milking apron

cliché, by various brennemans.

With this ye olde talk going on in my house (and in the last post!) I just had to get out my sewing machine.

I'd gotten enough inspiration to take my "Carefree Clothes for Girls" book down and try my hand at some of the gorgeous patterns in it. It is classically styled clothing: dresses, aprons and all manner of beautiful french provincial looking things. I think that this book is a must-have if your house has girls from three to seven.

In my case I have three girls, but one is ten so I needed to up-size the pattern. Oh, and adapt it to look 1850's-like, for the school's 125th anniversary

I don't really know how to do this. Lucky I waited until the night before the morning of the event to get started.

But when I see the frayed edges and unsewn hems in this book I kinda think, hey you can bend the rules here and all will be fine. It looks good in the book, it will be fine. Right?

Looking at the pictures, and before I opened the pattern envelope, I thought I would take the an apron and a dress and mish-mashed the two. They were all printed on the same page anyway, it turned out, the various pattern pieces parts, in different colours and overlapping. I stood and looked at this for a long time. Aaron was no help. I can never tell if that means he can't figure it out or just doesn't want to.

End the end I just threw my hands up and tried for "pretty close." I used the apron design, adding the sleeves and a thrift-shop doilie from the dress pattern, as well as adding a tie up for the back. I used linen which I think gives this apron/top a french feel. Milk and smelly cheese, green grass.

I'd shown Beatrix the apron before I started mish-mashing, and the next morning when she saw the finished product she said just the right things. "I love the sleeves, mum. Nice touch." Better than fine, you betcha.

She now plans to wear this "anytime." I am so glad. I also made a babushka scarf just to tie in the whole 1880's thing. My son's outfit was mostly thrifted, I love his cap he so looked the part.

When we go to the school (on time!) it was amazing to see. Almost two hundred children dressed in 1880's attire, the teachers as well. After the (pleasantly short) speeches, there were activities: ink writing with quills, paper doll making, hopscotch, and the lunches were all wrapped in paper, or cloth, glass for other stuff, it was great.

There were also displays from the school's whole history, too. Some were really interesting, like the really old letter asking for the hole in the girl's fence to be fixed along with the bill for fixing it, four pounds eighty. Also some more modern stuff, including some readers I think I remember having!

It's been nice, all this thinking about the past. Those 1850's people, they were living in exciting times, and while it sounds a bit strange to say it, to them it was "now." We're part of someone's past right now. Right?

anachronism (2 of 2)

If I could knit, by various brennemans.

After the last post on my visit to Sovereign Hill, I still wanted to show you more!

The Drapery store I am sure I hadn't taken a good look in there my last visit, well before I was all into sewing and all. The quilts, the the bundles of fabric probably all shipped from London and America, the baskets of thread and the amazing gowns, purses, shawls and masks.

Then there was the gentleman's section, top hats, waist coats, my husband nearly purchasing a real top hat but settling for an imitation, still wearing it round the place and almost wearing it out to see Michelle Shocked the other night. Now he's put a long, colorful band on it and is wearing it everywhere.

Our other favorite place on the day was the tiny school building, we sat in this classroom and saw what school was like back then. This was a fantastic experience, we all learned so much, without really noticing it. There were pens and pots of ink at all the little desks, and the kids got to practice writing with a quill pen.

The teacher was in part even when she spoke to the children as they presented their work to be marked. She's chat to them about what they wanted to do or be, and then tell them something about how it was there at that time. One boy said he wanted to be a doctor, and she told him how in "her time" they thought smells caused diseases, and that people would drink from the river that had rotting carcasses in it but would just hold their nose!

Bea was asked how old she was, whether she could sew, knit,cook and look after a baby, because at her age she'd have been doing all those things. She nodded and walked away pretty quiet, I hope thinking I'd better stay in school considering back then a husband was being found and a baby would be on the way by age fourteen.

Eliza waited so patiently with her little square of paper and her letters, I thought she was too cute. When she came away she told us how she would have looked after chickens, and how she would have collected their eggs, and how she'd lock them away at night so the foxes wouldn't get them. I love asking her again and again what her little three year old self would have done in the 1850's, I just want to hear it over and over.

I also was taken by the letters and the alphabet cards hanging from string, funny this could be in a magazine today, how stylishly simple. I am going to take this idea and make some for home I loved it so much.

The signs that hung about the place were absolute gold, like the ones I photographed of No school today, my kids thought that was awesome.

Then there was the simple, soft rounded look to the benches, stools and tables, even the little chalk boards were lovely. I could only think of the philosophy of Steiner, the Shakers and their furniture and the modern local furniture designer Mark Tuckey and of how timeless and beautiful and how thankfully we look to the past for inspiration.

