do teddy bears die?

I think I found the culprit that introduced the moths to the other teddy bears.

This teddy bear is made of lace and filled with potpourri. When doing my recent checking and sorting of my teddy bear collection, I noticed what appeared to be black soot where some of the bears were sitting. Apart from the nearby bears getting the black dust in their fur, the only other teddy bear that was affected was White Bear.

White Bear is a string mohair teddy bear made by Merrythought. And apart from being my only white furred bear, he is a present from H for my birthday in 1993 which is auspicious for being the only birthday that I have spent in hospital.

I vacuumed and wiped White Bear with a damp sponge and sprayed with insect spray and have not seen any other occurrence of the moth - which is a relief.

But what to do about Potpourri Bear? He has been isolated from the other bears since I discovered he was harboring the weevils. His ears are no longer filled with potpourri and his face is only filled up to the eyes. The lace is also holey in places that it shouldn’t, although still stiff to give the Potpourri Bear shape. It appears that he has a black-eye as the lace is a little holey around the eye and the potpourri shows through more than other places. I have some rose petals that I have dried. Before I put him on life-support I suppose I could try to re-fill him with the rose petals. Or should I just let him go?

Somewhat related. I read in the January Loose Produce newsletter that you can control pantry moth by putting food items such as dried fruit, flour and rice in the freezer for a couple of days. I was wondering whether this would be a better treatment for teddy bears than a periodical insect spray and vacuuming.

nearly painting the fence

I only wanted to paint a bit of fence that I could see from the laundry window.

Several days later I have since prepared the whole fence for painting. Chipping render and concrete using a scutching hammer and paint scraper. And today, completely washing and scrubbing to remove any dust or specks of render that I may of missed.

H has pushed up the fence capping, so that I don’t have to be too careful when painting.

Tomorrow, is the big day for painting. And I’m going to start on the unpainted part of the fence that I can see through the laundry window. Then, I’ll dress the areas where the paint has been chipped and rubbed off ready for a second coat of paint another day.

The only tricky bit so far, apart from working in the heat is continually removing cobwebs. I have seen five different species of spider, none of which have been a red back.

keeping up with the Jones

Rather than stainless steel bolts went with brass, probably influenced by Steampunk.

We have got lots of nice wood to laminate a top, but I would like to stick to my original plan of making a mosaic.

Also, decided to not look for the bit of wood that drives the wheel as I would like the foot peddle to be fixed.

cardboard to bottlebrush

The skincare samples that I was given at the Jurlique counter in David Jones a couple of weeks ago were presented to me in a cardboard pouch.

I have two samples, each in a different cardboard pouch. What is special about the cardboard is that it is impregnated with tiny seeds. The seeds are Willow Bottlebrush and Scarlet Bottlebrush.

My small bit of research shows that neither of these bottlebrush plants are going to be small, i.e. anything from a shrub to a small to medium tree. They will not be suitable for our teeny garden, but perhaps I can use them as a street tree to plant on our verge - council permitting. Or, if I cannot use them on the verge, perhaps I can find a good home for them once they are a reasonable size.

The Willow Bottlebrush appears to be consistently called a Callistemon-salignus, whereas the Scarlet Bottlebrush turns up a couple of names; Callistemon phoeniceus and Callistemon rugulosus.

The instructions read:

“Soak pouch in water until soft. Place pouch on seed raising mix (in pot or ground). Cover with more mix, water, nurture and keep moist. Shoots should appear in 7-21 days.”

So here goes.

1. Soak in water.
2. Lay on seed-raising mix.



3. Cover with some more seed-raising mix.

See which seeds come up first, Willow Bottlebrush or Scarlet Bottlebrush. Oh noes, I didn’t label which was which. Bother.

Scarlet Bottlebrush Flowers: Dennis Haugen, Bugwood.org

tools for women

Gardening Tips ‘N’ Ideas posted an article a little while ago about gardening tools for women. I didn’t take too much notice of it at the time, except to bookmark the DIY Woman site.

I know that I often have difficulty handling tools that I need to use to renovate our home and in the garden, as they are designed for taller people and those with larger hands. For example, I cannot use some tools effectively because of my small hands as I cannot grip the handle of a hammer, trowel, or pair of pliers. DIY Woman provides gardening and hand tools designed for smaller hands and are specifically marketed to women.

I was in Jaycar last Saturday as a hanger on to H who was getting some parts to refurbish our dishwasher. They have quite a different approach to marketing to women. Simply make them pink. Ugh! See their 3 piece gardening tool set with pouch and stainless steel pink multi-tool set. There was also a tool case, with similarly coloured tools suitable for an IT tech. Apart from the sick looking pastel pink, the tools were just ‘normal size’ tools. Nothing special.

Having been in the role of an IT sys admin, consultant, and tech, I can tell you now that walking in with these tools, especially into a new client premises, would have diminished any professional credibility I had. While I like colours other than grey, black, and beige, simply colouring tools ‘girly’ pink is simply not going to offer any practical or aesthetic reason for me to purchase these tools.

