on the beach

Seaweed. Sweet, isn't it?

Finally, I got a stroll along the sand. As we walked we collected pieces of colourful rope washed up on the shore.

Surprisingly I wasn't cold, though it was a cool blustery day. Am I finally becoming acclimatised to this Victorian weather?

One of the perks of being back in my home country is the ENDLESS op shopping to be had. There were no op shops in KL, at least that I could see. Thankfully I've landed in a small coastal city that is awash with treasure troves of used goodies. Mostly goodies. Often you come against someone's well worn pilled trackies. Or feather yarn. Sometimes Roxette tapes. Once in a while there's an old high school art class painting that makes you look twice, "Is that mine?"... Although I had ample opportunity, I picked up none of these things. I got a blooming good book called 'Flower Arranging in Colour' by Betty Massingham (image). A kilo of zippers. Some sweet sheets and pillow cases. A teeny yellow saucepan. And a nice chat with the woman behind the counter about the virtues of a good haberdashery collection.

Oh gee, I've been back in Oz for a week almost, and this is only my first post. A little slack, huh? It's been family a-go-go here. Booze and food. Fish and chips on the beach on a cold windy day. Rediscovering old clothes. Patting the family dog. Shoe shopping with my mother. Drinking coffee with my dad. Cutting my sister's hair. Wearing two t-shirts, leggings and socks to bed. Asking if the heating can be put on in the morning. Cripes, it's cold!

I haven't made anything yet. These are images from some cards I collaged in KL. Oh, memories!

Tomorrow I'm off to visit old friends and new babies. Hurrah!

So goodbye KL, so long Malaysia. It feels so strange to be leaving. We did live together after all. And you introduced me to some new friends, I can't help but feel a little sad. But then, holy cow, tomorrow morning when I touch down at Tullamarine...I'll probably be really tired. But happy!

Leaving you though, Thistler, is very hard to do, so you hurry home ok?

Goodbye favourite local coffee shop. Goodbye sweet red bean pastry (will I ever see you again?)



Goodbye Bangsar. You look so nice at dusk, all blurry and glowing, the evening call to prayer ringing out.

Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

It's home time. It's been almost nine months. Early Friday morning I fly fly fly out of KL and eight or so hours later I'll touch down in Melbourne. Oh my. So, goodbye swimming pool. Goodbye neighborhood.

Hello you, you like cherries right? Oh my yes. Did you know you can get yourself a sweet cherry brooch from the made by maude shop? But there are only three available! Quick, quickly run to maude’s shop and pick a cherry. They’re sweet and oh so very affordable ;)

No Coffee Blues

Yesterday our little gas bottle ran out of gas, which put our stove out of action. So here I am, waiting for the gas man. No gas means no coffee this morning, which is harder than it sounds. Yeah, you may scoff. I would, if I had coffee this morning. But I didn't. So instead I've got one of those slight, dull, no coffee headaches, wishing the gas man would hurry up. Ok ok, it's not all self-indulgent. I played around with those little giraffe's a bit and resolved the balance issue. Hurrah! Now they're a happy little tribe of giraffe brooches.

giraffe dilemma

A little while ago my neighbor went to China for six weeks and left me in charge of watering her plants. Those leafy friends survived and as a sweet thank you she bought me back some bits and pieces she thought I might like to use in my work, amongst them a bag of teeny painted wooden giraffes like this...



Oh no! I'm sorry Mr Giraffe, but your not totally my style. Yikes! What's a crafter to do? Well, they hung around for a while, I picked them up and put them back down, pondered their possibilities. I started painting over them, but without much success. Then in a stroke of freaking genius Thistler suggested covering them with paper. Flip!! Why didn't I think of this? I've covered so many things in paper already. Old tins, dodgy diary covers, cardboard boxes...



So I covered 'em, and covered 'em good. I used paper from a pack of offcuts we got here a few months ago. I was going to turn them into brooches, but they don't sit so well when pinned (a bit unbalanced) so now I'm thinking fridge magnets...

