And so say I.

Caitlin Moran's new book Moranthology is out. I haven't found a hardcopy locally yet (unsurprisingly) but after an epic battle with the Google Play app on my phone it graciously took my $15.99 and let me read it.

And that's why I did nothing this weekend. Maybe. I also drank so much that I can't remember most of the rest of this weekend, but I'm sure that's a random, uncorrelated coincidence.

Weirdly, getting laryngitis the other week has improved my singing voice.

Almost inevitably, whenever I write up a long comment to an instagram picture, the net drops out while it's uploading and I end up having to re-type it. Fortunately, even though the net dropped out three times while I was trying to upload this photo, it eventually got there.

This jacket was actually made out of a 99c polar fleece blankie I got from the salvos. It’s a pale beige, scragly, badly sewn test jacket I made to work out where the zipper would sit. But instagram makes it look like it should be worn by a fucking rock star. Now I wanna go buy some gold lamé and make one like this one…

Since I want to make this jacket in some nicer (read: more expensive) fabrics than just polar fleeces, I'd also like for them to have zip closures. And while zips are easy in bags (since they're all on straight edges) on a jacket they're a bit tougher. Especially when that jacket hasn't actually been designed to have a zipper closure. Plus, since the faux-leather won't really be able to be pinned, I wanted to try sewing it without pinning. So I got a cheap polar fleece (quite thin polar fleece, admittedly) blanket from the Salvos because it wouldn't matter if it all turned crap, and had a go. It worked well for the most part, but I'm pretty sure it's impossible to do a set-in sleeve without at least a little bit of pinning - I did it with 4 pins and was super-proud of myself.

I'll re-draft the front so that the zipper will go inside of a seam and since I'll be lining them the outer zip will go in a lot neater too.

Does anyone know where I can get some pale gold suiting weight stretch sateen? I wanna be a rock star.

The Plan

The plan for tonight was to finish work at 10.30, go to the gym and come home home to try to have an early night. I start at 12 tomorrow, and that's early for me. But I forgot my headphones, and EmmStaff, who is one of the most gorgeous, tall, athletic, pretty, smart, funny, insecure 17 year olds I know, was going to try to sneak into The G underage, and wanted me to come with her. And because I adore her even though I really should hate her, I agreed. It was her best friend's 18th and that was going till midnight and I figured that would give me time to finish the half-sewn olive green version of my fantastic jacket.

Long story short, she got in, we danced, I had two drinks, there was some country boys in there, I decided I'd have a crack if the opportunity presented itself, it did, I've got it even in town, and then I ninja'd away to take Emm home, and came home myself. It's no later than I would have been up anyway, I had a fun evening with a different crew, and it was a good reason to finish off my jacket, which I'd be procrastinating on for no apparent reason.

What's more, because there's no-one else up this end of the house, I figure'd I'd have a go at getting a picture of it, since the dark green's probably easier to photograph than black.

I think what this picture best shows is that my fingers are freakishly long, and that the bathroom mirror really needs a clean.

When all else fails, sit on the floor in the passageway with the tall mirror leaning on someones door and take wonky photos, and wait for instagram to fix them.

Thanks instagram.

Because it is already after 5am, and there are still tumblrs that need to be read...

Today there was sunshine. It was terribly strange, but then, I have barely talked for 11 days now, so my very existence has started to go a bit weird. I find myself regularly going and laying in odd places, staring at the light fittings or the bit where the door meets the roof, just because, as a person who is made up of words, and who has no words, life is weird. Also, did I mention it's 5.30am? Just as well I have no voice and got my shift replaced for tomorrow.

Back to the point, it was sunny today, and I went into work late (they'll let you be in charge with no voice, but not actually serve the customers) so I had time to go out and take some pretty pictures.

This quilt is so unlike all my other quilts that I almost love it the most, because it's so unashamed to let it's freak flag fly.

This is the holiday quilt, hand quilted by me, while I was high on the glue fumes from spray basting together, in a motel room in Adelaide, the layers of pre-pieced plaid, pink polar fleece (batting) and wool coating (backing). And I hand sewed on the binding too, which is actually woven polyester tape.

