I had an entirely free day (yes, even in iso I usually had something scheduled). So I thought I’d make something for me.
This dress caught my eye, but I wasn’t sure if I’d like it – I don’t usually wear things this loose. I didn’t want to spend a day making a toile, but I didn’t want to make it in linen and hate it.
Then I remembered I had some flannel that I was going to use for a kilt – I liked the idea of a short-sleeved dress in warm fabric. It would be Read on “End of iso dress”
I’ve been rebuilding this website and going through all my old posts to add images and make sure their categories are right.
And I found this old post: This week’s firsts
In which I was doing something new every day. Read on “Do one new thing every day”
I’m working at home at the moment, focusing on writing and re-establishing my freelance/consulting business. Working at home, on self-directed tasks, takes deliberate planning and discipline – otherwise I’m likely to clean the house and talk to the kittens all day.
In the past I’ve always squeezed this kind of work around something more structured like client work or conference organising, so this is the first time I’ve had to come up with a strong method to keep focused and productive. Read on “Self-directed work: Time blocking”
In the olden days…yes, less than 20 years ago… I loved blogging. I loved thinking through my thoughts and writing them down. I loved being able to go back and see what those thoughts were. Work-related blogging brought me good attention when the blogging and design community was small and the amount of content low. Read on “Blogging again”
Some statistics:
I made it home. Today I rode a lot of my favourite roads. New to me was the highway from Mudgee to Lithgow, but from there I took the Jenolan Caves Rd, Duckmaloi Rd, Shooters Hill, and Abercrombie. Stopped in Goulburn for a cup of tea with mum, then slabbed straight up the highway. I took some photos of the stunning views on the way, but I just can’t get any depth of field on my phone, and they all look like I’ve taken photos of grass next to the road. Read on “The Big North: Day 7 (home!)”
Tamworth woke up beautiful this morning! Read on “The Big North: Day 6”
Planning the trip home is hard. I have to avoid my natural inclination just to head home, and instead keep exploring. It’s also hard as I want to go inland and the distances between towns are huge – it’s harder to make adjustments than on the coast where things are close together. I’m also a bit sore & don’t want to over-commit & have to ride long distances while tired. Read on “The Big North: Day 5”
Today, instead of heading a lot further North, I did a loop ride, coming back to Caboolture. My motorcycle atlas listed 3 good rides, so I programmed the GPS to do them all 🙂 Read on “The Big Wet: Day 4”
Today was all about north. The weather was windy and unpredictably stormy everywhere so I decided just to hit the highway & get north of Brisbane to get it over & done with. 450km or so of highway got me to Caboolture just before the hailstorm hit. Read on “The Big North: Day 3”
Singleton started the day warm and humid. I started the day with a run (yes, really) along a really great path. Read on “The Big North: Day 2”
Ooh, what a big, wet day. I knew today was going to rain but that didn’t mean I had to like it.
I woke up early and was out of the driveway by 7. Read on “The Big North: Day 1”
Today I pack, which means tomorrow I can go and buy anything I still need. (I wrote this post as I packed, so it is a bit of a running commentary…) Read on “The Big North: Day -2”
I made a map of many big things in NSW & Qld. It took me 2 nights. I’m sure I don’t have them all. I am also sure I won’t see all of them 🙂
I’m going on a motorbike ride. And I’m going to write about it. I haven’t done this for ages (the writing about it part, that is – I’ve done plenty of riding).
The back story is that I’m not working at the moment, don’t want to ride in January as it’s crazy-busy (and crazy-expensive), hopefully will have work in February/March and am likely to move in April. So now is the very best time for a ride. And the week before Christmas is actually fairly inexpensive as everyone starts their travel the week after.
But I needed a goal – Read on “The Big North: Day -4”
This is a story that any sewer (or knitter, quilter, weaver etc) will completely understand.
I needed topstitching thread. I got this far on a denim jacket:
and ran out of topstitching thread. Read on “How a spool of thread cost hundreds of dollars and an entire morning”
I had a couple of weeks off over Christmas (actually, that’s not quite true – it’s my quiet period as well, so I have a fair amount of time, but on these 2 weeks I did no working-work). I had a bunch of projects that I wanted to start but an uncomfortable, unsettled feeling that was stopping me from getting stuck into it.
Usually for me this feeling is resolved by, instead of getting stuck in, stepping back and spending some time just fooling around and getting re-organised. So that’s what I did – mostly without as much intent as Read on “A new year: Cleaning up, setting up, restarting”
[Intro: I’m switching direction again – from personal development to motorbiking to sewing. I design stuff, patternmake and sew; and I thought I might share some of my projects…]
I’m studying a Diploma in Fashion design and for an assignment had to design a mini spring/summer range. Amongst other things, I sketched this dress: Read on “Linen panel dress”
You may not know this, but I’m a weaver. I’ve had an enormous loom for longer than I’ve had a daughter, and my number 1 criteria when house-hunting is making sure I have space for my loom and sewing machines.
Some years ago, I made a rag rug out of denim jeans and gave it to my Dad. He hung it on the wall instead of using it as a rug, but that was OK. It was a good rug and I liked it enough that I eventually decided to make one for myself. Read on “Sinking sunk costs: Don’t continue work you hate”
It’s been far too hot to ride recently – around 37°C for the entire week (and it starts getting hot too early to get a ride in).
I did get out on one great ride on the Australia Day holiday – about 11 of us spent a few hours on the back roads before settling in for a burger at Jugiong. That was fun – after saying I could probably manage 80 on gravel roads, I managed a top speed of 112 before it got a bit wobbly (my top speed on tarmac is only 124). But most importantly, I Read on “Seat, tyres and boots”