Sunday 26 August 2012

Hexy Floor Pillow

I keep on flipping back to this gorgeous floor pillow as a potential project. Terri from Sew Fantastic has done a wonderful job and has a great tutorial on how to make it using a sewline glue pen.


I love the idea that this floor pillow is a colour wheel.

Here is more inspiration for those of you who love to applique ....


This design appliqued, could be a nice scrap buster.

Thursday 16 August 2012

The humble Fez

I stumbled across this picture of the insatiable Will Wheaton sporting a rather funky Fez from Fez-o-rama. They have a great range of geeky products and the ability to create a custom Fez!


I've been enjoying watching Tabletop, Will Wheaton's you tube show about Tabletop games. Even though I'd rather create than play than a game, it is reminiscent of a time when I did do a lot of  role playing and game playing. Tabletop is brought to you by Geek and Sundry, which have a great collection of indie/geeky you tube programs to watch. Including my favorite, The Guild. Another great youtube program to watch is Sword and Laser which is a Science Fiction and Fantasy book club which has migrated from podcast world into you tube.

Every once in a while I get a "rush of hits" on my Fez Pattern. There is no rhyme or reason why people go looking for a Fez pattern and I am not even sure whether my pattern is useful!

Have you made a Fez from my Fez Pattern? Would you like to share the pictures?

Wednesday 15 August 2012

The irony of reading about running

The irony isn't lost on me. While I have been mostly couch bound in the evenings with my broken foot, I have been working my way through 50/50 by Dean Karnaze. A book about an ultra marathon runner who ran 50 marathons in 50 days.


The read is amazing, recording the trials and tribulations that go along with attempting a feat such as this. I am no where near being ready for attempting anything other than a 5km run, but one day it would be great to have a marathon or half marathon as a goal. For both fitness and also mindfulness. The act of going out for a run, especially on a cool raining day is both exhilarating and relaxing.

For me the act of running is both primal and such a simple way of achieving fitness. When I first started running, I got shin splints. After every run I was in agony. But after a while, my legs adjusted and now I don't have that problem. Dean talks about the human body's ability to adjust to stresses. Throughout his Endurance 50 feat, he had regular health checks and the medical information recorded showed how much his body adjusted to running a marathon each day. I think that often we underestimate our bodies ability to adjust and evolve.

A friend of the family, Martin Stern, is raising money for the Leukemia Foundation in Australia so that he can do the London Marathon in 2013. Our community has been touched by Leukemia in recent years and he wants to raise $10,000 so that he can participate in the London Marathon next year. The physical and mental dedication required to do this is tremendous. If you have any spare $$, please consider supporting him in his cause.

In three weeks I am scheduled for an Xray to my foot. Hopefully it shows that the break has healed and then I can start physio and then I can work on getting my stride back.

Monday 13 August 2012

A perfect day for flying a kite

The weather was gorgeous today and the sun lured us out of the house into the backyard for some overdue Vitamin D recharging. The girls wanted to fly a kite, but the only one that we had was a double string super-dooper kite that required a bit more hand eye co-ordination than two four year olds could handle. 

So we grabbed some plastic bags, drew some pictures on them and tied them to string. A perfect solution for two kids with too much energy.


Today was the first day that I have been out of the house in close to two weeks. I came down with a horrible cough about three weeks ago, but little did I know that the pain medication that I was on for my broken foot interfered with and made the cough ten times worse.

A chest X-ray, some high grade anti-biotic and a wonderful steroid inhaler and I am feeling remotely human again. I have had a week and a half off work, the longest I have ever taken. I literally couldn't function, or breath, the diagnosis was severe Bronchitis. I still have "crackling" on my lungs, so I will be on medication for another two or three weeks.