Autumn Zebra

Best club juggling so far is 24 throws and catches (i.e. not dropping any, finishing with 3 in the hands) or 26 throws (finishing 1 or more dropped).

These photos aren't as clear - aren't as good close-ups - as most of the previous bug photos, although the second one isn't too bad. The first one was at Mum's house on my birthday - yay, a birthday beetle!! I think it's a type of long-horn beetle, but isn't one of the 22 or so in my book, although it looks most similar to the "pallid longhorn" (Calliprason pallidum, was Stenopotes). The antennae aren't very long for a long-horned beetle, but they only have to be 2/3 as long as the body to be considered long, and the male often has longer ones than the female. The second looks to be some kind of "waisted ground beetle" (the corset-like waist effect is not as visible in this photo as it could be) of which there are 60 species in NZ, so unsurprisingly my little book did not go into them.

Yes, I had a birthday :) I turned 1000 years old, although only under certain mathematical conditions. Ever since I've had a camera (I was... actually that was about the last time I was 1000, under similar but different conditions) I've taken a photo of my presents (for archival purposes, lol). Probably people will think this weird, but whatever. Other than getting presents, I went to see "Where the Wild Things Are" and made everyone dinner at Mum's house: Moroccan food, which is like my destined cuisine or something - it's the most ideal type of food I've come across so far. If each person were born to a certain type of food, Moroccan is the closest I've found for myself so far. Here's the picture!! Contents: [from Gwri] 3 striped juggling clubs booklet on juggling clubs booklet on juggling balls 90 minute DVD on fire safety (eg. for fire poi, staff, etc) (which you can get free with an order from " home of poi ") "Where the Wild Th...

I am making a dress to wear to Gwri's work dinner on Friday (as I write this it is Monday, in case you read this some other time). It is based on a drawing of a dinner dress from 1908, in a book that I got from the library but I've forgotten what it's called. I don't think I shall show you the picture until the end, ha ha ha. I have so far spent nearly 20 hours on the pattern and mockup, including 1 hour writing out instructions for myself to follow so I put it together right, but not counting probably nearly as many hours again just thinking about how to pattern it and put it together, but that thinking time is normally done whilst doing something else, like lieing in bed hoping to go to sleep sometime soon (putting dresses together in your head isn't conducive to going to sleep, but otherwise I get bored). Here's a random picture of part of the mockup. (The dress itself will have 2 sleeves.) I didn't take any other pictures of the process. The pattern has ...

There's a curtain and furnishings store near our house that sells the most expensive fabric ever, a lot of which isn't even that nice. It's really odd. Their cheapest stuff looks a lot like the cheapest stuff from Spotlight, but costs literally ten times as much. I have spent much time trying to understand this, but have got nowhere. They do have a remnants/ex-samples bin where each piece is $2, which has many small, interesting pieces of fabric in it. The largest is generally only big enough to make a knee-length skirt or a sleeveless top, but the smaller pieces could be used as accents... or for bags!! Which brings us to this awesome satchel-style bag I made. The piece of fabric was just the right size to make this excellently sized bag, and the dots are a raised pile i.e. they're furry. I lined it in some nice, slippery fabric and bound the edges in cotton poplin. The strap is made out of the same poplin which was interfaced and then folded so that the strap is 4 lay...

During the year I collect ideas for presents for people, including tutorials on how to make them, and save them in my email. One of the ideas was "felt flowers" eg. for brooches. We bought a gift for one of our "secret santa" recipients at Gwri's work, but I am feeling all crafty so thought I'd make a felt flower to add to it. I didn't much like the ones in the tutorial I had seen and saved, so I did a google image search for felt flowers to get ideas for shapes and styles and found lots of good ideas, and I decided to make one like this one (picture from this site ): I've got some pictures of some more "hippie" style ones that I, personally, actually like better, but they're probably not so universally attractive and acceptable, and we don't really know the recipient's style. So, here are my two - the red one is for me, which I made to test the pattern and method, and the blue and white one is for her. They turned out really n...