What's In A Name

I'm jumping in to explain why I chose Sunshine? Paradise? for my blog name. Dawn at As Sweet As Cinnamon has a linky party for What's Your Name And Why. I'm a bit late to the party but better late than never!

When I first started blogging I had no idea what I was doing. I still don't!  A friend had started a blog and I thought I'd have a go. I didn't know what I was going to blog about, I wasn't really doing very much in the way of crafty stuff. I wasn't sure whether I would be posting recipes or just rambling about nothing.  I didn't even think I'd last more than a couple of months.  At the time I started the blog, my part of Queensland was going through months of really awful wet rainy almost cyclonic weather.  I live on the Sunshine Coast and everybody was dubbing it the Wet Coast. I've lived in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and always said that the Sunshine Coast was paradise, and by far the best location I had ever lived.  After hours of deliberation and no imagination I came up with Sunshine? Paradise? because that was exactly how I had been feeling.
I've contemplated changing my name as most of the time I blog about quilting, but the name is kind of unique and frankly I don't feel like spending hours, days, weeks of trying to think of something else, so it's going to stay as is.

Views from home.

Not far away, it really is paradise here and we do have lots of sunshine, most of the time.

If you'd like to join in pop on over to Dawn's blog and let people know why you chose your blog name.

Nothing much

I think I've lost my blogging mojo this time.
I wonder whether it's catching, hmmm, Shay, although mine has mutated to blogging!

Normally it's my crafty mojo that goes awol.

I've missed the last two Favourite Thing Fridays as I couldn't come up with any favourites,  and I've been struggling to blog about anything for the last week.

I have been spending lots of time reading blogs and commenting and time on Flickr and making witty ridiculous comments on friend's photos, 

Ipoh!

I haven't been sitting around twiddling my thumbs, I've been busy, making the backing, basting and preparing to quilt Strawberries and Champagne, something that has taken up my time but is not worth a blog post or photos.

Thanks to lots of aloe vera my sunburn changed to suntan and so far no blisters or peeling.
Thank you everyone for your kind comments.

I've been to Brisbane to see Wicked and stayed there the night. 

I went to aquarobics again today, this time slathered in SPF 50+ all over, and so far no sunburn and no repercussions from exercising, touch wood!

I've started working on another quilt along I've joined.

Now I just need to find some interesting photos, and finish or at least make something that I can photograph.

Liebster Blog

First things first. The lovely Shell at Shell's Blog tagged me for this award

How nice is that!

I'm sort a bit iffy about doing tags or awards as it's a bit of a double edged sword, in that I don't mind being a very happy recipient of the award, but then trying to choose somebody to pass it on to, will they hate me for passing it on and how do I choose only a couple from all the lovely blogs I read. Oh more decisions, yikes, I'm not good with making decisions!

Anyway I don't want to sound ungrateful as I really am very pleased that Shell picked me as one of the worthy recipients.

This tag is to highlight a couple of your favourite "smaller blogs" the ones with not so many followers, and I think that's a great idea, to get people to check out blogs they may not have normally found. So in the spirit of this award and I hope nobody gets mad at me, and if you don't want to pass it on because you are likely to have an anxiety attack too, I am quite ok with that, here are my picks which were very very hard to choose:

Kirsten

Helen

Kate

If you wish to accept this award then you in turn do a post saying who tagged you, pick 3-5 of your favourite lesser known blogs (don't pick ones that have 300+ followers as the aim of this award to to highlight the lesser known ones) and let them know they've been tagged.

At the very least it's a great way to let other people know of interesting blogs that I like to read.


On another note, I am finding it really really hard to get into sewing. Every morning I get out of bed with the best of intentions to find time to sew and be productive. Take for instance this morning, unfortunately I woke up at 5am, yuck, on a Saturday, double yuck. After lying in bed until 5.30am I decided to take the bull by the horns so to speak and get stuck into sewing and try to finish something, anything! But, oh.......... I had to pass the computer on my way to my sewing machine. Hmmm I'll just check my emails and take a look at Favourite Things Friday posts.
It is now almost 8am 8.15am that's (over) two and a half hours I've been here. A very enjoyable two and a half hours I might add but that is two and a half hours that I haven't been sewing. I have looked at emails, replied to emails and comments. Looked at all the blog posts that came through on my reader, commented on only a couple as I was trying to get off here quickly, and then remembered I hadn't finished this post that has been sitting waiting for a week or so. So now after two and a half hours sitting at the computer I am going to attempt to walk to my sewing machine and sit down and sew.
I love my computer but boy does it take up a lot of my time. I've tried reducing the time I sit here, it just hasn't worked so I'm going to have to work out how to be more productive with my time when I'm not at the computer.


