more sewing!

It's been a big week sewing wise. I finally made the Lazy Days skirt that I first saw on Tammie's blog. This one was for my big girl, seen giving her new skirt a twirl in the above photo. I fell in love with this green ladybird material months ago when I was buying patchwork material for baby quilts. I thought it would make a pretty skirt so I bought some elastic and some red ribbon for when I was feeling confident enough to make it. After rereading the instructions several times and emailing Tammie for extra advice, I took the plunge on Sunday afternoon when Scott took the girls to his mum's place. It was easy peasy! And the first skirt (or any item of clothing for that matter) that I have made since Grade 8 Home Economics in 1978. Which I hated by the way.

Here's a close up of the material as from a distance it looks like large red spots. I have some matching blue material with ladybirds and daisies to make a skirt for my little girl. I want to get some yellow ribbon for the edge and don't know how I will face traipsing back to the shops before Christmas to buy it. I have to drive through about 5 suburbs for goodness sake just to buy ribbon. The local shopping centre is HUGE with a zillion upmarket shops but no ribbon!

Next exhibit is me (looking a wee bit grim but just wondering whether my girl could fit both the quilt and me into the camera viewfinder) with the quilt I made in the beginners' quilting class I took for six Saturday mornings. The pattern is called "Rail Fence" or something similar and it is apparently a perfect beginner's quilt as it is very "forgiving" (ie doesn't matter if your seams don't match up perfectly". Thanks to the patient women at Quilt Essentials for all your help.

I had to put this photo in of the back of the quilt as my big girl chose the material for the back. I didn't think it would go with the colours I wanted on the front so I said we could put it on the back and now I really love it.

So...now I'm ready to make a quilt for both girls (E wants blues and golds and horses and stars and G wants a "rainbow" quilt) and one for the special baby arriving in our family in April. I guess I'll have to keep neglecting the housework!

Trying to live in the moment

(G tries out the new headphones but doesn't worry
about plugging them in anywhere!)

I've been rereading a great book this week called "Buddhism for Mothers" by Sarah Napthali. (Sorry.....I'm too tired to organise a link but I'm sure you can google it if necessary). It helped me a lot when I was struggling with motherhood the first time around and it's been packed in a box for a couple of years and stored in my sister's garage. Funnily enough, I managed a quick child free browse in a book store this week and saw she has written another one along the same lines called "Buddhism for Mothers with Young Children". Anyway....it has such great stuff in it about the Buddhist approach to life and how you can apply their philosophies and way of thinking to coping with parenthood - a whole chapter on anger management (I very very rarely lost my temper before motherhood but now sometimes have a short fuse) and lots of stuff about living in the moment. It has helped me slow down lately and this morning when I walked to the train for work I thought to myself (like a buddhist monk according to this book) "I am walking. I am walking". Then I thought about feeling the cool morning air (it was 6.30am) and the warm morning sun (it's summer here) on my skin at the same time and about all the noises I could hear. It was so much nicer than rushing madly and worrying about missing my train. As if anyone really cares (or actually knows) whether I am at my desk by 7.30am or not. Still...I do have 7 and a quarter hours to do twice a week and I do have to rush out at 3.15 pm to collect the girls).


Usually, bedtime here is a bit of a farce and Scott and I struggle to stay patient. We usually don't eat dinner until the girls are asleep and so sometimes we aren't eating until almost 9pm. My little girl is particularly crazy and somehow does not have the idea of bedtime routines through her pretty little head despite the same routine for the last 2 years or so. Tonight, I relaxed the rules a little bit, we let them stay up late while we ate our Friday night nachos cooked by Scott, and then G fell asleep lying on me in her big bed as usual. Sometimes I lie there and grit my teeth and take deep breaths trying to be patient until she falls asleep and then I gently roll her off me and go and do my own thing or tidy up or whatever. But tonight...I just lay there for ages after she fell asleep and enjoyed the sweet weight of her on me and the sweaty but yummy baby smell of her head. I listened to another song or two on the lullaby cd and then came out to do my own thing (ie check some blogs).

Scott took this photo of me doing my big girl's hair for school this week (her last week of Grade 1). It's not the world's most attractive picture of me but I like that it captured an ordinary moment in our lives. It shows our living room in all its lived in glory - the books overflowing on the shelves, the toys on the rug, the discarded nightie on the couch with its daggy blue cover. I feel like it's time to edit my life a bit less, go with the flow, and maybe stop dyeing my hair and let it go whatever colour it is (ie half dark, half grey). I don't feel like having fake hair anymore. But...am I brave enough to be real? I'm not sure I'm ready to look middle-aged yet so I have to work up a bit more courage. (Scott is all in favour of me going a la naturel).


