Hello there. You’ll have to excuse my punctuation and other errors, because this post coming to you strictly from the voice recognition software of my phone. The pictures my Instagram account, and it looks this may be the only way that I can update the blog while we are Australia.it turns out that the internet connection we have here isn’t very good, in fact, it’s rather ancient.I’m not sure there’s much we will be able to do about it, so I’ll try my best to post updates, but…yeah.
our flight to Sydney left Los Angeles at 10 p.m. And they served dinner at midnight, which three of the kids were still awake for, and then they turn down the cabin lights and everyone on board went to sleep. I got 6 hours of horrible sleep, and everyone else seemed to do fairly well with their sleep. I woke up while we were flying over Christmas Island, but because it was the middle of the night, I didn’t see anything. I slept a bit while we flew over summer and Fiji, and then most of all of us were up and just watching movies on our little screens. The flying was easy. Like, the easiest part of it all.
while I had been excited about all the knitting I was going to accomplish on our big, long plane flight, I ended up knitting and sewing nothing at all. I was simply too exhausted. I guess with the swimming, the full day at Disneyland, I’m a general all-around poor sleep, I just didn’t have anything left over to concentrate. It felt like work to pay attention enough to understand a movie.
once we landed in Sydney, it was a mad rush to get to our connecting flight to Brisbane. We had two hours to make the switch, which included picking up our ten suitcases, taking it all through customs, checking the 10 suitcases into domestic flights, and then taking a bus to our departure gate on the other side of the airport. You know, while towing four crazy children. We made it to the gate about a minute before they started boarding the plane.
we then flew from Sydney to Brisbane, and then later took another flight from Brisbane to Bundaberg. the Bundaberg Airport is tiny. It’s just one conveyor belt for all the luggage, housed in the same room as the ticket counters. Michaels company’s office is at the airport, so our car was ready for us and a couple of people from his work walked across the street to greet us when we arrived. After the enormity of everywhere else we had been, it was so odd to be in such a small place. We loaded up our baggage, some in our people mover, which is what Australians call minivans, and the majority of it on a workmates flatbed pickup truck, and then we set off for our temporary home, driving on the left side of the road, which makes me think we’re going to die at any given moment.
and so we’re here. We will live at our current house for one more week, and then we will move into the house we will be staying in until our departure in December. The ocean is one block away, and we tried to walk down there at least once a day to enjoy the waves and the sand. The kids are loving it all! It is quite beautiful, the birds make very different cause here, the wind blows through the palm fronds, and the sunshine is warm and delightful.we’ve had only a few days here but already I love it quite a bit. Hopefully I can figure out a better way to update the blog, as this way has taken me far longer than I would like to admit. Until then, I am updating and posting to my Instagram account usually a couple times a day. Unless I can find another way to make this work better, that may be the route I choose to go with Laur while we are here. I hope your summers stateside are going well, and hopefully I can resolve this ancient internet issue quickly.
Oh, what a fun day! There were lots of lines, but the Brookelets handled it all fabulously–no meltdowns at all. We took a break around lunch to head back to the hotel to cool down and re-charge, and then we went back to the park until we could hardly walk anymore and just did not care if we missed the rest of the rides. Good times.
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| Dumbo Ride. Now that’s joy. |
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| Monkeyboy was SPEECHLESS when we took him to see Captain America. |
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| Heading back to the shuttle. |
What a fun day for us all. Hopefully we’ll be able to return again in the future…preferably in the off season though. It was a lot of sun, a lot of people, and a lot of lines. Perhaps an autumn or spring-time trip next time.
It’s so funny to me how satisfying it is to me to say that I’ve now taken my kids to Disneyland. I remember, during my childhood in Canada, talking with my school chums about Disneyland and how American kids must have so much fun all the time because they were able to go to Disneyland every summer because it was so close to all of them. Now that I have children, and they are very much American, I feel like I carry a subconscious “to-do” list for their childhoods, which included taking them to Disneyland. Complete! (Other random items on that list include Mt. Rushmore, Gettysburg, and Washington DC. My understanding of American childhood “necessities” has been completely informed by 1950’s era advertising.)
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| Waiting for our shuttle at LAX. |
Hello dear ones.
