Apparently the Wild Things are in Canberra. Or at least they were. I spotted this awesome graffiti every day walking to work in the mornings and it always made me smile. Until this morning when I discovered that some jerk had covered Max’s head with an ugly poster. So glad I got a photo of it now.

The last few days I’ve been trying to decide whether to do outfit photos for the days I go to work. I love getting dressed on the weekends and always put effort into what I wear, but when I go to work it’s more a question of ‘what clothes do I have that look good, but I won’t be upset if I ruin’. So I kind of wear a lot of the same.

Right now I’m wearing black pants, a maroon cowboy check shirt with a grey knit vest over the top. It’s actually a pretty neat outfit, but I’ve worn it once a week since I started this job. Plus I’m usually too rushed in the mornings to be taking photos and too tired in the afternoons. Perhaps for now at least I’ll skip the work-day outfit photos. Unless I’m feeling particularly spectacular anyway.

T-shirt – Maddisson
Cardigan – Hand me down from Mum
Jeans – Hot Options

I’ve just been hanging out at home today doing washing and tidying up a bit. When I go out to do my groceries later I’ll probably throw my Volleys on.

——–

I totally did put my Volleys on and I went to the local Asian grocery store for the first time. Holy mackerel! So many vegetarian fake meat options! So much tofu! So many different spices and sauces and tasty, tasty things! If I’d known it was so awesome I’d have cashed up before I walked in. I ended up buying a bag of frozen vegetarian ‘tuna’ and some dehydrated TVP ‘beef’ strips. I’ve been a vegetarian for over ten years and I still miss tuna. One of my favourite meals growing up was tuna and mayo warmed through and served on toast. I tried the mashed up chickpeas thing, but seriously who actually thinks that tastes like tuna?

Anyway, I’m going to give this frozen stuff a go this week and Louie has kindly agreed to help me review it. We may even make fake meat reviews a regular blogging feature. I did see fake shrimp today too. Oooh yeeeaaah!

Oh, also, I made this last night:

Cardigan – Colorado
Singlet – possibly Bonds
Shorts – Valley Girl
Tights – Hand me downs from Mum
Shoes – Dunlop Volleys
(Cat – Cilla)

Bit annoyed my shoes and tights didn’t show up very well in this photo. There’s a close up of them here if anyone is interested.

Yay! I finally started submitting to wardrobe_remix. Oh, also, I moved to Canberra. Unfortunately, I had to leave about four fifths of my wardrobe in Brisbane. I’ve been here in Canberra for about two months now and I miss so many things about Brisbane. The weather, my friends, the river, the weather, the public transport network (buses here suck), all the clothes and shoes I couldn’t bring with me… did I mention the weather? Anyway, I’m in Canberra with my Mum and Louie and I scored a job in a craft store.

I’m actually going to start blogging again for real now too. Go me!

I’ve been wanting to post a some progress photos of my latest projects all week, but by the time I go to take photos it’s always too dark and the photos aren’t very good. So, here is just one of my latest projects (the only photos that were semi-decent).

Data Structures In Pascal? It’s a hardcore university mathematics textbook, from what I understand. My uncle is a doctor of maths and I found it in my grandparents junk pile when they moved interstate. Random mathematics book, yes please! But now it’s not just any book. It’s a secret book.

Almost. I still need to hollow it out a bit more and clean it up, but it’s coming along nicely.

So, I neglected the blog a little. Sorry, blog.

What have I been up to? Well, I’m currently knitting a scarf, getting back into drawing and painting, looking for a new job, plucking up the courage to post outfits over at wardrobe_remix, putting the finishing touches on a goldfish plushie for a friend, falling in love with a few newly discovered blogs (bread & honey, The Uniform Project, mimilove), redesigning the blog and drinking Lady Grey tea.

So, now that I’ve made the blog a bit prettier I’ll try real hard to update semi-regularly. Promise.

Yesterday was my first bread baking adventure.  Sort of.

We have a bread maker and although it does the job, it’s a little boring.  So,  rather than spice things up with a totally handmade bread experience, I cheated a bit and set the bread maker to dough.  What a success!  I halved the dough and made a small loaf and a small cheese and herb twist.  The loaf is indeed small, as I underestimated the size of our loaf tin, but Lord Adlington pointed out that it’s “like toast soldiers without having to cut them.”  Never mind the loaf though.  Check this out.

All I did was make three long sausages of dough, spread grated cheese and dried herbs over them, and then twisted them up, brushed some olive oil over it and put some more cheese and herbs on top.  Easy as pie.  Or bread even.  We ate it for dinner with pesto gnocchi and the whole meal was delicious.  We both ate way too much and didn’t even have room for the mocha fudge icecream and dates that Lord Adlington made (more on that later).

I am absoltely making more bread like that.

Ack, it snuck up on me!

I’m nowhere near finished my clothespeg people ornaments, I’m rushing to finish the gifts I’m crafting and my tree looks kind of lame.

I don’t do tinsel, so this year I thought I’d give pearls a go.  I think it leaves the tree a little bare.  I think I might make some simple tartan bows to bulk it out a little.  It doesn’t help that it’s home this year is behind the television on account of we’re still not finished unpacking.  Whoops.  With all the late afternoon storms we’ve been getting the angel does look pretty awesome against the windows.

One thing I haven’t let slip this year is the food.  Last year I made One Crafty Mumma’s Easy peasy no bake apricot balls with huge success and Lord Adlington made Gingerbread’s Blissful Chocolate Balls with rum and they lived up to their name (except the ones he put rum soaked pineapple in the middle of), so they’re both on the list.  I’ve also fallen in love with the idea of making Bûche de Noël and Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without trifle (incorporating lots and lots of cheap sherry).

And at the very least, my desktop is pretty and festive thanks to Vladstudio’s Where Snowflakes Are Born.

Back in 2007 my friend Steve drew a few sketches of what he named Demonio Llama.  So, for Christmas this year I made him a felt Demonio Llama.  I used The Shishi Girl’s Alpaca pattern and gave him red faceted bead eyes.

I still have to post it to him, so I hope he’s not reading this.

I organised my fabric stash!

As of today I have finished both Curtain and curtains.  Confused?

I’ve been addicted to Agatha Christie for the past year or so and last week I started reading Curtain.  Coincidentally, I also started making curtains last week.  Our flat has quite a few windows (including one in the bedroom that opens out to the living area).  There are trees all around and it’s great.  We loved it when we first moved in, but now the afternoon sun shines right in and that’s not so nice.  Also there is a street light right outside one of the windows.  We did have a towel hanging over it (the window, not the street light), but curtains do tend to look better on windows than stripey bath towels.  And so, I made curtains.

It was my first time machine stitching a blind hem.  I’d heard it wasn’t easy to get right the first time around, but I seriously don’t know what those people are on about.  It was so easy!  And waaaay faster than doing it by hand.

I still need to make curtains for the front windows, but that’s not urgent and frankly I’m kind of over curtains for now.  I think I’ll make the camisole over at Weekend Designer in the meantime.  I’ve also fallen in love with American Apparel’s Le Sac Dress and I’m pretty sure I could make my own (and for less than $US38 too).

For now, I leave your with a photo of the possum that lives in our roof.