I hope everyone has a fabulous weekend and is a lot more disciplined than I am!

Christmas crochet and a tirade

Sorry but I am about to rant!!!!!!!!

I have been busy crocheting even though I have been tearing my hair out trying to work out how to put some photos on this post. I absolutely hate Blogger today, because even though it is free, (thank you Blogger), you have changed blogger so that all my blog photos go to a Picasa web album. BUT you didn't bother to mention the fact that there is a limit to how many photos you can have in that album (1GB), UNLESS you pay to upgrade. HMMMMMMMMMMM

AND you also didn't mention that if I try to delete photos out of my Picasa web album I delete them permanently out of the blog post too. Thanks a lot Blogger. Great, really great, I really appreciate that!!!!!  I don't want my photos in Picasa web album, but I have no choice. Also when I go into my Picasa web page, I find that all my photos are ticked for everyone to see, unless I had the foresight to go in there and change the settings, great, really really great. It is US$5 a year to upgrade to 20GB of storage but I don't want my photos stored in there so why should I have to pay for it.

Now I have finished my rant, I have deleted a couple of photos from the web album that appear to be duplicated, and have enough space to load these, and now I am just going to have to pay the $5 a year if I want to keep posting photos and blogging on blogger.

I have been making these gorgeous crochet stars using this tutorial from Yvestown Blog.

I used a metallic thread I found in my stash which I've had for many many years. See it does pay to keep things that you may use one day!

I also made some white ones in a fine crochet cotton, they still need to be blocked so they stay flat and in shape.

Favourite Things Friday

The totally awesome Mrs P at QIMP started Favourite Things Friday, I love this idea as it makes me think of the positive things when it is often so easy to think of the negative.  See Not Happy, Jan  post.

Crocheting and Quilting


Over the years I have tried all sorts of different crafty things.
Macrame (that was a long long long time ago)
Cross stitch
Embroidery
Sewing
Silversmithing
Knitting
Spinning
Weaving
Scrap booking
Jewellery making
Probably some more that I can't remember.

Two things I took up a long long time ago, dropped them, and now thanks to the wonderful world of blogging in 2010 I have found a renewed love of them, and this time I adore creating things so much I can't see me stopping either of them.

They are crocheting and quilting. Two very different crafts but I love them both equally.  Crocheting is great as something portable to do anywhere and I find it quick and very therapeutic (except for the sewing in of the ends). Quilting I enjoy sitting at home and using beautiful fabrics to create something out of an idea, an inspiration.

I always used to find excuses to spend my days out of the house but since returning to these lovely crafts I find I have learned to enjoy and embrace being at home where I can be creative and also very happy.

The infamous snowball blocks

The best thing of all, through crocheting and quilting,  I have found/connected with, some truly wonderful people who I am privileged to call my friends.

A problem and a cheer me up.

When I came back from Fiji, I checked google reader and I had 603 unread posts. I also had a trillion unread posts in my RSS feed. I have been trying really hard to catch up, but it's just about impossible to read plus comment on them. I apologise that I haven't been commenting on your posts, but I am madly trying to catch up so that I will be able to start commenting again by the end of the week.
What it does tell me though is I have far too many blogs that I read, and I must spend an awful lot of time during the week sitting at the computer catching up.  I am going to have to bite the bullet and cut back on the number of blogs I read, but where do I start?  I read them because I really enjoy them.

In the meantime, this should really brighten your day. I have seen this before, quite awhile ago, but I still get a good laugh out of it. It is heartening to see, that I am not alone!

Making progress.......

Weird.  Blogger has just changed the way photos are loaded. Which possibly explains why there were problems downloading photos for a lot of bloggers over the last week.  It seems ok, other than I had a slight heart attack when the photos first appeared on my post, so large that I could only see 1/4 of the photo, once they all loaded they were at the correct size. Also all photos downloaded on to the post at once. Not what I wanted to do, but not a serious drama, and I can always re-arrange them.