I fell victim to a little pre-moving anxiety last week, as showcased by last week’s post. This week I’m in a far better frame of mind, now that we have visas, plane tickets and hotel reservations for all phases of the big trip. THANK YOU so much for your “fast visas” prayers–it normally takes at least two weeks to get visas, ours came in less than a week. Prayer works, period. Thank you so much.
So yes, this is really going to happen! I’ve waited for some email to arrive all this time saying, “Sorry, we changed our minds,” and it never materialized. I’ve now re-focused that worry onto more productive areas, and we’re moving along at a snail’s pace in regards to packing, cleaning, and tying up loose ends. (FYI–kind of a pain in the neck to get six months’ worth of prescriptions filled at once!) As evidenced by this darling photo, our luggage arrived yesterday, and the kids found the event rather impressive. I had a mini heart attack when I opened my door and found it partially blocked by the boxes, but I recovered quickly. God bless our UPS delivery man…we’ve put him to work these past few weeks!
One of the nice things about all this prep is that I’m having to do a lot of waiting in random offices and other places, which grants me extra time to work on Junebug’s “Star Spangled Diamonds” quilt. I’ve completed ten full diamond units, which means I’m about 1/7 done with the piecing.
It looks like I started working on this on May 20, so I’ve averaging five a month. At that rate I should finish piecing this up in August 2015. Hmm. Oh well, the time will pass anyway, and I’d like to have a gorgeous quilt mostly pieced next August, rather than nothing. Then there will be assembly, quilting, binding…I don’t see this particular quilt reaching its finish until January 2016 or thereabouts. But it will be BEAUTIFUL and totally worth the time.
My knitting mojo has been returning, thank goodness, and I’ve put a little work into a few projects, and started THE project, my “unicorn” project that has kicked my butt three times over the past five years. I’m going to take it easy, only allow myself a certain number of rows per week, and if it sticks this time, I should finish it up in March. It’s a teeny little strip of knitting at the moment, so I’ll wait for something more impressive to show you a picture of in the coming weeks. (I get a little jealous of the full-time crafters sometimes…a full workday to work on creative pursuits? It’s almost enough to make me think about sending the kids to school…oh, how fun that would be!)
And then there’s the packing, of course. Always. 🙂
By this time two weeks from now, we should be on the other side of the world. That is weird to say.
I’m moving to Australia in a month, and my main concern is around crafts at the moment. I guess I just need something else to fixate upon, now that passport applications, check-ups, dentist appointments, and optometrist appointments are complete. I’m trying to get all my projects to whatever place they need to be before we leave, and I’m just about to the point where the constant reviewing of my plans in my head is starting to cause headaches, so I’m going to write it all down and let that list live somewhere else.
Current Projects:
This quilt serves as a caution against mindlessly window shopping at online fabric sites. I had no plans to make this quilt, but as I was clicking through SuperBuzzy’s website during Christmas break, I spotted a fabric…and in a glorious instant I saw this quilt in my mind’s eye. I quickly closed my web browser and ran away from temptation, telling myself that I had no time for making a quilt like that because I was committed to two other quilts for my children already, both seriously overdue.
But the fabric wouldn’t leave my brain. I stewed about the idea for two whole weeks, all the while reminding myself that I did not have the time to add another quilt to my to-do list.
But then my heart got involved and started pleading with my brain to reconsider. It was going to be a beautiful quilt, and it would be like creating art, and if I didn’t give my heart what it wanted, it refused to care about anything else.
Sigh…
Alright.
There are three different fabrics used for the fussy cut hexagons, all of which are from Superbuzzy. The music-themed one is Trèfle by Kokka, and then there’s a November Books print by Kokka, and a folksy print by Cosmo Textile Company. My selvages are pretty sliced up on the last two, or I’d give you more information.
Everything else, besides the solid blue, came from the stash. I think the gray polka dot on the back is a Riley Blake print, and the roses print is years upon years old. (I’m tremendously helpful, aren’t I?)
The quilting is a mix between free motion and walking foot. I stippled the string blocks, outline quilted the hexagons, straight-line quilted the white stripes, and then did FMQ scallops around the white stripes and borders of the quilt, with some feather hearts in the corners.
I’m super happy with it. I still stand by the opinion that I did not have the time to make this, but it’s OK in the end. Sometimes you just have to give your heart what it wants, despite logic and logistics. My heart is pleased.
Pattern: “Cat Tails Quilts” from Hexa Go-Go by Tacha Bruecher.
