Sewing and other bits and pieces

Hi everyone.   Life has been rather overwhelming of late so no brain space to think about blogging although I've been keeping up-to-date with all those I follow.  I good blog read really adds some sanity to my life when things get just a little bit too much.

Miss G. has spent this week doing practice exams at school during school holidays, something she's not particularly happy about because it's not really holidays at all according to her.  Today she is doing maths and chemistry.  I personally think it's a good idea so that when they sit the exams that really count, hopefully nerves will be somewhat diminished.  Fingers crossed.

Miss C. is a couple of weeks away from an appointment to try for her drivers licence.  Last week she had an appointment at Vic Roads for a hazard perception test which all learner drivers in Victoria must take and pass before they can go for their driving test.  The drive to the Vic Roads centre was about 40 minutes from home and 5 minutes before we arrived, a stray dog ran out onto the road and hit Miss C.'s car.  She was driving and was very upset.  We pulled over to the side of the road, but the dog had run off and couldn't be seen anywhere.  We were both shaken, but I felt so badly for Charlotte, who incidentally did all the right things in the circumstances.  Unfortunately she didn't pass the hazard perception test this time as she was shaky, not to mention the test isn't easy to pass.  Let's hope the next time is better for her.

In amongst all this I've done a little sewing and crochet which has been nice.  I made a new bag to hold plastic bags in my pantry.  As much as I dislike plastic bags I still have some which I use to line my bathroom bins and for other rubbish that can't be recycled or composted.  Here is my new bag in amongst my aprons, the pink and blue ones which I made a couple of years ago.

While we are looking at the pantry, let me show you these lovely glass containers that now hold some of the many ingredients that have until now lived in plastic bags.

My pantry gets so disorganised very quickly.  I grocery shop once a fortnight so always have extra ingredients I'm trying to cram into the available space.  Hopefully this is a start to pantry heaven.

I'm in the process of getting organised for our Europe holiday next year.  Our plane tickets are booked, so it really is going to happen.  When you go on holidays, does the contents of your suitcase look like this?

Source google images.

Two months of travelling like this is not my idea of fun, so I have a plan.  Bags within bags.  This is the first one I've made which will be housing the smalls.

I found the tutorial here and adapted it to my needs.  I need bags for shoes, socks, belts, jewellery, dirty laundry....the list is endless.  I'm also going to make a little sewing kit, just thinking about it makes me quite excited.

This is how far my giant granny square throw is now.  Still a long way to go until it's big enough for me.

Moving away from craft now to pets.  Can any of the dog owners out there please explain to me how or why a 10 year old labrador would dig up a bone that must be at least six years old and revert to the puppy behaviour of digging up the garden?  Just look at my herb garden!

The garlic chives are almost buried, the thyme has been uprooted, the new flat leaf parsley plant is looking sad and the new rosemary plant has somehow managed to survive.  Fortunately the sage is well established and wasn't affected.  Did Sophie care a hoot about what she had done?  No, just look at this.

Here is one contented dog, lovingly and slobberingly chewing on an old stinky bone.  Yesterday I replanted the thyme, tended the sad looking parsley and put up some barriers in the herb garden which will hopefully deter bad, stinky dog from digging anymore.  This morning the herb garden was intact with no suspicious piles of dirt or holes.

So this is what has been happening in my neck of the woods.  Wishing you all a lovely weekend whatever you get up to.

Anne  xx