which Jane Austen heroine are you?

Click on the image to take you there.
Apparently I'm Elinore Dashwood - practical, down to earth with emotions that run deep although I'm not sure about being tremendously sensible!

I came across the quiz on this site while doing a bit of blog surfing. Don't really have time for that today but hey, how could I resist!

So which are you?

chain piecing is nice

From the moment I learnt chain piecing I never looked back, it made the building of a quilt so much more achievable and in a shorter space of time. I remember the first course I went to (all those years ago!) which was organised by my quilt group and being told off because I reversed at the start and finish of every seam!

The baby quilt I'm making at the moment has more information here and is a great simple quilt to make, so far at least. I'd love to hand quilt this one but it would be third in line in that department so machine quilting it is, again using the KISS method (Keep It Simple Stupid!)How's this for pretty groovy. Ant has been keeping an eye on Ebay to see what else can be bought for a Featherweight and maybe build up a little stock pile for my birthday (bless him). He showed me this last night and it nearly blew me away. As most of us would know the older machines only do a straight stitch, so this attachment actually grips the fabric and moves it from side to side - thus creating a small satin stitch. So cool. There's also a similar type of attachment for zig zag. How's that for lateral sewing!

it was seafood heaven

Unfortunately I never managed to take a photo during the entire weekend so I've had to rely on an old one showing Ant bringing in the fishing net. What I'm trying to show in this photo is the expanse of Great Bay right on our doorstep, which is where we went a-fishin'.

We took the boat out, oh yeah, the boat -
Our new pride and joy (Lucy likes the smell of it, that's about it for her!). We've been wanting a boat for a while and this little trouper is just perfect for the two of us to dive and fish from - AND - I don't get sea sick in it. (Oh and Shannon, there's the photo of the container in the back yard I told you about!)

Anyways, we took the boat out on Saturday and Sunday. Diving for scallops first and fishing for flathead second. We love this fish, cook it in so many ways it still tastes wonderful and there's an abundance of good size fish to be had. I think the boat has paid for itself already!!

A lot of the scallops were undersize but we still managed to bag ourselves a good catch. In Tasmania the scallop rules are 50 per bag per day and 100 in your posession - we fell a fair bit short of this but that doesn't matter. If you're caught flouting the law then the authorities will take your away fishing licence, your boat, your car and whatever else they deem appropriate. So with this in mind most people are pretty good.

And of course we had fresh scallops and flathead for dinner Saturday night, cooked over the camp fire - perfect!

meet the Eric's

Sorry for the dodgy photo, I don't like using the flash but at least you get the general idea.

I've had the Eric's for a few years now and have seen many house moves. A Hobart woman made and sold them at Salamanca Market, then she went and had a baby so that seemed to be the end of that - otherwise I probably would've bought more! They're all made from recycled wood and metal, for instance the body of the rooster is made from a skirting board and some of the wings are from corrugated iron sheets - I like that.

They are all named Eric after a Monty Python sketch from Monty Python's Previous Record, which I can still recite word for word -

"Hello, I'd like to buy a fish licence please"

"A what?"

"A licence, for my pet fish, Eric"

"How did you know my name was Eric"

"No no no, my fish's name is Eric. Eric the fish, he's an halibut"

.......you get my drift....... (the sketch is called 'Eric the half a bee')

Happy and safe Easter one and all!!

i heart tunic tops

I'm standing here to hide the cobwebs on the wall and it seemed like a good idea at the time. This is the third top I've made with this pattern and I love it, and the culottes. The black fabric is a good ol' cotton drill, but the red print is a linen/cotton blend from Spotlight - which I bought the last 1.5 metres of. I wouldn't be able to wear the print on it's own but it works perfectly as an accent/contrast.
And of course there needs to be somewhere for the phone!

Oh and the strapping on the ankle is because I rolled it, quite badly this time. It's been a week and a half now, it doesn't hurt too much unless I leave the bandage off for a while. I've rolled, twisted and even fractured my skinny ankles so many times (though only fractured once!) you'd think they'd just be rubber now. She'll be right.No it's not a foggy winters morning, this is smoke on a Tuesday afternoon. Bushfire smoke. I think most of the state was covered in this foul smelling stuff. Fortunately today the wind has turned and the temperature dropped - you'd never known it was like this yesterday.

Other news of note can be seen on my quilting blog - so exciting!!

maybe my dream will come true

I nearly had palpitations when Ant showed me this the other night on the Armitage page. It's coming up for auction next Wednesday (19th) and I'm only hoping that anyone else there doesn't know how much a Singer Featherweight is worth, ie: up to $1,000 depending on what their condition is.

After work today I'll be stopping by for a look-see and to verify it's working condition, fortunately Armitage is only a hop-skip-jump away from my work. Also, unfortunately Armitage is only a hop-skip-jump away from Ant's work too - the man loves an auction! He wouldn't have told me about it and if he was the successful bidder would present it to me for my birthday, but he wasn't sure if it was a Featherweight and needed to check. So now my savings might suffer instead. Still, it's a worthy cause.

You'd think I'd have enough sewing machines by now, but this one is really the ultimate. It's interesting to note that in my Flickr account, The Thug has had the most views and I don't know why, as people haven't left any comments - go figure.

Well, better go. Got a sewing machine to drool over......

and about those oysters....

News just in - the barge is found! (so no need to keep looking Alice!) Ant had a phone call from another grower near by, apparently it's washed up in the northern part of Great Bay - so it never even made it into the channel. *Phew*

So the above photo is of Ant and Debbie (the other partner in the lease) using the new barge, works a treat. We just have to get hold of a suitable/adaptable trailer for it as this one is for a boat and doesn't quite fit the bill.

For the first time I took the camera out onto the water with me, securing it around my neck with some string and stuffing it down the front of my waders. I enjoyed getting some close up shots.

There's a lot to see at low tide, and nothing to be seen at high tide - except for maybe the top of a tall post and the boundary markers.

At home again and I've finished the roman blind for the dining room. I've posted the photo on Flickr so go have a look-see. Only one more to go, yay!