This is the Carried Away Miniquilt. Some point soon I want to re-do this in the solids I originally designed this to be in, and as a nine-patch.

The block itself is what I came up with for the GenQ block design competition, and since the magazine is out now, I think I can do my excited squeally they picked it!

This is the original colours. I only had enough to make this one block, which got turned into a cushion, which was promptly stolen by Casey, and then by Maddy. I also made a really hideous one, in a selection of other new DS fabrics, that I tentatively titled when bad things happen to good fabrics.

Naturally, one of the girls at worth thought it was kinda funky when I showed her the photo, so I've quilted it ready to eventually turn it into a cushion for her.

Huh...

Kindly, in lieu of absolutely nothing, blogger has started working on the desktop again. Which is lovely. It might be to do with the new version of firefox. I'm not sure how I feel about it; the new tabs bringing up old tabs is a bit weird, but it pales in comparison to the changes on firefox for android, which left it pretty much unuseable to me today until I worked out that tabs were now at the top.

I'm dumb sometimes. Of course tabs are at the top. It was weird when they were on the side. This makes more sense. But it took me ages to figure out.

Still, it was easier than working out the maths for the whole HSTs-at-the-end-of-rectangles thing. But I've got it down pat now. For centimetres at least. When it comes to inches, I'm as useless as I was when it came to finding a new tab.

Late, as usual.

Just one favourite thing this 5am Saturday.

It's a working phone handset you plug into your 3.5mm headphone jack on your mobile. I bought my sister a blue one on the same order and now have to buy 4 more for friends and relatives that want them.

Just type "retro mobile handset" into an ebay search if you want one - I paid $15 and got free postage, but I've since seen cheaper ones.

Progress

I think I might be bored with HSTs now. I finished the top of the christmas quilt and pressed it all and thought, well, that was fun, time for something new.

Except, well, I can't really start anything new, since I have a whole lotta stuff still to be done in the next week. I did pretty good today though - after I finished the top I got it basted and quilted - now all it needs is trimming down and binding. I've already got the strips cut, and I've got the strips cut to bind that red and green one I made a few weeks ago to see how much I disliked wool batting, but I'm puting it off. I hate binding.

I got the other three christmas sacks finished today too. We always used pillow cases as a kid and then we would lug the pillow cases around to wherever christmas was that year, so this year I have made us some ones in pretty christmas fabric that are still the size of pillow cases, but have squared off bottoms and handles. Handles are handy, as the name suggests.

I made the lining for Casey's bag, and devoted some time to berating myself for deciding to make hers a fancy bag.  Bags without pockets and with handles that go from one end to the other instead of up the sides are much, much easier, but she wants a little bit of leather from the back of some jeans sewn to hers and for whatever reason, that makes me feel like the bag has to be as fancy as the pants it came off of.

And I made a stubby holder, just to see if I could remember how to do it. I can - yay me!

Unfortunately, at some point while I was doing all this my phone went flat, so I couldn't take any pictures. It's charging now though, so I'll take a heap in the morning.

Yay, random...

Can I do my new phone as my favourite thing two weeks in a row? Probably not. Also, it's taking its sweet arse time sending these photos to itself, and that's annoying.

So, random stuff it is.

I'm quite liking this new Charlie's Angels, even if other peeps are dissing it. The three girls look like they are having fun, and I tend to be an immediate fan of anything where the actors appear to be enjoying themselves. Also, it airs in the US on a Thursday, which is great for me, because I don't work Fridays and it gives me something to watch in the afternoon.

I'm enjoying re-watching Angel from the start with Casey. It's a big undertaking, about 75 hours all up. I'd kinda forgotten about the earlier episodes, tending to just re-watch the latter ones. But it's cool, like being 17 again. Only with the spoiler alerts embedded in my brain.

I really like geocaching. If the weather clears for an hour or so tomorrow I'm gunna take Maddy to find one. Again, any of you with Android, go get the app, and while away an afternoon.

I like making up stuff. Having a good solid think about it and then just hoping that my thinking won't let me down. Sometimes it does, but today (well, last night was when I did the thinking and most of the measuring) it all came together okay. Except I made a little booboo and the time it took to unpick it meant I missed getting to the post office by 5 minutes. Now I'll have to wait till Monday to find out what I get when I hand over my two blue cards.