I came away from Sovereign Hill inspired to make my children's outfits for the schools 125th anniversary, and took so much away from our visit there. We have talked all week about life back in the day, that was worth the hefty price of admission. It's really brought us together as a family all through the week. Even if just by seeing Aaron raking leaves in his top hat.

I am a little excited about showing you some pictures of my children and what I came up with for tomorrow!

anachronism (1 of 2)

miners breath, by various brennemans.

We ventured out this weekend. I was amazed myself.

We had a five day break at the end of school holidays, for Easter and ANZAC day how wonderful, even just thinking about it coming was a little shiver of excitement. Especially seeing as the Autumn weather was perfect on each and every one of those days!

Phoenix and Beatrix's school is turning 125 this year, and they are celebrating it next week by dressing up and doing some activities from the era. There will be a period costume part, and I thought seeing the the Gold rush days of the 1850's in Victoria up-close and personal would give me inspiration. Sovereign Hill, open air museum and object of many a school excursion, here we come.

Two hours drive later, but amazingly enthusiasm un-dampened. Kids good, Aaron good, only got a little bit lost on the way. Maybe 100ks extra, maximum, but we made a great drive/navigator team and the kids made up "we're lost and we're gonna die of starvation" songs, so fantastic really.

I had always remembered the boiled lollies of Sovereign Hill, from the excursions with school when I was younger. So when I saw the shop, I said We have to take the kids in here! Phoenix walked ahead with my Nephew, really excited. He had his own money, and he's a careful spender. Can I buy something? Please?

I say yes and they are off like a shot, coming out with one of those comic-weapon-sized lollipops I have always said he couldn't have. Good on him.

I love the people, like the fella who sat and played the harmonica. There are those who wonder the street like they are going about their business, almost oblivious to your presence. It is really like you are watching them but they don't see you, it's a little eerie.

Of course they will speak if you ask them a question.

See what I mean they really look like they are actually going somewhere, I imagine them whispering about their weekend at the club,about how hung over they are, how can you talk of such things in a gown like that.

It's a wonder these horse drawn carts don't take down a pedestrian, my son Phoenix had to dash for sweet life as one came round the corner. I laughed.

Even these two little lovelies, visitors like us but American I think, dressed the part. As did my husband, despite my constructive criticism. One of the mine workers said it was a "fine hat," but they get paid to say that.

It was just nice, too, to just be together, doing something nice.

Circe was already a happy little camper on this whole outing, with an apple lollipop she wasn't letting go of, but really good and easy. There was one time she was so taken by the peacocks she too would have walked away, a bit too far really. And she leant really far over machinery a few times. And the trampling horse thing, like with Phoenix. But man did she hold on to that lollipop, and that dandelion, and she wasn't going to sleep either until this thing was all gone. At like nine o'clock. But good the whole time, really.

Another really good thing were the houses, you could walk through the little dwellings of various types. From the surprisingly cosy canvas tent with wooden roof and fireplace, up to proper houses that Aaron says we couldn't have afforded if we lived back then. And they were pretty small.

A walk through the cottages, looking at the furniture, it might make you thankful for your Boshe or your Miele. I am glad for the advances we have, but I love the simplicity too. Like the all-wooden trough, sides and all, man I 'd love one of those.

But it was getting late, since we'd left the house two and a half hours late, and there was still lots to do.

(2/2) Soon to come.

musk (1 of 2)

glorious decay, by various brennemans.

We were away this weekend.

We hadn't been away, even for a night, since Circe was born. She's eighteen months old, I think we really needed to get outdoors. And we especially needed to have Circe see the wide open spaces, smell the crisp country air, and to sleep somewhere other than her own cot.

We were invited out to Musk,a small town just outside Daylesford, by our neighbour. We'd been there before a couple of times(each time with the new-season's spanking baby in tow) when there had been a house to stay in.

Because now there wasn't. The neighbours had shifted 50 meters, from a proper two-bedroom-brick building to a slightly-converted shed. Them calling it "the shed" made me not sure how feel about sleeping there, until the offer of a caravan soothed me. But I was ready for the open fire cooking, the raspberry picking, even ready for the composting toilet.

I was not ready for just how cold it was. Or how wet. It rained from our arrival well into the small hours of Sunday.

The rain didn't deter my neighbour from his bonfire. We had noticed the glow well before we pulled up to the property on Saturday. The weather was turning, the afternoon was grey and grim, the fire amazingly orange and huge against the sudden dark of 2:30 pm. Huge, huge and orange, it filled the whole of my view, snapping in the wind.

I pulled half into the drive but stopped and stared, in fear, actually.

