Blogging Changes

I have decided to give up on my five-days-a-week blogging for the moment. Things are possibly about to change dramatically at Sheeprustling headquarters in the near future - good changes, but disruptive ones if they do come off. So I will continue to blog about stuff, and include pictures of stuff, but not to a regular timetable.

Of course, maybe nothing will happen, and then things will return to what I laughingly refer to as 'normal'.

Since starting writing this post, developments have occurred, but in the backwards sense. Our house is dissolving around us and we either need to rebuild or move. After a lengthy period of looking around, we finally got into negotiations with a building firm recently, but had our third meeting with them yesterday at which the costings came out at way over our budget. If they had come within budget, there may have been a flurry of moving and rebuilding almost immediately, as we have to fit in things around Baby Bear doing Year 12 next year. While we still have to find an alternative, it looks like nothing with be happening quickly now. I was pulling back on the blogging because I thought I might have to do a lot of immediate packing and organising. But I have decided to keep to random musings for a while rather than the previous organised structure, which was fun for a while.

I went to the Bead and Gems Show at the Melbourne Showgrounds last week. I was looking for some specific stuff and won't post pictures. Lacey's Stiff Stuff is brilliant stuff for bead embroidery, and hard to get in Australia, but makes for very boring pictures when it has not yet been embroidered upon - for those who don't know, imagine a heavy white interfacing. I was also looking for cabochons that made me think of certain things, and I got quite a lot, but a pile of cabochons in various colours isn't necessarily very interesting either. Otherwise I don't think I would go to that particular show again just to browse - I went for the first time last year and it was interesting, I went this year because I was looking for these specific types of stuff, but for general browsing it wasn't really my sort of thing - nice to look at all the sparklies but most of what I do is in seed beads and, although they were on sale there, I tend to buy a themed selection online for a specific project when I want them, rather than wanting to right through crowds and then not find everything I want.

I may have a plan for a series of bead embroideries. Well, rather, I DO have a plan, but I;m not sure now exactly how it will pan out. It may also include small art quilts and be a long time in the making. But it is an idea that will not go away in my mind and it will still be there when I actually want to do something about it.

I have been knitting mindless stuff, even more mindless than socks. I am using up some of my novelty yarn collection (bought in single balls for things like scrumbling) to make mini ponchoette type things. They are good for keeping the shoulders warm and adding colour.

. I am not quite sure why I think it would be more efficient to store these yarns in made-up items in my overfull wardrobe, rather than as balls in my overfull yarn collection, but it made sense at the time.

Cooking has occurred. Well, living in a family of four, plenty of cooking has occurred, but only one recipe from the 'test the cookbooks' thing. I seem to have a million little pamphlet-type cookbooks, many of which come free with magazines and things. This one came from one of them: Easy One-Pot chicken Bake from Australian Good Food Italian Favorites. It's so good we have had twice! Of course I can never cook a recipe without tweaking it, no matter how much I swear I won't (except for baking, where I leave the general proportions strictly alone and only ever alter flavours). I used chicken breast fillets instead of thigh fillets, rosemary instead of thyme (it's the only herb I've got growing at the moment and it is wicked with chicken and potatoes), and this time I only had green olives, though the first time I made it with the black olives stated in the recipe.

This post has been in the making for two or three weeks, interrupted by the events related in the last post. I am going to post it now otherwise it will never happen.