I've also been thinking a lot about Jen, from the Comfy Place, who passed away from cancer a week or so ago. Her ex-partner has taken over her blog and, like Jen, he is pretty amazing. Jen had an incredible knack for finding the positive in the midst of facing a premature death and leaving her two much loved children. She was really an inspiration to me so this post is dedicated to you Jen. You have really helped me get some much needed perspective on this life. Thank you.

babies and quilts

There's been a bit of drought of babies in my life the last few years, but suddenly there are beautiful babies appearing all over the place. Part of my motivation for learning to quilt was so that I could start making baby quilts.

My big girl has had a fantastic year in Grade 1, mostly due to her lovely teacher. So when Mrs C announced she was leaving at the end of the year to have a baby, I thought it was the perfect time for another baby quilt to be made. I secretly told the children in the class that I was making a rainbow quilt (with help from my girl) and took the squares of material in to show them while we made Mrs C wait outside the classroom. All the children managed to keep it a secret right up until we gave the teacher the quilt on Wednesday, although one little scallywag of a boy kept threatening to give the game away. Mrs C loved her quilt and here she is holding it up. I edited her out of the photo though for privacy reasons. (Not sure that she wants to appear in my blog!)

I was originally going to try and get the children to write their names on baking paper and trace them on to the quilt and embroider over them so that they would be part of the quilt making process. But time was running out so instead, I gave them all a square of white cardboard and asked them to draw a picture for Mrs C - maybe of themselves, Mrs C, her baby or a quilt. I was stunned at the beautiful artworks they produced. They really love this teacher and it showed in the effort they put in and all the loving messages and love hearts etc. Here are a few samples. We punched holes in the pictures and joined them into a little book with a piece of ribbon.

At the same time as this was all happening, the friends of the beautiful Jo were making a quilt to celebrate the impending home birth of her third baby. The amazing Melissa sewed all the hand made squares together into an absolute work of heart. (That was a typo but I think "work of heart" works just as well as "work of art"). Here's the link to the photos of the quilt on Melissa's website. A beautiful "blessing way" was also held to honour Jo and give her and her baby lots of love leading up to the birth. I had never heard of a blessing way before and I described it to Scott as sort of a hippie baby shower. As part of it, we all sat quietly and sewed little felt angels with crystal, embroidery etc to make a mobile for Jo's baby. Here's a photo of Jo with the mobile. Her little baby boy arrived safely at home last week and was safely caught by his Daddy, Simon while Hugo and Isobel watched in excitement. Jo is so clever that she gave birth to Otto in less time than it takes to bake a cake and before her midwives arrived.

The next baby to arrive is my brother's and his new wife's baby boy in April. My family are over the moon and my sister and I are going to make a really special baby quilt together. His wife is East Timorese so we think we might buy some beautiful colourful Bali pop material to remind him of his part of the world. My sister and I haven't met our new sister-in-law yet so we are impatiently waiting for her to arrive in Australia on Christmas Eve.

the new no dig garden

Just a few photos to show what's been happening in the garden......

The hydrangea bushes that came with the house when we bought it in 2007 have burst into bloom. I find the sheer abundance and colour of the flowers so beautiful.

Early Sunday morning, my little girl and I went out to inspect the new no dig garden that I made when home alone Saturday afternoon. She was wearing her prettiest nightie, which is a rare occurence. She normally refuses to wear any sort of pajamas to bed and at 7.30pm I really couldn't care what she wears as long as she goes to sleep. So...I shall treasure these photos of her wearing nighttime attire. She had a lovely time doing poses on the edge of the new garden for the camera.

As you can see, the puppy fence didn't reach all around so I had to improvise with some crates. There is also some serious clearing of bladey grass clumps that needs to happen but I am delegating that to someone in the family with bigger muscles than me.

I still need a few more layers of compost, manure, sugar cane mulch etc before I can start planting. The nice thing was that I managed to make the garden with things that were lying around (ie old bricks and bits of wood, the old puppy fence) so for once, I felt I was doing my little bit for the planet.

a couple of precious hours home alone

I have just had a couple of really lovely hours home alone. Scott has taken the girls to an ice skating show (featuring one of E's grade 1 friends). I stayed home to have a rest and recharge my batteries. I had already been to my quilting class this morning so felt quite spoilt, although a bit tired from frantically quilting to make the most of the class time to get as much done as possible. Anyway....eventually off they went happily with Daddy (E with her hair still wet and neither girl looking thrilled at being photographed).