Phoenix is our seven year old, and he had travelled ahead of us that morning in our neighbour's car, and has been up to Musk several times without us. He loves it, loves coming back filthy, and my husband tries to avoid washing him, to slip him into bed smelling of smoke so that he can hold on to the feeling.

As I sat open mouthed, feeling the heat prickling my skin from ten meters away, I said to Aaron "Phoenix is never coming here alone again." Me being such a chicken is part of why I love him going up there without us.

Once I'd gotten the courage up to drive the rest of the way in, we were greeted by his bright red cheeks and messy blond locks. The fire makes him a little wild, a little rougher around the edges, I love to see that in him. But it scares me.

Part two, Being there, to come

old is the new new

regimented, from photos by various brennemans.

I actually gave up my sleep-in this week to get to Camberwell market this Sunday gone by, this place is such a visual feast. I love the fact that you can find all manner of wonderful things there. I picked up an old sunshine biscuit tin painted yellow, my new favourite happy colour.

I bought a few other things in between mad dashes for cover under the awnings to escape the heavy rain. It's always a little intimate it seems when this sought of thing happens, perfect strangers strike up conversations about the "this mad weather were having" or the entertainment stay put in the rain and begin joyfully choral-ling "rain rain go away, come again another day", and we all clap and cheer when it does in fact stop. Then we all go back about our business, like it never happened.

My main reason for the outing to this wonderful outdoor market was to play with my new Canon 60D. Now I really need to actually have a few lessons on using this baby as there are so many settings and things have advanced greatly since using my old SLR. I did manage some ok shots. I wasn't quite sure if there was an etiquette thing related to carrying a tool like this. All my past photographs in public have been of buildings never before of people's things, so it seemed polite to ask if it was ok to take some pictures if they were around. I was on the tram last week where I happened to be near a guy with a camera, I wondered what he'd taken pictures of when out of the blue he took a picture of a girl in the set of seats ahead of us. It was obvious he was taking random shots not meaning to take her in particular, but I did think that took some courage on his part.

So my first attempt was at my favourite stall for the day they stocked the best assortment of buttons and thread. I just love this sort of thing en mass. I have been playing a little with the theme of multicolour. So this place was just fantastic for me. The gentleman was really nice and was really quite flattered that I wanted to take some shots.

My son and I actually bought some film this week, he was desperate to use my old camera. He had taken it down several times playing with the lens and pretending to take shots. He proclaimed after wearing it around his neck that he finally knew what he wanted to be: "a photographer." I thought to myself wow imagine if we really became who we wanted to be at seven.

I am still trying to find what I want to be at almost forty. I wish someone had shown me how to do really practical things at his age. I loved telling him all about how to focus how to read the light reading. He was fascinated by the fact that each shot will be an actual photo that will get printed. He was also quite blown away by the fact that you cannot delete shots as a result he is taking about one picture a week. He is normally so impatient so this is a great exercise in slowness.

It's also nice to show him the way we used to take pictures, so much has changed in the time I've had children, at the rate in which devices are being replaced and upgraded, I had been thinking that I was afraid for the printed word. Then, funnily enough and without any warning, when my husband left his job this week he was given a Kindle as a going-away present. They knew how much he loved books and that the new place was over an hour on the train each way.

I knew little about this product and just didn't like the sound of an "e book." Now Aaron is not shy about not opening a gift if he doesn't like it. Back to the shop it goes, straight to the exchange desk. Sometimes he's not even discreet about the not-opening: "Go on, take it out of the package!" "No, it's fine."

So when I was prying open the Kindle box yesterday I expected to hear 'don't touch that, I was going to take it back.' I mean he returned the cake decorating set he got at his last job, I expected the same here, especially how much he scorns "toys." He doesn't even have a phone.

But I was wrong. He is an avid reader and will be writer some day, so I trust his judgement on things like this: He loves it. He has already used it on his long train rides to and from work today. I am keen to see what this thing actually does, but he won't let me touch it.

Technology is just moving too fast, and damn they make these things look so sexy too. It is such specky marketing, all the more reason to not have one.

In the same vein I bought an old fashion typewriter last year, actually at the exact market mentioned above. I remember the delight and fascination this little typewriter bought to the kids, "It's so heavy" they all commented and "what are these letters" and "what's this tape thing?" I loved hearing them tapping away loudly. Almost daily someone will use it to write a story or make a diary entry, or Circe loves to get the keys all muddled together.

To me it's worth having these things in our lives, to value the way things were and to exercise a little simplicity, to tap away at old keys to have to focus your own photo to write a letter on paper.

I think this is why I also love sewing, there is something noble about these simple crafts which should not be lost.