Hurrah!

Dean's Rag Books and what to do?

 

For some reason (perhaps I was reading about it somewhere or dreamt it or it just popped into my head - can't really recall..) I remembered Dean's Rag Books from when I was little.  I think I might have had one or two of these wonderful fabric books - often the first type of book little bubs ever encounter - and soooo precious as an introduction to a lifetime of loving books! 

I'm not sure if any of my own survived (I have a lot of my childhood toys but I think books like these may have disintegrated through being loved so much or were passed on to younger siblings).  This one was a recent eBay buy and travelled to Australia from Great Britain (how I wish it were that easy sometimes for people to pop into envelopes and travel all snuggly across the world instead of in snug (read not so comfy) economy seating on long-haul flights! ).   Anyway, this little book arrived and it's lovely but I have to confess that I am thinking of chopping it up!!  Eep!  Sounds so drastic but I was thinking it would make lovely quilt blocks and as it is kind of old - it might enjoy living out its remaining days in a different form?  Each page is so lovely it would be nice to showcase each in a quilt....but chopping up a book - and a baby book at that??  What to do...

Perhaps I read too much into the preciousness of things (yup - got in a pun...) and I'm all for recycling fabrics... hmmm....

Four things

Anna (Ayama-Chan) from Sew What has tagged me to share some things about myself in groups of fours.  Well, blogging is still relatively new to me but I love knowing there's a community of like-minded creative people out there so here goes...

Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Children’s Book Specialist (fancy title from working in a bookstore) -  I loved the books, some customers tested my patience but, I loved the books
2. Journalist (one day I might write for a publication I love)
3. Editor (yup, maybe one day for a publication I love)
4. Teddy-bear maker (I used to sell a few and some have travelled the world from Canada to Scotland – including a biker bear who I made a little leather jacket and bandana for!)

Four Favourite Movies:

Oooh this is hard as I love films....

1. Definitely Baraka
2. Definitely the Three Colours Trilogy (which I’m counting as one)
3. Definitely anything starring Cate Blanchett (also counting as one choice) including Oscar and Lucinda, Elizabeth and Babel
4. In fourth place are all my other favourites including Love Actually, Amelie, Blood Diamond, Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, Gosford Park, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Babette’s Feast, Star Wars Episodes IV, V and VI (the originals – not with Jabba with a tail…), Bend it Like Beckham, anything 007, The Labyrinth (yup – born in the 70s, grew up in the 80s), The Dark Crystal (ditto previous point), After the Wedding, Match Point, the list goes on and on :D

Four Places I've Been

These are places I've loved in amongst the places I've been:

1. Plockton, Scotland
2. Thulhaagiri, The Maldives (yup, it really is Heaven on Earth)
3. The Ring of Kerry, Ireland
4. Portobello Road, London

Four Places I've Lived

1. In the country
2. In the city
3. South
4. North

Four Favourite TV Shows

I don't really watch that much TV anymore but I have loved these shows:

1. McLeod's Daughters (in the days of Claire and Tess)
2. Sex and the City
3. The Block
4. The Farmer Needs a Wife (haha!  Yup, we were addicted to this - and Average Joe too!!!)

Four Favourite Radio Programmes

ABC 720.  I love the gardening show with Sabrina Hahn.  I love Drive with Russell Woolf.  I really dislike the sports obsession the ABC has and wish cricket and football would find their own radio stations - and why don't they have a craft segment??

Four Favourite Foods

1. Thai
2. Vegemite
3. Dark chocolate (Oxfam’s is best!)
4. Ummm…aeroplane food!!  I love the compartments and I love waiting for it to come up the aisle and I love the fact that if I’m eating it that means I’m flying somewhere!

Four Places I'd Rather Be

1. The Maldives
2. Scotland
3. At the park with Brendon and Matilda
4. Relaxing at home

Well, whenever I read these types of lists on other people's blogs I am excited to see if we like any of the same stuff, am intrigued by other people's quirks, or am excited to read about something I hadn't heard of before.  I hope there was something in my list that someone somewhere found interesting??  If not, well they're my favourite things anyway :)

Now I'm tagging these four people who as Anna said to me, "If this isn't your thing, I completely understand!  Just try not to 'break the chain' ":

1. Katie from A Little Bird Told Me. So
2. Stacey from Three Red Trees
3. Katy from I'm A Ginger Monkey
4. Jacinta from One Little Acorn - hey Jacinta, I just realised you already did this in February!!

If you guys want to particpate I'd love to read about your favourites but if you're not keen to do it then I just want to say I love reading your blogs anyway and they're four of my favourites ;)

 

Old friends

I work in an office and I used to work in a bookshop.  Working in a bookshop was a lot more fun than working in an office - especially being surrounded by books!  Some customers were nice, others weren't that nice but wherever you work there tends to be some people you dislike, some you're ambivalent towards and others who become good friends.  My friend Jane is leaving work today to go on an interstate adventure and pursue some dreams.  I have today off work so I gave her the scotty dog above yesterday so that she can take a little friend on her adventures.  The pattern is by Jenny B Harris from allsorts and is the most wonderful pattern!  Jenny has created a Scotty Stuffies Group on Flickr, which is just lovely to browse through and see all the talent out there in the world - and so much love for scotties!!

Jane leaving today got me thinking of all the other lovely people I've met through my working life and how you can be such good friends when you're working together, as you share so many hours together, and then one of you moves on and you may stay in touch for awhile or you may never see them again or you may stay good friends.  Whatever happens, I'm grateful for the lovely people I've met along the way - Sam, Marina, David, Julie, Pam, Danielle, Kate, Stacey, Louisa, Natasha, Katy, Dana, Kristy, Vanessa, Jane J., Liz & Andrew, Andrew M., Margaret, Sue & Michael, Suzanne, Angela, Jean, Suze, Siew and all the other lovely people I've worked with - thank you for adding to my life.  And a 'thank you' to my 'newer' friends too!   At our last bookclub gathering someone mentioned the schoolfriends website where you can get in contact with old school friends.  I recently visited the site and ended up back in contact with an old friend from high school - Louise - and I'm looking forward to catching up with her again soon.  I visited the site and left a 'hello' message with a few people and got several responses back when I didn't expect any!  It's lovely to hear from old friends.