Oh ....what to do first??? After some quick chores, I checked my favourite blogs while listening to my very small but extremely important to me itunes playlist (Steve Forbett's wistful Romeo's Tune", Gillian Welsh's "Orphan Girl", Split Enz's "Message to my Girl" - my favourite Enz song and one of the world's poppiest pop songs, the hypnotic "Fall on Me" by R.E.M. , Talk Talk's "It's My Life" and Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" and a couple more. Probably something from each of the past few decades of my life. Precious memories of high school, an old boyfriend or two, my student nursing days, my childhood pal, Annie, who lent me an REM album when she went off travelling overseas, my autumn being a nanny in Oxford in 1987.....)

Then a beautiful cool bath and a lie down in a cool dark bedroom to try and relax or meditate or sleep or something. A bit hard at 5pm in the afternoon but I always crave a lie down on weekends so couldn't resist. But....I kept thinking about how great the yard looked freshly mowed by the husband and how much I would love to go and remake the half finished, weedy, falling apart no dig garden I started about 6 months ago. I blame the author and journalist, Margaret Simons, for planting ideas in my head because I have almost finished rereading her book of wonderful Earthmother columns from the Australian newspaper from years ago - Wheelbarrows, Chooks and Children. The garden kept calling until finally I jumped up, put on shorts and sandshoes and grabbed my gardening gloves, secateurs and bag of stinky chook poo pellets. I pulled out the weeds around the edges, cut off the overhanging branches, rearranged all the bricks and old logs around the border, poured some water over the old newspaper, scattered handfuls of chicken pellets, laid down a layer of sugar cane mulch, added more water, put the puppy fence around it to Kippy proof it, and then spent ages just wandering about the back yard admiring the new garden from all angles and feeling so satisfied. I even started dreaming about what else I can do to beautify the ugly overgrown back corner. I could make another no dig garden in no time!

It's now dark and the girls and Scott aren't home yet. They'll arrive any moment - chattering and tired and over excited and full of Twisties and wanting milk and toast. I'll have to wait until the morning to show them my handiwork. What a gift to have a few hours of solitude, and .....here they come...

I'll post photos tomorrow when I take some.

A parcel from Florida

Here is a photo of the lovely box of goodies that winged its way from Florida to Queensland in Australia courtesy of the generous Tammie. After sitting for a week or so in the local Post Office after I mistakenly threw away the notice from Australia Post with the junk mail, it was waiting patiently for me when I had the bright idea of checking to see if it was there. Getting a letter or card in the mail is always a joy. I am maybe from the last generation who grew up without email and so wrote thank you letters, letters to friends, and love letters that went in the mail with a stamp. I've got a bit of a mail fetish actually and once, in Sydney on my own, spent an hour or so looking through the postal museum (I'm not sure what its official name is). Anyway, the only thing better than a letter is a parcel and one from another country is so exciting. Have a look at what was inside.....(there were also an assortment of little packets of exotic (to us) lollies but of course, they have all vanished).

When I saw this beautiful bundle of fabric from Tammie, some of which I recognise from her various sewing endeavours, and some of my all time favourite rosebud material, I literally got tears in my eyes. There's something so lovely about friends passing on loved pieces of fabric to take on a new life with someone else.

There was also this gorgeous little bag that Tammie made. I'm so impressed. And I don't know if she somehow made the button, because it seems to magically match the fabric. I'm not sharing this one with the girls, but keeping it for myself to keep something nice in. (I'm not sure what yet).

So thanks again, Tammie for my box of treasures from Florida.

Reasons to be cheerful

I have recovered from my attack of the doldrums and am feeling more cheerful about life. Thank you so much to the people who sent me words of encouragement. A special thank you to Tammie for sending me a box of exciting goodies in the mail. Nothing like a parcel from the other side of the world to brighten one's spirits. Now that I am thinking more clearly, I, of course, can see that I have very little to complain about and lots to be cheerful about. Hopefully I can remember that next time I am having a bad day or two. So....here are some of the things that have cheered me up lately.....

1. Food colouring in the bath. I'm amazed that the novelty of this hasn't worn off after about 349 coloured baths. It never fails to amuse my children. E's new favourite thing is to float peacefully in the bath looking like a mermaid. G now copies her and says in a loud monotone "I can't hear you.....my ears are under the water".

2. The general patience of my long suffering husband, pictured here trying to make the plastic string in the whippersnipper behave but being constantly interrupted by a dog and a child who is Daddy's limpet.

3. Puppy love. (sort of makes it worthwhile picking up all that dog poo in the yard)

Home made patty cakes (with extra chocolate happening)

4. People who love me - seen here reading Scott's birthday cards made by the girls. That's a little G you can see on the back of the card.