Ramblin' on

I have managed to find my way back to the 'New Post' button. Phew!



I have made an actual list of things to excuse my absence, well...more like things that happened when I was away from the keyboard and I feel I might tell you about.



I have been op-shopping (clearly I desperately need more stuff in this house). Buttons galore, some cast glass pieces (imitating cut glass) that I seem to be collecting. Do they have a name as a style? Please let me know.I wonder why I like them? They remind me of my Nanna's sugar bowl which I have and use daily. I'm sure that the sugar bowl is absolutely nothing special in terms of value, probably a fancier looking piece from a department or chain store, but it has always been in use with the Sydney Harbour Bridge spoon from my earliest memories (at least the mid-60s). It has the lovely quality of looking beautiful (esp when freshly washed) but as solid as a rock...let me take a picture (oh bugger, now I'll have to wash it....might as well photograph the rest of the haul....semi-prepared blogging...grumble...grumble). They were all as cheap as chips to buy, but I do like them.Here ya go. I use this one as a pin dish (it may very well be exactly that).



More Wild Women have been crafted, including some brown ones. I am not a brown person. It looks hideous on me. Its not 'my colour'. So I used to naturally shy away from it as a craft choice....but lately I have realised that it was cutting out a whole range of palette for me to play with, and it does combine well as a neutral with all sorts of colours. I don't have to wear it to use it. I'm pleased with these women. I haven't named them yet...But they please me inordinately.

I went to an Enjo party last week (sigh, don't get me started on party plan selling). To be sociable, and because I love the party holder dearly. I knew her late mother, and now the daughter, M and I have ended up doing nursing together (sort of, she was the semester ahead) and midwifery in the same class. When her mum died in 1997 some friends were asked to make quilt squares for a memory quilt for the family. I hadn't started quilting then and I am embarassed to recall my efforts, but I made two blocks for the quilt and sent them off, but never saw the finished quilt. M showed me the quilt at the party. Its huge! And I was relieved that my squares weren't as badly finished off as I recalled.



I was at my daughter's swimming competition last weekend and for some reason (anticipated boredom?) as I ran out of the door I grabbed something to do while sitting for hours. It was knitting. KNITTING!!!! Good Lord! What possessed me? Anyhoo....Using op-shop chunky wool and 9mm needles an elf hat emerged. Quite randomly. For a creamy-beige elf. No pattern, no clue, made it up as I went along. The daughter came third in her race too. I continued the illusion of knitting the next day and attempted to make a headband for the wild-haired son - either his head is gonna have to shrink or a cold, smaller child will find herself with an ear warmer. I suspect the latter. See I can actually knit, just randomly. I even knitted the headband in the round on DPNs!! Double Pointed Needles. Are you impressed? It was a complete pain in the ass, but I'm stubborn. I thought about unpicking it, but instead I got it off the needles ASAP. It's not completely finished, but meh, what's a few buttons. I even crocheted the flower thingy, with the last of the wool. Oy veh. I am NOT dedicated to knitting. Can you tell?



I caught up with a long-lost sister on Sunday (well, not quite lost, but you know...). She is doing well at this end of a very stressful and difficult year, and is enthralled with her new puppy, a pedigree Shi-tszu with a very long name, Poppy for short. Very cute. Sooooooooo cute. Did I mention that she is cute? No photo, sorry, but she is cream, gold and sable saddled with symmetrical markings. She matches the long-haired Burmese cat. And the furnishings. Deliberately. She is just what my sister needed, and I am so pleased to see her looking content.




We saw a movie 'Burn After Reading' on the weekend too. It was really good, hilarious and wicked. Are people really as completely and relentlessly unfaithful to their spouses as depicted in the movies? Or just in Washington? I know, I know, its just a movie, but it did strike me as weird. There was only one sympathetic character in the film. Brad Pitt was so funny as a bonehead gym worker. Frances McDormand was brave and wonderful in her role. George Clooney was as adorable, but despicable as the sex-obsessed public servant. John Malkovich played the uptight, pernickety husband to perfection and Tilda Swinton was revoltingly good and believable as the cold wife of Malkovich's character. Recommended if you like quirky, off the wall plots.



Work has been good too, absorbing and challenging. My baby drought has continued, I haven't caught a baby myself for about 5-6 weeks. I cared for 2 families with stillborns last weekend, they were so sweet and tiny, their parents were devastated to see the end of their hopes for those children. The memories we make for them to keep are so important, and I'm always delighted to work with midwives with great photography skills, or presentation skills who will help create worthy records and mementos of that short precious time with the baby. Parents are always so touched to receive the gifts of quilts, clothes, teddies etc that are provided for their little ones, often by families who experienced such a loss themselves and in memory of their own baby. Grandparents who provided teeny little teddy bears 4" high can keep a photo of their grandchild's perfect little hand on teddy's tummy, just the right size for a tiny 23 weeker. Its a privilege to care for them.





I'm starting to make plans for next year at work. I'm talking to my manager about rotations to a birth centre on-site, that provides care across the continuum for low-risk women in a team or group practice model. They work shifts and regular on-call, do their own education sessions, and provide short-term postnatal care on-site (<24hrs) and do their own visiting home postnatal care. I am looking forward to seeing more spontaneously labouring women. Fingers crossed for my rotations!


Last thing! I went to craft today with all my old friends. They are all besotted with my Wild Women (what's not to like?) and want me to lead a class in making them, so I will find a date in early December for that. We made some silk 'paper' with silk 'topping' and added threads. I'm quite pleased with it. It should be a cover for a new small journal, or maybe something else. As I said at craft this morning - I may use it straight away, or I may find it again when I am 72 and I hope I remember the day when I made it and the company of such dear friends. And the friends I shared it with online.

Right! Consider yourselves caught up!