Also, I prefer tools to be colours other than grey, black, beige, or even green because I can easily spot them in the garden, office, or client premises. The green painted hand tools that have had to remain in the garden until I rediscovered their whereabouts are now rusty.

scientific version of the grand tour

Tux and I went on what could be considered the scientific version of the Grand Tour. Only what is different is that it commenced in October 2000 and lasted only just over three weeks.

My birthday was in September and I was gifted Tux In October, when we set off for Rome, Tux accompanied us on The New Scientist History of Science Tour to Europe with Robyn Williams. It was H’s birthday present to himself. And instead of using the funds we had saved for a piano, Tux and I accompanied H to the Northern Hemisphere to see all things science.

And yes, it’s only now, nearly seven years later, that I’m beginning to sort out these photographs from many others that are stacked up in various bags and boxes. It also gives me the opportunity to have a sort out and organise the various tickets, brochures, maps, and catalogues from the trip.

I’m hoping to put our photographs online, so that I can document our first whirlwind tour through Europe, a history of science tour of Rome, Florence, Venice, Augsburg, Prague, London, Cambridge, Oxford, and with many side trips on the way. A history of science tour at the turn of the century.

a hem

Just a hem to go, and this is finished. The machining is done, just a bit of hand sewing required.

The only tricky bit will be remembering, or finding some notes (as I do, take notes that is) on turning the corners.

It is or was to be a tablecloth for our dining room table. Except that as I started it that long ago (like over 10 years ago), my taste in colours may have changed. Also, I measured it without the leaf in the table and we tend to leave it in the table these days.

I’ll leave the decision to keep the quilt or let it go once it is finished. In the meantime, I need to find the thread to do said hemming.

Also, in the green room I found five books amongst the fabric and unfinished applique and quilts. More books to put on my BookCrossing shelf - yay!

the Jones

It’s a Jones, not a Singer. Shows you how long ago that I even looked at the three pieces that make up the treadle sewing machine table.

We recently got a table and two chairs for our front porch so that we could have breakfast and coffee out in the morning sun. There are plant stands and a two-tiered shelving unit that go with the table setting, but our budget put these items in the nice to have list.

Then I remembered that we still hadn’t put a top on the treadle sewing machine table that was sandblasted and gloss powder-coated years and years and years ago.

Flushed with the recent success of finishing one project, I’m now investigating whether I can do a mosaic similar to that of the breakfast table.

First, I need to decide the size and shape of the top. Thinking about rectangular, but will probably do a bit of Googling to hopefully find the size of the original cabinet for guidance.

Second, I need to make up a materials list. I remembered H was reluctant to assemble the parts when I asked before as he wanted to use stainless steel bolts, and there was a bit of wood that was attached to the peddle or wheel. Not sure whether we have still got this somewhere, but I think there was discussion about turning a new one. I wondered how much I really need the table in ‘working order’ to have a mosaic tile top so that we could use it as a sideboard or extension of the breakfast table.

Materials list so far:

• stainless steel bolts
• bit of wood - that goes somewhere
• fibre cement sheet - to do the tiling on
  There is a piece covering a hole (where the bath shower was) in the old bathroom that may do, but I want to decide on the size first. Besides I’ll have to find something to cover up the hole in the floor too.
• tiles
• cement - purchased table does not use tiling grout, but grey cement
• mild steel edging - this is powder coated matt black on the table

For the moment, I have moved the three pieces of the treadle sewing machine table from the green room to the blue room. Which means, it has progressed from being stored to getting in the way

cartoon initial cap

know that it is Autumn, but I’m too used to Easter in the Northern Hemisphere, so I’m doing Spring type things. Like having a sort out of various stacks of stuff. Then I got distracted from collecting all my teddy bears onto a bench for checking and cleaning, to looking at the book shelves that contain craft and hobby type books.

The one that I’ve pulled off the shelf to have a look at over lunch is Frank Webb’s Let’s Draw. It is a book to encourage children to doodle and draw from letters and numbers. I remember doing most of the exercises, but no longer have any record of my attempts.

Then I thought, I’ll have a go again and perhaps I can use them as initial caps (drop caps) a bit like the illuminated manuscripts we saw in a library in the UK.

My first attempt had the elephant facing to the left which meant the letter was closest to the margin.

I flipped the image, and also attempted to make the letter ‘I’ blacker with the GIMP’s Paintbrush Tool. But I think what it needs is for me to be more confident about using my 3B pencil to draw the line, in fact, all the lines.

No great art, but I have had fun working through the possibilities. Also, the exercise has unearthed another Easter time task. And that’s to get the sticky and powdered foam that has disintegrated (from age) in my pencil box

This is definitely one of the books that will remain in my BookCrossing Permanent Collection for the time being.

from bath to loveseat

Adding this to my ta-da list.

I was thinking of making our old clawfoot bath into an above ground pond come art installation. That is, restore the bath and create a statue of someone slipping into the bath or sitting on the edge of the bath.

But maintaining the new bigger brighter bird bath is proving to be a bit of a pain. So I’m not contemplating new water features anytime soon.

But I like this idea - a lot.

Bathtub loveseat from Flavour Design. Link via Neatorama.

I’ve seen the bath feet in the shed recently, but I only remember having three and a brick I guess I’ll be on the lookout for another clawfoot while I continue to contemplate a water feature or loveseat for the garden.