Nick Cave

Exquisite song, wonderful video. Four minutes.

Turkey goodness

What a feast we had — these are our two Americans: Lily's partner, the gorgeous Nick, on the left, and the gorgeous Jesse, a really good mate of Will's from San Diego who is staying with us for a few weeks.

We all made surprisingly short work of a seven-kilo turkey, but I'm happy to say there are some leftovers, with gravy and cranberry sauce, for today.

Nick and Lily grilled the corn on the barbie, with delicious results, and Jesse was a great fan of our roast potatoes, which he'd never had before. It seems his family either bake potatoes whole or have them mashed. So he's asked me to demonstrate how to do roasties so he can show the folks back home.

After all the thrills yesterday, I didn't wake up until nine o'clock this morning, when my best friend Caroline rang to find out why I hadn't turned up at her house for our planned walk! Nine o'clock! Shocking!

The house is so clean and tidy this morning — there is nothing at all on the big table, and the kitchen is spotless. Everything's just waiting for me to spread out and make a brand-new mess ...

Much excitement

Well, there have been great happenings here at Schloss Zed today.

To begin with, I received the quilt that I had sent Tracey in FNQ to quilt for me.

OMG: what a beautiful, careful job she has done. It's an all-over pattern of swirls and stars and it's just perfect!

It's no wonder Tracey is widely acclaimed and gets write-ups in magazines. Such a talent.

I'm so very happy with it, thank you, Tracey.

And thanks, too, for the squares of lovely fabric that I'll be able to incorporate into a quilt really soon.

Laura was her with me this morning when this parcel arrived, which was great fun — plus she was able to hold it up for a photo!

This is a swap Tracey and I organised a few weeks ago during one of our many Scrabble games on facebook, and in exchange I'll be making a papercut to send to her. Just brilliant.

This beautiful quilt will be bound and then packed off to Brighton, UK, for my cousin Samantha, who is expecting a baby at the end of January.

:: The other event of great excitement was an email telling me that Los Angeles artist and papercut exponent Elsa Mora had seen my work here and on flickr (you click on the link over on the right of the page) and had added me as a contact.

This is praise indeed — I was astonished.

I have lovely Laura to thank for this, as she emailed Elsa to tell her about my papercuts and got a lovely response, which she then forwarded to me.

Thanks, Laura — you are such a pal!

:: Hey hey hey it's Thanksgiving. I do hope all my American friends will (get through the day unscathed and calm, and) enjoy the most wonderful day with family and friends.

We are celebrating here tonight with turkey dinner for 14, two Americans among them.

Thinking of which, I'd better scoot ...

All done

Finished (with three or four leaves discreetly re-attached!) and framed this papercut, a wedding present for a young couple with a big old Victorian house.

It was a stroke of great luck that their initials were J and R, beautiful letters to play with, with those lovely long curvy tails ... though now I look at this pic, I think the J is a poofteenth higher than the R ...

Today's brand-new project is to make four aprons for my best friend Belinda, for her to give as Christmas prezzies. Brilliant!

:: Thank you for all the queries about what happened to the moth in my ear! I've had no symptoms, no deafness or irritation, so I'm assuming the moth has ... disappeared.

Catbus bag

Today I sketched and carved Catbus. He's one of the characters from the famous and popular Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.

... I mixed up colours ...

... and printed on a really nicely-textured linen that I brought back from California in my stash.

I'd bought a twist-clip-frame on line from U-handbag, and used Lisa's amazingly detailed and accurate instructions to make this make-up bag.

It's a 20th birthday present for my best friend Dace's gorgeous daughter, Halina, who is Ghibli-mad.

Ta-da!

It's lined in creamy leatherette PVC (which was ever so slightly a teensy bit tricky ... and involved just a teensy bit of swearing).

I reckon I need a room of my own ... just look at the mess I have to clean up — and it's mine, all mine!

What a treat

While Adelaide and Melbourne have been sweltering with record periods of very hot weather and bushfire warnings, we are having mild, cloudy days and, right now, a torrential downpour.

This is the view from my kitchen/family room door.

Delicious rain. Bring it on. Let's hope we get lots more. And that summer stays away for as long as possible.

:: Oooh — I forgot to tell you about what happened while we were at Eagle bay on the weekend. First night there, I fell asleep only to be woken when some silly muddle-headed moth flew into the side of my head and then started flapping about my ear.

I woke up with a start and swiped at it (and my head), and the wretched thing went ... right ... in. All the way into my ear, burrowing, with wings buzzing and flapping.

I called out to wake David, yelling at him to get some tweezers out of the first aid box so I could yank the moth out.

He came back to the bed giggling and offering me not tweezers but a digital thermometer.

"What am I supposed to do with that?" Flutter, whirrrrr, deeper and deeper.

"Can't you use it to dig it out?"

Silence from me. More flapping and fluttering.

Then Dace comes in and she and David proceed to chuckle some more, while Dace tells me to shine the bedside light in my ear. Presumably so the poor little moth will do a U-turn in my ear's inner-passage and fly towards the light. Hmmm.

"Okay, well lie down and hit the other side of your head!"

Like the moth will just drop out.

The fluttering and whirring are now so deep inside my ear, and so loud, that the moth must be up against my ear drum. Or my brain.

I'm squealing, Dace and David are still giggling.

"Oil. Get the olive oil!"

Dace pours a good half-litre of extra-virgin in my ear and there's a glug-glug-glug noise on top of the moth's panicky flapping and buzzing.

Then silence.

Uh-oh. Now I have a drowned moth in my ear.

"Quick!" laughs Dace, tip your head over and the moth will pour out with the oil!"

No. The oil came out all alone.

Five days later and the dead moth is still in there.

Eeyoo.

until by now the poor little exha m

Cuts

Been working on this one for a while. It's to end up in a big old Victorian house in Mt Lawley, so I had to get the feel just right.

There have been a few leaves lopped (they'll be invisibly fixed with microscopic dots of acid-free rubber glue), and I nearly went blind doing the grapes, but on the whole I'm very happy with it — hope you are too, Dace!

:: Went to see Julie & Julia last night — loved it.

Amy Adams is brilliant as the younger, present-day character, blogger Julie Powell. And Meryl Streep is an absolute joy to watch in the role of Julia Child. Before all the hoo-ha about this film, I'd never heard of this cookbook writer, or seen her on TV. Now I'm curious to find out more, having watched Meryl's amazing performance of this enormous (she was over 1.8m tall), vivacious, life-loving woman with her excited whooping and yelping and drunk-looking delivery.

And it's so funny! Meryl must have been chuckling all through making the film.

I was equally touched by the very great affection between her and her shorter, balder husband. Such a lovely man! All in all, a really fun, interesting movie — with blogging in it to boot!