I don't know why but I am not finding anything funny to write about lately either. I am sure that it directly relates to my crafty mojo. When I find my crafty mojo, I can't write anything funny, and vice versa.  

Anyway on to the post.  

Over the last week I have had time to work on this quilt. I finished the disappearing nine patch, now just have to do a couple of borders. I can complete the first border as I am going to use the chocolate bella solid that I used in the nine patch, but I want to wait until Pure yardage is out to use a print for the outer border. 

I can't believe how much my accuracy has improved on this quilt.  Just about every single point joins perfectly, woo hoo. Just goes to show that practice makes perfect.

I am finding it really difficult finding ways to display my work for photos.  I look through lots of photos where they look fabulous hung on fences, clotheslines, draped over furniture etc. I don't have a clothesline, and my fences are wire and only about 1 metre / 3 feet high , and I don't have any outside furniture that looks good with my quilts (they are too modern). I came up with hanging it over the balustrade at the top of the stairs, I think it looks quite good, but I can only show half of it otherwise it starts to slip over the railing.

Here is the table runner with the multi colour binding, I think it looks pretty good, and I'm glad I used it.

The next few days I am going to concentrate on crocheting some granny squares, as I have left them alone for the last couple of weeks.  I have a couple of things that I need to work on, otherwise I am going to be doing it at the last minute.

My 100th post

I have something special to share with you today, as this is my 100th post.

I can't believe that I have actually already written 99 posts. I usually have the attention span of a gnat, and lose interest after 6 months.

Now for my 100th post, I thought long and hard about what I should write. Firstly I thought I could talk about the changes we have had over the last few years in the weather, where we are supposed to have sunshine most of the year, but now it rains an awful lot,  that is why I called my blog Sunshine? Paradise?. But really, who is interested in the weather, other than weather geeks? What a boring post, that could have been.

Blogiversary

I am 1 today, it's my Blogiversary.  Woo hoo

I can't believe it is a year since I started. A year ago  I barely even knew what a blog was, yes I admit,  I wasn't exactly the most up to date IT kind of girl.

So my achievements for this year are:
1. Ditched a friend (frienemy).
2. Dived head first back into the crocheting and quilting world, and I must add here that I love every            minute of it.
3. Started a flickr account.
4. Started buying stuff online!!!!
5. Started taking more photos of everyday things.
6. Made some lovely new friends online.
7. Lost some weight and found it again!
8. Went to Europe by myself and met some great people while on holidays.
9. Had a big birthday party for a big birthday, not telling which one though.
10. Survived another year with a teenage daughter.

All in all a pretty good year, don't you think?




 

Almost a year

I just realized it is almost one year ago that I started blogging. The person who showed me what blogging is all about and helped me start on this journey is no longer my friend, for a very good reason.  Has this happened to you? Do you have friends who have fallen by the wayside?

Do you receive chain emails  telling you how friends come into your life and go out of your life for a reason?  I have received quite a few of those over the the last few years, at least they are better than the -if you don't send this on to 300 people, you will  lose all your money, get sick, the plague or locusts will come etc.

I have a lot of very dear friends, some who I have known for many many years, as far back as primary school.  Over the years I have found that you sometimes grow apart, move away, take different life paths.  I have moved many many times in my life, I'm an ex army wife.  I have lived in 3 different countries, many different places, but all through that time, even though I have temporarily lost contact with dear friends, or we have been too busy with our own lives to ring or write,  when we find each other again, we have always picked up where we left off, as though it was only yesterday we were last in contact. (Sorry about the long sentence, hope you managed to take a breath.)  I think it is a special friend that can understand that they are still in your heart, even though you don't keep in contact as much as you should.

I have lost very few friends along the way and it's funny, I don't miss any of them. They came into my life for a reason, I think,  this one to help me on the road to blogging to show me that the friends I still have are true friends,  that I should cherish the friendships that I have, that friendship goes much deeper than the superficial stuff of life. Life is not a competition, it doesn't matter what you have, it is how you use it.

Anyway enough of this introspective stuff. I am happy happy happy coz I have lovely lovely friends I have had for many years, and all the new friends I have found since starting this blog.  If it wasn't for "she who shall remain nameless" I wouldn't have found you at all.

