smencil case

Oliver has (as usual) a birthday party this weekend.  This time around it's twins.  The boy will receive, as is mandatory, some lego.  At the moment all the boys are all about the Avengers (lego).  So that's what he is getting.  His sister is however a different story.  I bought these super cute and 'gourmet' smelly coloured smencils  (pencils made from rolled newspaper) from the portrait gallery store a while ago and had them sitting in my 'present box'.  The plastic container had become a bit 'ratty' but I still thought the smencils might be a good gift for the little girl... and the smell of each pencil is amazing.  I saw the tutorial on noodlehead for making an open wide zippered pouch so thought I'd make a little pencil case to store the pencils.
I had bought a fat quarter of this Koka fabric from the Ballarat Patchwork shop when we were there on holidays in January and so used that with a the bright pink zipper and black spotty fabric from the stash.  The zipper isn't exactly right.. and it looks homemade.. but if I was a little girl I think I'd be pretty happy!

Karma

the offending Diane von Furstenberg skirt, photo from the outnet.com

Last week, after giving my green cord skirt away I bought this skirt from theoutnet.com at a heavily reduced price.  I felt a bit bad about it.  I know I could probably make this, actually probably not, but couldn't help myself.  I easily convinced myself about how well it would go with ALL my clothes.  I fell in love with the colour, the buttons, the way it fit the manequin... which of course meant it is going to fit me perfectly.. even though the mannequin is 5'8" and I'd be lucky if I was 5'2". Anway,  I was sold. So bought it and waited anxiously for it to arrive on my door.  I tracked that skirt all the way from London to Canberra where it arrived in record time at 5.08am on Monday morning.  Yes!  I only live about 5 mins from the courier depot, so thought that the skirt might even arrive before I go to work.  Yes! Yes?  No.  No it didn't arrive on Monday, and no it didn't arrive on Tuesday.  Someone rang and asked what suburb I live in, they had the postcode but not the suburb.  Surely they could have looked it up, but, now they have the suburb surely it will arrive in the afternoon. No.  Not Tuesday, not Wednesday, not Thursday.  I've rung everywhere trying to find my poor little lost skirt but no-one knows where it is. Please turn up little skirt - and please fit when you finally turn up!

I say denim You say de Nimes

Love this Zoe Karssen sweatshirt currently available at netaporter.com

Here is my trivia for the night:  Last night I was at French class and found out that denim is from France. Really!? I always thought I knew roughly the story of Levi Strauss and thought that denim was American.  But it turns out it comes from France and what is even more surprising is that Ben, a Frenchman, didn't know this.  I wonder why!?  You would think he would claim this as one of the great French inventions!  Anway,  apparently Denim gets it's name from the French city of Nimes (de Nimes).  So, I hope that you get asked this at your next trivia night! And... apologies if I've told you something you already know.