanks Nicole. I think Sylvia and Kiko look smashing.

The shredded paper was a script (not the original, I hope) of one of my favorite Hitchcock movies, Vertigo

Spring Fling

Blossom Tree in the back yard - two days ago.

Shhh. If we're very, very
quiet we might catch
sight of the rare
Tobiascaninius in its
natural habitat...this
solitary, heat-seeking
creature enjoys scratches
behind the ear and
sleeping on cozy rugs by
the fire. Placid by nature,
the Tobiascaninis has
been seen gnawing on
bones and jumping great
heights in order to cap
ture his beloved doggy
treats.

Say hello Toby.

Spring Has Sprung

I know it's hasty but look! The sun shone all weekend and the flowers in the garden seemed to just - arrive.

More Swap LovE!

Meet Bernadette who flew all the way from Kansas as part of a swap with the talented Sweet Nellie. Isn't she divine?

Just a little Crafty

Finally had enough ime and natural light to do some more sewing. I've been rushing stuff lately and it shows. This time I approached my projects with a resolve not to mash things together with a bit of thread and call it "craft". This time I even used a ruler instead of holding up a piece of fabric and hacking into it free-hand like Edward Scissorhands. Very satisfying.

This is a card I made for little Inez, the daughter of my dearest friends ...who lives all the way over in Brussels. The centre image is from a an old pack of cards I found in an second hand shop in Daylesford.

The little bird I did weeks ago - but I sewed it up on Saturday.

Wonderful Weird Bunny Swap.

Lovely swap with Weird Bunny...it arrived swathed in pretty, blue fabric - full of wonderful treasures. Thanks again, WB!

Sometimes I just can't find the right book to read. Nothing holds my interest. I pick them up, flick the pages and think "Nah". It drives me crazy and I drive people in bookshops crazy because they see me between the shelves, standing on one leg and then the other, chewing my nails, screwing up my face and they ask me "Can I help you?"...and I say something silly like, "Oh, I'm just looking for something good to read". Anyway - now is not one of those times - I'm in the middle of finding about 15 books really, really interesting and in a perfect world I'd take a four weeks off work and hire a beach house and just read and walk. Can't complain - the upside of communting into town each day means I get two cosy hours on the train.

Reading this made me feel a bit better. I've never been that bad.

So right now, this is what I can't wait to either continue with, start or finish:
Florence Broadhurst by Helen O'Neill

Bleak House by Charles Dickens

The Ruins by Scott Smith

Voices From Slavery ed Norman Yetman

Emil and Karl by Yankev Glatshteyn

RedWork

Finally got round to trying some Red Work.I found the birds on Martha Stewart Living. Anyway, here's my effort. I'm going to turn the bird in the cage into something...no idea what. The pattern is from this fantastic Japanese caft book, pictured above.

Harper Lee

Like millions of people, To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is one of my all time favorite reads. I usually re-read it once a year - in summer because it's one of those hot climate books. I don't know why I love it so much; so many themes, so many remarkable characters - the book just seemed to seep into my life and never really left.

I'm often suspicious of unauthorized biographies but couldn't help but get excited when I saw a copy of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

I'm only about fifty pages in but I'm really enjoying it. He's done a lovely job of describing Lee's early life growing up in Monroeville, Alabama. There's always been a rumour that Lee's childhood friend, Truman Capote - helped her write TKAMB and then later, Lee helped Truman write In Cold Blood...so looking forward to what he has to say about that.

I nearly fell off my perch when I saw the July edition of Oprah - inside is a letter written by Miss Lee to Oprah - talking about where her love of words and books came from. It's only about 500 words but it has that same wonderful cadence that's in her book.

I love the film too - I think it's one of the best book to screen adaptations ever done.

Here's a comprehensive site about Harper Lee, the book and her life.
If you haven't read To Kill A Mockingbird - I envy you.

Days of wine and ...

The mornings are still dark and cold but the weekend was full of weak, winter sun and if you stood in the right spot, closed your eyes and tilted your face towards it...you could almost feel the next season on the way.

We had friends up for the weekend and had lunch at a winery not too far from us...Tahbilk. It's a stunning spot with a great cafe over-looking a 8km long Billabong. We took a boat ride up the river and walked back through the wetlands then made our way to the cellar door...down, down a steep, wooden staircase to see the massive oak barrels of wine, like the hull of a huge ship. You could smell the spices in the wood. After a few tastings (''Arhhh. I theenk I'll just trryy one more Chrazzz'') we headed home to sit by the fire.

I did do a bit of craft - just slip stitched a red bird. Not sure what to do with it now...but will take a pic soon.

Fantastic Billabong photos by Em.

Robot Love

Picked these two rust buckets from the Camberwell market a few weeks ago. I've always loved Robots - takes me back to Lost In Space WARNING! WARNING! WARNING! Will Robinson...

Congratulations Cascade, book is yours, thanks to Pixie and Weird Bunny. Happy cooking, Cascade!

I don't usually log on over the weekend so I was thrilled to find so many comments. Thanks so much for the feedback and the birthday wishes. Spent this weekend in town -while Em and I are 72ks from the cbd, my sister reads the time by looking our her apartment window at the clock on top of the Forum theatre! Up early Saturday and had breakfast at the ACMI (Aust Centre for the Moving Image) cafe. Then wandered over the the Picasso Exhibition at the National Gallery...which I loved. Between 1935 and 1945, Picasso painted his muse, Dora Maar over and over and over...it was nice to see the Weeping Woman again, too. Saturday night we saw River Queen, a new film made in New Zealand by Vincent Ward. I really, really wanted to love this movie but it was long and repetitious. The scenery, however, was brilliant and Samantha Mornton and Cliff Curtis were great. Sunday morning we went to the fantastic ReadyMadeMarket, which was on as part of the Melbourne Design Festival. I had a feeling it was going to be great and it was. There was a massive turn out and each stall and loads of people jostling to get a look at stuff. Jessie Tucker, Penelope Durston, Emma Coast, Pipduck, Little Salon to name a few. Birds were everywhere: on t-shirts, stationary, vases, jewellery - lots of trees and ships, buttons, too. So glad I went. It's only on once a year and I'm going to start saving for the next one. Made some more button rings (and an owl brooch) and finished off the weekend by watching the BBC version of Bleak House and woke up to hear Italy had won the World Cup. Yayyy.
Here are some pics of the weekend. PS: I've had a few emails about the rings - so I thought I'd sell them for $10 each. Email me at spindle2@tpg.com if you're interested. x