I figure I can show these, since it's an unplanned, receiver-informed auxiliary present. And my phone has finally sent them through.

Perfect present to bring to a horror party. The zipper should square out once it's got a tablet in it, assuming of course that the tablet fits. I've no idea, since I guessed what tablet it actually was (well, Toshiba appear to have only released one, so I should be okay) and downloaded the specs from the internet.

This is kindof like trick photography - that's my 7" CE tablet in there. It's almost the right width, but you can't push it in further than the zips go down the side.

I don't really like using other people's plans, except as inspiration. This, technically, is a box pouch. Except, well, not really any more. So for that matter are my gym bags, the morning after the night before/geocaching bag (it got reappropriated) and Kelsey's backpack. Go look at it, it's a very versatile design. I like it.

I like going in to work and telling everyone how much I miss them. Cause I'm a massive loser like that.

I like mentally dissing people's cars. I don't do it to their face, obviously, but some people, I think about the cars they have and I just can't help thinking up insults. Sometimes I'm not a nice person. And am I a worse person for enjoying not being a nice person, or a better person for admitting it and being true to myself?

I like the idea of headbands, even though they give me a nasty headache when I do actually wear them.

I like tissues. Can you imagine how nasty it would have been before tissues. All that fabric, covered in snot. Terrible.

I like vliesofix. The 30cm wide stuff is on clearance at spotlight for $2 a metre, so I got 15. It's useful stuff.

I like buying pink trackies ($8 at Dimmeys) just to make a friend jealous. I'll probably only ever wear them once, just to annoy her. I like a dark bottom to an ensemble.

I like 3.30am.

Ooohhh, Aaahhh...

Today, I bought a new phone. After spending at least half an hour a day for the last two weeks looking at damn near every phone on the internet, today I wandered into the shopping centre, went to one of the three phone shops and signed up for a 24month plan.

I've never been on a plan before. I'd always bought my phone outright and chucked my same worn-out prepaid SIM in there. But since I've recently had to change from buying $30 credits to $40 ones, I figured maybe I was better looking at a plan. I was a bit worried all the phones would either be crap or extra, and at the Telstra shop they were. The top of the line Samsung Galaxy S2 was only available on the $79 a month plan, and you had to pay $20 on top of that for the handset. I wasn't even looking for the top of the line. I was looking for the upper middle of the line, the ones that cost about $400 outright, not the ones that cost $800 outright.

And then I went to the Optus shop, and they had it on the $49 cap plan, with no handset charge. So I got it.

I'm gunna claim it was the combination of a nice big holiday paycheck (though haven't even been charged the $49 so far) and my being sad that the dollar had taken a tumble (I was gunna buy a handset from overseas) that led me to getting it. That and that it's pretty, and that it was the one I'd picked as my money no object Android phone. And it has a dual-core 1.2Ghz processor. All the geeks out there would be nodding their head appreciatively at that. This thing has more processing power than my first laptop, and that was only 6 years ago.

It's got a massive 4.3 inch screen, but it's scary skinny and light. I bought the biggest case I could find to bulk it up a little. I think I feel the same way about it that some people think about me: "oh no, be careful, there's nothing of it, you might break it..."

I can facebook and blog from it and it's got an 8mp camera.

Unlike all my other pictures, I haven't shrunk this down. I took the photo, the phone put it in my Picassa album, I uploaded it to the blog. Take a closer look if you wanna see how shoddy my quilting is)

I'm involved in two intense scrabble battles (I just played archive for 48 points) have put about a quarter of my music collection and half a season of Buffy on it, and apparently, you can make and receive calls with it.

Nerd day.

Instead of sewing , I've spent the last hour drawing little squares all over an expanded version of the pattern for the swag quilt, in hopes of finding a nice point where you can cut it to an actual block to replicate and tile into a quilt.

I've come to the conclusion that it can't be done, and the next logical step is to have a bit of a strop.


