Keeping up with the Jones' (or Annie)

Every school term without fail, Annie makes a new handbag. Her bags get more and more complicated as she works through almost all of Nikki's patterns. This term, it could not be avoided, my bag with a great big split in the front PVC had to go...it was getting embarrassing.

So at the last minute I made a new bag - same as every other bag I have made for about four years, but this time with thicker PVC. Kind of dull and boring and practical - but saved by the awesomeness that is my favourite Ink and Spindle fabric ever, long discontinued and hoarded until now.

Ahead of me on this three day weekend, is some papercraft........yep never thought I'd be putting that word on my blog. A bit of Red riding hood tweaking, a bit of rag rugging, all the general domestic godessing and (fingers crossed) the final final finishing of these as yet unnamed fellows below.

ooh , and the first postcard arrived at school yesterday, (Thanks Catherine) correctly addressed to the awesome Library chick......accompanied by the statement from the office ladies - "Jodie's been writing letters to herself again"

press for help

That would be me, actually, pressing you guys for a bit of help.

At school this term I am hoping to have a bit of a look at places in Australia. I have made a big map of Australia for the pin board and am going to ask the kids to get their friends and relatives to send us a postcard from wherever they live in Australia.

Of course then I figured I'd up the ante a bit and ask blogland (well from Australia at least) if they would like to help us.

So as of tomorrow when I am "officially" back at the day job - if you would like to drop us a postcard from your town / city / territory...please address it to:

The AWESOME Library Chick (it pays to advertise, you know...the principal might collect the mail)

Black Hill Primary School

601 Chisholm street, Ballarat. Vic. 3350

Please don't write a personal message to me on it, you could just tell us what it is your town is famous for- or just leave it blank and we will do the investigating. At the end of term I will try and remember to take a photo of the pin board. At the moment we are only concentrating on Australia so please don't send any from O/S. It doesn't matter if your town is big or small, near or far...and if your town is too small to have its own postcard, why not just send us a photo.

Five hundred and twenty three children and one library chick thank you in advance.

(three office ladies roll their eyes in unison)

a-looong

There has been talk of addiction (and not just from me). More than one person may have twittered, bookfaced or emailed about planning a second rag-rug already. In fact this is Georgia's second one.
and jenny's crochet

Bree's sheets and jelly roll combo
Sue's starting out

I hope it is OK to borrow these pics people, if not please just let me know and pop your photos on flickr if you get a chance, oh and while you are there, check out what Nicole managed in just one night . Remember you can join in whenever you like, no deadlines, no rush.....and this weeks prize is going to Nicole because its nice to know someone else is just as addicted as I am.
and mine ? well you could say it's cat-sized.

As it gets bigger, each 'round' is taking longer and longer so it has lost a bit of that "ooh watch it grow" appeal but I am really loving it and plan for it to get much much bigger. I am really enjoying the repetitive kind of switch-the-brain-off nature of this rug bizzo, much much more than I expected.
I am randomly adding colours but am already wondering about how a tonal rug would look - all shades of green, or blue ? Then I think about a natural linen kind of rug with a big thick red border around the outside. Or maybe a shades of grey rug....
When I asked on twitter how many of these rugs I could have in my house before it got weird .
The answer was one......but I am pretty sure they were answering on a per room basis.

Speaking of Doctor Who....

its obvious that the cat I had to unstuff this morning,

was also bigger on the inside

kitchen craft

I used this shrink plastic (bought on Ebay) and followed the instructions

to make little gauge type buttons for robots.

They say small things amuse small minds.

Where I hope to make sense

This is the way I am plaiting / weaving my rag rug guys - I got the idea from Sue.

Make a plait and begin to wind it into a circle, Just pin it together for now, you can sew it later.

The three strands above from the left are called white, yellow, blue. (crazy huh ?)Bring the white one into the middle
Then bring the blue one into the middle
Now the white is closest to the rug, so I poke it through one of the loops on a previous plait. I have safety pins on all three strands and I need them 'cause no matter what I tell myself, the plaits on my rug- are tightey whitey all the way.
Pull it all the way through
to continue I would bring the yellow to the middle and start again. and so on and so on and so on.

Ok, I'm not going to pretend this is not a looong process, but I figure it would be about the same as having to hand sew all the coils together..yes ? It is also giving my rug (err coaster) a better heft, it certainly feels like it will be holding together forever.

and this beauty belongs to Brin who left a comment on yesterdays post - How gorgeous is that ?

It's like some crazy fully formed love of rag rugs just invaded my brain from nowhere....It could have been worse I guess, it could have been bread varnishing.

Update

This morning I popped over to Sue's blog to see how she was getting on with her rug - only to find she has completely changed methods and is now working on a Tunisian crocheted rag rug. The only problem is, that I decided to copy her earlier method which she said wasn't working for her. Oops.

Sue's Tunisian Crochet rug

Clare's is looking awesome, I especially love that stripe fabric on the outer. I am kinda into the idea of using clothing, except most of mine would be black. Clare from matching pegs - winner of the weeks prize.

This is Bec's plait all curled up - you have pop over and see how Bec does her plaiting...

I started off plaiting the one and half inch strands (each one folded in half) but have to admit I just couldn't get my head around all that hand sewing, so I am plaiting mine into itself as I go.

Ok so its a bit less rag- rug and little more rag- coaster at the moment but we have big plans, this rug and I.

Once you get started, pop your pic in the Flickr group so we can all have a look.

Tonight, its me, Jax teller and the rag rag. An incongruent kind of bliss.