Houston, we have a finish!

Stop what you’re doing, pour a little bubbly libation and raise a tiny toast.  Di has actually finished a quilt!

It’s this lovely baby - “Chocolat” – made for my Dear Someone’s birthday a couple of weeks ago. As I told you previously, I used the fabulous cheater yardage from Moda’s “Chocolat” range to make my quick and easy centre, since I lacked both time and energy to take on anything more complex. Moda’s “Peace on Earth” range co-ordinates beautifully with “Chocolat”, so I simply added a couple of borders in warm, winter red, muted teal and chocolate tone-on-tone.Then I finished it off with red binding. It’s stitched now, but half the binding was still pinned when the big day came – ever tried to give someone a gift, at the same time warning that it might give a nasty scratch? – and it does need a little more quilting in the final border.  Oh, and a few threads snipped (see first close-up above).

But don’t let that stop you raising your glass.  Please be happy for me!

Look what my friend Di made!

She's an experienced garment sewer, but my friend (blogless) Di has only recently caught the quilting bug (I confess I infected her).

This is her very first quilt - isn't it fun and fabulous?

She adapted a pattern from a past issue of "Australian Patchwork & Quilting", called "Sophie's Bears", using brights instead of the pastels in the original quilt, and although we had one stitching day together (as I worked on my "Chocolat" quilt) she did it all herself.

I just love the fabrics she's already bought for her next one, hydrangeas in gorgeous blues and soft lime greens. Watch this space!

Look who's giving away a whole quilt!

That's right, a whole quilt! Aneela is celebrating her 100th blog post and has created the prettiest lap quilt in soft pastels. She's hand-embroidered the centre with pretty roses and forget-me-knots, and used a wonderful array of florals from her scrap bag.

Pop on over to her blog to enter, and take a look at the spring-time tulips looking so bright and cheery beside her clothes-line.

Cheers,

A turn for the better

Mothers’ Day began with torrential rain.  My ants pants internet was driving me crazy.  And my children were all otherwise involved.

But my, how things can change!  The skies had cleared by the afternoon, and my DD arrived just in time to hear me swearing my undying gratitude down the phone line to “Kerry” in a Singapore call centre for finally configuring my wireless repeater. 

DD’s suggestion that we take The Princess  and Chloe for a walk to the park was just the best offer I’d had all day.   With autumn leaves crackling underfoot we wrapped our hands around warm cups of take-away coffee and watched while The Princess tried out all the new play equipment. I had such a lovely Mothers’ Day – and even old Chloe had something to smile about!

I’ve been tearing my hair out

It started innocently enough. A quick call to Telstra 2 weeks ago to set up Messagebank on my mobile phone.

“Now, while you’re on the line, let’s take a look at your account and see if we can do anything to improve things.”

And before I knew it I was agreeing to a technician coming to set up cable wireless broadband which - I was assured - was the bee’s knees. It would save me many dollars, be faster and give a stronger signal than my current internet connection throughout my entire house.

I warned her I lived in a large sandstone house, and that the cable modem had to be situated downstairs while my study was, of necessity, upstairs. Not a problem for our whizz-bang cable wireless broadband, apparently!

The fact that the phrases “strong wireless signal” and “sandstone house” are almost never uttered in the same sentence seemingly mattered not a jot to our Telstra.

Even the cable guy who came to the house to do the job and saw the the thick sandstone walls was unphased.

Then the trouble started. I became a bar-watcher. Not to be confused with a bar-crawler. However, watching the signal hovering between one bar (low) and 2 bars (poor), with the very occasional peak at 3 bars (fair), and experiencing constant drop-outs, was indeed enough to drive a perfectly sane computer user to drink.

Telstra wouldn’t help me since they “don’t support” helpful items like repeaters or booster antennas. Nice. So if you do as I did and invest in one you feel like some sort of geeky criminal.

But before I slunk off to the shop I tried making one of these from aluminium foil (didn’t work for me). There’s a whole world of Heath Robinson antenna makers out there, and they love to trumpet their successes on internet geek forums. Other home-made designs, I soon learnt, even utilise Pringles cans. Hmm…If I wasn’t careful I could end up overweight and sozzled!

An onmi-directional booster antenna was no better, and the wireless G access point/repeater which promised me the Wizardry to set it up ‘in minutes ‘ defeated me after about 600! The manufacturer’s technical support line carries a not-so-welcoming message informing you that you can be charged $40 flat fee if you ask anything that you could have found out by just following the manual. Ouch!

Feeling an absolute dunce, I prepared myself to face the music this afternoon, and dialed the wirelwless repeater manufacturer's technical support line once again - this time holding onto the phone until a real person actually answered. To my grateful surprise I was told, with a dismissive laugh, “Oh, we never charge the $40”. (So, I wondered, is this really just a ruse to cut down on the number of calls these poor overworked geeks have to handle?)

My reward for being a brave girl and facing the possibility of a $40 ‘fine’ for not reading the manual? A sweet young thing who, quite patiently and non-judgmentally, took me step-by step through the set-up of my repeater.

And a strong wireless internet signal where I want it – upstairs. Yaaaayyyyyy!!!!!!!!!! (no thanks to Telstra).

And while we're at it...

Pop on over to the Inklingo blog and take a look at the multi-giveaway these clever users of Linda Franz's creations are running! You have until 18th May. If you love hexagons and such you'll love these!

Another wonderful giveaway!

One day very soon I promise to write a proper blog post ... truly. I've just been too busy to blog, I'm afraid, but I'm never too busy to keep up with the doings of my bloggy friends!

This time I want to send you over to Robyn's blog where she's having a 'rosy' giveaway. Off you go now...