That's not to say I didn't achieve anything today - my new phone is now running 3 versions of facebook, one of which works (for posting statuses at least - none of them efficiently read other people's statuses) I have moved over all my ringtones and discovered that I now struggle to use a directional pad after two whole days with the swirly ball thing.

I have tomorrow off, and I plan on putting down my phone, maybe going back to Lincraft for some more of that grey fabric (it was $3 a metre, people) and getting some quilting done.

Hopefully.

Waste of a day, and a waste of money...

Today, probably bummed at the fact that there was nothing at the post office for me, I bought a new phone. It's a Nokia 6220 classic, it is 3G, it has a 5mp camera and, most importantly, GPS.

I'd been considering it as a replacement for the old dash for a while, because I cant seem to find anything better than the dash at a decent price, and the dash is starting to show its age. Not that I ever really use it, but it lives at the bottom of a very full handbag, and for some reason lately it has been refusing to send messages when it gets turned back on, which shouldn't matter as I never turn my phone off, but does matter as I often forget to charge it, and it goes flat because of this at least once a fortnight. The SMSes start working again after a few off and ons, but I know it's only a matter of time before it's done for good. So, planning ahead, with the 6220 a massive 40% off (that's about $80) I bought it.

It's locked to vodafone, but its only a $20 unlocking fee after 6 months, and I figure the dash can hold out that long as my actual phone. In the meantime, I'll put a super long expiry on the phone and use it as a GPS - since I already have a Nokia charger in my car for my sisters' phones it should work out well. And at $120, it was cheaper than the dash, and that's only 4 months of ownership (4 and a half if you include unlocking) by my rules of a dollar a day, before I can get a new one if I change my mind. Or Becky steals it.

I have price/usage rules for lots of things. Big ticket items (anything over $100, includes phones, cameras, laptops etc) cannot be replaced until it has been used for as many days as dollars it cost. Little things (clothes, jewellery) must be worn for as many hours as dollars spent. There's and amendment to this rule too - the hours can also include time spent altering. So, if I buy a shirt from the salvos for $3, I have to spend at least 3 hours trying to change it before I can give up and throw it out. As a result of these rules, I have about 20 pairs of jeans (at an average of $7 each I need only wear them for a day) and twice that many long sleeve shirts. Oddly though, I usually wear them the day after I get them, thus filling their commitment, and then put them in the cupboard and go back to rotating though my 3 favourites. But those 3 have evolved over the years, so it's not all bad.

What I really need to do is come up with some similar sort of rule in relation to buying fabrics. So far I have these rules - $3 for fat quarters. No more than $10 per yard after postage is added and spread through the purchase. If you're gunna pay more than $15 a metre, you better bloody love it, or bloody need it. But these rules don't really have any effect on sewing time, or completed project useage time, which as good, as I've not done much in the way of completed projects lately.

No sewing today after work as I cant seem to get up the motivation for the quilting. Actually, I cant get up the motivation to clear around the machine, as there seems to be a bit of a pile up.

Only fabric purchase of the day was another $60 of fabric for dad's boat quilt - there were 2 sellers who each had about half the fabrics I wanted - the first had them 20% off last week and the second 26% off this week, so now I've got all the fish from the Odyssea range, as well as 2 lots of shells and 1 lot of bubbles, and that's enough for the whole quilt (probably single but maybe double) and backing too (well, if I do double, maybe the piecing of the backing, and I'll get a $3 blue from spotlight).

Tomorrow I'm only doing a short shift at work so I ought to be home in time to achieve something, and as always, I'm hoping there will be a massive box of fabrics at the post office waiting to be bought home and looked through. If there is, I don't expect much in the way of actual work to get done.

Randomness for the day... all this playing with the new phone takes me back to the last time I was trying to get a new phone sorted, which was the $30 Virgin one I got for Maddy for her birthday. That was back in January, or possibly the first week of Febuary, and the weather was fucking gorgeous. I've said a few times how little I remember of last summer, since I pretty much blocked it out due to ShitGoingDown. But I remember that afternoon, sitting in my warm car in a t-shirt, talking to the nice indian man on the phone as the sun went down, and then I went to Fasta Pasta and gave it to Maddy.

I am sooo ready for it to be warm again. Sooo ready.