I'll drink to that, and for Mrs QIMP and the sixth food group, a Tim Tam or two and some Nanaimo bars.

Cheers!!!!!

I am glad they photoshopped my legs in this portrait.

Awesomeness

The wonderfully, zany (in a good way) Shay over at Quilting in My Pyjamas, has been sharing the love and gave me a Beautiful Blogger award.  How nice, and she hasn't even seen me yet!  It is the first award I have ever received.

The rules are:
1. Thank the giver.
2. Reveal 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass it on to 5 bloggers you admire.
Rules are made to be broken, but today, meh, I am going to stick to the rules.


So here goes....

Thank you Shay.

1.  I fell down the steps at Wynyard Station in Sydney, I was wearing a dress and my heel caught in the hem of the dress.  The dress ended up around my ears, my handbag went flying, and everything fell out of it, and I mean everything.  A kind gentlemen helped me up and helped me put all my stuff back into my bag. I was more embarrassed about the contents of my bag than my dress around my ears.  I looked hot fabulous, slim etc. back then.
I survived, only my pride was hurt.

2. I cannot go anywhere unless my hair is shiny clean.

3. I can't make a decision to save myself, procrastinator is my middle name.

4. I don't like confrontation, I am a wooz (is that how you spell it). Which is fabulous when you have a teenage daughter.

5. I have a mind like a sieve. You can tell me all your secrets as I will never remember them, and I won't be able to tell anyone else.

6. My first career I trained as a primary teacher, loathed every minute of it. Second career, accounts, not so great either, but then went into credit control, loved that as had to talk to people all day long.  If you are nice to people and "bug" them enough, they usually pay.

7. I love making things, I really get a kick out of producing something, especially when I design it myself, and that's why I am having so much fun now, as I have time to make things and show the world 5 people, yippee.

Now for the really really hard part, trying to pick only 5 amazing people:

wish upon a star   Renata, I know in real life, she has a kind heart, and two great kids.  I have known her since we met at our children's school. Renata is a nurse and can resuscitate me if needed -  a good friend to have!!!!!!!!!

dandelion dreamer Moira is lovely, she is so creative and makes beautiful paper fabric, and then does fabulous things with it, including adding fabric, machine embroidery and stamping, I am amazed at her creativity. She also knows a thing or two about sewing machines!

Eternally Distracted is a fabulous writer, very funny daily happenings in a foreign land. She is Scottish as are most of my relatives and her baby Max is Australian, a Sulphur Crested Cockatoo.

Curlypops,  another blogger who is a wizz with the sewing machine. Cam is very talented and creative, she has some great tutorials on her blog with clear instructions, even I can have a go at them. I will certainly be checking out her goodies at the markets when and if I ever get back to Melbourne.

Cynthia from Home Matters 1st, my hat goes off to Cynthia as she home schooled her daughter. I am always amazed how mothers can home school, I would have killed Bitchypoo when she was about 10 if I had home schooled her. Cynthia is also going to Italy in 2012, how good is that!!!!


And I would have put Quilting In My Pyjamas here, as we are twins separated at birth, however as Shay shared the love with me, we might end up in a never ending loop of love if I send it back.

PS  Please don't feel pressured into sending it on to others. Remember rules are made to be broken.

Blogging

I started this blog many months ago, and had no idea what I was going to write about, other than the weird weather we had been having. Roll forward six months and I still have no idea what I want to say. I love reading other blogs, I think it is wonderful that this can be used as a diary, or to disseminate information. I have become an avid follower of quite a few foodie blogs and have found some wonderful recipes. I have also been following ordinary people who lead extraordinary lives. It has meant that I have spent far more time on the computer than before, but I have loved every minute of it.

I would love to be able to tell anecdotes that make people laugh.

I would love to remember to take my camera with me so that I can have photos to show where I have been and what I have been doing.

I have been far more interested in cooking, thanks to Rasa Malaysia and Almost Bourdain. I have started to get back into my crafty ways, thanks to Dottie Angel, and emma lamb, and I have realised that it was perfectly ok to paint over old furniture to give it a new lease of life, instead of spending a small, no, large fortune.

I love reading blogs, I very rarely if ever leave a comment, but maybe one day I will get up the courage to be more adventurous.