On Sunday Thistler and I were at the train station when we stumbled across this, the futurmobil.

'Heck', we thought, 'what is this thing? Should we ride it? Where will it take us?' Well, we were feeling adventurous that day so we stepped in, and soon found ourselves here...

On a gondola! 'Hoorah!' We exclaimed. So there we were, floating on a lake in the city of Putrjaya, which turned out to be not so far from KL after all. From the gondola we spied a few things, this huge pink domed mosque among them,

and this bridge.


After our gondola ride we strolled for a while until we came upon the Botanic Gardens (every decent city MUST have a botanic gardens, right?). By now we were pretty hot and thirsty. Luckily there was a vending machine in the gardens!

(this is not a vending machine)
There were also monkeys in the palms

and the mosquitoes made themselves known.

After a while the sun began to set, and the call to prayer went out. We wandered back to the Prime Minister's house, and tried to get him to take us back into KL...

He told us to take the train. The futuremobil is one way.

A Few Small Things

Last week I bought some fabric and gouache. Since then I've made myself a grey skirt (totally anticipating my return to Victoria!) and have painted a few little colour studies. Oh boy, the return to painting is difficult. I seem to have forgotten all the rules. Try, try again huh?

Yesterday we went to FRIM. Oh la la, what is FRIM? Forum of Really Intelligent Mice? Oh no no. Forest Research Institute Malaysia, of course! It's a big park (with lots of buildings actually) where Malaysians practice a bit of Forest Research. Mmmm. It's on the outskirts of KL, but still in the Klang Valley. We were going for the canopy walk - a high bridge walk through the rain forest, so we packed a picnic and met our friends at the train station.



Our friends recommended NOT catching the train to FRIM, as the line was unreliable and overcrowded, so we caught a cab. Ooh, the place was rather not what we expected. It was like a little, spread out village with houses, schools and a few cafes. The rain forest was sort off around the edges of this. Down at the information center we were informed that the Canopy Walk was under construction. Oh no!
'But you know,' we were further informed, 'there is sooo much more to do lah.' (Some Malaysians like to add 'lah' onto the end of some sentences, sort of like 'yeah'.)



'You can go to the fish pond where, if you clap your hands, a huge fish will jump out of the water! It can jump so high, it could eat a baby monkey out of a tree, ok!!' (Some Malaysians like to add 'ok' onto the end of some sentences. Sometimes they add 'ok lah!' ;) Well we went to the pond and we clapped and clapped, all four of us together, but the fish wouldn't play. So we went to see some bamboo that we were told was the oldest bamboo in the world!! :0



Soon we wandered down to the picnic area only to discover it had been taken over by an inter-school event, where a large noisy game of musical chairs was in progress. We found a quieter spot by a waterfall and ate, battling over sized ants all the while.



Later we took a stroll through the edge of the rain forest, following the FRIM guide, which detailed the uses of different trees. Did you know that the Campnosperma auriculata is used for match boxes and sticks, packing cases, shoe soles, and disposable chopsticks? You didn't, did you?

Hurrah!

Thank you so much to cuteable who have featured this little fellow on their blog today. Great start to the week!

Quiet quiet weekend here. Some wandering, some eating. Here are some pics...

Spent a couple hours today with another Aussie ex-pat who was kind enough to introduce me to a quilting shop in KL full full full of cottons. Hurrah! Here's a few fabrics I picked up. Oh heck, it was exciting.

Deep Sea Adventure

Hola! Had a little fun with some vinyl and fabric scraps that I bought over (over the sea, on the plane) with me this week. Decided to go with a nautical theme, as I'm missing sea side fun. Haul anchor kids, and pin it to yer shirt. I've made some jellyfish, a whale and even a ship's wheel. Photos of those are coming, once I clean the camera out...

weekend photos

Took a walk in a city park this weekend and stumbled across THE best playground EVER. Here are some friends we made.