January = Cutting and basting hexagons
February = Piecing hexagon blossoms
March = Piecing string blocks, appliqueing hexagon blossoms to string blocks
April = Assembling quilt top and back (I could have gone faster on this, but I burned out a bit at this point.)
May = Quilting & binding
And that’s how you make a fussy, fussy, my-heart-won’t-settle-for-anything-else quilt.
Linking up with:
Presenting the beginnings of Junebug’s quilt. I had different plans for the quilt pattern when I committed to the project, but she got it into her head that I was going to do a “hexagon quilt” for her as well, so here I am, once again cutting out little shapes to hand stitch.
She thumbed through my various quilt pattern books and fell in love with the Travel Quilt in Quilting On The Go*, which is a big bunch of 60 degree diamonds arranged into stars and…blob box things. (Oh yes, I’m terribly technical in my crafting descriptions!) The top will be entirely hand pieced, which is rather intimidating; but I keep running into the problem of not having a portable project, so maybe this will be rather fantastic for me. The Rocket Age quilt blocks are just a touch too big to tote around anymore.
Junebug loves all things American flag, so when we saw the “Star Spangled” fabric line** we were unhesitatingly sold. I love that it is patriotic, but not in a military officer sort of way. She’s wanted a red, white, and blue quilt all along, but I couldn’t really find a suitable array of fabrics until this line popped onto the radar. It’s so perfect for a little person–more “summer holiday fun” whimsy than “united we stand” seriousness. (Both of which are good, but the latter is just a touch heavy for a kindergartner’s bedroom.) I’ve also thrown in some random fabrics from the stash, and am on the hunt for some more low volume with blue and/or aqua.
After cutting out the diamonds, I laid them out a bit to see if the idea in my head translated well into reality. I was worried that using prints on the white stars would be a little too much, but I think we’re going to be OK in that regard, especially if I heavily quilt the colored blob-boxes and outline quilt the white stars.
Junebug is so, so pleased. I guess it’s a rather perfect summer project. (I call the time from Memorial Day through Labor Day “Patriotic Season” because of all the flag-flying holidays that happen during that time.)
Now for lots of basting and piecing. Onward into summer!
*Quilting On The Go is a great book if you’re interested in learning more about English Paper Piecing. You can also check out the author’s blog, Life Under Quilts, for more EPP inspiration.
**”Star Spangled” is designed by Doodlebug Design and distributed by Riley Blake Designs. (I think I’ve developed a little crafting crush on Riley Blake, and their new sister line, Penny Rose Fabrics.)
I’ve been toting this project all around town–I’ve stitched at the park, I’ve stitched at Bluebird’s softball games, I’ve stitched in the car and at doctor’s appointments. All twelve of the hexagon blossoms are complete, and I’ve moved on to piecing the string-pieced foundation blocks. I’ve only sewn up two full blocks to applique the hexagon blossoms to, so when that second one is done I’ll have to sit back down at the sewing machine and whip up more string blocks. Seeing that I’m actively avoiding my sewing machine in order to spend more time outside before the weather climbs into the volcanic range of temperatures, I’m not sure the next string blocks are going to happen anytime soon. We’ll see.
I didn’t use any of the “advertisement” or “mini figures” prints in the hexagons, so they look extra special in the string piecing. I love, love, love this fabric line!* With Michael being the rocket scientist that he is, and doing his best to instill that love in his children; and my love for vintage and retro furnishings, this quilt is going to be so perfect for my little Monkeyboy.
It makes me laugh each time I look at the little rocket boy, stabbed in the head. Sorry not sorry.
With the size of the full string blocks measuring in at 16.5 inches, I’m feeling a little conspicuous when I’m stitching them in public. This might become more of an at-home project in the future. So cute!
*The fabric line is “Rocket Age,” designed by October Afternoon and distributed by Riley Blake Designs.
I’m going with a red polka dot binding. It’s stitched on the front, and right now I’m pressing and pinning for its second stitching. I’m leaning towards machine stitching the second time, rather than my usual hand stitching. I’ve not done that before, but I keep telling myself that it’s not cheating and that it will look just as good done by machine.
I think I might go back in and add another row of quilted scallops in the border. Too much unquilted space for my liking.
I’m not a big fan of being tied to my sewing machine when the weather is nice, so this part is taking forever because I keep avoiding it so I can go outside instead. Perhaps hand binding is in my future? Hee hee.
That Crafty Cara 